Can justification of gay marriage lead to justification of incest?

[Sair]

Thank you for proving my point. God does not change. People are responsible for their actions.

So the change was in people’s interpretation of the rules, as they became less and less ‘hard-hearted’? Hmm. One might think that a perfect God would make his intentions and demands more perfectly clear! Funny how it took the rise of humanism and the Enlightenment to make people more aware of their common kinship and fellow-feeling, such that they began to treat people in general better than they had for all the preceding centuries of theocracy.

However, just as people (children, infants etc.) are not intelligent enough to be fully culpable or held to the same standards as adults, those who are hard-hearted through no fault of their own may not be fully culpable or held to the same standard.

Through no fault of their own, certainly, by religious standards - according to the Bible, it was your God who made people hard-hearted in order to demonstrate his ‘glory’…

 

[John21652]

Ah, Sair, I trust you enjpoyed a good Christmas, or whatever it is good left wing radical feminists do during the Christian holiday season. I’m surprised you’ve returned for another pummelling.

So the change was in people’s interpretation of the rules, as they became less and less ‘hard-hearted’? Hmm. One might think that a perfect God would make his intentions and demands more perfectly clear!

He did. His intentions were made perfectly clear in the Ten Commandments. You have heard of them, I take it? The thing is, He gave human beans Free Will and some just don’t know how to use it properly.

Funny how it took the rise of humanism and the Enlightenment to make people more aware of their common kinship and fellow-feeling, such that they began to treat people in general better than they had for all the preceding centuries of theocracy.

Sair, humanism was the preserve of Catholicism, until the hubris of certain individuals thought the human mind could know it all. Do some history, please. As for the Enlightenment, pray tell, what time span do you give it? When it occured exactly does seem to vary somewhat. To make your statement true, I take it we’d have to leave out the French Revolution, when ‘theocrats’ were pushed aside so secularists could chop heads off a whole lot faster?

Through no fault of their own, certainly, by religious standards - according to the Bible, it was your God who made people hard-hearted in order to demonstrate his ‘glory’…

Do you have a different god. Gee, what’s her name?

 

[Sair]

Ah, Sair, I trust you enjpoyed a good Christmas, or whatever it is good left wing radical feminists do during the Christian holiday season. I’m surprised you’ve returned for another pummelling.

And here I thought I might be coming back for some bracing yet civilised discussion - silly me! As it happens, I enjoyed a very pleasant if brief opportunity to spend time with my parents, thanks.

He did. His intentions were made perfectly clear in the Ten Commandments. You have heard of them, I take it? The thing is, He gave human beans Free Will and some just don’t know how to use it properly.

Oh, okay - so that’s somehow not your God’s fault, then? Sorry to quote popular culture, but with great power comes great responsibility…

Sair, humanism was the preserve of Catholicism, until the hubris of certain individuals thought the human mind could know it all. Do some history, please. As for the Enlightenment, pray tell, what time span do you give it? When it occured exactly does seem to vary somewhat. To make your statement true, I take it we’d have to leave out the French Revolution, when ‘theocrats’ were pushed aside so secularists could chop heads off a whole lot faster?

The French Revolution - as a single example of the abuse of humanist principles amidst millennia of the abuse of religious principles - was largely a matter of reactionary violence and opportunistic power-grabbing, and whilst horrific, was really no worse than what had gone before. The French monarchy was, after all, one of the staunchest upholders of the divine right of kings, and the Catholic Church was seen to be - not unjustly - an institutional support for this hated notion.

Do you have a different god. Gee, what’s her name?

So you don’t have a response to my claim that the God of Classical Theism is recorded as having deliberately interfered with human free will for its own ends?

 

[Sacred_Heart_1]

Well none are given or taken in the great marriage so why should anyone be able to get married?

 

[John21652]

And here I thought I might be coming back for some bracing yet civilised discussion - silly me! As it happens, I enjoyed a very pleasant if brief opportunity to spend time with my parents, thanks.

Good, I’m glad you had some time with your folks. Truly, I mean that. Family is important.

