How can homosexuality be immoral or contrary to natural ends if there is a genetic/evolutionary/biological reason for it?

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A common Catholic interpretation of the Old Testament (one that is as old as the early Church) would say that God in fact never ordered the killing of innocent people, because the Old Testament is not meant to be read journalistically.

In other words, by using divinely inspired human beings to convey His morality, rather than stating it DIRECTLY, by definition morality is subjective.
People can distort and do intellectual gymnastics with what somebody is saying and this happens all the time. Jesus was in fact God speaking to people directly but that hasn’t stopped critics or those with agendas from using the Gospel opportunistically and advantageously.
 
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The key point is thus: God never provided his morality.
Recall that the Christian understands Christ to be God incarnate, and yes, men wrote the book. But regardless, I don’t seek to prove that God directly conveyed the rules of morality. I wrote:
It is only absolute when the act in focus specifically opposes what we understand to be divinely forbidden.
Your assertion is that ”our understanding” is not well founded. You are entitled to that view, as we are entitled to another view, ultimately restin on faith.
In other words, by using divinely inspired human beings to convey His morality, rather than stating it DIRECTLY, by definition morality is subjective.
By our faith we hold to an objective morality (in the way I explained that earlier).
 
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Would you like me to identify all the times God killed innocent people or ordered the killing of innocents?
Please do. Be careful, though: the context is not what you may have heard it is, from “cultural Catholics” and the History Channel… 😉
Christians claim he used divinely inspired men to communicate it. However, it is just as reasonable to claim these men had personal agendas and only conveyed their personal opinions, perhaps being delusional or just promoting their own morality.
So, here’s the thing: to say that is to say that Christ was mistaken when he said that the gates of hell would never prevail against His Church. If God has allowed the Church to state untruth as doctrine, then satan has already won. So… which is it? Is Christ correct… or is He mistaken and satan is victorious? 🤔
In other words, by using divinely inspired human beings to convey His morality, rather than stating it DIRECTLY, by definition morality is subjective.
You realize that Christ affirmed the ten commandments, right? That would seem like a rather ‘direct’ affirmation of divine law… 😉
 
Like I said if homosexuality is a mutuation then its one that does not help.

As in evolution the most important function is to pass your genes to the next generation.
As the evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson has pointed out in some of his books, it’s not so important for an individual to pass his own genes on, but rather to insure that the genes of his kinship group are passed on. So, if a gay man by helping his kin does things that increase the likelihood that the genes of his brothers and sisters will be passed on, it’s not much different from passing his own genes on since he shares much of his DNA with his siblings. It’s the group effort in a family to pass on genes that is most important, not the individual effort.
 
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In other words, Christian morality doesn’t come from God.
You have no more capacity to prove God is not the source of morality than anyone else can prove the reverse. Of course, the writers of Scripture may have perpetrated a huge hoax.
Evaluation of such a claim is, of course, subjective - and that makes morality subjective.
This is absurd. The system of morality that the Catholic Faith proclaims rests on objective principles. That is simply factual - there are acts catholic moral theology holds as wrong and which admit no exception. That’s fact. YOU are welcome to hold that those claimed truths can’t be proven in some human mathematical sense as true. No one will leap to their feet and present a proof.
 
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Well, to be fair then Jesus never said anything about homosexuality being wrong.
Ahh, but he told folks to listen to their religious leaders, who followed the Mosaic law. And the Mosaic law had quite a few things to say against homosexual acts!
In other words, Christian morality doesn’t come from God. It comes from humans claiming to be speaking for God.
Again, no: Jesus spoke to morality and gave us instruction. That’s not merely “a human claiming” things…
I am just saying such declarations are clearly subjective and not absolute.
No, that’s an invalid conclusion. If you want to say that you’re required to make a personal decision whether to accept them or not, then I’d agree. However, that doesn’t mean that the items on which you’re deciding are themselves subjective.
The closest you can come is that because Jesus was God, his statements constitute absolute morality. This of course makes sense for Catholics, but 7 out of 8 people don’t believe Jesus was God - so even that is subjective.
Again, invalid extrapolation. The fact that someone doesn’t believe that there was a moon landing doesn’t make the moon landing itself “subjective”: there’s an actual objective answer out there – it’s just that some folks do not want to accept it.
 
