How can a loving God create then condemn a homosexual being?

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Start another thread about pedophilia. This thread is not about that.
 
What do you mean that Adam and Eve deserve less compassion? 😶 After the death, resurrection of Christ - God showed Adam and Eve compassion and he did even after the fall. Except for the Virgin Mary, I doubt if any of us would have been better than Adam and Eve.
 
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Wesrock said:
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Senyorico:
But why would the act be a sin if it would be consensual and “natural” for them since (assuming) they are born to have that attraction?
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It’s not natural in the sense that it’s a failure of their nature to have developed and manifested properly.
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If some people are predisposed to be gay because of their genes or because of what appear to be natural processes in the womb such as the “fraternal birth order effect,” I have a difficult time seeing how this is a “failure of their nature.” Genetic mutations which have produced these genes are part of a natural and normal process in all living species. And many genetic mutations in humans and other living species occur spontaneously because of errors in the copying of DNA during cell division. Sperm precursor cells divide every 15 days so that the average male will produce approximately 525 billion sperm cells over a lifetime. A twenty year old man will have on average 25 de novo mutations in his sperm and a forty year old man will have sixty-five de novo mutations. Considering how often the copying process takes place and in billions of cells, it’s amazing that so few mutations occur. Some of these mutations are harmless, but some are not. And without mutations, there would be no evolution:
A mutation is a change in DNA, the hereditary material of life. An organism’s DNA affects how it looks, how it behaves, and its physiology. So a change in an organism’s DNA can cause changes in all aspects of its life. Mutations are essential to evolution ; they are the raw material of genetic variation. Without mutation, evolution could not occur.
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https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/mutations_01

I don’t believe that these mutations and the evolution that results from it are a result of “the Fall.” Some mutations, of course, have been harmful to humans such as the ones that cause schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or ADHD. But others have been beneficial such as the one that allows many of us to digest dairy products. And some are pleasing to look at such as the one that makes about 17% of us have blue eyes. And without mutations, we wouldn’t have all the varieties of birds we have. We wouldn’t have zebras or all the other amazing variety in the natural world around us.

Because of all this variety, I believe that homosexuality is just another example of it, and something that is a normal variation in human beings. And why God has allowed this I don’t know. But I also don’t know why He allowed some of us to have blue eyes or why He allowed some members of the horse family to have stripes.
 
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"Miller explained that the origin of a person’s sexual orientation, whether biological, environmental, or experiential, had no bearing on what the Church teaches about the morality of acting on a particular sexual urge.

“These teachings do not depend on any assumption regarding the cause of the tendency or inclination,” he said.

“Even if it could be shown that a homosexual tendency or orientation is wholly biologically determined, this would not affect at all the logic underlying the Church’s teaching.” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...--what-that-means-for-catholic-morality-44728
 
Junk science and its perpetrators seek to justify any and all things immoral and/or amoral. Life is too short to read all such bilge, but what they do not say is at least as important as what they do say. Am guessing that some of these “factors” are also found in heterosexuals. And what of bisexuals or those who switch preferences? Is there a gene for the desire to switch? A fickle gene? A culturally sensitive gene? In all matters sexual these days, it seems the perverse emperor has no clothes.

As to God condemning, He judges. Just as there are unchanging laws of physics, there are also unchanging laws of morality. Deviation from the established manner of human reproduction (as with ALL matters of morality) is a rebellion against God at some level. Never mind that he physiology of it all makes no sense - it even opposes Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. This opens the door to persecution and elimination of these individuals by any of a series of megalomaniacs who grasp power over others. We saw this quite recently, actually.

The Church alone teaches compassion - and for right reason.
 
