Is Homosexuality Genetic?

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yngve said:
No, it was wrong about something concerning Faith. The Church thought, based on the Bible and not on scientific evidence, that the Earth was in the centre of the Universe. Everyone who refused to believe that was treated as a heretic.

So it wasn’t a matter of science but a matter of faith on with the church was wrong.
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You don’t understand the meaning of “faith.” In the context of the Church’s charism of infallibility, “matters of faith” refer to truths about God and His relationship with man. Further, you must pay attention to when that charism is being exercised officially (which is rarely).

Further, where is your evidence for this:
The Church thought, based on the Bible and not on scientific evidence, that the Earth was in the centre of the Universe.
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Or this:
Everyone who refused to believe that was treated as a heretic.
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Arandur said:
  1. Is a falsehood. According to Stephen Jay Gould, “there never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology.”[2]
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_mythology
Educate yourself and get it right. Don’t believe all the propagandist history and anti-Church nonsense out there.
  1. No, it is not a matter of faith and morals, nor was it declared infallibly. Do some research to discover the very limited conditions under which things are determined infallibly. The Church hasn’t declared near as much infallibly as you “gotcha” folks would like to claim.
  2. No, it condemned Galileo for disobedience, for stating his personal theory as fact without evidence. He had not backed it up with evidence! The Church was enforcing intellectual honesty and rigor; Galileo was making unproven claims and claiming that he was right (and, as has been stated here, he wasn’t).
  3. The Church never to my knowledge had an official view, nor does it still, on this scientific matter. See #2 and do some research on the limited circumstances for infallibility or even teachings that we must follow.
I know this is very much off the OP topic, but given the utter failure of these arguments trying to pin something against the Church using Galileo and “flat earth” myths, we should be able to nail the coffin of these extremely weak and unresearched accusations and you can get back to something more on topic.
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“The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, and utterly heretical, because contrary to the Holy Scripture.”

So, how come it didn’t have a point of view?
 
yngve said:
“The view that the sun stands motionless at the center of the universe is foolish, philosophically false, and utterly heretical, because contrary to the Holy Scripture.”

So, how come it didn’t have a point of view?
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Where is that quote from and what are you trying to demonstrate with it?
 
goofyjim said:
I agree on thesinfulness of homsexual behavior. But if same sex attraction is genetic, which is still heavily possible, then is it not God given? And how can anything from God be disordered. God does not create disorder.
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Do you really want to call all genetic factors God-given? Genetic predispositions towards alcoholism, higher levels of certain hormones making people more predisposed towards rage or sexual addiction, or the various genetic handicaps?

These are genetic, but they could well be more a function of the Fallen State than God. In other words, they are contrary to the perfect human state that God intended and originally created prior to corruption through sin, and contrary to what will exist in our glorified bodies.
 
Arandur said:
Do you really want to call all genetic factors God-given? Genetic predispositions towards alcoholism, higher levels of certain hormones making people more predisposed towards rage or sexual addiction, or the various genetic handicaps?

These are genetic, but they could well be more a function of the Fallen State than God. In other words, they are contrary to the perfect human state that God intended and originally created prior to corruption through sin, and contrary to what will exist in our glorified bodies.
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Rage or sexual addiction can be harmful. Being born with a natural physical defect is not and therefore should not be considered disorder. The homosexual orientation falls more under the naturally occuring physical defect than it does under a harmful condition.
 
thewalrus said:
Indeed I do and thankfully it’s not you, me, or the Church.
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It’s Christ, who is, indeed, the Church. He is its Head and it is his Body, preserved and ensouled by the Holy Spirit. So yes, in the particular way that Christ set it up (not the broader meaning of the word that you may use), the Church (or more specifically, the Deposit of Faith) IS truth.
 
goofyjim said:
Rage or sexual addiction can be harmful. Being born with a natural physical defect is not and therefore should not be considered disorder. The homosexual orientation falls more under the naturally occuring physical defect than it does under a harmful condition.
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Natural physical defects (or diseases) are not disorders? Chemical imbalances in the brain are not disorders? They don’t harm you?

True, they may not harm others, but if sin harms at all, any sin that takes place beyond a single person (such as sexual sins) is harmful beyond that single person.

The point is, there are enough conditions similar to SSA that by analogy alone it is pretty clear that the genetic predisposition towards SSA or any of those others does not affect the morality of a given act, nor does it imply that God created it directly and thus made it good. If you want to examine the morality of the issue, you need to look elsewhere; the genetic argument leads nowhere.
 
