For the life of mine... I cannot understand you!

[Spock]

Now, a lot of times, people claim that a particular rational idea contradicts a particular religious idea, when in fact, there is either no actual contradiction or, if there is, the “rational idea” is not something rational at all but false (or, yes, the religious idea could be false … or both).

Very true. No one has “first dibs” on the veracity of a claims. We both can be wrong, but we both cannot be right, if our assessment is radically different.

Okay, here, I think it is wise to define what is meant by “love.” What is the definition of love? Does anyone think this is important? Also, what is meant by “good?” And “evil” for that matter. I would, with respect, ask you, Spock, to explain what these mean. I’ll explain what I (and the Church, I think) means by these terms on my next post,

Yes, it would be important to reach a concensus on these definitions, but I am afraid it will not be possible. And I think that the differing aspect is the reason that I will not be able to understand your position - as indicated by the title of this thread. Yet, be as it may, here are my suggestions:

Love: a positive emotion, which must be accompanied by acts to substantiate the claim of “love”.
Good (morally good): A positive action which is aimed at being helpful to others. It is not necessary that one be helpful at his own expense.
Evil: A negative action, which is aimed at harming someone else, without proper justification. Causing deliberate pain is not necessarily evil. However the causation of pain must be balanced by some “good”, which cannot be achieved without the pain, and when pain is inflicted, it must be kept at the absoloute minimum necessary. (Complex, but it cannot be helped).

Important caveat: The lack of good is not evil, the lack of love is not hate. It is incorrect to see the world in pure black and white. Evil is the opposite of good, not the lack of good. I think this distinction is something that causes my lack of understanding. I consider the black-and-white world view as fundamentally incorrect and irrational.

Do you perhaps accept the possibility that two people can consent to do something that isn’t good for them (even if it gives them some kind of pleasure)?

Of course I do. People engage in all sorts of activities which harms them. Smoking would be an example. However, as long as they harm only themselves and not others, it is no one else’s business. There was a pretty horrid example in Germany some time ago. One person consented to be killed and eaten by another person. Horrible as it is, it does not constitute “evil”, since the partners had full agreement and consent.

 

[Spock]

thats because there is no hesitation in G-ds condemnation of homosexuality. no possible information could then make it ok for people to practice homosexuality, its practice is always offensive too G-d.

And you know this… how?

when you try to assign blame to G-d or claim that G-d is evil because he allowed some event to happen, or that G-d could not exist/is not worthy of worship based on the information you have, you are drawing an intrinsically flawed invalid conclusion.

This is the argument of the fifth officer from the parable: infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/five.html … not convincing at all.

 

[Spock]

Scripture unequivocally condemns homosexual acts. This is not our rule, but God’s.

It is against the rules to analyze the Scriptures on this board, so I will not go and quote counter examples. Look up Leviticus, if you so desire.

Also, I’m not sure we agree on the definition of “love.” Love is not a feeling. To love is to will the good of another, whatever it may cost you.

I gave my definition above. But I will quote you a cute little story:

The 6 years old boy-scout goes home and his father asks him, what kind of good deeds did he accomplish. The boy answers: “I and five of my friends helped an old man to cross a busy street”. The father says: “very nice, but why did you need your five freinds?”. “Because the old guy did not want to cross the street!” - answers the boy. I hope you see the point. And the second part is sheer nonsense. Self-sacrifice is not necessary to substantite one’s love.

The ultimate good for any person is eternal salvation, so true love necessarily entails not wanting the loved one to commit or cooperate in acts that jeopardize his eternal salvation. Therefore, regardless of your feelings, you cannot truly love someone you commit fornication or homosexual acts with, because you are getting them to cooperate in something that gravely offends God, thereby endangering their immortal soul.

Just your opinion, without any evidence - which would be acceptable to an atheist. But more to the point: God is supposed to love us unconditionally. Yet you say that God is offended (a very negative emotion) by certain expression of love. That is another contradiction, whether you realize it or not.

 

[Spock]

So should we allow gay people to marry each other, then? There are different levels to this discussion, but let me just pick one: same-sex relationships are very rarely faithful (this is especially the case for men). How can you be giving your life for another person’s good if you deny them the fullness of your sexuality?

You cannot possibly know just how faithful people are. But suppose you are correct. The fact of other people’s lack of faithfulness has no bearing on the love of a couple who **are **faithful to each other.

