homosexual marriage

[CHRISTINE77]

What has been proven is we share DNA…that suggests, baring any divine undemonstrable influence that we somehow are related…and that “relation” is explained thru the “theory of evolution”…that we share a common ancestor with the ape…we did not decend from apes…but humans and apes share a common ancestor from the far far distant past…at some “point” in our evolutionary history…our two species diverged and apes evolved along their “branch”…and homo spaiens evolved along our “branch”…we did not evolve from apes…but apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor…that is a HUGE difference than claiming we “evolved from apes”.

Well, good, another reason don’t think we should be comparing ourselves to bonobos.

 

[Publisher]

Well, good, another reason don’t think we should be comparing ourselves to bonobos.

It is by observing those species we do share commong DNA with…that we better understand our own evolutionary developement…and the variations found within those species we share common ancestry with can assist us in understanding our own variations including sexuality.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

It is by observing those species we do share commong DNA with…that we better understand our own evolutionary developement…and the variations found within those species we share common ancestry with can assist us in understanding our own variations including sexuality.

Whatever. Humans don’t swing from trees and eat massive quantities of fruits either.

 

[Publisher]

Whatever. Humans don’t swing from trees and eat massive quantities of fruits either.

No one is claiming they do…just seeking to better understand our own evolutionary development by seeking to understand the evolutionary development those species we share common ancestry with. That is the task sociologists and scientists seek to understand with the evolutionary model we currently have.

 

[buffalo]

DEFEATING “GAY” ARGUMENTS WITH SIMPLE LOGIC

Marriage - Unique for a Reason

 

[Hokomai]

We are made of the same stuff. That doesn’t prove evolution. I believe God made us all out of the same stuff, but as humans we are a cut above the animals. Maybe just a little twist of the old DNA, stuff of life.

What good is a theory if it doesn’t explain why, just how?

We do have a purpose, we have brains that can reason, we can read and write, play music, sing, speak thousands of ideas, wonder about where we came from and where we are going. We are made a little lower than the angels, but I 'm sure they don’t fit into the evolutionary theory.

Christine your response above does not do justice to what I said. I pointed out that the ‘stuff’ of which we are ‘made’ as you put it, DNA and other genetic material, is not only the same but can be transferred only by descent. To believe that God in the case of humans but not other living things, intervenes in order not only to place a soul in each person but to re-create genetic material to look exactly like the genetic material found in every other living thing, and to **look like it was transferred by descent **is, literally, incredible. Unless, of course, you think that there is a god(s) who sets out to delude and fool us. We use comparisons with other living things to learn more about humans in every field of science, especially medicine. I am still alive today because those comparisons are comparisons of genuinely similar things. To exclude sexuality from such comparisons would cut us of from valuable knowledge. After all, our ancestors were having sex long before we were mammals, or even vertebrates. Bonobos are our closest living relatives. That’s why it makes sense to study their similarities and differences, including in the area of sexuality.

 

[CopticChristian]

Christine your response above does not do justice to what I said. I pointed out that the ‘stuff’ of which we are ‘made’ as you put it, DNA and other genetic material, is not only the same but can be transferred only by descent. To believe that God in the case of humans but not other living things, intervenes in order not only to place a soul in each person but to re-create genetic material to look exactly like the genetic material found in every other living thing, and to **look like it was transferred by descent **is, literally, incredible. Unless, of course, you think that there is a god(s) who sets out to delude and fool us. We use comparisons with other living things to learn more about humans in every field of science, especially medicine. I am still alive today because those comparisons are comparisons of genuinely similar things. To exclude sexuality from such comparisons would cut us of from valuable knowledge. After all, our ancestors were having sex long before we were mammals, or even vertebrates. Bonobos are our closest living relatives. That’s why it makes sense to study their similarities and differences, including in the area of sexuality.

Ho, Ho, Ho

It is miraculous. You have proven evolution. I studied evolution and the last time I looked it was a theory. Did I miss something?

Christine you are wrong about evolution. Evolution is a fact. I can prove it to you in a few words: DNA and other genetic material is transferred by descent alone. You and I share DNA with every other living thing. Therefore we, and they, are related by descent. This is a fact.