As for “bracing yet civilised discussion”, oh, we have plenty of that!
I actually think you have a pretty good mind. Unfortunately, in my opinion, despite your thinking that it’s blinded by right wing paternalistic male chauvinism, some of your premises need checking.

Oh, okay - so that’s somehow not your God’s fault, then? Sorry to quote popular culture, but with great power comes great responsibility…

I seem to remember a bloke called Jesus telling someone along the way that to whom much is given, much is expected. Human beans though, alas…

The French Revolution - as a single example of the abuse of humanist principles amidst millennia of the abuse of religious principles - was largely a matter of reactionary violence and opportunistic power-grabbing, and whilst horrific, was really no worse than what had gone before. The French monarchy was, after all, one of the staunchest upholders of the divine right of kings, and the Catholic Church was seen to be - not unjustly - an institutional support for this hated notion.

Well, like I said, it all depends on when we date the reformation. We could include the English reformation and its attendant horrors. Or would that be an embarrassment to your secular humanism? Gee talk about hubris run amok…

And what’s all this talk about the “abuse of religious principles”? Are you sure it wasn’t a hubristic humanism that kept rearing it ugly head and not the theology of Catholicism that was the problem? Do tell…

So you don’t have a response to my claim that the God of Classical Theism is recorded as having deliberately interfered with human free will for its own ends?

Now this is where debating with you is such jolly good fun. You never answer the questions! You wrote of “your God”, which suggests you have another. Go on, do tell, what’s her name?

However, I will set a good example and answer your charge. Yes, God did indeed “intervene” occasionally. Human beans needed a tune up every so often on account of they kept going off the rails. Finally, He made a big move and sent His very own Son down to set an example and to pay the ultimate price for human hubris, selfishness and treachery. You’d think people would learn, wouldn’t you?

 

[inocente]

“They called to Lot and said to him, ‘Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have sexual relations with them.’ Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him, he said, ‘I beg you, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing!’”

I’m glad you stopped quoting there, since the very next verse is: “Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.”

It’s said girls were generally married by age 15, in which case Lot isn’t just pimping his virgin daughters, he is offering his girls aged 14 or less! Nor is the story even about gays, it’s about male-on-male rape. Not really going to help your case much. The eleventh commandment - Thou shalt not selectively quote scripture out of context for thine own ends.

When Jesus was searching for a likeness of evil to compare with the refusal of people to hear the gospel, he chose the sodomites of Sodom and Gomorrah as the next-to-worst sinners to be dealt with on judgment day.

Now how did I know you’d quote Matt 10:15 out of context?

Jesus is instructing the twelve before sending them out. He is giving them a strategy and as always, sticks to the point in hand. He certainly doesn’t break off in the middle of this important lesson to blurt out an aside about gays. The disciples know the sins of Sodom are legion, and there is nothing in His gospel to say He died on the cross for heterosexuals alone. This is the gospel … I mean … grief!

*So yes, contrary to what many sodomites claim, Jesus did comment on the evil of sodomy. *

So no, contrary to what many fundamentalists claim, Jesus never commented on gays.

*Paul preaches that sodomy is a sin against the natural law in Romans 1:18-32:

“The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds were darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity."

But I guess inocente knows better than Jesus and Paul? *

And here, after quoted the whole passage from Romans 1, you still read the last verses out of context. Paul is talking First Commandment stuff, of idolaters who “although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks”, and who “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes”, and who “exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator”.

None of that applies to the average gay any more than the average heterosexual. Note in particular Paul’s repetition of the word “exchanged” – the third time is “Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise”. He is talking of ritual orgies in which cultists exchanged their normal behavior for unnatural lusts in pagan sex magic rites. Nothing whatsoever to do with gays.

Paul is talking about the consequences of unbelief. The New American Standard Bible even has that as the heading for this passage – “Unbelief and Its Consequences”.

 

[inocente]

I fail to see how the moral significance of those facts can be denied by a Christian…

Depends on whether the Bible is interpreted through special glasses to affirm our preconceptions or is read in the Spirit with the intent of challenging them.

