Homosexuality debate, secular level

[Oreoracle]

Your response doesn’t answer the question

There was no question, actually. I was responding to one of the statements Amandil made.

If moral stipulations are arbitrary as you seem to believe, why is our disgust at pederasty anything more than a simple aesthetic choice, like your preference in musical groups?

I didn’t say that the stipulations are without motivation; there’s a difference between a normative claim and its motivation. Ironically enough, you actually answered your question of the basis of morality for me. We say pederasty is wrong because we find it disgusting. I’m not making a meta-ethical statement here and saying that we “should” say something is wrong because it’s disgusting (repugnant, etc.–whatever term you prefer), I’m merely stating the fact that we do. It’s no coincidence that our morals always coincide with our preferences.

And I think it’s obvious enough that disgust is not a matter of choice. You can’t choose what appeals to you.

 

[Amandil]

BTW, I did read your comments. I just did not particularly agree with them.

What is there not to “agree” with? You can’t say that Church teaches that homosexuals are “born” homosexual when the Church doesn’t teach it.

Not only does it foster scandal, its an offense against the Church by bearing false witness to it’s teaching.

 

[chefmomster2]

What is there not to “agree” with? You can’t say that Church teaches that homosexuals are “born” homosexual when the Church doesn’t teach it.

Not only does it foster scandal, its an offense against the Church by bearing false witness to it’s teaching.

I repeat…

**(As far as I know the Church has not declared the origin of homosexuality.) **

That was in my previous post against which you object. Obviously I did NOT say the Church agrees that homosexuality is inborn. But, I don’t believe the Church has indicated that it is not inborn. I noted my point of agreement - that while the ACTIONS are inherently evil, homosexuals, who are wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God, are not to be judged by their orientation. (If we are to judge them at all!)


Please have the courtesy not to accuse me of scandalizing the Church or bearing false witness. Particularly when you are incorrect in your assessment of what was said. I, like you, am free to present my opinion and expected to accept the reactions to that opinion with Christian grace and forbearance. Throwing stones never advances a conversation.

 

[Amandil]

But this fact is entirely relevant. Irrationality is something that people typically don’t choose, but is instead imposed on us by hormones and the like.

1)That answer is a materialist answer.; it presupposes the “truth” of materialism without proving that materialism is true. Thus it is circular

2)“Hormones and the like” don’t “impose” choices onto us. We have the free will to act contrary to our “hormones”, people do it all the time.

Love is a prime example. If you could choose who to love, life would be far easier for everyone.

You can chose who to love, people do it all the time. The problem is your ambiguous definition of “love” as merely the subjective impulse of hormones(which again presupposes materialism, see point 1).

If “love” is what you say it is, then you still have absolutely no grounds to argue against bestiality, pedophiles, or pederasts either because they can also argue that their lives would be “easier for everyone” if they were allowed to “love” who they wanted.

That’s the problem with taking the position that “love” is intrinsically meritorious and all-excusing.

Did they, at some point in their lives, decide that they would derive pleasure from viewing children as sexual objects? Of course not.

Again, that’s simply naïve. Did they decide that they would derive pleasure from viewing children as sex objects? Frankly yes, they did.

This is the crux of the matter. You can’t even “see” the problem(that of sin), and as the “Oracle” in the Matrix so aptly put it, “You can’t see past the choices you don’t understand.”

You don’t understand sin, much less recognize it, so you try to reason out their sinfulness according to your rationale. But obviously your reason can’t intuit why anyone would choose something so irrational so you ascribe your materialistic/deterministic viewpoint instead. “Their just victims of their heredity/environment”.

Which is not even a solution. All you done is institutionalize the problem.

No one chooses their sexuality. You didn’t choose to be straight. Granted, if you’re married, you chose that, but that’s not the same as choosing the orientation to begin with.

Bull. This goes back to the argument of trying to assert some ridiculous dichotomy between “sex” and “gender”.

