Parents role in a situation

[PetraG]

If the parents are extremely concerned about their adult daughter sleeping over at her boyfriend’s from time to time, would they be less concerned and sleep better knowing that she’s still doing this while living at her own place or has moved in with her boyfriend instead of remaining in their own home? Would it be less of a “purgatory” for them that way?

It seems to me that adults can live happily together as long as they don’t pry too much into affairs that aren’t any of their business.

I think that what is important is that all the adults in a given house agree on what is their business and what isn’t. I wouldn’t expect my children to live in my house and know that I go off and sleep with someone I’m not married to. You don’t think that is any of your business. I would say that the important thing is that the expectations for all the adults in the house is agreeable to all of them.

The point is that if my child wants her life to be her business, I would actually be more comfortable if she were heading her own household and wasn’t a member of mine, yes. It isn’t a matter of judging her. If she got pregnant and had to move home because she could not manage her own household, I’d take her in and she wouldn’t get questions about her situation. I just want to live in a house where we are in agreement about the life we’re living together in that house. I don’t think that is what everyone has to think. Some parents would be more interested in having their own privacy about what they’ve been out doing when they’re not home, even with other adults in the household. I think both attitudes are reasonable, actually. I don’t think someone should be considered a terrible parent who has rejected their child if they’d find rejection of their values a deal-breaker in an adult roommate, that’s all. I don’t think the expectation of being mutually answerable to each other is demeaning, though.

On the flip side, if my children want a household that is more strict than mine–maybe one where everyone is a strict vegetarian and doesn’t ever fly in airplanes or something, I don’t know–they’re free to go off and set up that kind of household for themselves, too. That’s what adults do.

 

[Wozza]

PennyinCanada:

That conversation is not happening. Too bad. Why isn’t it?

A lot of issues like this could be solved if the two sides would have an honest conversation in which they would all listen to each other and respect each other and sincerely try to understand the other person’s perspective and all be willing to compromise a little. That would be true whether this is a conversation between a parent and child or between a man/woman and their spouse or between any other individuals who are trying to resolve a dispute or misunderstanding. All too often, people aren’t really willing to honestly and sincerely listen to each other and tend instead to talk past each other and to dig in their heels. And I’m sure that I’m guilty of this, too. It’s probably human nature.

What you said alludes to a point I just made in another thread. That many people follow the ‘rules’ rigidly and will brook no dissenting opinion on the matter. ‘This is what it says therefore it’s wrong’. There’s a lack of nuance. A disconnect between what the church may teach and real life, day to day problems.

Life is messy and complicated. Black and white it ain’t. It can be uncomfortable sitting on the fence and hard to bend the rules so a lot of people don’t bother. Having a discussion about why you think something is wrong and how it affects you and trying to work out how the matter can be resolved is rarely easy.

And in passing, I do a lot of reading about evolution and evolutionary psychology. And the fact that we are a species that generally pairs off for life as opposed to having multiple partners as the natural state of affairs is purely and uncontravertibly a biological accident. If a couple of genes had been changed by whatever means way back in the distant past then the church might well now deem it morally unacceptable to restrict oneself to one partner.

 

[CRV]

And the fact that we are a species that generally pairs off for life as opposed to having multiple partners as the natural state of affairs is purely and uncontravertibly a biological accident.

Wow. And here I was believing that God made us male and female . He created one man (Adam) and one woman (Eve) to be Adams helpmate throughout life. By His Design. Not by accident.

CCC #1603 " “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage.”

cf Gaudium et spes #48
“The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes…”

 

[Wozza]

“evolutionary psychology” is an invention. It has no basis in fact.

You are obviously well read on the subject. Could you let me know what books or articles on the matter I should read so I can better appreciate your viewpoint?

 

[Annie]

if God had determined that multiple partners was the best way of ensuring the survival of mankind, then multiple partners would be ‘good’.

No, actually not. God is all-good, but goodness is something. He, and the Church, teach monogamy because monogamy is good, it’s not good because God teaches it.

 

[CRV]

if God had determined that multiple partners was the best way of ensuring the survival of mankind, then multiple partners would be ‘good’.

That’s a big if. Didn’t happen so the point is moot.

 

[CRV]

Mongamy is good, because God willed it. And the Church teaches what is divinely willed.

 

[Annie]

Mongamy is good, because God willed it. And the Church teaches what is divinely willed.