Thorolfr said:
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Wesrock:
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Senyorico:
But why would the act be a sin if it would be consensual and “natural” for them since (assuming) they are born to have that attraction?
Click to expand...
It’s not natural in the sense that it’s a failure of their nature to have developed and manifested properly.
Click to expand...
If some people are predisposed to be gay because of their genes or because of what appear to be natural processes in the womb such as the “fraternal birth order effect,” I have a difficult time seeing how this is a “failure of their nature.” Genetic mutations which have produced these genes are part of a natural and normal process in all living species. And many genetic mutations in humans and other living species occur spontaneously because of errors in the copying of DNA during cell division.
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Yes, “it happens in nature” is not at what is meant. I’m very much aware of DNA and genetics are and how those processes work. What your describing, though, is how through secondary causes there can be factors which inhibit the full manifestation of a nature. What matters is what human nature qua human nature is ordered towards and how it’s healthily expressed, which doesn’t always happen. That in itself isn’t a moral issue; morality comes into play with rational choices.
 
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[I use the word “gay” in the colloquial, commonly understood contemporary sense. No endorsement is intended.]

From all indications, some people may be “born gay”. They say they are, they think they are. Who can say? The verdict is still out. Gay behavior is even seen in the animal kingdom.

Nonetheless, this points to a brokenness in human nature. It is not God’s plan, but He may allow it to happen due to original sin, which corrupted not just mankind, but the whole universe. Even Jewish mysticism points to the world being broken and needing to be put back together (tikkun olam).

I would also add that the gay lifestyle is now portrayed in the secular media and entertainment as being glamorous, wholesome, fulfilling, and a sign of smartness and sensitivity. Simply put, it has become “cool” to be gay, and “homophobia” is seen as being as bad as racism. Given this backdrop, I have to think that many people, especially young people, are tempted to give it a try, decide they like it, and “become gay”, while in times past there was a profound social stigma and “giving it a try” wouldn’t even have occurred to them. Given this secular mindset, I think we are going to see a whole lot more practicing gay people than we would have otherwise seen.

I am not defending this. Gay sex is an abomination. But the world doesn’t agree.
 
I think the abomination thing is over.

The bible isnt a complete time machine and some of it is designed for a different time e.g the farming advice in Levicitus isnt mentioned at mass when im at it. Priests seem to agree that while the bible is the foundation of the Western World we dont need to do everything in it.
 
Wesrock said:
Yes, “it happens in nature” is not at what is meant. I’m very much aware of DNA and genetics are and how those processes work. What matters is what human nature qua human nature is ordered towards and how it’s healthily expressed, which doesn’t always happen. That in itself isn’t a moral issue; morality comes into play with rational choices.
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That still doesn’t explain why God would create special burdens and hardships for some people at least partially because of genetic mutations and through no fault of their own. And the most usual reply that l encounter here in CAF is that straight people also have their own “crosses” (they also can’t have sex outside of marriage) just doesn’t seem very convincing because many of them have far less burdensome “crosses.” A straight person can at least have sex within marriage and have an intimate relationship and about 90% of them do get married at least once by the age of 50. Many gay people, on the other hand, have the much heavier burden of being told that they can never have sex or an intimate relationship of the type that married couples do. So, why does God allow innocent people to have mutations that make them prone to sinful acts whereas other mutations only affect their eye color which doesn’t put them into a situation of being more likely to act in a sinful way?
 
At the beginning of your post you say that people might be gay because they were born that way and then later on you say that some people might decide to try gay sex because it’s cool and become gay as a result. That seems a little contradictory. Most gay people I know knew they were gay well before they ever had a gay sexual experience, not after they first had a gay sexual experience.
 
Thorolfr said:
So, why does God allow innocent people to have mutations that make them prone to sinful acts whereas other mutations only affect their eye color which doesn’t put them into a situation of being more likely to act in a sinful way?
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Only He knows.

People have sinful inclinations that they are possibly born with — alcoholics, pedophiles, kleptomaniacs, compulsive liars, pugnaciousness, the list goes on. It’s part of the brokenness of human nature. Some people have heavier crosses than others. Some people have to struggle against things that other people don’t. It doesn’t seem fair to us right now, but one day we will know why, if He chooses to tell us.