There are only two “sexes”(male and female) and no such thing as “genders” at all.

“Genders” are, again, rationalizations to justify their idea of all-excusing “love”.

Heck, if this whole deal with orientation is a choice, I wish I could just choose to be asexual. Life would be incredibly simple. I bet loads of people would choose that.

That’s called celibacy. Priests and vowed religious choose to do it all the time.

Chastity is required by God of everyone.

Again, that’s where a deterministic ideology fails.

 

[Amandil]

As I’ve said in other threads you’ve been in, everyone makes arbitrary stipulations at some point. Everyone has their “axioms”. At some point, you chose Christian morality because, for whatever reason, you sympathized with the doctrine espoused by it. You can’t use this doctrine to substantiate the choice, because that would be circular reasoning. The choice was yours and yours alone.

Wrong. I chose Christianity because of the identity or correspondence of reality with Christian morality. Christianity is the only viable explanation for the way the world was actually created.

It is the highest morality based upon solid definitions, sound premises, and logical conclusions.

And therefore any morality which posits such an extremely high value upon humanity, when compared to the extremely low and base views of other contrary ideologies, must necessarily be “worse” and thus false.

Scary stuff. So you’re telling me that, if morality is subjective as I surmise, then lots of people in the world will disagree with each other over matters of morality? Will they also debate over the correct policies that should be implemented for the public good? Will they disagree as to what the public good is? Will they take to Internet forums to discuss moral issues further? Would it be the case that we’d have an entire tradition of philosophers opining and arguing about morality that extends back for millennia?

You’ve convinced me. It’s a good thing we don’t live in such a world.

What you’re ignoring is that that is all that there would be: discussions with no solutions. No policies would be enacted because any polices which discriminate against anyone would be necessarily rejected because you have no grounds with which to discriminate against those people you are enacting those policies against.

You have no grounds to enforce the “public good” over their morality because according to their morality molesting children and animals is their “good”. They are also part of the “public” therefore their good must also necessarily be your "good."

In your atheistic world the ONLY moral imperative is indiscriminateness. Where no morality is better or worse than any other morality.

Therefore any morality that you try to impose for the “public good” not makes you a hypocrite, but it demonstrates a giant double-standard in regards to your philosophy as a whole.

If you insist you can only own what you make, you can feel free to surrender all of your property now. I’m sure you didn’t make your computer, your house, your land, or your clothes.

I can’t surrender that which I don’t own to begin with.

And eventually I will, and you will too; its called death.

But after death whatever possessions I will have had in life will be as piles of straw, and(to take from C.S. Lewis) “the pleasures derived from them, even the pleasures of virtue itself, will be like the half-nauseating attractions of a raddled harlot” when compared to what I will have with God in heaven.

In any case, you didn’t even address the fact. We don’t own our bodies, so the “consent” argument is absurd.

 

[Amandil]

I repeat…

**(As far as I know the Church has not declared the origin of homosexuality.) **

That was in my previous post against which you object. Obviously I did NOT say the Church agrees that homosexuality is inborn. But, I don’t believe the Church has indicated that it is not inborn.

That’s called an argument from silence. The Church’s lack of pronouncement on the matter is merely that.

It does not follow that you are able to assert something as true, no matter how agreeable you may think it is, that the Church will not. If the Church says that it does not know, then it necessarily follows that you cannot know either. Therefore that can be your only answer.

I noted my point of agreement - that while the ACTIONS are inherently evil, homosexuals, who are wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God, are not to be judged by their orientation. (If we are to judge them at all!)

Your choice of the word “orientation”, which is also a word not used by the Church, also seems to imply that their sex is pre-determined, which the Church does NOT teach.

And quote me where I “judged” them.

Please have the courtesy not to accuse me of scandalizing the Church or bearing false witness. Particularly when you are incorrect in your assessment of what was said. I, like you, am free to present my opinion and expected to accept the reactions to that opinion with Christian grace and forbearance. Throwing stones never advances a conversation.