 

[Spock]

As I said,* this love is the kind of love we express and act out sexually: its an act connected with the supreme love of [giving ourselves to each other and] giving another being it’s existence*. I didn’t say every sexual activity will or has to lead to reproduction. Don’t twist my words.

Theres no evil in pleasure in itself. There can be evil in some forms of pleasure, if it is pleasure in others suffering for instance (sadism). But that is obviously not what we are talking about. All I am saying is that pleasure doesn’t in itself constitute love. You keep twisting my words.

I am not twisting your words. I just point out the obvious corollaries. Giving and accepting pleasure is not equivalent to love - so far I agree with you. But love without actions is not love at all. If one of these actions is to give and accept pleasure, it is good, and I think you said exactly that. This giving and accepting pleasure is not contingent on being of the same or opposite gender, nor it is contingent on beling legally married, nor it is contingent upon having one partner during our whole lifetime (and I am not talking about getting widowed!).

 

[Spock]

Hi Spock,

I certainly share some of your objections (though I have faith that it is me that is mistaken and not Truth). However, I really can;t see where your problem is with the concept of God allowing evil to exist. Try to think of it this way. If we were to remove a “cap” of Gods allowance of evil to exist, wouldn’t we be in heaven? In other words, your OP did not seem to come froma deep rooted atheistic orign (I may be mistaken). If you do believe in some concept of a Christian God, then you believe in some sort of a trial here on earth. If so, then earth is not heaven and there needs to be a differnence. On earth we must live out fallen nature and somehow show our desire for a perfect Truth and a perfect Love. Our fallen nature is brought upon this evil(s). God simply is carrying out His plan to provide us a way out.

I am not talking about God allowing evil in this thread. I am simply talking about the inconsistency of some Catholic posters. That is all.

 

[Spock]

There is also a condition called “pica”. In pica, the human being in question does not hunger for food, but instead for a non-food --clay, dirt, laundry starch, even feces.

To eat THESE things is not legitimate and in fact can cause illness. Certainly if one only ate the pica one craved and ignored real food, one could die.

Yes.

Homosexual actions are a disorder to the sexual impulse just as pica is a disorder to the ‘eating’ impulse.

No. There is no medical concept which would render homosexual activities “disordered”. And let’s not forget the extra-vaginal sex between legitimately married heterosexual couples, also condemned by the RCC. Are those also “disordered”?

The disorders of pica and homosexuality consist in a ‘substitution’ of something which is NOT legitimate to the impulse. Homosexual actions are not natural sexual actions of intercourse and never can be, even if they mimic those actions, even if they ‘can’ be engaged in, even if they do not ‘appear’ to be dangerous or to ‘hurt’ anybody other than the person involved. Eating pica (non-food) is not natural and never can be, even if the person swallows the substance without ill effect at the time.

Completely unfounded comparision.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

You cannot possibly know just how faithful people are. But suppose you are correct. The fact of other people’s lack of faithfulness has no bearing on the love of a couple who **are **faithful to each other.

Can we agree on a basic sexual ethic, then? This ethic would be: sexuality attains its full stature when it is focused in committed love to one person. It would seem, given such an ethic, morally licit to socially encourage such unions and to discourage “unions” which are simply parodies of this (whether heterosexual or homosexual).

It is clear that the preponderance of divorce in our culture means that many people have entered into marriage without really intending the commitment (which means that they did not really love, by both our definitions.)

You cannot possibly know just how faithful people are.

My claim comes from self-reported studies of faithfulness – I can dig up the statistics, if you like. If it were proven that nothing in the nature of homosexuality led to unfaithfulness, then there would be much more to say for the practice. Any historical evidence is valid here, but I’m not sure that any historical evidence of considerable homosexual monogamy can be found.

Please remember that “living together in love” has been common Christian practice among men (and women) for centuries. (This is what a monastery is). This is not discouraged. Only the genital expression of *eros *is discouraged in such situations, because it does not organically build up the body. Catholic teaching says that sexual expression is a “gift of self” (a beautiful phrase), and only certain bodies can receive that gift. If the gift is, in essence, a gift *to *oneself, then it centers the household around one’s own desires, and this leads to discord.

 

[Langdell]

Yes, I know that this is the traditional position. But from the outside, it is just a cop-out.

When I was on outside, that’s how it looked to me, too.

Right on! It certainly is, and there is no rational explanation.

