Plato, Aristotle and Socrates all agree homosexual acts are disgraceful

[Irritator]

Well, they’re three of the smartest guys who’ve ever lived, so it’s not bad company for Catholics to be in.

Aristotle also argued that women should get less food, was not allowed to have personal wealth (it should go automatically to her husband) and that women should not have free speech. Plato had very interesting thoughts on race (views that could be quite popular in the 50’s in some southern states of the USA). Indeed good company for Catholics to be in.

 

[Corvus_Corax]

Right. It was part of the general cultural degeneracy which they opposed.

One of the problems with these kinds of conversations is that their culture did not have a word for “homosexuality.” Actually no culture had a word for “homosexuality” until about 100 years ago.

To be precise, the word arose in the late 1700’s. I can give you documentation, but I’m in a bit of a rush, getting ready to attend my daughter’s birthday dinner.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Irritator

Aristotle also argued that women should get less food, was not allowed to have personal wealth (it should go automatically to her husband) and that women should not have free speech. Plato had very interesting thoughts on race (views that could be quite popular in the 50’s in some southern states of the USA). Indeed good company for Catholics to be in.

Before you enter this forum, leave your contempt for Catholics at the door … please!

Thank you.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DrTaffy
**
Appollodorus didn’t write that. Plato did. It is clearly his opinion.**

What is clearly his opinion is what he says in *Laws *, which you have yet to dispute.

So to go back to the OP or the title of the thread, would you like to quote something writen by Socrates supporting the assertion that he thinks “homosexual acts are disgraceful”? Of course not.

Well, this shows your lack of education. Socrates did not write anything. All we know is what others wrote about him. We know that he was married and had children. We know that in one of Plato’s dialogues he is made by Plato to say that he declined Alcibiades’ invitation to lay down with him. Alcibiades was a notorious bisexual and later proved himself a traitor to Athens.

I don’t think anyone in the ancient world says that Socrates said homosexuality was disgraceful. Plato and Aristotle obviously didn’t think it was normal or healthy, and it’s well known that Aristophanes ridiculed it in his plays.

 

[DrTaffy]

DrTaffy
**
Appollodorus didn’t write that. Plato did. It is clearly his opinion.**

What is clearly his opinion is what he says in *Laws *, which you have yet to dispute…

You do realise that both Laws and Symposium are dialogues, don’t you? Even the bits you quoted from Laws were lines spoken by a character in the dialogue. Does that make it somehow not an opinion expressed by Plato?

His opinion is both what he writes in Laws and in Symposium. That he is arguably far more prudish in Laws could be attributed to many things, such as:

• he changed his opinion over time
• he was only presenting alternate views in the two dialogues
• he is for homosexuality and homosexual love, but against actual gay sex (he is fairly anti-sex in general, gay or straight)

And so on. I was merely responding to a direct request from Abba. I see no point in ‘disputing’ your interpretation of Laws.

**So to go back to the OP or the title of the thread, would you like to quote something writen by Socrates **supporting the assertion that he thinks “homosexual acts are disgraceful”? Of course not.

Well, this shows your lack of education.

Keep it polite, please. And no, all it shows is that I know that we have no text from Socrates, that being the whole point of that challenge. If you imply that we need a direct opinion from Plato, as opposed to a line in a dialogue written by him but put into another’s mouth, then you should apply that same criterion to concluding what Socrates may have thought of homosexuality. And, indeed, to your interpretation of Laws.

Socrates did not write anything.

We don’t know that.

I don’t think anyone in the ancient world says that Socrates said homosexuality was disgraceful.

But the title of this thread says that. As does the article cited by the OP.

Plato and Aristotle obviously didn’t think it was normal or healthy, and it’s well known that Aristophanes ridiculed it in his plays.

It is far from ‘obvious’ that Plato shared the opinion of the Athenian Stranger in Laws or if he agreed more with Appollodorus in Symposium. Aristotle’s views are equally ambiguous.

 

[mlanning72]

I have not read every response here so sorry for the redundancy…

For arguments sake lets define the topic of interest.

Homosexuality is the attraction to a person of the same sex. Often times sexual acts are associated and performed in said relationship.

