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clem456
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This is such a tired and vacuous argument.So, if you want tho live by the rules of the OT, feel free to do so. The Gospels of our Lord trump the “old law” as indicated by facts such as circumcision, dietary regulations and plural marriage. If you wish to live by scripture alone, then you are heading towards protestant sola scriptura.
You’re comparing the disciplines of circumcision and diet with the institution of marriage?
Marriage does not require the backing of scripture. It’s in there for sure, but scripture is not required to know what marriage is unless of course YOU are sola scriptura
.Just look around you and observe how life is created. If you believe the very existence of humankind is on a par with the discipline of circumcision, something has gone seriously wrong with your catechesis.
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Peter_Plato
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This is almost laughable.
Where is the consent from the unborn children that allows them to be dismembered and disposed?
Where is the consent from children for divorce between their parents?
Where is the consent from children for two adults who do not even know each other - and much less care - to use surrogacy to bring them into being?
Where is the consent from children for gay couples to adopt them, thus depriving them of a mother and a father?
Suddenly, inexplicably, we toss children a bone?
"Oh we’ll protect you from the risk of being sexually used, but you can forget about life, a secure permanent family, loving concern from both your parents and the companionship of real brothers and sisters.
Oh, yes, and we’ll make certain, sort of, that you will not be subjected to any kind of sexual contact without your permission at the same time as beating it into your heads from the time you are six or seven that sexual contact with anyone you want (of appropriate age) is your absolute right and pretty much the only thing that makes your life worth living.
Welcome to the new sexually oriented world order. This is all there is that makes life meaningful. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because they are bigoted, narrow minded, backward thinking fools."
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tomberg
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I am not arguing the morality or immorality of Same sex conduct, I am discussing what the Civil government should be able to legislate for and against and I personally do not believe that Civil government laws should be based upon Religious determinations of morality or immorality. They should be strictly based upon Lbertarian principles of government, which entails only protecting other people from harm. NAMBLA does not fall into this category. Children are legally not able to consent to sexual conduct. I am not arguing this with you and your logic is incredibly flawed and any freshman debate student would know better than to invoke this false line or argumentation. You make Thomas Aquinas cry.
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tomberg
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Again your logic is flawed and yet again, you would be penalized in a debate for bringing up topics irrelevant to the debate. First off I completely agree with you concerning abortion, it is wrong, it directly harms another life and should be outlawed. However, the government should only prevent people from inflicting direct physical harm upon others. That is why I am completely opposed to Hate Speech laws as well. The government has no business regulation family conduct. I am not arguing that it is good for parents to divorce, but it is also just as unhealthy for certain dysfunctional, abusive families to stay together at all cost just because a certain religion demands it. AS far as surrogacy is concerned, I think it is definitely an odd practice and would never engage in it, but again, as a Libertarian I am not about to impose my morals on consenting adults. You are completely speculating that any harm is inflicted upon a child in a surrogate home with zero evidence to back up this assertion. Furthermore the same is same with homosexual adoption, almost all the studies indicate that children adopted by homosexuals are no less likely to become homosexuals than children born in heterosexual families and they are just as well adjusted. It is not the job of the Government to produce religious ideas of morality, it is to protect individual liberty and internal security, defend the nation from outside attack, and encourage a functioning society.
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cena
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Same sex conduct being wrong is part of natural law. Anybody can figure out its wrong, you don’t need the Church saying its wrong to know that is wrong. Like you don’t need the Church to tell people murder is wrong because everyone knows this. Anyone can figure on their own things like lying, harming others, etc, are wrong because it is part of natural law. Also, Catholicism isn’t the only religion that opposes it.
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cena
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In Catholicism I think if the family is abusive together they can separate/get a divorce but the spouses can’t remarry.
In surrogacy they usually end up killing the excess/imperfect embryos or freezing them. That is inflicting harm on another.
What is marriage exactly?
For example, couples who cohabitate don’t get its benefits, so what is it about marriage that makes it stand out and these special benefits are thrown in as well
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tomberg
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I also would disagree with you on Lying. Lying is not always wrong, ever heard the argument of the good lie? I also do not see how homosexual conduct is per se wrong from a Natural law perspective. It might be disordered and run contrary to “Natural Law” but that does not imply immorality. Natural law would also seem to indicate that polygamy is completely natural and that monogamy is completely unnatural, so pointing to what is natural as to what is moral is not always a safe bet. I also do not care that it is wrong from a position of legal government. I do not think that all immoral conduct should be illegal or penalized by the government. I also think adultery is wrong, but I do not think it should be illegal. I think drug use is wrong and I also do not think it should be illegal. I think lots of things are wrong, but it is not up to the Civil government to impose my, the Church’s, Islam’s, Mormons, or anyone else’s ideas of morality. I simply do not think the state should be involved with enforcing morality.
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cena
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You are not supposed to directly lie. You can say a statement that is ambiguous, you can have a mental reservation which is you say something out loud and say the rest in your head (like if a homeless person walks up to you and asks for money you can say “I have no money” and then insert mentally for you). There are other ways of fixing a problem without lying
newadvent.org/cathen/10195b.htm here’s some more info
According to the government what does marriage mean?