My “assessment” wasn’t incorrect. You can’t claim to know something that the Church never said is possible to know. It never called their state and “orientation” but a “tendency”; big difference.

 

[Oreoracle]

“Hormones and the like” don’t “impose” choices onto us. We have the free will to act contrary to our “hormones”, people do it all the time.

Maybe so. But the point is that, when I see a beautiful woman and become aroused, I didn’t choose arousal. The arousal was a chemical reaction, not a choice.

I do hope you can at least concede that you didn’t choose to be straight in your teen/pre-teen years. It just happened, am I right? You didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be attracted to the opposite sex in the same way that one chooses a brand of cereal, right?

You can chose who to love, people do it all the time.

I’ll have to disagree based on personal experience. You can choose who to spend time with. You can even choose who to protect or share intimate moments with. You can’t choose who to love.

The problem is your ambiguous definition of “love” as merely the subjective impulse of hormones(which again presupposes materialism, see point 1).

Firstly, that’s not my definition of “love”. I don’t know if I could even define it in clear terms. But I think my generation actually stumbled on a decent criterion for love: You usually love the last person you think about each night. That certainly isn’t a choice in most cases. It’s a sort of obsessive feeling born in part by circumstance, shared history, and chemistry (both literal and figurative).

If “love” is what you say it is, then you still have absolutely no grounds to argue against bestiality, pedophiles, or pederasts either because they can also argue that their lives would be “easier for everyone” if they were allowed to “love” who they wanted.

That’s not even a cogent argument. It makes no sense to say “My life will be easier for everyone.” I can say that my life will be easier, their lives will be easier, or even our lives will be easier, but not that my life will be easier for them.

That’s the problem with taking the position that “love” is intrinsically meritorious and all-excusing.

I didn’t say that love is all-excusing. I said it’s not a choice. The supposed conclusions that follow from this have been provided from you and you alone. I’ve said nothing more than that love is not a choice, and I’ve made no further conclusions in this discussion.

Which is not even a solution. All you done is institutionalize the problem.

Your answer is lazy. Instead of trying to understand the origins of certain behaviors, you dismiss everything as a simple matter of choice, as if every issue were as simple as choosing what to order at a restaurant.

That’s called celibacy.

Celibacy is abstaining from sex. Asexuality is not wanting to have sex. There is a huge difference. You can be one without the other.

 

[Oreoracle]

Wrong. I chose Christianity because of the identity or correspondence of reality with Christian morality.

But there’s nothing special about this sentiment. Take any moral code–any “-ism”–and use this template: “I chose ___ism because of the correspondence of reality with ___ism’s morality.” Everyone thinks their morality is objective, and we can see the problem…

It is the highest morality based upon solid definitions, sound premises, and logical conclusions.

…here. There are no such things as “sound premises”. There are sound arguments, but premises are assumptions (as you’ll see in any introductory logic course). They are not sound or valid, they are just taken for granted for the sake of a logical demonstration. The difference between you and I is that you accepted different premises than I did, probably because of our differing preferences.

No policies would be enacted because any polices which discriminate against anyone would be necessarily rejected because you have no grounds with which to discriminate against those people you are enacting those policies against.

But that is a moral claim, one with which I don’t agree. I don’t blame you, as many on this forum have trouble seeing this. The fact that morality is subjective does not in itself entail any morals. It is simply a descriptive statement that needn’t have any bearing on prescriptions.

Thus, I can acknowledge that I take certain morals for granted (as everyone does) whilst insisting on my own morals over those of others.

I can’t surrender that which I don’t own to begin with.

Could you please send me your bank account information then? What I take shouldn’t bother you seeing as you don’t actually own it.

In any case, you didn’t even address the fact. We don’t own our bodies, so the “consent” argument is absurd.