No. In the same way that God cannot make a square circle, He cannot “decide” whether something is good or bad. He could not say cowardice is good, or that lying is not a sin. He is all-goid, therefore He can teach only what is good.

 

[CRV]

As God is all-good, then yes whatever He Will is consequently good. God cannot and does not will evil. Anything other than monogamy is evil and not willed by God. He permits us to commit evil by adultery or fornication. But that is a separate matter and not for this thread.

 

[Annie]

It is a post hoc ergo propter hoc thing.

Not to mention that one could hardly say that humans are naturally monogamous.

 

[Thorolfr]

Man is not just another life form. Another animal driven by programming that science cannot discover the source of. If people are reduced to a bag of chemicals that walk, talk and respond to outside (name removed by moderator)uts only, then science, while doing its part, has failed to identify who human beings really are.

Although the behavior and thinking of humans is not programmed as much as some other species, there is increasing evidence that much of our behavior and even our beliefs are influenced by our genes. Our genes even appear to influence whether we grow up to be conservative or liberal. According to a 2016 article in Scientific American:

Scientists and laypeople alike have historically attributed political beliefs to upbringing and surroundings, yet recent research shows that our political inclinations have a large genetic component.

The largest recent study of political beliefs, published in 2014 in Behavior Genetics , looked at a sample of more than 12,000 twin pairs from five countries, including the U.S. Some were identical and some fraternal; all were raised together. The study reveals that the development of political attitudes depends, on average, about 60 percent on the environment in which we grow up and live and 40 percent on our genes.

“We inherit some part of how we process information, how we see the world and how we perceive threats—and these are expressed in a modern society as political attitudes,” explains Peter Hatemi, who is a genetic epidemiologist at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study.

The genes involved in such complex traits are difficult to p(name removed by moderator)oint because they tend to be involved in a huge number of bodily and cognitive processes that each play a minuscule role in shaping our political attitudes. Yet a study published in 2015 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B managed to do just that, showing that genes encoding certain receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine are associated with where we fall on the liberal-conservative axis. Among women who were highly liberal, 62 percent were carriers of certain receptor genotypes that have previously been associated with such traits as extroversion and novelty seeking. Meanwhile, among highly conservative women, the proportion was only 37.5 percent.

The Genes of Left and Right

Our political attitudes may be written in our DNA

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[Wozza]

Mongamy is good, because God willed it. And the Church teaches what is divinely willed.

So if He willed polygamy then that would be good.

 

[Wozza]

CRV:

Mongamy is good, because God willed it. And the Church teaches what is divinely willed.

No. In the same way that God cannot make a square circle, He cannot “decide” whether something is good or bad. He could not say cowardice is good, or that lying is not a sin. He is all-goid, therefore He can teach only what is good.

So goodness exists outside of God. It’s not His decision if something is good or bad.

 

[Annie]

No, that is incorrect. God wills it because it is good.

 

[Annie]

No, it’s that goodness is a certain thing, just as a circle is a certain thing.

 

[Wozza]

No, it’s that goodness is a certain thing, just as a circle is a certain thing.

So God didn’t decide on what a circle would be. And didn’t decide what was good. He had no choice in the matter.

 

[CRV]

So if He willed polygamy then that would be good.

He didn’t. Again, a moot point. He created one man and one woman. Speculating otherwise is pointless.

 

[Annie]

Now, He simply designed everything in accord with goodness (which we then messed up). God Himself is all-good and the source of all goodness.

One could say that all things which are not good are somehow broken. God does not decide what is broken or not, things simply either are whole or broken.

 

[CRV]

It is speculation - now.

He willed monogamy when He created one man and one woman - back at the start of the creation of mankind.

God is not going to go back in time to change what He has already willed for mankind. Nor is he going to change His mind now, and change His Design for mankind at this point in time. God is unchanging. So any discussion of if and will He, would He … is moot - pure speculation.

 

[Thorolfr]

Nor is he going to change His mind now, and change His Design for mankind at this point in time. God is unchanging. So any discussion of if and will He, would He … is moot - pure speculation.

He has changed his mind before, so why can’t He change his mind again?

According to Genesis 6: 5-6:

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

And in Exodus 32: 11-14:

11 Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does thy wrath burn hot against thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them forth, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou didst swear by thine own self, and didst say to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it for ever.’” 14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.