And if that is the case, anything stated by a human cannot be absolute - hence all morality is subjective.
I guess you’ll need to wait for God to “personally” meet up with you. 😂
This of course makes sense for Catholics, but 7 out of 8 people don’t believe Jesus was God - so even that is subjective.
What you are calling subjective and I am explaining is objective are quite different things. I am referring to a set of principles - you are referring to their standing.
 
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explicit genetic/evolutionary/biological reason for it
There’s an “explicit genetic/evolutionary/biological reason” for a male of the species to sire as many offspring possible by as many females as he can manage to rut with. That tells us nothing about how we ought to live.

We can comb through the animal kingdom and find precedents for pretty much any sort of imaginable behavior. But in themselves, those precedents say nothing about what is moral or fitting for us. No serious ethical system (secular OR religious) has ever held that our genetic/evolutionary imperatives and our moral obligations are perfectly consonant.
 
As the evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson has pointed out in some of his books, it’s not so important for an individual to pass his own genes on, but rather to insure that the genes of his kinship group are passed on. So, if a gay man by helping his kin does things that increase the likelihood that the genes of his brothers and sisters will be passed on, it’s not much different from passing his own genes on since he shares much of his DNA with his siblings. It’s the group effort in a family to pass on genes that is most important, not the individual effort.

yes i know its called kin selection ,and kin selection applies to certian groups like humans and few others

also study following Bobrow and Bailey (2001), aimed to test the kin selection theory of homosexuality in human males using a survey design. A total of 60 heterosexual and 60 homosexual men from England completed items measuring psychological and behavioral indices of “special design” as predicted by adaptation due to kin selection. There were no significant differences between heterosexual and homosexual men in general familial affinity, generous feelings (willingness to provide financial and emotional resources), and benevolent tendencies (such as willingness to baby-sit). These remained non-significant after co-varying for level of personal income (higher among homosexual men), psychological gender, and interest in children. Overall, little support was found for the kin selection theory in a community sample.

so yes homosexuality its self does not grant any evolutinary advatages what you arguded would be true if the homosexuals in the study where more compasionate that teir straight counter part but that is not a case…
so like i said homosexuality (if it is genetic) provides no real advatage using darwimian selection or kin selection .
 
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Bestiality is acknowledged animal cruelty and is against the law.
  1. Why is it animal cruelty? How do you know if the animals like it or not? They’re animals, programmed to have sex to continue the species. They probably don’t care one way or the other.
  2. Against the law? So what? So was abortion…until it wasn’t. So was a glass of beer or wine…until it wasn’t. So was homosexual activity…until it wasn’t. So was women voting…until it wasn’t. Slavery was in keeping with the law…until it wasn’t.
My point here is that ‘against the law’ doesn’t necessarily relate to morality.
 
Well, then define “absolute”
Red herring. We’re talking about “objective” vs “subjective”, not “absolute”.
1+1=2 is absolute, because we all would agree.
The definition of ‘absolute’ isn’t “we all agree”. That standard is known as the “argumentum ad populum” fallacy. 😉
When you say “Homosexuality is wrong”, even if I agree that if God declares it as such, and God is the absolute truth of all as He is omniscient and omnipotent, you STILL cannot say it is or isn’t absolute (one way or the other) because first, God didn’t say it, and second, God’s existence is subjective.
So, let me get you straight: “even if [you] agree that God declares it”, because you assert that “God didn’t say it”. Umm… if you agree that God declares it, how could it simultaneously be the case that “God didn’t say it”? You realize that you’ve just contradicted yourself… right?
God’s existence is subjective.
No – God’s existence is objective: either He exists, or He doesn’t. Your belief in His existence is what might be subjective. That’s a rather significant distinction. 😉
Even conceding that, you are nowhere near close to declaring any moral statement as absolute.
You’re still moving the goalposts, friend. The question is whether it’s “objective” or “subjective”. If you concede that God exists and that He directly communicates his morality… then you’ve just conceded the objective nature of the assertion. 👍
I know your claim is that it MUST be true or false - but the fact is we can never know for sure. This is getting very deep philosophically
You’re conflating “did this event happen?” with “do we know that it happened?”. The former has an objective value; the latter is a subjective assessment of an objective truth. That’s not “very deep philosophically”; it’s pretty straightforward. Your attempts to bring your notion of “absolute” into the discussion merely obfuscates the issue.
 