We have the right to our bodies just as you have the right to the money you’ve earned. Ownership is a social construct. If you’d like to forfeit that construct, then by all means give me your personal information.

 

[Amandil]

But there’s nothing special about this sentiment.

You’re absolutely right, there is nothing “special” about the statement because there is nothing “special” about objective reality, it simply “is”. That’s the definition of “reality”-that which IS independent of our subjective “experience.”

Take any moral code–any “-ism”–and use this template: “I chose ___ism because of the correspondence of reality with ___ism’s morality.” Everyone thinks their morality is objective, and we can see the problem…

Where subjectivism fails and objectivism succeeds is that subjectivism as morality only “works” for you, while a wholly different morality may “work” for the guy who believes its “moral” to clean out your home or murder your loved ones.

You have no real, objective, grounds to argue that his “morality” is immoral without violating the ethic that all morality is subjective.

The ONLY way you could say anything objective about that other person’s immoral behavior is to affirm objectively and absolutely that murder or theft is wrong for everyone, independent of how one may see otherwise.

That’s the only way you could exercise such a morality and be logically consistent. But the problem then(at least for you), is what is the source of any and all morality. If you take the legal positivist approach, that “society” creates morality, then you’re still no better off than the subjectivist because “society” is simply a lot of individuals, and they could be just as wrong and any subjective individual(see American Slavery, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, or Soviet Russia and the Holodomor if you doubt it).

But that is a moral claim, one with which I don’t agree. I don’t blame you, as many on this forum have trouble seeing this. The fact that morality is subjective does not in itself entail any morals. It is simply a descriptive statement that needn’t have any bearing on prescriptions.

Thus, I can acknowledge that I take certain morals for granted (as everyone does) whilst insisting on my own morals over those of others.

So you’re then admitting that you have no problem taking the position of a hypocrite and imposing your morality onto those whom you disagree with?

Could you please send me your bank account information then? What I take shouldn’t bother you seeing as you don’t actually own it.

You don’t own it either, therefore you have no right to the information.

We have the right to our bodies just as you have the right to the money you’ve earned. Ownership is a social construct.

Begging the question. How do you know that the idea that “ownership is a social construct” is not itself a “social construct” and therefore self-invalidating?

 

[Oreoracle]

You have no real, objective, grounds to argue that his “morality” is immoral without violating the ethic that all morality is subjective.

This is your misunderstanding. The statement that morality is subjective is not an ethic. It’s just a description.

Let’s use an analogy. Consider these two statements: 1) There is no objective reason to have a favorite color. 2) My favorite color is blue. Are these statements contradictory?

I would assert that they aren’t. A person can observe that choosing a favorite color is a “baseless” decision in that one cannot prove the superiority of a color without assuming it to begin with, and at the same time still have a favorite color without being a hypocrite.

Furthermore, since I have a favorite color, I would insist that that color be used as often as possible in spite of others’ preferences. There really is no contradiction here.

 

[Amandil]

Maybe so. But the point is that, when I see a beautiful woman and become aroused, I didn’t choose arousal. The arousal was a chemical reaction, not a choice.

If it was purely hormonal you’d be aroused by every women you encounter, regardless of your opinion of their beauty. You choose to be aroused because you take the image of her as “beautiful” in your mind and then objectify it. I’m sure that there are plenty of beautiful women that exist in the world that you are not aroused by.

Again, that’s a choice you made, not predetermined.

I do hope you can at least concede that you didn’t choose to be straight in your teen/pre-teen years. It just happened, am I right? You didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be attracted to the opposite sex in the same way that one chooses a brand of cereal, right?

As I said, “sex” is not a choice, its what we are created with. “Gender” is a farce.

Same-sex attraction is one thing, choosing to act on it is wholly different.

I’ll have to disagree based on personal experience. You can choose who to spend time with. You can even choose who to protect or share intimate moments with. You can’t choose who to love.

You’re conflating “love” with emotional sentiments, the feelings of “love” with the act of love.