There is a rational explanation. What there is not is a proof one way or the other. The rational explanation (one of them, anyway) is that God allows such evil as there is because He wants the level / quality of moral goodness that the evil makes possible. Now, you may not find that convincing (I certainly didn’t when I was an atheist), but it is rational, and it cannot be proven wrong.
.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Spock: Were you aware that up until 1970 the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) from the APA listed homosexuality as a disorder? There was a concerted effort (lobby) and the diagnosis was ‘lifted’ then.

But: it was listed as a disorder at one time, and the change to make it ‘not’ a disorder may in fact be an error. (Since it was once listed as a disorder, which many now claim is an error, this proves that the possibility of error in defining the condition existed, and may indeed still exist).

These were the same psychologists who argued in the same time period (the 60s, 70s, and 80s) that pedophile behavior could be cured, and encouraged the ‘rehabilitation’ of those who had engaged in this disorder by arguing that they should be given a ‘second chance’ in another venue under the SAME conditions of temptation, without any ‘warning’ given in the new area lest they refuse to give the person a ‘chance’.

Yes, it was the psychological experts who argued for ‘cover-ups’ and as medical experts their teaching was accepted until they did a sudden ‘volte-face’ and began to argue the exact opposite. Yet the people who in good faith accepted their expert medical opinion at the time are demonized today

I tend to be very ‘cautious’ when I approach these ‘new’ insights that turn the old accepted wisdom of the ages onto its head. . .because I’ve seen far too many examples where the supposedly ‘new’ teaching turns out to be dismally wrong and a failure.

Let’s hear it for the ‘whole language’ debacle of the 80s and 90s that left a generation struggling to read and write English, while the phonics that was sneered at then is now once again ‘top dog’.

How about the AMA telling us in the 1980s to have our infants sleep face down to guard against SIDS --only to reverse themselves completely a few years later and say, no, they must sleep on the side, it’s face down that’s dangerous!

How about the studies that showed eggs were responsible for heart attacks?
All the fuss about ‘oat bran?’
Transfats.
Coffee is from de debil. . .

This will give you cancer. No it won’t. Yes it will.

There are ‘studies’ out there that can prove just about anything. . .and other studies that will ‘disprove’ what is just proven. So I tend to go with things that have stood the test of time. Like the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church and its teachings.

 

[Spock]

Can we agree on a basic sexual ethic, then? This ethic would be: sexuality attains its full stature when it is focused in committed love to one person. It would seem, given such an ethic, morally licit to socially encourage such unions and to discourage “unions” which are simply parodies of this (whether heterosexual or homosexual).

In theory, I agree with you that the longer, the more stable a relationship happens to turn out, the better it is for all involved - provided that it is based upon mutual love and respect and not simply conserving the “status quo”. Even for old couples, where the sexual drive diminishes or disappears, the love continues. Sexual encounter is not the sole factor in the judgment for the stability of a relationship. As the old saying goes about a lousy work environment: “you don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it sure helps”

I have serious reservations about the judgment of society. Even up to the middle of the 20th century the marriage of mixed “races” was not just viewed with hostility by the American society, but it was declared illegal. So the value-judgment of society is dubious - at best.

It is clear that the preponderance of divorce in our culture means that many people have entered into marriage without really intending the commitment (which means that they did not really love, by both our definitions.)

If a glass is only 90% full… is it deficient? The length of a relationship is not indicative to the depth of the feelings in the couple involved. Whether something is “real” love or nor can only be properly judged by the people directly involved.

My claim comes from self-reported studies of faithfulness – I can dig up the statistics, if you like. If it were proven that nothing in the nature of homosexuality led to unfaithfulness, then there would be much more to say for the practice. Any historical evidence is valid here, but I’m not sure that any historical evidence of considerable homosexual monogamy can be found.

The relability of polls is low. It all depends on how the questions are asked. But I am amenable to accept that many relationships end “prematurely” - whatever that means. This fact is not relevant to decide if the stable ones exhibit “true” love or a dissatisfactory facsimile thereof. (I just love this dumb phrase.)

Please remember that “living together in love” has been common Christian practice among men (and women) for centuries. (This is what a monastery is). This is not discouraged. Only the genital expression of *eros *is discouraged in such situations, because it does not organically build up the body. Catholic teaching says that sexual expression is a “gift of self” (a beautiful phrase), and only certain bodies can receive that gift. If the gift is, in essence, a gift *to *oneself, then it centers the household around one’s own desires, and this leads to discord.

