"Consenting adults"

[Randy_Carson]

And so it seems without the help of the Oral Torah (Talmud) in filling in the gaps of interpretation in the Written Torah, including plain-spoken text. Without the Talmud, the Torah seems as though G-d’s punishment is often swift and vindictive, which is exactly the way some people who are non-believers interpret it. Yet even in the Torah proper, there are repeated verses indicating the love and mercy of G-d. Finally, remember that all verses must be read in both literary and historical, cultural context. Deuteronomy is a summation of the previous four books of the Torah and so it may appear abrupt and matter-of-fact in its presentation.

You will get no argument from me, a Catholic, about the value of Sacred Tradition in addition to Sacred Scripture.

 

[Godconvertedme]

This is the problem that you don’t want to seem to address. How do you know what people, and not just friends and relatives – this means literally everyone, are doing in the privacy of their own homes if it affects no-one else?

sin effects everyone, not just those that do it. If I know someone is having homosexual sex, I’m going to tell them it’s wrong. If someone asks me what I know to be true on this subject, I’m going to say it’s wrong. Homosexuals aren’t keeping it in the closet anymore, this is why we are having this discussion here and now and wouldn’t have had this discussion 20 or 30 years ago.

It’s entirely apt. If you don’t ask questions like this, then how do you know if anyone is doing anything at all that you consider immoral? Let’s say I’m a member of your church and we meet socially. What approach do you use to find out if my partner and I are acting immorally in the privacy of our own home? Do you have one that doesn’t result in me asking you to walk outside into the carpark to discuss this further?

So, we go to Church together and your threatening me physically? I’m guessing you haven’t been going to Church long. The people I am most interested in are those that want to follow God and want to know how to act accordingly. People that don’t, are typically best left to destroy themselves or almost destroy themselves and repent. I’m guessing if your going to my Church, you would want to know what it teaches. I can suggest all kinds of material that would direct you towards Holy ends without being confrontational. You might even come back and ask why the church teaches such and such, at which time I’m free to elaborate. Typically, in course of time, you get to know what people think, especially if you have a bible study with them or something. If they say something off, you might say something to them in private or offer a book, after having prayed over the situation for a while. Immoral actions have a habit of letting themselves be known. Something will come up in the course of a group conversation, that will set the person on edge. They will say something like “well, I don’t believe that”. In my Church, it typically takes a year or more to join and you are meeting once a week to learn what the Church teaches.

 

[Bradski]

Yes.

Each and every homosexual couple engaging in sexual activity contributes to the desensitization of our society to things that are offensive to God.

Who said I was engaging in homosexual sex? To find that out you’d have to ask me or my partner. If you did that in person, the conversation would end very abruptly indeed.

So if you think it’s your business, again, for the umpteenth time, how do you know what precisely is going on?

 

[Thorolfr]

Deuteronomy 22:22-24
22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Don’t forget that Jews also have oral traditions such as the Mishnah and Talmud which are separate from Scripture:

When the punishment of the adulteress and her paramour was taken out of the hands of the husband and assumed by the civil law, this, like every other crime, had to be proved by two or more witnesses, before a conviction and sentence could follow (Deut. xix. 15; Maimonides, “Hilkot Ishut,” xxiv. 18).

Under the theory of the Talmudists, which still further mitigated the severity of the law, the woman could not be convicted of Adultery until it was proved that she had been previously cautioned, in the presence of two witnesses, not to have any communication with the suspected man, and that, in spite of such caution, she had met him secretly under circumstances that would make the commission of the crime possible (Mishnah Soṭah, i. 1, 2; Gem. 2b).

jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/865-adultery

 

[meltzerboy]

Who said I was engaging in homosexual sex? To find that out you’d have to ask me or my partner. If you did that in person, the conversation would end very abruptly indeed.

So if you think it’s your business, again, for the umpteenth time, how do you know what precisely is going on?

I think listening and recording devices as well as hidden cameras would suffice.

 

[Bradski]

sin effects everyone, not just those that do it. If I know someone is having homosexual sex, I’m going to tell them it’s wrong.