There is nothing wrong with not being attracted to the opposite sex. I use only the argument that God made everyone and everything. Check the Catechism. It clearly states there is nothing wrong with being a homosexual.

The next point of interest is the sexual acts. The Catholic church forbids sexual acts outside of marriage. This brings on something else that needs to be defined.

Marriage is the union (for simplicity sake) between a man and a women.

Therefore, a man and another man can not be married by definition and therefore sexual exchanges between the two of them would be considered adultery if I am not mistaken.

People must get past the “shock” of hearing that a man is attracted to not a woman but another man and begin to analyze- with accurate references to credible sources- the situation itself.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DrTaffy

Originally Posted by Charlemagne II
“Socrates did not write anything.”

To which you replied:

We don’t know that.

Again, your lack of scholarship is obvious. Please don’t take this as a personal assault so much as a criticism of your lack of scholarship in this area. If Socrates had written anything, it would have been referenced by his biographer, Xenophon. Likewise, Plato and Aristotle would have mentioned somewhere what Socrates wrote. All the evidence suggests we know that Socrates did not write anything. If you have proof that he did write something, please offer it.

**It is far from ‘obvious’ that Plato shared the opinion of the Athenian Stranger in Laws or if he agreed more with Appollodorus in Symposium. Aristotle’s views are equally ambiguous. **

Obviously not obvious to you, even if it is virtually obvious to just about everyone else.

 

[Irritator]

Aristotle also argued that women should get less food, was not allowed to have personal wealth (it should go automatically to her husband) and that women should not have free speech. Plato had very interesting thoughts on race (views that could be quite popular in the 50’s in some southern states of the USA). Indeed good company for Catholics to be in.

Before you enter this forum, leave your contempt for Catholics at the door … please!

Thank you.

Where is the contempt? If a Catholic uses as argument that because those 3 guys are smart, therefore every argument based on their statements must be valid, AND says literally that it is not bad company for Catholics to be in, why do you feel so attacked by the above?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

mlanning

**Check the Catechism. It clearly states there is nothing wrong with being a homosexual. **

From the Catechism:

**2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. **

A loving attraction to a person of the same sex is not immoral. But sodomy is, and such attractions frequently result in the regular exercise of sodomy. As St. Paul says:

I Corinthians 6:9-10 “Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators … nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

DrTaffy

You do realise that both Laws and Symposium are dialogues, don’t you? Even the bits you quoted from Laws were lines spoken by a character in the dialogue. Does that make it somehow not an opinion expressed by Plato?

Scholars generally agree that the Stranger in Laws is a mouthpiece for the views of Plato himself. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.

By the way, does Plato in *Laws *offer a refutation of the view strongly argued that homosexuality is a sexual disorder?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Irritator
**
Aristotle also argued that women should get less food, was not allowed to have personal wealth (it should go automatically to her husband) and that women should not have free speech. Plato had very interesting thoughts on race (views that could be quite popular in the 50’s in some southern states of the USA). Indeed good company for Catholics to be in.**

**Where is the contempt? If a Catholic uses as argument that because those 3 guys are smart, therefore every argument based on their statements must be valid, AND says literally that it is not bad company for Catholics to be in, why do you feel so attacked by the above? **

To equate Catholic thought in the 60s with the KKK mentality of the South is clearly hateful.

Behave yourself.

 

[Linux]

For arguments sake lets define the topic of interest.

Homosexuality is the attraction to a person of the same sex.

This is a mistake.

 

[Sair]

John

**He is advancing an argument that is clearly predicated upon a Natural Law tradition that pre-dates Christianity and which reflects a universal distaste for overt homosexuality. **

Indeed, marital rites for incestuous partners and multiple partners now and then have been tolerated in various civilizations. However, one searches in vain for any civilization in the history of the world (until ours) that has championed the cause of same-sex marital rites.

Even though homosexuality was rife in ancient Persia, there is no record of men marrying other men or women marrying women.

That tells us something about the depths to which modern morals have sunk in a relatively godless world.

Oh, indeed - that’s why some who cling to the ‘slippery slope’ argument against homosexual unions warn that if we accept this, it will lead to polygamy and incest and even bestiality - because homosexuality is not only in the exact same category, but also much worse than these other practices, since they used to be acceptable to some other societies. Yep. Makes perfect sense, when you don’t think too much about it.