Giving oneself is beautiful. Giving oneself is not contingent upon anything else. People can give all of themselves to other partners - mostly consecutively, but sometimes concurrently. Another joke comes to my mind (I hope you don’t find it annoying, I have many jokes stashed away): “The young wife asks her husband: ‘will you always love like this?’. And he answers: ‘yes, my dear, I always will… but not always you’.”

 

[Spock]

Spock: Were you aware that up until 1970 the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) from the APA listed homosexuality as a disorder? There was a concerted effort (lobby) and the diagnosis was ‘lifted’ then.

But: it was listed as a disorder at one time, and the change to make it ‘not’ a disorder may in fact be an error. (Since it was once listed as a disorder, which many now claim is an error, this proves that the possibility of error in defining the condition existed, and may indeed still exist).

These were the same psychologists who argued in the same time period (the 60s, 70s, and 80s) that pedophile behavior could be cured, and encouraged the ‘rehabilitation’ of those who had engaged in this disorder by arguing that they should be given a ‘second chance’ in another venue under the SAME conditions of temptation, without any ‘warning’ given in the new area lest they refuse to give the person a ‘chance’.

Yes, it was the psychological experts who argued for ‘cover-ups’ and as medical experts their teaching was accepted until they did a sudden ‘volte-face’ and began to argue the exact opposite. Yet the people who in good faith accepted their expert medical opinion at the time are demonized today

I tend to be very ‘cautious’ when I approach these ‘new’ insights that turn the old accepted wisdom of the ages onto its head. . .because I’ve seen far too many examples where the supposedly ‘new’ teaching turns out to be dismally wrong and a failure.

Let’s hear it for the ‘whole language’ debacle of the 80s and 90s that left a generation struggling to read and write English, while the phonics that was sneered at then is now once again ‘top dog’.

How about the AMA telling us in the 1980s to have our infants sleep face down to guard against SIDS --only to reverse themselves completely a few years later and say, no, they must sleep on the side, it’s face down that’s dangerous!

How about the studies that showed eggs were responsible for heart attacks?
All the fuss about ‘oat bran?’
Transfats.
Coffee is from de debil. . .

This will give you cancer. No it won’t. Yes it will.

You are correct in pointing out that the medical society is notorious in making incorrect judgments and reversing itself every couple of years. Your post **seems **to convey that you consider the condemnation of homosexuality as a disorder based on medical facts, and the reversal of this stance based on politics. (Maybe I am wrong and you did not mean it like that. If so, I offer my apologies.). If I am right, why do you think that the prior condemnation was not based on politics, and the reversal in not based on new discoveries?

There are ‘studies’ out there that can prove just about anything. . .and other studies that will ‘disprove’ what is just proven.

Very true.

So I tend to go with things that have stood the test of time. Like the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church and its teachings.

That is your right and prerogative. I am not contemplating the Church’s teachings on these matters.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

And you know this… how?

He said so quite clearly, leviticus, sodom and gomorah.

This is the argument of the fifth officer from the parable: infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/five.html … not convincing at all.

this argument is actually from a criticism of info-gap decision theory, but the fifth officer was mentioned on another thread.

little did you know that k had clubbed the killers infant son to death like a baby seal, and then fed it to the hogs, like in hannibal. see, new information can put a completely different light on things, which is why that lack of information invalidates conclusions about the morality of G-d.

that entire parable is the loaded language fallacy, its an attempt to sway the argument by appeal to emotion rather than an attack on the premise.

 

[Victorious]

I gave my definition above. But I will quote you a cute little story:

The 6 years old boy-scout goes home and his father asks him, what kind of good deeds did he accomplish. The boy answers: “I and five of my friends helped an old man to cross a busy street”. The father says: “very nice, but why did you need your five freinds?”. “Because the old guy did not want to cross the street!” - answers the boy. I hope you see the point. And the second part is sheer nonsense. Self-sacrifice is not necessary to substantite one’s love.

Frankly, I don’t see the point of this story. And love IS self-sacrifice. Love is not for the faint of heart. It **always **requires you to put the good of the other over yourself, on a constant and ongoing basis. In fact, if you truly love someone, you are only too happy to do this.

Just your opinion, without any evidence - which would be acceptable to an atheist. But more to the point: God is supposed to love us unconditionally. Yet you say that God is offended (a very negative emotion) by certain expression of love. That is another contradiction, whether you realize it or not.