So I wasn’t clear here.
Clear enough, apparently, because you continue to make the same logical error:
Let’s assume I AGREE that IF God says homosexuality is wrong… even if I concede that, you have gotten no further because God has said no such thing
Let’s review: if you concede that God says something, then you’ve conceded that He has said it. :roll_eyes:

Care to try again?
Again, please define objective then. You will be painting yourself into a corner if you do, because there is no ‘objective’ evidence God exists. I am doing you a favor here.
Yes, you really are. You’re demonstrating the weakness of your logic.

You’re conflating “objective truth” with “evidence of objective truth”. They’re not the same thing. Think of it this way: let’s suppose that black holes exist, as an objective truth. The lack of evidence of this objective truth does not demonstrate that the assertion is not objectively true; rather, it just says that it is not (yet?) proven by virtue of empirical evidence. You’d look rather foolish if you were to assert that it was not objectively true that black holes existed back in 100 A.D. 😉
“objectively immoral”:
  1. A supernatural omnipotent, omniscient being is the objective source of morality
  2. Such a being exists
  3. This being has incontrovertibly declared a moral framework without discrepancy
Your third point is a subjective evaluation. In other words, you’re begging the question. Sorry. 🤷‍♂️
Is that better? Even if you concede #1, I still have to provide #2 and #3. If I can’t do that, my claim is not objectively true.
No. It’s just not proven. It might be true, but still unproven as yet. That’s the distinction that you fail to be making here.
 
In other words, Christian morality doesn’t come from God. It comes from humans claiming to be speaking for God. Evaluation of such a claim is, of course, subjective - and that makes morality subjective.
Nope. Morality is based on natural law. One can argue for Catholic morality through reason alone, without even cracking open the Bible or appealing to any magisterial documents. Even the pagans understood it. The Church just says that the natural law has a Divine origin, in the eternal law found in God.
 
I am stating “homosexuality is wrong” is a subjective statement …
In reading your posts, I think you make the broader claim:
There are no objectively valid and universally tenable moral standards or norms.

Such a denial undermines the whole notion of natural, human rights, and, even worse, lends support to a dogmatic declaration that might makes right.

In order to dismiss the particular claim on the morality of homosexual acts, it is reasonable to argue the dismissal of the broader, general claim first and then apply that argument to the particular.

The general claim, it seems to me, issues from Hume’s correct observation that a prescriptive conclusion cannot be validly drawn from premises that are entirely descriptive. However, it is possible to combine a prescriptive with a descriptive premise in order to argue for the truth of a prescriptive conclusion. That prescriptive premise must, of course, be a self-evident truth; for otherwise we would have to argue for it.

Starting with the self-evident truth that we ought to desire whatever is really good for us, and adding the descriptive truth that all human beings naturally desire or need, let’s say, knowledge (which is tantamount to saying that knowledge is really good for us), we reach the conclusion that we ought to seek or desire knowledge. This conclusion has prescriptive truth, based on the criterion that what it prescribes conforms to right desire, desire for something that we by nature need.

Does the want for pleasure override all other human needs? The hedonist makes the error of identifying the good with pleasure. Aristotle notes in his Nicomachean Ethics that pleasure accompanies our activities but “the pleasure proper to a worthy activity is good and that proper to an unworthy activity is bad.” Is the homosexual act a worthy act?