You may want to ask yourself the following question? How do I feel about what I bellieve to be true about Evolution and then let me know. Then when you do that realize that you have used what is called “self reflective” thinking…Bonobos and other animals cannot do that…we can…

 

[Hokomai]

Ho, Ho, Ho

It is miraculous. You have proven evolution. I studied evolution and the last time I looked it was a theory. Did I miss something?

Indeed you did. Evolution is a fact. The ‘theory of evolution’ is thinking about how the fact happens.

 

[davidv]

Indeed you did. Evolution is a fact. The ‘theory of evolution’ is thinking about how the fact happens.

Please refrain from discussing a banned topic.

 

[CopticChristian]

Indeed you did. Evolution is a fact. The ‘theory of evolution’ is thinking about how the fact happens.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Here is something else bonobos cannot do…

Leviticus 18 universally outlaws men laying with men as with women, with this being a capital crime, (Lv. 18:22; 20:13), with an additional separate prohibition evidently forbidding homosexual religious prostitution. (Dt. 23:17)

In Romans 1 the apostle Paul delineates stages of degeneration, with homoerotic desire and acts being a particular effect of making the God of creation, who uniquely created the women of the man and joined them in marriage, into an image of corruptible man.

On Dec 16, 342 A.D., Constantius and Constans issued a legal decision which was included in the later Theodosian Code:
Cod.Theod. IX. Viii. 3: (Cod. Justin IX.ix.31):

When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce men {quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam), what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found? We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment.
The meaning of this is somewhat obscure, more explicit is the law issued by Valentinian II, Theodoisus and Arcadius on Aug 6, 390, and which also survives in the Theodosian Code:

Cod.Theod. IX. Vii. 6:
All persons who have the shameful custom of condemning a man’s body, acting the part of a woman’s to the sufferance of alien sex (for they appear not to be different from women), shall expiate a crime of this kind in avenging flames in the sight of the people.
In England, Henry VIII introduced the first legislation under English criminal law against sodomy with the Buggery Act of 1533, making buggery punishable by hanging, a penalty not lifted until 1861.

Following Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England,[8] the crime of sodomy has often been defined only as the abominable and detestable crime against nature, or some variation of the phrase. This language led to widely varying rulings about what specific acts were encompassed by its prohibition.

Humans can record their activities over time from the past. Bonobos cannot do that. What is clear is that someone in the past thought enough to think about banning homosexuality or considering it aberrant.

Now in these days homosexuals may do as they wish. I see no reason to condone it, approve of it, bless it, elevate it or do anything other than acknowledge that it exists.

You may want to understand that beliefs are of the order of thoughts that have meaning. Whatever meaning you give it incorporates that thought as belief. I choose to believe that homosexuality is an aberrant act. That is my belief that is a result of linking meaning to that thought. You may believe as you wish. To change a belief you must change the meaning and you cannot do that. Bonobos cannot either.

Homosesuality exists. That is fact. Anything beyond that is and will not be found in any bonobo record.

 

[Hokomai]

Ho, Ho, Ho

Here is something else bonobos cannot do…

Humans can record their activities over time from the past. Bonobos cannot do that. What is clear is that someone in the past thought enough to think about banning homosexuality or considering it aberrant.

Now in these days homosexuals may do as they wish. I see no reason to condone it, approve of it, bless it, elevate it or do anything other than acknowledge that it exists.

You may want to understand that beliefs are of the order of thoughts that have meaning. Whatever meaning you give it incorporates that thought as belief. I choose to believe that homosexuality is an aberrant act. That is my belief that is a result of linking meaning to that thought. You may believe as you wish. To change a belief you must change the meaning and you cannot do that. Bonobos cannot either.

Homosesuality exists. That is fact. Anything beyond that is and will not be found in any bonobo record.

 

[Hokomai]

Ho, Ho, Ho

Here is something else bonobos cannot do…

Humans can record their activities over time from the past. Bonobos cannot do that. What is clear is that someone in the past thought enough to think about banning homosexuality or considering it aberrant.

Now in these days homosexuals may do as they wish. I see no reason to condone it, approve of it, bless it, elevate it or do anything other than acknowledge that it exists.