Choosing who to spend time with IS choosing who to love. Choosing to protect or share intimate moments ARE acts of love.

Just as you can choose to do those things for people who you have no emotional attachment at all to; those are also acts of love.

Firstly, that’s not my definition of “love”. I don’t know if I could even define it in clear terms. But I think my generation actually stumbled on a decent criterion for love: You usually love the last person you think about each night. That certainly isn’t a choice in most cases. It’s a sort of obsessive feeling born in part by circumstance, shared history, and chemistry (both literal and figurative).

The Church’s definition of love is rather simple and profound: desiring the highest good for the beloved.

That’s not even a cogent argument. It makes no sense to say “My life will be easier for everyone.” I can say that my life will be easier, their lives will be easier, or even our lives will be easier, but not that my life will be easier for them.

Rabbit trail.

I didn’t say that love is all-excusing. I said it’s not a choice. The supposed conclusions that follow from this have been provided from you and you alone. I’ve said nothing more than that love is not a choice, and I’ve made no further conclusions in this discussion.

Now you’re getting pedantic?

You asserted that homosexuals , or frankly anyone, should be free to love who they want to love. Yes or no?

You asserted that love, like all other things pertaining to morality as you see it, are wholly subjective things(meaning that whatever or however they are defined is wholly dependent upon the individual), correct or no?

Therefore it follows that from those assumptions that “love”(as defined by those subjects) is necessarily “all-excusing” because you affirm that anyone should be free to love who they want, yes or no?

Your answer is lazy. Instead of trying to understand the origins of certain behaviors, you dismiss everything as a simple matter of choice, as if every issue were as simple as choosing what to order at a restaurant.

it’s not “lazy”. Its just radically simple. The problem isn’t my problem, but yours

Celibacy is abstaining from sex. Asexuality is not wanting to have sex.

That’s a distinction without a difference, regardless of what you say.

 

[Amandil]

This is your misunderstanding. The statement that morality is subjective is not an ethic. It’s just a description.

Let’s use an analogy. Consider these two statements: 1) There is no objective reason to have a favorite color. 2) My favorite color is blue. Are these statements contradictory?

I would assert that they aren’t. A person can observe that choosing a favorite color is a “baseless” decision in that one cannot prove the superiority of a color without assuming it to begin with, and at the same time still have a favorite color without being a hypocrite.

Furthermore, since I have a favorite color, I would insist that that color be used as often as possible in spite of others’ preferences. There really is no contradiction here.

Apples and oranges. Its frankly quite absurd to compare someone’s choice of a favorite color with the preference to do things which are intrinsically immoral.

 

[Oreoracle]

For future reference, Amandil: When I say “love”, I am referring to the emotion, not to the actions that emotion prompts. I think the reason to distinguish emotions from actions should be obvious; you can control actions, but not emotions. A second reason is that you can commit an “act of love” without actually loving someone. I can act in the best interest of a stranger (“wish the highest good for the beloved”), but it seems odd to say that that implies my love for them. I could, in fact, detest them.

If it was purely hormonal you’d be aroused by every women you encounter, regardless of your opinion of their beauty.

Umm…no. Look at non-human animals, for instance. Males always prefer females with certain features. Attraction prioritizes certain traits over others.

You choose to be aroused because you take the image of her as “beautiful” in your mind and then objectify it. I’m sure that there are plenty of beautiful women that exist in the world that you are not aroused by.

You misinterpreted what I meant by “beauty”. “Pretty” is perhaps a better word; attractiveness due to looks. It wouldn’t make sense to say that you aren’t attracted to a pretty girl, as pretty things are attractive by definition. To say it’s not attractive is to say it’s not pretty.

Same-sex attraction is one thing, choosing to act on it is wholly different.

I’ve only been arguing for the emotional/hormonal attraction. I’m not talking about “acts”, just feelings. The feelings aren’t chosen.