Maybe you should make a real effort to try not thinking about homosexual sex so much. It’s not part of the original question and doesn’t affect, in any way, how you should respond.

You are starting to purposely avoid answering the obvious question because you know there is no answer to it. How do you know what people are doing in the privacy of their own home. Again, I’ll make it personal: Is it any of your business what I and my partner were doing at home last night?

You imply it is. So how about a direct answer. No qualification. No ifs and buts. Is it any of your business?

Or perhaps we can turn this around: Is it any of MY business what YOU were doing at home with your wife last night?

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

The OP did not specify the marital status of the parties…only that they were consenting adults.

And if you read what I wrote I did not make any mention of the marital status of the participants either.

The libertine argument might be made that if the other spouse NEVER found out, then what harm has been done?

Do you read the earlier posts in the thread before you post? I already explained to someone else how adulterous behavior doesn’t fall into the idea of two consenting adults doing what they want in privacy. I stated clearly that in an adulterous situation there is at least one other affecting party.

What we’re talking about here is person A, a consenting adult, agrees to intimacy with person B, and such acts would cause no harm to others what business is it of others?

 

[meltzerboy]

Don’t forget that Jews also have an oral traditions known as the “Oral Torah” or Mishnah which is separate from Scripture:

jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/865-adultery

Yes, indeed! For Orthodox Jews (and others), the Mishnah and Gemara are essential tools of scriptural interpretation, combined by some Orthodox with the Zohar in the Kabbalah for more elusive, mystical verses in the Law.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Who said I was engaging in homosexual sex? To find that out you’d have to ask me or my partner. If you did that in person, the conversation would end very abruptly indeed.

My apologies. I have spent the last couple of months on an atheist forum where that was the norm. I assumed that if you meant “girlfriend”, you would say, “girlfriend” and not “partner” which is LGBT code for a same-sex love interest.

So if you think it’s your business, again, for the umpteenth time, how do you know what precisely is going on?

I don’t other than what you wrote. You said, “Is what my partner and I did last night as consenting adults any of your business?”

Now, maybe you and your girlfriend were up late playing Parcheesi before you shook hands at the door and you drove home. But using the phrase “consenting adults” has certain connotations with which you ARE familiar…

And yes, even if it is heterosexual sex, it is sin if you are not married, so what I wrote still applies in principle.

Your move.

http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/parcheesi-ludo-360x240.jpg

 

[Godconvertedme]

Maybe you should make a real effort to try not thinking about homosexual sex so much. It’s not part of the original question and doesn’t affect, in any way, how you should respond.

You are starting to purposely avoid answering the obvious question because you know there is no answer to it. How do you know what people are doing in the privacy of their own home. Again, I’ll make it personal: Is it any of your business what I and my partner were doing at home last night?

You imply it is. So how about a direct answer. No qualification. No ifs and buts. Is it any of your business?

Or perhaps we can turn this around: Is it any of MY business what YOU were doing at home with your wife last night?

Do you love me?

 

[meltzerboy]

You will get no argument from me, a Catholic, about the value of Sacred Tradition in addition to Sacred Scripture.

This is something we can both agree about.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

The fact that you see nothing wrong with someone consenting to be killed and eaten says a lot.

I should hope so. What it says is that I respect the other person’s decisions and do not want to impose my ideas on others. It is the adherence to the golden rule - which was borrowed (though not invented) by Jesus.

In this thread the prevailing attitude is to interfere with other people’s right to self-determination. Of course you are welcome to give SOLICITED advice and present your views as long as the other ones wish to hear them. But as soon as the other party expresses their wish to be left alone, and keep your (well-intentioned) advise to yourself… then you should respect their desire.

 

[nodito]

Bradski, do you maintain that what two adults do in the privacy of their home never (or almost never) affects anyone else? Can you envision a situation of, for example, non-marital sexual activity that truly will have zero impact on anyone else, either today or in the future?

I think this is the discrepancy that we’re struggling with in this thread. You seem to take it for granted that the OP’s question requires that we only discuss activities that affect no one besides the consenting adults. Others, like me, maintain that such situations are rare, if not a practical impossibility these days.