It is not a contradiction, because what is being expressed is not real love.

It is absurd to speak of unconditional love as precluding being offended. We are capable of being offended by those we love, and we are made in God’s image. It is precisely because God does love us that He is capable of being offended by what we do. If He did not love us, then what we do would not matter to Him. And if what we do didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t matter.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

In theory, I agree with you that the longer, the more stable a relationship happens to turn out, the better it is for all involved - provided that it is based upon mutual love and respect and not simply conserving the “status quo”. Even for old couples, where the sexual drive diminishes or disappears, the love continues. Sexual encounter is not the sole factor in the judgment for the stability of a relationship.

Here’s the corollary question, then: Is the difference between levels of faithfulness between homosexuals and heterosexuals caused by the nature of homosexuality or by other considerations? If one could find clear evidence that there is nothing in the nature of homosexuality that leads to unfaithfulness, then homosexual relationships would be on much surer footing.

But it seems, to me at least, that it is in the nature of *all *sexual desire to objectify, and use the other person as a means to the end of one’s own pleasure. This nature must be transcended: the thing that is most precious to you as a human animal (pleasure) must be surrendered to a promise (marriage) as a human being.

This promise entails the possibility of celibacy, but one does not expect to be called to the carpet on this entailment. Personal connection here: when my father was 40, he sustained a major closed head injury, which has made him somewhat unmanageable and certainly sexually unavailable. My mother did not hesitate to remain with him, and devoted her life to him, despite the fact that it was the furthest thing from her plans. This was heroic, but it was also her obligation. When she made a promise for better or for worse, the potential for sacrifice and celibacy was entailed.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that many people are not capable of such sacrifice, and I am quite sure that such sacrifice should be (in an ideal world) a prerequisite for sexual activity. Certainly, the obsession with pleasure is a phase human beings must grow out of. Does the gay lifestyle provide a paradigm for growing out of it? What beauty or meaning can be found beyond the pleasures it promises? I’m reminded of Plato’s *Symposium *(an altogether relevant work, in this context), where Socrates proposes that the love of the physical is a preamble to the love of the spiritual, a love that must be sublimated. When we carnalize it, and make the flesh our center, then we treat ourselves like animals. When we transcend it, through unconditional promises and faithfulness, then we find the fullness of our sexuality.

This is not even to say a word against civil unions, or even gay marriage (although I think that is an awfully funny term). If gay partners can manage to follow through on such promises, then we may – on the basis of natural reason – begin to see something eternal and valuable in their relationships. But it is, of course, possible that this faithfulness is in spite of the sexual values expressed in the relationship, not through those values.

You may respond that most heterosexuals have proven themselves incapable of making and keeping such promises. If this is the case, then their marriages are instances of sin as well – they are acting as if their sacred word were a plaything. We ought not single out homosexuals, as if their sin were worse than the frivolity and carnality of the culture at large.

If a glass is only 90% full… is it deficient? The length of a relationship is not indicative to the depth of the feelings in the couple involved. Whether something is “real” love or nor can only be properly judged by the people directly involved.

We’re running up against the definition of love, again. For the record, “depth of feeling” is a terrible measuring stick to consider relationships by. A great many people who love deeply and passionately are really only loving themselves.

Giving oneself is beautiful. Giving oneself is not contingent upon anything else. People can give all of themselves to other partners - mostly consecutively, but sometimes concurrently.

This is humorously true, but not actually true. If I give *all *myself, I retain none of myself. I have no right to take anything back, ever.

Unless it’s in marriage (or celibacy), the subjective experience and the objective expression of love can never meet. The Church is willing to let people live as they choose, but it would be remiss if it did not clearly discourage a life which will miss out on the spiritual truth contained in human sexuality.

 

[Areopagite]

I thank you for your thorough response, Spock. The clarity in your words was much appreciated.

Love: a positive emotion, which must be accompanied by acts to substantiate the claim of “love”

All right. Perhaps you may need to flush this definition out a bit more for me … but, if I’m not mistaken, when you mean a “positive” emotion, you mean an emotion that inclines one to be helpful to others rather than harmful. Right?