Arandur said:
  1. Is a falsehood. According to Stephen Jay Gould, “there never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology.”[2]
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_mythology
Educate yourself and get it right. Don’t believe all the propagandist history and anti-Church nonsense out there.
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Now that’s a delicious irony. Educate yourself and learn that the flat earth theory is not the same as the theory that the earth is at the center of the universe. 😉
Arandur said:
  1. No, it is not a matter of faith and morals, nor was it declared infallibly. Do some research to discover the very limited conditions under which things are determined infallibly. The Church hasn’t declared near as much infallibly as you “gotcha” folks would like to claim.
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All correct here, with one caveat. We believe now that it is not a matter of faith and morals, but in the past it was believed to be a matter of faith, as Scripture makes reference to it. Some forum members here have posted quotes from the time period showing that it was believed to be a matter of faith.
Arandur said:
  1. No, it condemned Galileo for disobedience, for stating his personal theory as fact without evidence. He had not backed it up with evidence! The Church was enforcing intellectual honesty and rigor; Galileo was making unproven claims and claiming that he was right (and, as has been stated here, he wasn’t).
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I’m under the impression that the other scientists at the time really did have evidence disproving Galileo’s simplifed heliocentric model. But neither that nor overstating his case was justification for condemning him or persecuting him.
Arandur said:
  1. The Church never to my knowledge had an official view, nor does it still, on this scientific matter. See #2 and do some research on the limited circumstances for infallibility or even teachings that we must follow.
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A view can be official without being infallibly defined. In fact, the great majority of what Catholics believe has never been infallibly defined, but it’s still the official teaching.
Arandur said:
I know this is very much off the OP topic, but given the utter failure of these arguments trying to pin something against the Church using Galileo and “flat earth” myths, we should be able to nail the coffin of these extremely weak and unresearched accusations and you can get back to something more on topic.
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Oops, yes, you’re right, this was kind of an irrelevant tangent I just got sucked into.
 
Arandur said:
It’s Christ, who is, indeed, the Church. He is its Head and it is his Body, preserved and ensouled by the Holy Spirit. So yes, in the particular way that Christ set it up (not the broader meaning of the word that you may use), the Church (or more specifically, the Deposit of Faith) IS truth.
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I respectfully disagree. I think one of the most dangerous things we can do is to equate Christ and the Church. It gives the Church far too much power (as if it needed more) and it stunts theological and spiritual growth. And I have no problem with tradition; in fact, I think it’s quite powerful and useful. But turning tradition into something that cannot be questioned seems to go against the very concept itself.
 
Arandur said:
Natural physical defects (or diseases) are not disorders? Chemical imbalances in the brain are not disorders? They don’t harm you?

True, they may not harm others, but if sin harms at all, any sin that takes place beyond a single person (such as sexual sins) is harmful beyond that single person.

The point is, there are enough conditions similar to SSA that by analogy alone it is pretty clear that the genetic predisposition towards SSA or any of those others does not affect the morality of a given act, nor does it imply that God created it directly and thus made it good. If you want to examine the morality of the issue, you need to look elsewhere; the genetic argument leads nowhere.
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Call it what you want but I do not call a natural part of me that has no chance to be changed a disorder. If I was born with three ears instead of two I would not call that disorder either.
 
goofyjim said:
Rage or sexual addiction can be harmful. Being born with a natural physical defect is not and therefore should not be considered disorder. The homosexual orientation falls more under the naturally occuring physical defect than it does under a harmful condition.
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Jim, how is it useful to even consider it a defect?
 
thewalrus said:
Jim, how is it useful to even consider it a defect?
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I have already explained. I tread the middle ground and get questions from both sides. The behavior is still a sin but the condition is a harmless defect just like six toes. It happens sometimes as a freak of nature but I would not call it a disorder.
 
goofyjim said:
I have already explained. I tread the middle ground and get questions from both sides. The behavior is still a sin but the condition is a harmless defect just like six toes. It happens sometimes as a freak of nature but I would not call it a disorder.
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Ah yes, I remember us discussing this a few days ago. I think you were the one who said you had to fight the left and the right, haha. Well, I do disagree with you. I do not think it’s a defect at all. I think it’s perfectly normal that you are the way you are.
 
selylidne said:
Now that’s a delicious irony. Educate yourself and learn that the flat earth theory is not the same as the theory that the earth is at the center of the universe. 😉
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Sorry, I was trying to catch up and actually latched onto earlier accusations that the Church supposedly taught that the earth was flat. Sometimes I get mixed up when trying to catch up on several different pages and write up an answer in a hurry. I am rightly chastened, and accordingly apologize for my tone.

However, that reference (as well as other readily available ones from Wikipedia and elsewhere en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism#Medieval_Europe) does talk about what was actually believed and allowed to be believed at the time.

And wide acceptance of a belief, even if people think it is probably infallible, is not infallibly-defined belief. There is no “gotcha” unless a definite, infallibly-defined belief were to be reversed or contradicted. And that won’t happen.
 
yngve said:
Of course not. The vast majority of the church’s teachings are true. Nut there are some who aren’t. Here, in our mortal life we can never know for certainty which are and which aren’t. But based on what the Bible teaches, based on social science and on natural science and accepting the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can make an idea. Only God is who really knows right and wrong.

.
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Thus the reason for the 10 Commandments. We could not come to it ourselves. God had to give us divine guidance.

The tie breaker of moral relativism is absolute truth AKA God.
 
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