In my mind it looks something like this. Man and woman meet at a bar one night, head back to her place, have sex. Just the two of them, right? It doesn’t affect anyone else. Except to my mind it does.

• Does the woman have any roommates who will hear or learn about the encounter?
• Does she have any kids from a previous relationship staying with her who might accidentally see him leaving in the morning?
• Does he brag about the hook-up to his friends?
• Does she confide in anyone about the one-night stand?
• Do either of them acquire an STD that might require medical treatment or could affect future partners?
• Do they conceive a child?
• Does she worry they may have gotten pregnant and take a morning after pill the next day?
• Will either of them treat future partners differently because of this encounter?
• Do they become more or less trusting of other people as a result of it?
  …etc, etc, etc.

You may find some of these consequences trivial, but it is not true that what two adults do in the privacy of their homes has no affect on anyone else. And if it affects other people, then it is worth discussing whether the activity in question is moral or not. That is what I think the point of this thread ought to be. Not whether we plan on asking every single couple what they were doing last night at 10pm.

 

[Bradski]

You said, “Is what my partner and I did last night as consenting adults any of your business?” Now, maybe you and your girlfriend…And yes, even if it is heterosexual sex, it is sin if you are not married, so what I wrote still applies in principle.

Let’s face it, the only way you’re going to know what I was doing last night is to ask me. Is this what you’re going to do with literally everyone? Assume that what they are doing is immoral and then decide that because of that it is your business? Your strike rate so far isn’t looking good. Two assumptions and both incorrect. And in fact, it’s not going to get any better, because all I have to do is keep asking you about other people I know and see if you think it’s your business what THEY were doing last night.

Do you love me?

I have no more interest in your well-being than I would for anyone else I don’t personally know. But let’s play along, shall we and see where this leads.

Yes, I want to make sure that you come to no harm. I am therefore making it my business to make sure, on a daily basis that you haven’t bene doing anything immoral. If you could PM me your wife’s phone number then I’ll call her every so often and ask if she’s had anal sex in the last few days. Would that be OK with you? I mean, I have only your best interest at heart, so I need to make it my business to check.

And as I have everyone’s well-being at heart, could you also pass on the contact numbers of your friends and the rest of your family as well? So that we’re on the same page with this, perhaps you could write a list of the things that you think they shouldn’t be doing. I can tick them off one by one when I call them. Something like this:

Have you or your partner had the following types of consensual sex:

1. Anal
2. Oral
3. I’ll let you fill the rest in as you see fit.

Let me know when you’re done…

 

[Bradski]

Bradski, do you maintain that what two adults do in the privacy of their home never (or almost never) affects anyone else?

Not never, no. But that’s not what we’re talking about. It has been SPECIFICALLY stated that we’re looking at a situation where no-one else is affected. That happens all the time. In fact, it happened at my house last night.

Anything else you need to ask?

 

[Godconvertedme]

How?

I’ve actually already addressed this in previous postings. Having a fellow Catholic asking is distressing at best. I would have you go get a Catechism of the Catholic Church and read it. We don’t live in a bubble, every action we make has a reaction. Two men committing sin means there isn’t two men doing good. The simple fact they aren’t available to do good, while doing evil is enough. Sexual immorality, which is rampant in this country, effects every aspect of our lives. From the clothes that are available to buy, to what is on tv and movies and so on. So, yes, what two consenting adults do in their bedroom does effect everyone, because it doesn’t stay in the bedroom.

 

[Godconvertedme]

Let’s face it, the only way you’re going to know what I was doing last night is to ask me. Is this what you’re going to do with literally everyone? Assume that what they are doing is immoral and then decide that because of that it is your business? Your strike rate so far isn’t looking good. Two assumptions and both incorrect. And in fact, it’s not going to get any better, because all I have to do is keep asking you about other people I know and see if you think it’s your business what THEY were doing last night.

I have no more interest in your well-being than I would for anyone else I don’t personally know. But let’s play along, shall we and see where this leads.

Yes, I want to make sure that you come to no harm. I am therefore making it my business to make sure, on a daily basis that you haven’t bene doing anything immoral. If you could PM me your wife’s phone number then I’ll call her every so often and ask if she’s had anal sex in the last few days. Would that be OK with you? I mean, I have only your best interest at heart, so I need to make it my business to check.