Now, as a side note, which you don’t have to accept, Christians as well as many pagan philosophers claimed that there existed at least two different kinds of love. Namely, rational love and sensual love. Rational love pertains to the will, while sensual love pertains to emotions/passions. We are bifurcated in that sense. Sometimes, the will and the emotions can be at odds, in which case we either work to reorient our emotions (somehow) to go along with what our will wants, or we can have our will give into the emotions. In other words, emotion is not the only kind of love … there’s the will … but you might not agree with that … and that’s fine … for now. We don’t have to get into it at the moment … possibly.

Good (morally good): A positive action which is aimed at being helpful to others. It is not necessary that one be helpful at his own expense.

I think I agree with this.

Evil: A negative action, which is aimed at harming someone else, without proper justification. Causing deliberate pain is not necessarily evil. However the causation of pain must be balanced by some “good”, which cannot be achieved without the pain, and when pain is inflicted, it must be kept at the absoloute minimum necessary. (Complex, but it cannot be helped).

Yeah, I think I’m on board with you on this one too. I think.

Now, the real key to our disagreement, I think, is something you mentioned in the definition of “good” … you said good has to be “helpful” to somehow. I ask, what do you mean by this? It could mean various things … for example, it could mean assisting one to become a better person, or it could mean assisting them to do something that they want. If “helpful” means aiding one to become a better human being, then the question is “what is a good human being” … a question for the philosophy of human nature (a complicated one, but one I’m prepared to discuss). On the other hand, if “helpful” means aiding one to do something that they want (i.e. that they consent to do), then some very interesting things result. For example (taking your example), if someone wants and consents to being cannibalized, then it is good if you cannibalize them (because you are helping them in something they want). However, if “helpful” means aiding one to become a better human being … do you think cannibalizing someone makes them a better human being? Hmm. This idea of “consent” determining what is good or not is a little flaky if “helpful” (in your definition of good) means “assisting one to become a better human being.” Likewise, if you mean helpful as assisting in another’s goal, then all kinds of consensual horrible things are necessarily good.

If you believe this (that it is a person’s consent is the basis for determining what is good for person), then you contradict yourself when you say:

People engage in all sorts of activities which harms them. Smoking would be an example.

According to what you said earlier, however, smoking isn’t evil (even though it may be harmful). On the contrary (according to you), because if a person consents to smoking, then it is good, because as long as you consent to something, it is by definition good (according to you).

However, if you think that good is linked to whether something is objectively harmful or not, then consent is not really an important issue in the matter. Not even pleasure. For as you said, smoking is evil because it is harmful, even though it is pleasurable and [most of the time] consented to.

So, I would ask you to clear up what you’re saying here.

However, as long as they harm only themselves and not others, it is no one else’s business.

Maybe. I won’t go too deep into this yet. However, would you say though that something could be evil and yet not a person’s business? Like, even if consensual cannibalism is nobody’s business, would you still say cannibalism is evil? My point is that, you seem to be changing the subject from determining what constitutes an evil action to what constitutes someone else’s business.

Important caveat: The lack of good is not evil, the lack of love is not hate. It is incorrect to see the world in pure black and white. Evil is the opposite of good, not the lack of good. I think this distinction is something that causes my lack of understanding. I consider the black-and-white world view as fundamentally incorrect and irrational.

Good question. It took me awhile to figure out this one in my life. First of all, on a somewhat related but possibly needlessly distracting point, your use of the terms “positive” and “negative” are a bit ambiguous in your previously mentioned definition of good and evil (unless you mean simply that negative mean “doing harm” and positive mean “not doing harm” or something like that). Originally, until the 20th century, I think, the “negative” of something mean “the absence of” something, and “positive” meant the presence or reality of something. All words with prefixes like “un-” (and similar ones) were negative words because they negated something rather than included something. It doesn’t mean the “un-” words were linked to evil, necessarily. But whatever.

However, if you agree that positive means “the presence/reality of something” and that negative means “the absence of something,” then you should agree that evil is the absence of good, since you said evil was negative and good was positive … or not? Perhaps you need to elaborate or qualify some previous statements.

Thank you, again, for replying so diligently.

 

[Spock]

little did you know that k had clubbed the killers infant son to death like a baby seal, and then fed it to the hogs, like in hannibal. see, new information can put a completely different light on things, which is why that lack of information invalidates conclusions about the morality of G-d.

God’s morality is not in question in this thread. It is about the Catholic posters’ **presentation **about God’s **alleged **reaction to certain kinds of love.

 

[Spock]

Frankly, I don’t see the point of this story.