You asserted that homosexuals , or frankly anyone, should be free to love who they want to love. Yes or no?

Again, I’m only speaking of feelings. Obviously I don’t think we should (or even can) police people’s feelings.

That’s a distinction without a difference, regardless of what you say.

You’re really telling me that there’s no difference between not doing something and not wanting to do something? So if someone undergoes an intense diet, you take it that they don’t want to eat chocolate cake and other sweets?

Apples and oranges. Its frankly quite absurd to compare someone’s choice of a favorite color with the preference to do things which are intrinsically immoral.

Whatever. I gave you a solid argument. Your refusal to address it is inconsequential and expected.

 

[chefmomster2]

That’s called an argument from silence. The Church’s lack of pronouncement on the matter is merely flat.

It does not follow that you are able to assert something as true, no matter how agreeable you may think it is, that the Church will not. If the Church says that it does not know, then it necessarily follows that you cannot know either. Therefore that can be your only answer.

I find your arguments quite ingenuous. For the third time-----
As far as I know the Church has not declared the origin of homosexuality.

I am not at all interested in word games. What I do know is that homosexuality exists in society. It has existed for ages. It will likely continue to exist. The Church declares homosexual acts to be sinful. The Church is beautifully consistent in her argument. Sex outside of marriage is sinful.

Your choice of the word “orientation”, which is also a word not used by the Church, also seems to imply that their sex is pre-determined, which the Church does NOT teach.

Just another word game. You say it implies pre-destination. I don’t. I use the word exactly the way millions of people accept the word in modern parlance.

And quote me where I “judged” them.

I didn’t say you judged them. I say only that judgment is reserved for God.

My “assessment” wasn’t incorrect. You can’t claim to know something that the Church never said is possible to know. It never called their state and “orientation” but a “tendency”; big difference.

Another word game. You were inaccurate. You chastised me for claiming that the Church had pronounced an opinion on the origin of homosexuality. I didn’t. You were wrong. It’s simple.

You are pulling a bait-and-switch, you complain about one item, but them claim you were not wrong because of a totally different point. Word games are no substitute for open-minded and fair-minded discussions. It does not further the discussion.

I wish you well.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I didn’t say that the stipulations are without motivation; there’s a difference between a normative claim and its motivation. Ironically enough, you actually answered your question of the basis of morality for me. We say pederasty is wrong because we find it disgusting. I’m not making a meta-ethical statement here and saying that we “should” say something is wrong because it’s disgusting (repugnant, etc.–whatever term you prefer), I’m merely stating the fact that we do. It’s no coincidence that our morals always coincide with our preferences.

And I think it’s obvious enough that disgust is not a matter of choice. You can’t choose what appeals to you.

You’re not even making sense now. To argue that “we” find pederasty wrong is meaningless, unless you are referring to the majority of modern humanity within the west, or the majority of heterosexuals. Clearly, there is a substantial number of people who find pederasty enjoyable. At one time in the 1960s, a large number of the outspoken gay rights activists defended it, argued on behalf of NAMBLA as an organization that should be included in gay rights parades, and were dues-paying members. (This is not to argue that all did, and there were many who opposed NAMBLA. But their voices were not widely heard until later, for a number of reasons, and pederasty was widely practiced within the gay community in the 1960s and 1970s, even by icons like Harvey Milk.)

I find pederasty abominable and an abomination, and I have no doubt you do as well. But there are many who find it enjoyable, and through history, some cultures (classical Greek, Spartan, Samurai) perhaps even had majorities who practiced it, or at least condoned it. So no, our morals do not always coincide with our preferences, either individually or culturally.

I would also note that there are any number of immoral actions that don’t coincide with our preferences, despite your claim. I recognize Natural Law, as well as Divine Command, as the basis for my moral decisions even when they don’t align with my knee-jerk preferences. I don’t think you have really thought your argument through.