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PRmerger
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There is a prohibition against the making of images? What law is that?
I’m quite certain that God commanded the making of images:
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
“Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live.”
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.–Numbers 21:8
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tomberg
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It is entirely permissible to lie in order to help or save another person. For example if you were hiding jews in your attic and you lied to the Nazi’s that no jews were living in your house. Or if a robber and rapist broke into your home and your wife was hiding in the closet and you told the rapist that no one else was in the house. Ergo the good lie. Kant’s categorical imperative is not a foolproof method to determining what is moral and what is not moral.
I also believe that the government should not be in the business of recognizing marriage period. I think it should recognize civil unions between whatever adults want them, straight couples, or homosexual couples. Marriage is a religious idea and the government should not be in the business of promoting religion. I don’t want the Government telling my church what it can believe or not believe and I don’t want my Church ordering society according to its beliefs. These are personal matters that should be left to individuals.
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tomberg
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I also want to thank everyone who has participated in this debate, it has definitely caused me to think and provided me with a great opportunity to reformulate and more critically examine what I believe. I apologize for any snarky comments I might have made in any of my post, it is a bad habit of mine and something that I definitely need to work on.
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PRmerger
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There is no such thing as “religious determinations of morality or immorality”.
Things are either good or bad. Moral or immoral.
They are not good because religion says they are good and bad because religion says they are bad.
Unless you want to eliminate social welfare programs because my religion has proclaimed that it is morally good to feed the hungry?
And you want to eliminate laws against domestic violence because my religion professes that beating your wife is immoral?
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PRmerger
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Which religion is that?
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tomberg
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You could not be more mistaken if you think that there is no such thing as religious immorality and general immorality. There are several forms of conduct that certain religious affiliations consider incredibly immoral behavior that other religions could care less about. Yes several religions absolutely claim to determine what is good and bad morally. How in the world do you explain Mormons and Islam believing that polygamy is being perfectly moral behavior based upon their religion and culture and Christian countries believing that polygamy is immoral. How exactly is idolatry immoral if separated from ideas of religion, there sure as heck is no natural law against idolatry? Or do you think idolatry is neither moral or immoral?
Also you need to reread my post that the government should only regulate behavior based upon the ideals as articulated by Libertarian ideals of harm. If you are not familiar with them I suggest you read John Stuart Mill.
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PRmerger
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Firstly, the saying is, “couldn’t care less”.
Secondly your post seems to prove my point. You are asserting that polygamy is immoral, irrespective of the fact that some religion may endorse it.
Why is it immoral? Because there is a moral law which supercedes any religious argument.
QED.
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tomberg
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I personally believe it is immoral and that is based upon my culture and my religion. I can not prove that polygamy is immoral without appeal to religion anymore than Islam and Mormons can point to it being moral outside of their religion. It is entirely determined by religion and culture and there is no universal absolute formula for proving what is moral and immoral like there is with math and geometry. We can all agree that 1 +1 = 2. We obviously do not all agree as to what is moral or immoral. That is exactly why governments should not legislate morality. I am sure you would not want Sharia law being instituted in the US, so why should Catholic Law get any more preference than Sharia law. It is not the place of the government to pick and choose between religions. Only laws which prevent harm to others is the proper sphere of governmental regulation.
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PRmerger
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With the above paradigm, you have no way to argue with someone who is an adulterer that what he is doing is immoral.
All he has to do is say: well, that’s your religion telling you that.
Think about how otiose your paradigm is, tomberg. What you are advocating is a perilous system that permits all sorts of heinous and deplorable behaviors.
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clem456
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Consider for a second:
this is akin to saying “Non-Catholics are formed through asexual reproduction” or “Non Catholics materialize out of thin air”. It completely separates humanity from the reality of our existence.
It is the logical conclusion to your assertion that marriage is a religious invention and not simply a self evident reality. This reality can simply be observed, it doesn’t need a religious belief to validate it. Catholic teaching DOES observe what is revealed, and affirms it. The Church does not invent marriage, it simply is.
Should a government view the world through a truthful lens? That’s a really basic question that colors everything a society does.
For instance…should a government correctly observe that human beings need to eat to survive, and affirm that reality in it’s laws, or turn a blind eye and not take a stance?
Should a government correctly observe that human beings require medical care to live? Should our laws affirm that reality, or turn a blind eye and not take a stance?
If these objective realities are reduced to merely subjective personal and individual beliefs, can you see that the welfare of human beings is at stake?
It may be hard to see, but the denial of reality (the humanity of Jews for instance) leads to very tragic consequences. We cannot lie to ourselves and expect good results. And the same bad ends can be expected if humanity lies to itself about the nature of marriage.
We need to recognize the good and affirm it in our laws.
And therein lies the problem with the equation of marriage with other arrangements. The problem leading to tragedy isn’t sodomy and oral sex etc…
the problem is the deception that is being proposed, which equates marriage with something else that is not marriage.
This lie detracts from human flourishing, for many reasons, but primarily because it is simply a denial of reality.
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frobert
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A bronze serpent does not represent a religious image.
Read Jeremiah 10. In case you miss it the salient point is “Learn not the way of the heathen.”
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