Too bad. So I will explain: the boy-scout wanted to be helpful to the old man, but failed to investigate what the old man’s need was. He and his freinds assumed what the old man wanted, and “helped” him over his protests. Have you ever heard of “overwhelming and suffocating” love? I am sure you did.

And love IS self-sacrifice. Love is not for the faint of heart. It **always **requires you to put the good of the other over yourself, on a constant and ongoing basis. In fact, if you truly love someone, you are only too happy to do this.

Analyzing the Bilble is against the forum rules. Hopefully quoting it is not. Jesus did not require to love your neighbor “more”, only as much as you love yourself.

It is not a contradiction, because what is being expressed is not real love.

Not “true Scotsman” fallacy raises its head again.

It is absurd to speak of unconditional love as precluding being offended. We are capable of being offended by those we love, and we are made in God’s image. It is precisely because God does love us that He is capable of being offended by what we do. If He did not love us, then what we do would not matter to Him. And if what we do didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t matter.

It would be absurd to be offended by the expression of true love, and also maintain that your primary concern is true love. That is the contradiction I am speaking of.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

God’s morality is not in question in this thread. It is about the Catholic posters’ **presentation **about God’s **alleged **reaction to certain kinds of love.

i was responding to this statement in the OP.

Next, you try to find “excuses” for the acts of supreme “non-love”, for example rape, torture, murder - by saying that we “cannot know” if these acts are truly evil.

There is no hesitation in the condemnation of homosexual love, there is no “maybe it is OK, we just don’t know”. But there are all sorts of excuses in regard of really evil acts. And you assert that God thinks like you…

of course others provide a better exposition of the sin at the heart of homosexuality. yet the claim here proposing some contradiction in our beliefs is best answered by both those expositions, and mine on the idea that we excuse evil acts. i am simply approaching from a different angle, though if you wish to restrict the conversation now to that i understand, there is simply too much to divide your attention, thanks for answering.

 

[Spock]

Here’s the corollary question, then: Is the difference between levels of faithfulness between homosexuals and heterosexuals caused by the nature of homosexuality or by other considerations? If one could find clear evidence that there is nothing in the nature of homosexuality that leads to unfaithfulness, then homosexual relationships would be on much surer footing.

I am not even sure that there is a significant difference. Statictics is a wonderful tool, but much too easy to wield incorrectly. When I went to college, the professor of statistics opened his first lecture with the following sentence: “Statistics is like a bikini. It shows a lot, but hides the important parts.”. Sample taking is a special science. Formulating the questions is an art. With properly formulated questions and taking a special sample one can substantiate almost anything. Just like a good magician who offers you a deck of cards, and asks you to randomly pick one. No matter how hard you try, you will pick the one which he wants.

But it seems, to me at least, that it is in the nature of *all *sexual desire to objectify, and use the other person as a means to the end of one’s own pleasure. This nature must be transcended: the thing that is most precious to you as a human animal (pleasure) must be surrendered to a promise (marriage) as a human being.

Why do you think that the other person is being objectified? And that marriage will somehow assure that such thing does not happen? Monogamous marriage is not the only player of the field, though it is quite prevalent these days. Humans have experimented with all sorts of setups during the millenia, and none became detrimental to the practitioners. Polygamy, polyandry, group “marriages” were all tried and tested. The fact that these arrangemnts are rare these days is due to the annoying habit of politicians who enact dumb laws prohibiting consensual behavior, even if it is not harmful to the participants. I wonder if you are aware that in some states in US up until very recently even oral sex was illegal between a husband and wife. (Sounds like a bad joke, after all how can such a law be enforced. But there you are… the stupidity of politicians.)

We’re running up against the definition of love, again. For the record, “depth of feeling” is a terrible measuring stick to consider relationships by. A great many people who love deeply and passionately are really only loving themselves.

That sure can happen. But what does it say about those whose feelings are directed to others?

This is humorously true, but not actually true. If I give *all *myself, I retain none of myself. I have no right to take anything back, ever.

Literally speaking you cannot give “all” of yourself. What you say is just a pretty metaphore.

Love is not like a loaf of bread, the more you give, the less you retain. In a sense love is “infinite”, your love toward your wife does not diminsh your love for your children and your love to your friends. Yes, you can argue that these are different kinds of love, and I would agree. It is possible that some people can love (sexually) more than one other person at the same time, and not shortchange either one of them. It may be rare, but not impossible.