Materialism does not provide any basis for making any claim for objective morality, or for saying that a specific culture’s approval of such an abomination as pederasty is wrong in and of itself, and not simply because it arouses an aesthetic feeling of disgust or other negative emotions in decent people - Feeling disgust at a homosexual relationship between a man and a boy is (based on a materialist view) simply an aesthetic decision on your part, and holds no greater import than one’s preference for classic rock over country and western.

 

[Amandil]

For future reference, Amandil: When I say “love”, I am referring to the emotion, not to the actions that emotion prompts. I think the reason to distinguish emotions from actions should be obvious; you can control actions, but not emotions. A second reason is that you can commit an “act of love” without actually loving someone. I can act in the best interest of a stranger (“wish the highest good for the beloved”), but it seems odd to say that that implies my love for them. I could, in fact, detest them.

According to classic philosophy and Christian tradition the feelings of love are ultimately secondary to the to the acts of love and are directed to that end, not vice-versa.

Umm…no. Look at non-human animals, for instance. Males always prefer females with certain features. Attraction prioritizes certain traits over others.

This is the perfect example of materialism and its use of the naturalistic fallacy(deriving more from less).

We are not animals. To derive morality of human acts from the acts of the animal world(which is also necessarily fallen due to original sin), is absurd.

You misinterpreted what I meant by “beauty”. “Pretty” is perhaps a better word; attractiveness due to looks. It wouldn’t make sense to say that you aren’t attracted to a pretty girl, as pretty things are attractive by definition. To say it’s not attractive is to say it’s not pretty.

Another distinction without a difference. My point still stands.

I’ve only been arguing for the emotional/hormonal attraction. I’m not talking about “acts”, just feelings. The feelings aren’t chosen.

Feelings are not chosen, but we can choose to control our feelings instead of permitting them to control us.

Again, I’m only speaking of feelings. Obviously I don’t think we should (or even can) police people’s feelings.

But we can(and do) police acts. And any society has a moral obligation to protect people, even in many instances from themselves.

You’re really telling me that there’s no difference between not doing something and not wanting to do something? So if someone undergoes an intense diet, you take it that they don’t want to eat chocolate cake and other sweets?

One necessarily follows from the other. Someone who insists he’s “asexual” isn’t going to be, in the words of Sheldon Cooper, “fornicatin’ like a demonic weasel.”

No. Instead he’s going to be practicing celibacy.

Whatever. I gave you a solid argument. Your refusal to address it is inconsequential and expected.

Because it was absurd.

You make a self-contradictory remark:

The statement that morality is subjective is not an ethic. It’s just a description.

Seriously? ANY statement regarding morality is an ethic because ethics is the science of morality. Therefore any attempt to “describe” morality is necessarily an ethical statement.

Secondly, there are no real moral or ethical consequences to having a favorite color. There are real moral and ethical consequences to homosexual acts, both physically and spiritually.

So again, such a comparison is absurd.

Finally, to approve of homosexuality based upon the idea that one should be “free to love who they want”, while in the same vein reject pedophiles and pederasts their pursuits, IS in fact hypocrisy and a double-standard which you have no real grounds to impose, except by force.

 

[Amandil]

I find your arguments quite ingenuous.

Which seems to say more about you than my “arguments”.

For the third time-----
As far as I know the Church has not declared the origin of homosexuality.

And again, this does not grant you the right to make any positive statement in regards to the origin of homosexuality either.

I am not at all interested in word games.

I’m not the ne playing “word games”. Words matter. Clarity of speech matters. And the Church is very clear that it does not teach that homosexuality does not originate in the creation of a human person by God. Therefore using the term “orientation”(which is a term coined not buy the Church but by people seeking to legitimize homosexuality among public opinion) is misleading.

What I do know is that homosexuality exists in society. It has existed for ages. It will likely continue to exist.

And this is suppose to be proof of what exactly?

The Church declares homosexual acts to be sinful. The Church is beautifully consistent in her argument. Sex outside of marriage is sinful.