You may want to understand that beliefs are of the order of thoughts that have meaning. Whatever meaning you give it incorporates that thought as belief. I choose to believe that homosexuality is an aberrant act. That is my belief that is a result of linking meaning to that thought. You may believe as you wish. To change a belief you must change the meaning and you cannot do that. Bonobos cannot either.

Homosexuality exists. That is fact. Anything beyond that is and will not be found in any bonobo record.

I am not attempting to say that the fact that Bonobos do it mean that people should do it. I was responding to this from Christine77:

Even with your “scientific” explanation, the men and women had sex, not men and men, or women and women, else you wouldn’t be here today.

This was in the context of a discussion about early humans. I was pointing out that our closest living relatives manage to both have lots of homosexual sex and have descendants. One of the most interesting things on CAF is that I am constantly challenged about things I did not say, or even think.

 

[Hokomai]

Please refrain from discussing a banned topic.

I did not think it was banned in this forum. also I am unsure as to how we are to discuss anything to do with biology, including sex, without mentioning the e-word. It is the basic fact of all biological science.

 

[CopticChristian]

I am not attempting to say that the fact that Bonobos do it mean that people should do it. I was responding to this from Christine77:

This was in the context of a discussion about early humans. I was pointing out that our closest living relatives manage to both have lots of homosexual sex and have descendants. One of the most interesting things on CAF is that I am constantly challenged about things I did not say, or even think.

Ho,

We speak different languages. We have different beliefs. You want to think and believe about early humans and closest relatives.

I think and believe as the OHCAC has taught that there was one original parent stream, Adam and Eve. Everything else is conjecture. To deny Adam and Eve is to deny Christ for me, not for you. When you speak of other than this then in my mind you deny Christ and I must reject everything you say. No discussion, no understanding, just a simple I am not interested and it does not benefit my beliefs or my understanding.

To this I say believe as you wish however your beliefs are contrary and not acceptable to a cogent understanding of anything except difference in beliefs that cannot or will not change for me.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

Christine your response above does not do justice to what I said. I pointed out that the ‘stuff’ of which we are ‘made’ as you put it, DNA and other genetic material, is not only the same but can be transferred only by descent. To believe that God in the case of humans but not other living things, intervenes in order not only to place a soul in each person but to re-create genetic material to look exactly like the genetic material found in every other living thing, and to **look like it was transferred by descent **is, literally, incredible. Unless, of course, you think that there is a god(s) who sets out to delude and fool us. We use comparisons with other living things to learn more about humans in every field of science, especially medicine. I am still alive today because those comparisons are comparisons of genuinely similar things. To exclude sexuality from such comparisons would cut us of from valuable knowledge. After all, our ancestors were having sex long before we were mammals, or even vertebrates. Bonobos are our closest living relatives. That’s why it makes sense to study their similarities and differences, including in the area of sexuality.

how could homosexual “sex” lead us anywhere? It is clearly a dead end.

 

[Hokomai]

Ho,

We speak different languages. We have different beliefs. You want to think and believe about early humans and closest relatives.

I think and believe as the OHCAC has taught that there was one original parent stream, Adam and Eve. Everything else is conjecture. To deny Adam and Eve is to deny Christ for me, not for you. When you speak of other than this then in my mind you deny Christ and I must reject everything you say. No discussion, no understanding, just a simple I am not interested and it does not benefit my beliefs or my understanding.

To this I say believe as you wish however your beliefs are contrary and not acceptable to a cogent understanding of anything except difference in beliefs that cannot or will not change for me.

I think there is little doubt that a particular human male and a particular human female are ancestors of us all, but there are likely to be many other females and males who are also our ancestors. What is now simple observation in science (not a theory) also tells us that humans and bonobos have common ancestors.

While I am familiar with the Church teaching about Adam and Eve, until your post I had assumed it was compatible with science. The Church also teaches that its teaching is compatible with science. Do you reject this teaching?

(Note: I do not consider this off-topic. Observations of other species are widely used in the homosexual rights debate, and they were first raised in this thread in support of the OP. all we are doing here is establishing the groundwork needed to debate this coherently in the context of Church teaching.)