And as I have everyone’s well-being at heart, could you also pass on the contact numbers of your friends and the rest of your family as well? So that we’re on the same page with this, perhaps you could write a list of the things that you think they shouldn’t be doing. I can tick them off one by one when I call them. Something like this:

Have you or your partner had the following types of consensual sex:

1. Anal
2. Oral
3. I’ll let you fill the rest in as you see fit.

Let me know when you’re done…

If you love me, then feel free to ask me anything or my wife anything you want. I actually don’t have anything to hide. So as a friend, feel free.

As a friend, I would just like to say, if your having sex outside of marriage, your putting your immortal soul at risk. If your having Homosexual sex, your putting your immortal soul at risk.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Let’s face it, the only way you’re going to know what I was doing last night is to ask me. Is this what you’re going to do with literally everyone? Assume that what they are doing is immoral and then decide that because of that it is your business? Your strike rate so far isn’t looking good. Two assumptions and both incorrect. And in fact, it’s not going to get any better, because all I have to do is keep asking you about other people I know and see if you think it’s your business what THEY were doing last night.

I have no way of knowing what you or anyone else did last night (without asking). Whether I know or don’t know is irrelevant to YOUR question which was:

**Is what my partner and I did last night as consenting adults any of your business? **

And I have answered that “yes”, it is my business in the sense that sin affects all of us.

(And no, in the sense that the specifics aren’t really important.)

 

[Randy_Carson]

Let’s face it, the only way you’re going to know what I was doing last night is to ask me. Is this what you’re going to do with literally everyone? Assume that what they are doing is immoral and then decide that because of that it is your business? Your strike rate so far isn’t looking good. Two assumptions and both incorrect. And in fact, it’s not going to get any better, because all I have to do is keep asking you about other people I know and see if you think it’s your business what THEY were doing last night.

I have no more interest in your well-being than I would for anyone else I don’t personally know. But let’s play along, shall we and see where this leads.

Yes, I want to make sure that you come to no harm. I am therefore making it my business to make sure, on a daily basis that you haven’t bene doing anything immoral. If you could PM me your wife’s phone number then I’ll call her every so often and ask if she’s had anal sex in the last few days. Would that be OK with you? I mean, I have only your best interest at heart, so I need to make it my business to check.

And as I have everyone’s well-being at heart, could you also pass on the contact numbers of your friends and the rest of your family as well? So that we’re on the same page with this, perhaps you could write a list of the things that you think they shouldn’t be doing. I can tick them off one by one when I call them. Something like this:

Have you or your partner had the following types of consensual sex:

1. Anal
2. Oral
3. I’ll let you fill the rest in as you see fit.

Let me know when you’re done…

I’m curious…if you had the specific answers to your questions, what would you do with that knowledge? Would you encourage GCM to avoid engaging in specific sex acts that you deem sinful?

And if so, wouldn’t it be possible to encourage right behavior WITHOUT exhibiting such prurient behavior yourself?

For example, Catholics go to confession and tell their sins to a priest but he doesn’t ask them the types of questions that you took such pleasure in typing out in your post.

So, what makes you feel the need to check up on GCM and his wife more pro-actively?

Similarly, I don’t need to ask for specific details of what you and your “partner” did last night, do I? Wouldn’t it be sufficient for me to teach you what is considered sinful in the eyes of God and allow that information to form your own conscience?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Not never, no. But that’s not what we’re talking about. It has been SPECIFICALLY stated that we’re looking at a situation where no-one else is affected. That happens all the time. In fact, it happened at my house last night.

Anything else you need to ask?

And I have disagreed, Bradski.

What happens at your house affects how God views all of mankind collectively.

For example, the behavior of the people in Noah’s day caused God to flood the earth and start over. Noah was saved, but at great cost and peril.

The behavior of the Sodomites caused God to destroy the city. Lot and his family were saved, but at great peril and loss (his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt).

So, yes, God judges nations, and what you do in your home (good or bad) affects the divine scale of judgment.