I repeat the statistic – in 2005 when gay marriage was legalized in Spain, two thirds of a mainly Catholic population agreed with legalization. Which indicates that in the real world, when push comes to shove, far more Christians may take the same view as me even though we might be a minority on CAF.

 

[inocente]

None of this changes the fact that it is a deprivation to deny a child his right to live with and be nurtured by both of his biological parents. This deprivation is necessary in extreme cases for the benefit of the child, just as it is sometimes necessary to cut off an arm or leg if it has gangrene. But it is always wrong to purposely deny a child his rights without a grave reason.

I don’t understand - who was talking of denying the rights of a child?

We’re not in a perfect world, the reality is many broken homes, and also there are orphans. It seems unrealistic to try to apply perfect world arguments which don’t acknowledge those facts.

 

[crazzeto]

Well, there are some lines to be drawn… violence, for example, can be prohibited.

But, I suppose I moved to ask, if we throw out all the rules, what terrible thing are we accepting?

Child rape, is this not terrible? But of course we’re already moving to declare that this is only a problem if the child rapists contience is bothered by it. Genetic disorder due to incest, this is such a problem in Israel that their courts are flooded with law suites by children against parents for not aborting them, which is a terrible thing to think of.

But most fundamentally, when we let all the rules go, then what we are really doing is declaring our selves god. Thus we move ourselves away from God, and turn to various vices which we turn into idols. This is truely terrifying.

This spiritual cancer, will also play out in the physical world. We see it now with rampant STDs, we pretend like “these things just happen”. Well STDs don’t just happen, they happen due to sexual immorality. If one lives a sexually chaste existance, you reduce the chances you’ll contract anything to near zero.

So, there is a lot of terrible consequences to not following God’s will.

 

[inocente]

True. But that is regulating an act not an institution… two very different things. There are many non-cohabitating couples who would not know as well. There are probably many devout Catholics that do not fully understand it. Whats you point?

That imho marriage is a broken institution until its real purposes are debated and reaffirmed by society. There’s a lack of common ground in society on the real purposes of, and the differences between, civil union, civil marriage and religious marriage, and this brings a lot of confusion into the gay marriage debate. For instance, a basic question is whether the state should even be involved in any kind of union or marriage ceremony.

You are taking the story literally; you need to take the moral and spiritual truths literally but not the story as it is told.

I’m glad we agree the story is allegory.

Its okay I have been called chap, bro, and brother many times!

Yes, but shamelessly currying favor, I should have realized from your high intelligence and good sense that you’re female.

 

[karebear92]

So the change was in people’s interpretation of the rules, as they became less and less ‘hard-hearted’?

Well, yeah. At least sort of. The rules always were, but for some reason God has chosen to reveal Himself to humans over time rather than immediately. Humans didn’t know much about the Son until 2,000 years ago, and people don’t know much about the Holy Spirit until they enter heaven or experience its presence in Mass. So, yes, for whatever reason (perhaps God understands cultural evolution more than humans do) God has chosen to reveal Himself to us over a period of time. As he reveals Himself humans will gain a clearer understanding of His rules in the proper context of the current civilization. That is why he now left His Church.

Hmm. One might think that a perfect God would make his intentions and demands more perfectly clear! Funny how it took the rise of humanism and the Enlightenment to make people more aware of their common kinship and fellow-feeling, such that they began to treat people in general better than they had for all the preceding centuries of theocracy.

He did. though it was perfectly clear in the context of the humans that existed at that time, just as it is now. I am sure different social issues will pop up over the course of the next forty, fifty, sixty years that many people currently wouldn’t find wrong. But then the Church will tell us that it is wrong and why it is.

I think it existed before the enlightenment. The enlightenment may have altered the common perception of it (just as protestantism tends to affect the American mindset), but the connection of people and kinship has always existed. Humans lived in tribes. They rarely lived alone.