To say that the only good is pleasure is to say that wealth, health, friends, knowledge, and wisdom are not good. This error separates happiness from contentment. Such separation is quite possible to explain once we employ the distinction between needs and wants and between real and apparent goods.

Happiness can then be defined as a whole life enriched by the cumulative possession of all the real goods that every human being needs and by the satisfaction of those individual wants that result in obtaining apparent goods that are innocuous.

The pursuit of happiness, thus conceived, consists in the effort to discharge our moral obligation to seek whatever is really good for us and nothing else unless it is something, such as an innocuous apparent good, that does not interfere with our obtaining all the real goods we need.

Is the homosexual act innocuous, or does it reduce the probability or even deprive one or the other partner or the community of the human need to successfully reproduce? Is not that need to reproduce identical to the evolutionary goal of specie survival and flourishing? Yes and yes.

The argument shows that the homosexual act satisfies only a human want (pleasure) and does so by frustrating the human need to reproduce. As such, the act is immoral.
 
I even concede that if you can prove the above, it makes logical sense then that homosexuality is wrong. In other words, IF there is an all-powerful God, and that God declares homosexuality immoral, I am conceding that homosexuality would then be immoral.
OK. That finally makes sense.
However, for the sake of argument - I am accepting this.

NOW - the real point is that even if I acknowledge the above, you have come nowhere close to showing that God claims that.
This is where you’re back in the weeds. If you accept it as a premise, then you’ve accepted it. Why would I need to prove something you’ve accepted as a premise?
All you can show is that some men dead for 4000 years think homosexuality is wrong. How can you claim a few words in an old, translated, changed, copied book are the actual direct communication of morality from an all-powerful supernatural being? You clearly can’t. And you can’t even try.
So, here’s the thing: it’s not 4000 years, as if the Old Testament is the only place it appears. I’ll grant you 2000 years, though. And, the reason that it’s believable is two-fold:
  • as a historical document, it makes assertions by eyewitnesses. Do you want to reject the document? Be my guest. However, that doesn’t invalidate it as a historical document, as such. It just means that you refuse to consider it.
  • moreover, though, it’s part of a living tradition. From the first days of the Christian Church, these documents were proclaimed as part of liturgical services. Neither at the beginning of the movement nor throughout its history were there those who said “wait a minute – Jesus never said that! Paul never said that!” So, it’s specious to claim that one cannot make assertions about the validity of the messages found in the New Testament.
  • even further, we have the statements of Church leaders, written down since the earliest days of the Church, affirming what’s been written in Scripture in the New Testament.
So, we “clearly can’t” or “even try” to claim that these words are “direct communication of morality from an all-powerful supernatural being”? I’m afraid you’ve got the argument backward. We can – and do! – validly make these precise assertions. The dynamic you’re attempting to latch onto is “I’m sorry, but I refuse to consider your assertions.” That’s a claim that would be OK as a claim (albeit mistaken in its assertion).
 
Ridiculous. the three statements above are all premises. Isn’t it clear?
It isn’t. See my discussion, above. The third point goes to your acceptance of objective evidence. Therefore, it’s not a ‘premise’; it’s a personal conclusion. I say “yes” to it, and you say “no”. Your use of it as a premise is the exact definition of “begging the question”.
Do you even understand what ‘begging the question’ is?
Certainly. That’s why I recognize it when you do it. 😉
Why are you trying to poke holes in an argument that is trying to show God is the source of moral authority?
I’m not. I’m trying to show you that your argumentation isn’t sound. That’s a different dynamic.
Did you really just say that? Are you claiming it’s possible that the Christian moral framework is true but it’s not proven yet?
Now it’s time to step back and take a deep breath. Ask yourself – and please tell us – what would “prove” this assertion. And remember – it has to be a reasonable and putatively feasible request, or else you’re just acting in bad faith. So… what do you say? What would ‘prove’ it?