I’m glad we can at least agree in this.

Just another word game. You say it implies pre-destination. I don’t. I use the word exactly the way millions of people accept the word in modern parlance.

I never said it “implies pre-destination”, I said it seems to imply that their sexual “orientation” is predetermined(i.e. “born that way”).

Secondly, just because “millions of people” accept something doesn’t make it true. That’s called the “thousand Scotsman fallacy”.

I didn’t say you judged them. I say only that judgment is reserved for God.

Good.

Another word game. You were inaccurate. You chastised me for claiming that the Church had pronounced an opinion on the origin of homosexuality. I didn’t. You were wrong. It’s simple.

That’s not at all accurate. I pointed out to you that you can’t make a pronouncement about homosexuality that the Church hasn’t made.

It was the other person who actually asserted that the Church taught that homosexuals were “born” homosexual.

You are pulling a bait-and-switch, you complain about one item, but them claim you were not wrong because of a totally different point. Word games are no substitute for open-minded and fair-minded discussions. It does not further the discussion.

I wish you well.

Whatever you say.

 

[Oreoracle]

According to classic philosophy and Christian tradition the feelings of love are ultimately secondary to the to the acts of love and are directed to that end, not vice-versa.

I don’t care whether you think acts have priority over feelings. It is still useful to be able to distinguish between the two. The fact is that if you refuse to make such distinctions, even basic communication can become difficult, and language is about communication.

We are not animals.

To derive morality of human acts from the acts of the animal world(which is also necessarily fallen due to original sin), is absurd.

Firstly, I was just using the animals to illustrate something which should have been obvious to any straight male: some women get the juices flowing more than others. To act as if the sex drive doesn’t discriminate is just to deny reality.

Secondly, it’s not a derivation of morality. It is again just a simple description. It is a fact that some females (and conversely, males) are more attractive than others and that the sex drive will continue to discriminate in that manner. Now you can derive any ethics you wish from that fact, but it’s still a fact.

Feelings are not chosen, but we can choose to control our feelings instead of permitting them to control us.

So if we agree on the definition of “homosexuality” as “attraction to the same sex”, you would concur that homosexuals can’t prevent their own homosexuality? It is an attraction inflicted quite beyond our control by nature/God/whatever, yes?

One necessarily follows from the other. Someone who insists he’s “asexual” isn’t going to be, in the words of Sheldon Cooper, “fornicatin’ like a demonic weasel.”

No, no it doesn’t. Many asexual people still want a partner even though they don’t want sex, and they have sex to please the other person. Some also try to deny their asexuality just as some gays try to be straight.

This is the problem with the view that the separation of actions from feelings is a “distinction without a difference”. You end up with a ludicrously oversimplified worldview. The world is messy, and people have conflicting desires. To act as if a subset of a person’s desires makes their actions “necessarily follow” is to pretend that humans are perfectly consistent. This oversimplification also makes you more inclined to believe that everything boils down to choice, which is itself an oversimplification.

Seriously? ANY statement regarding morality is an ethic because ethics is the science of morality. Therefore any attempt to “describe” morality is necessarily an ethical statement.

I suppose you could be stubborn and insist that my statement was “meta-ethical”, since it was a statement about ethics, but it certainly wasn’t just “ethical”.

For example, consider the statement “All laws of physics are related to the four fundamental forces”. Is this a law of physics? Or, a more extreme example: “A string quartet is a group of four musicians that perform with string instruments.” Would uttering that statement qualify as a musical composition?

No, you can describe a discipline without participating in the discipline itself. In this case, I can describe how ethics are used without moralizing just as I can describe music without composing.

Secondly, there are no real moral or ethical consequences to having a favorite color. There are real moral and ethical consequences to homosexual acts, both physically and spiritually.

If you look back, you’ll notice that I called my argument an “analogy”, as in “These two things are not exactly the same but they have similarities which are relevant to my point”.