Not to mention the fact that Plato was actually quite wrong that there are no examples of homosexuality in nonhuman animals, so that renders a good deal of his argument completely invalid.

 

[GodHeals]

**Check the Catechism. It clearly states there is nothing wrong with being a homosexual. **
141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law.

What does it mean to “be” a homosexual?

 

[Irritator]

Irritator
**
Aristotle also argued that women should get less food, was not allowed to have personal wealth (it should go automatically to her husband) and that women should not have free speech. Plato had very interesting thoughts on race (views that could be quite popular in the 50’s in some southern states of the USA). Indeed good company for Catholics to be in.**

**Where is the contempt? If a Catholic uses as argument that because those 3 guys are smart, therefore every argument based on their statements must be valid, AND says literally that it is not bad company for Catholics to be in, why do you feel so attacked by the above? **

To equate Catholic thought in the 60s with the KKK mentality of the South is clearly hateful.

Behave yourself.

I never, neither explicitly nor implicitly, equated it with KKK mentality - that is purely your own deduction, based on something that I really don’t see.

If you are insulted by my statement “Indeed good company for Catholics to be in”, then I even more flabbergasted. This would imply that you allow a Catholic to use such a statement, but not someone else. It also shows that you quite missed the point - i.e. stating that because these were smart guys, every argument that Catholics use based on the views of Plato and Socrates must therefore be a good argument (which was my deduction of the original argument “Not bad company for Catholics to be in”) is not a very solid argument, since, I assume, Catholics do NOT agree with the respective views on women and race that I mentioned. (and yes, that last phrase became a bit too long…)

 

[inocente]

**He is advancing an argument that is clearly predicated upon a Natural Law tradition that pre-dates Christianity and which reflects a universal distaste for overt homosexuality. **

Indeed, marital rites for incestuous partners and multiple partners now and then have been tolerated in various civilizations. However, one searches in vain for any civilization in the history of the world (until ours) that has championed the cause of same-sex marital rites.

Even though homosexuality was rife in ancient Persia, there is no record of men marrying other men or women marrying women.

That tells us something about the depths to which modern morals have sunk in a relatively godless world.

The opposite argument, by Peter Kreeft, is being advanced on another thread - that since there is universal condemnation of slavery for the first time in history, current morality is closer to perfection than ever before.

You can’t both be right. If he’s right, we should be very pleased that not long after the world finally realized skin color is as irrelevant as eye color, we are finally realizing that sexual orientation is as irrelevant as skin color.

 

[inocente]

Not to mention the fact that Plato was actually quite wrong that there are no examples of homosexuality in nonhuman animals, so that renders a good deal of his argument completely invalid.

Over 1,000 species, but only one displays homophobic behavior.

For the life of me I don’t remember which.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Sair

**Oh, indeed - that’s why some who cling to the ‘slippery slope’ argument against homosexual unions warn that if we accept this, it will lead to polygamy and incest and even bestiality - because homosexuality is not only in the exact same category, but also much worse than these other practices, since they used to be acceptable to some other societies. **

What have you got against the slippery slope argument? Have you never noticed that if you give some people an inch, they will take a mile?

But you simply refuse to answer the argument. What is there in same-sex marriage that distinguishes it from polygamy and incestuous marriage, and makes it more justifiable than the others? I have never found a homosexual who was able to answer that question with any kind of acceptable logic. Would you like to try?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

inocente

**You can’t both be right. If he’s right, we should be very pleased that not long after the world finally realized skin color is as irrelevant as eye color, we are finally realizing that sexual orientation is as irrelevant as skin color. **

The flaw in your logic is that by no means has the world universally come to accept sodomy, nowhere near to the degree it has learned to condemn slavery. Both practices are unnatural. Those who have accepted slavery are closer to those who accept sodomy.

 

[inocente]

The flaw in your logic is that by no means has the world universally come to accept sodomy, nowhere near to the degree it has learned to condemn slavery. Both practices are unnatural. Those who have accepted slavery are closer to those who accept sodomy.

Gays used to be put to death (Lev 20:13) so the world has been moving in another direction for a long time, just taking a while to get there.

I mean, already it sounds like you’re fine with lesbians as you’re using the word sodomy which can only be applied to males.