(p.s., I would hold that this isn’t a matter that can be resolved by ‘proof’ or ‘trial’, but rather, fits into Newman’s framework of the illative sense.)
Just because “the Bible says so” doesn’t mean it is true.
Agreed. And Catholics don’t make the claim in the way you’re asserting it here.
No - you are the one that is conflating physical events and material objects with subjective opinions.
No – you asked for evidence. Then, you jumped from the question of God’s existence to the presence of objective evidence of God’s existence. You can see the difference between the two notions, right? “Subjective opinion” doesn’t even come into play here yet!
jan10000:
I am stating “homosexuality is wrong” is a subjective statement
Just for the sake of argument – and I suspect we’re too far down the rabbit hole for this clarification to be effective, but I’ll try anyway – the Catholic Church does not make the assertion that ‘homosexuality is wrong’. Homosexuality is an orientation; orientations are not sins. Only actions can be sinful. So, the Church would only claim that homosexual activity is immoral.
jan10000:
YOU are saying, no, it is objectively wrong - because the Bible says so, and the Bible is God says, and God is all-powerful.
Nope. That’s not the argument at all. You’re putting words in the mouth of straw-men you’re setting up. You’ve got part of the argument there, but not the full argument in its entirety.
jan10000:
I apologize for being curt here, but you tone is quite insulting.
Hmm… don’t think I’ve leveled any insults at you. I suspect you’re just agitated because I don’t concede that your points are valid. Sorry if it insults you when people disagree with you. 🤷‍♂️
 
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goout:
If you can acknowledge that human sexuality between male and female is uniquely essential to human existence, do you find that of any value?
That’s akin to asking if having children has any value. Of course it does. But does that mean that everyone should have children? Of course it doesn’t.
you
completely
missed
the
point
Maybe because you didn’t make one. But you did ask a question to which there was an obvious answer. Was there no implication? I guess we can see if we answer the question directly.

‘If you can acknowledge that human sexuality between male and female is uniquely essential to human existence, do you find that of any value?’

‘Yes’.

Where are you going from there?
If you weren’t following the point I was responding to, the point of my response will escape you.

Jan10000 was questioning the theological/religious/biblical basis to morally evaluate sexuality. She cast these bases as “presuppositions” and “absolutisms”.

Ok, fine.
I fleshed out (pun intended) a “natural reason” basis for sexual morality.
You cherry picked a sentence or two and made tangential objections.

Can you go back and read the context?
 
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Freddy:
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goout:
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Freddy:
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goout:
If you can acknowledge that human sexuality between male and female is uniquely essential to human existence, do you find that of any value?
That’s akin to asking if having children has any value. Of course it does. But does that mean that everyone should have children? Of course it doesn’t.
you
completely
missed
the
point
Maybe because you didn’t make one. But you did ask a question to which there was an obvious answer. Was there no implication? I guess we can see if we answer the question directly.

‘If you can acknowledge that human sexuality between male and female is uniquely essential to human existence, do you find that of any value?’

‘Yes’.

Where are you going from there?
I fleshed out (pun intended) a “natural reason” basis for sexual morality.
The church has a very narrow definition as to what is considered ‘natural’. In fact it has redefined it to fit its own requirements. In which case I feel entirely justified in rejecting it. So ‘human sexuality’ means something different to each of us. There is no common ground.
 
Is the homosexual act innocuous, or does it reduce the probability or even deprive one or the other partner or the community of the human need to successfully reproduce? Is not that need to reproduce identical to the evolutionary goal of specie survival and flourishing? Yes and yes.

The argument shows that the homosexual act satisfies only a human want (pleasure) and does so by frustrating the human need to reproduce. As such, the act is immoral.
Not every member of a species need reproduce for the species as a whole to survive. In many species, some members are designed not to reproduce. For example, worker ants are sterile and don’t reproduce and yet ant colonies don’t die out as a result. Although there are obviously a lot of differences between humans and ants, there is also no need for every human to reproduce.
 
The argument shows that the homosexual act satisfies only a human want (pleasure) and does so by frustrating the human need to reproduce. As such, the act is immoral.
When editing this post to meet the word limit, I neglected to add the attribution to Mortimer Adler’s work on the idea of the moral good.
 
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