One thing I have always found beautiful about Catholicism is the utter fairness of it all. Catholic morality applies straight across the board to everyone, there are no exceptions, nobody gets a free pass because they don’t “believe” in it, don’t “like” it, what have you. There is objective morality and it doesn’t change. True, there are mitigating factors, but right and wrong, good and evil, do not depend on what the believer “thinks” about it.

That said, some people have a harder time than others do. That’s unfortunate. That shouldn’t be. But it is. We have to live our lives with the cards we’ve been dealt. People struggle with different things.

A temporal analogy might be that gravity poses more difficulties for obese people than for thin people, or that breathing is harder for asthmatics than for those who don’t have asthma.
 
Thorolfr said:
At the beginning of your post you say that people might be gay because they were born that way and then later on you say that some people might decide to try gay sex because it’s cool and become gay as a result. That seems a little contradictory. Most gay people I know knew they were gay well before they ever had a gay sexual experience, not after they first had a gay sexual experience.
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Sorry if my wording was imprecise. Some people say they were born gay. Some people try gay sex out of curiosity and find out they like it. It depends on the person.

Trying gay sex out of curiosity used to be seen as perverse and disordered. It was taboo. Now it’s seen as a healthy, normal, enjoyable, fun, “hip”, “cool” thing — “how do you know if you never try it?” is the world’s message. Big difference.

(And no, in case anyone’s wondering, I am not gay, I have never tried it, I have never wanted to try it. Just to lay that to rest.)
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
Only He knows.

People have sinful inclinations that they are possibly born with — alcoholics, pedophiles, kleptomaniacs, compulsive liars, pugnaciousness, the list goes on. It’s part of the brokenness of human nature. Some people have heavier crosses than others.
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It’s not the “brokenness of human nature” in my opinion. It’s a result of the way our bodies have been created with a tendency for a certain number of spontaneous errors to occur in the copying of the DNA in our cells. It’s part of evolution.
 
Demanding answers from God for our crosses is not a very productive exercise. We all have them. And we all tend to think ours are the heaviest.

The end point is sexuality is, it is ordered to the existence of human beings, and to the the flourishing of those human beings with a mother and father. That is simply the way we are made physically. You don’t have to say anything negative about homosexuality to observe that.
And at the same time I will agree, that cross is heavy and I can appreciate that it asks for pastoral sensitivity, especially in the culture we currently live in which overemphasizes sexual expression.
 
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Thorolfr said:
It’s not the “brokenness of human nature” in my opinion. It’s a result of the way our bodies have been created with a tendency for a certain number of spontaneous errors to occur in the copying of the DNA in our cells. It’s part of evolution.
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Those “spontaneous errors” are part of the brokenness. Maybe human nature isn’t the right term. Maybe “human condition” is more accurate.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
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Thorolfr:
It’s not the “brokenness of human nature” in my opinion. It’s a result of the way our bodies have been created with a tendency for a certain number of spontaneous errors to occur in the copying of the DNA in our cells. It’s part of evolution.
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Those “spontaneous errors” are part of the brokenness. Maybe human nature isn’t the right term. Maybe “human condition” is more accurate.
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But I wouldn’t consider the mutation that occurred about 10,000 years ago that makes my eyes blue to be something “broken.” It’s just a matter of chance that one mutation gave me blue eyes but some other ones might have predisposed me to be gay.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
One thing I have always found beautiful about Catholicism is the utter fairness of it all.
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It probably seems especially fair to those who don’t have much difficulty living according to most of its requirements. For some others, I’m sure it doesn’t seem all that fair that they have, through no fault of their own, a much more difficult time living according to its requirements.
 
“Tikkun olam” means that G-d intentionally created the world with holes needing repair. It is up to mankind to repair the holes in the world by means of the good deeds and works they do for others, their community, their country, their planet. Thus the partnership between G-d and humanity can be maintained, because G-d responds in kind to the good behavior of humans. There is no Fall in Judaism, no original sin. The world was created imperfectly by G-d Himself for a specific reason.
 
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