Through no fault of their own, certainly, by religious standards - according to the Bible, it was your God who made people hard-hearted in order to demonstrate his ‘glory’…

He did make some people hard-hearted. But He and only He knew their heart before he made it hard-hearted. You must also remember that God is not limited by the morality or the laws of man. His entire purpose was for as many just and faithful people to live for eternity in paradise, and to that they must follow His will. So it was very important for them to know what that will is

 

[karebear92]

That imho marriage is a broken institution until its real purposes are debated and reaffirmed by society. There’s a lack of common ground in society on the real purposes of, and the differences between, civil union, civil marriage and religious marriage, and this brings a lot of confusion into the gay marriage debate. For instance, a basic question is whether the state should even be involved in any kind of union or marriage ceremony.

I couldn’t agree more. Marriage in the United States it entirely broken. Unfortunately, there isn’t a good solution to the problem. If it is limited only to religion, then many non-Catholic couples would be living in sin rather than in a valid marriage. If then one accepts marriage as it is now, then we will continue debating the same topic over and over and the gay community will continue to fight for equality, and I have a feeling at some point within the next decade they will win. If we accept civil unions, then one still must address the same problems we are confronted with now, as it almost becomes an issue with the name rather than the institution itself. And it is further complicated when Christian organizations are forced to close for not complying with the laws they deem immoral.

Yes, but shamelessly currying favor, I should have realized from your high intelligence and good sense that you’re female.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

sair

The French Revolution - as a single example of the abuse of humanist principles amidst millennia of the abuse of religious principles - was largely a matter of reactionary violence and opportunistic power-grabbing, and whilst horrific, was really no worse than what had gone before. The French monarchy was, after all, one of the staunchest upholders of the divine right of kings, and the Catholic Church was seen to be - not unjustly - an institutional support for this hated notion.

That was not a single abuse. The atheistic humanism of Russia was yet another case of abuse. Yes how friendly the atheist Stalin and friends were to to anyone who disagreed with them.

Same for Mao.

Selective readings of history get you nowhere.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

sair

**Are you saying that the medieval Christians who tortured and burned ‘heretics’ and ‘witches’, who invented hanging, drawing and disembowelling as a punishment for disagreeing with a reigning sovereign, and for whom public executions and exhibitions of animal violence were a good day out for the family, were not hard-hearted? **

They were indeed hard-hearted. The reason these things were done is not that they were Christian, but that they were not Christian enough.

 

[theowarner]

Child rape, is this not terrible? But of course we’re already moving to declare that this is only a problem if the child rapists contience is bothered by it. Genetic disorder due to incest, this is such a problem in Israel that their courts are flooded with law suites by children against parents for not aborting them, which is a terrible thing to think of.

But most fundamentally, when we let all the rules go, then what we are really doing is declaring our selves god. Thus we move ourselves away from God, and turn to various vices which we turn into idols. This is truely terrifying.

This spiritual cancer, will also play out in the physical world. We see it now with rampant STDs, we pretend like “these things just happen”. Well STDs don’t just happen, they happen due to sexual immorality. If one lives a sexually chaste existance, you reduce the chances you’ll contract anything to near zero.

So, there is a lot of terrible consequences to not following God’s will.

I’m sorry but you’ll have to explain to me why you think acknowledging homosexual couples as married is a comment whatsoever on raping children.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente
**
It’s said girls were generally married by age 15, in which case Lot isn’t just pimping his virgin daughters, he is offering his girls aged 14 or less! Nor is the story even about gays, it’s about male-on-male rape. **

In other words, sodomy.

The eleventh commandment - Thou shalt not selectively quote scripture out of context for thine own ends.

Which you have done. The “wicked” refers to sex with other men, not to men raping other men.

So no, contrary to what many fundamentalists claim, Jesus never commented on gays.

Limp reply. Again, the “wicked” refers to sex with other men.

None of that applies to the average gay any more than the average heterosexual. Note in particular Paul’s repetition of the word “exchanged” – the third time is “Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise”. He is talking of ritual orgies in which cultists exchanged their normal behavior for unnatural lusts in pagan sex magic rites. Nothing whatsoever to do with gays.

You’re really getting good at this selective reading business! Suddenly Paul’s words below do not mean what they say?

"Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity."

Whew! I’ll bet your dentist hates to see you coming! You would deny what he could plainly see … a mouth full of problems.

 

[inocente]

Whew! I’ll bet your dentist hates to see you coming! You would deny what he could plainly see … a mouth full of problems.

When someone has to resort to personal attacks then I know they are well and truly defeated. Thanks for the arguments you’ve made, they’ll be very helpful in persuading folk to vote yes to gay marriage if only not to be associated with such views.

Here’s the Church’s case against gay union, it might be worth reading as it’s rather more measured, although admittedly it hasn’t held the day so far for marriage in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, parts of Mexico and USA; or for civil union in Andorra, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Uruguay (source: Wikipedia).

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

here is the Church’s case against gay union,

Oh my! This is the first time I’ve heard a Baptist prefer the Catholic Church’s position to the positions clearly stated in Scripture.

When someone has to resort to personal attacks then I know they are well and truly defeated. Thanks for the arguments you’ve made, they’ll be very helpful in persuading folk to vote yes to gay marriage if only not to be associated with such views.

That’s another limp retort. The words of Genesis, Jesus, and Paul are there for all to see. They are not equivocating. But you deliberately twist them to serve your purpose, which apparently is to defend sodomy as something not at all condemned in Scripture.

But if you are blind to the truth, it’s no personal attack to say so.

Your favorite type of argument is to deny what there is abundant evidence for, and when all else fails, accuse others of ad hominems.

As when you talk about Lot “pimping his virgin daughters.” But of course that’s not ad hominem in your mind. In your mind Lot took money for strangers to have sex with his daughters. That is the only way you could say he was pimping.

Then you offer the laughable:

Nor is the story even about gays, it’s about male-on-male rape.

Excuse me, old man. How is male-on-male rape heterosexual?

 

[sw85]

merecomments.typepad.com/merecomments/2011/12/the-dance-of-the-straw-men.html

What do people here think?

There is no good reason to expect that separating marriage from its procreative context will not open the floodgates.

I am absolutely, spectacularly unimpressed by the claim that the only thing left keeping society from endorsing pedophilia or bestiality is that either of these things cannot consent. This is simply an unprincipled exception to the ways we normally interact with children and animals. We do not ask children’s consent before we send them to school. We do not ask animals’ consent before we slaughter them for meat.

The only way this exception can make sense is if you say that consent is the PURPOSE of marriage. But this is stupid: the purpose of marriage is to consent to being married? This is as good as saying marriage need not exist – and if that’s what you believe, just come right out and say it.

At any rate, what is offensive about bestiality and pedophilia is NOT that animals and children cannot consent, it is that they are abominable outrages against the order of being. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply morally deficient and spiritually pathological – to put it less delicately, a real scumbag.

 

[Cathy]

I don’t know if this fits into your category of ‘tragic circumstances’ but the fact of the matter is that there are many children who are far better off never having anything to do with their biological parents. Is it better to wish these children had never been conceived or born? Maybe, but reality must be dealt with. Ideals are just that - actual circumstances don’t always conform to them. There’s no doubt that part of the misery involved in the experience of children who are adopted or for some reason don’t know their biological parents is the stigma applied to them by those who can’t see beyond their own ideals.

Moreover, there is absolutely no reason a child raised by a homosexual couple should lack for role models of the opposite sex of the parents - this is what close friends (and in some circumstances, the other biological parent if that is what works for those involved) are for.

What I suspect is actually more harmful for children is to be isolated within the nuclear family unit, with no examples from adults beyond it. Every child needs to know that he/she is wanted and valued by the adults in his/her life, regardless of the genetic relationship the child has with those adults.

Social science confirms the benefits to children and society of intact traditional families. This is the kind of family that, for the sake of children, should be encouraged. Recognizing and encouraging traditional, lifelong marriage should be a priority for the benefit of everyone, including the benefit of those not raised in traditional families. I was not raised in a traditional family environment, but I have been greatly blessed by the gentle emotional stability of those who have. We all benefit when children are nurtured as nature obviously intended.