 

[Hokomai]

how could homosexual “sex” lead us anywhere? It is clearly a dead end.

There are two issues: did in fact homosexual sex occur alongside heterosexual sex?

The simple existence of descendants in my view does not preclude the regular or even universal practice of homosexual sex. In our most closely-related species, bonobos, this is the case.

The second issue raised by your question is: how could there possibly be an adaptive advantage to homosexual sex, especially if it led to fewer descendants, or a smaller gene pool? At this point we move past observation to hypothesis. My suggestion, which answers your question, is that homosexuals, without the need to care for children of their own, or with fewer children of their own, are available in human groups to provide support for childcare, and other services to the group, thereby strengthening the chances of survival of their close genetic relatives.

Homosexual sex in early human history, or our history before we were human, was clearly not a dead end, and could have led to our very existence. It was clearly not a dead end since the universal practice of homosexuality in human society suggests it has always happened, and our close relatives like it even more than we do. It may have led to our very existence by helping support a group of non-parenting individuals who helped strengthen the group, in much the same way that celibate clergy strengthen the Church.

 

[meltzerboy]

People evolve, concepts evolve, so an appeal to history alone won’t do it.
In most countries, people can be legally married without wanting children. So, it may have been historically so that marriage was live-giving etc. but nowadays this isn’t always the case anymore.
So, what if the concept and the word marriage evolves into ‘a legal union between two partners?’

Of course people can have dignity while not being married, but if there are no other arguments, why not let people choose how to have dignity?

I agree with your comments. Also, I thought secularism was the purported enemy of religious liberty. Why then should that be the basis of an appeal against same-sex marriage for any person concerned with freedom of religion? Strange bedfellows (no pun intended) in presenting a secular argument to support a moral one only when it is convenient.

From the Jewish perspective, the primary reason for marriage is NOT procreation, although this is a close second, but rather, love and companionship: the unitive function.

 

[edwest2]

I think there is little doubt that a particular human male and a particular human female are ancestors of us all, but there are likely to be many other females and males who are also our ancestors. What is now simple observation in science (not a theory) also tells us that humans and bonobos have common ancestors.

While I am familiar with the Church teaching about Adam and Eve, until your post I had assumed it was compatible with science. The Church also teaches that its teaching is compatible with science. Do you reject this teaching?

(Note: I do not consider this off-topic. Observations of other species are widely used in the homosexual rights debate, and they were first raised in this thread in support of the OP. all we are doing here is establishing the groundwork needed to debate this coherently in the context of Church teaching.)

This common ancestors idea is not consistent with Church teaching, although it is commonly assumed.

The issue of science and what the Church teaches is simply this: miracles, that are outside the scope of science, occurred. This includes our first parents.

“Mainly concerned with evolution as it “involves the question of man,” however, Pope John Paul’s message is specifically critical of materialistic theories of human origins and insists on the relevance of philosophy and theology for an adequate understanding of the “ontological leap” to the human which cannot be explained in purely scientific terms.”

From Communion and Stewardship

The Church tells us God acted. Science alone cannot provide a complete picture.

Peace,
Ed

 

[CopticChristian]

I think there is little doubt that a particular human male and a particular human female are ancestors of us all, but there are likely to be many other females and males who are also our ancestors. What is now simple observation in science (not a theory) also tells us that humans and bonobos have common ancestors.

While I am familiar with the Church teaching about Adam and Eve, until your post I had assumed it was compatible with science. The Church also teaches that its teaching is compatible with science. Do you reject this teaching?

(Note: I do not consider this off-topic. Observations of other species are widely used in the homosexual rights debate, and they were first raised in this thread in support of the OP. all we are doing here is establishing the groundwork needed to debate this coherently in the context of Church teaching.)

Ho,

There is no debate. OHCAC teaches believe anything you like. Do not deny Adam and Eve and if recollection serves me right I believe that this is found in Humani Generis. I took a quick look and that is correct. I will look for the specific statement. There is no debating this. You can say I don’t like it, I don’t want to believe it, I find it difficult to accept…but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord and I am obliged to believe it.

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis_en.html

1. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

I am unable nor is any Catholic able to debate this…there is no debate to be had.