Same sex couples

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Edward_H said:
I get it…but I also see a panoply of diverging “attractions and desires”.
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Indeed. I contend that it likely that we are fundamentally wired for the opposite sex. How that wiring is implemented or what might perturb it (or override or supplement it) in same case - who knows.

I disagree with you that that idea is irrational. But, there is certainly an inescapable “irrationality” in the notion of sexual attraction to the same sex.
 
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My point is it’s irrational to suppose:

that same sex attraction is fundamentally different than a sexual attraction to animals, to children, to threesomes, to black women (if one is a different race), to big women, to feet, to bondage, to you name it.

The scientific way to approach the matter is to start from a single theory of human attractions and desires and appetites, and to work out from there, building only that amount of theory needed to explain the matter.

That hasn’t been done with SSA because of political forces demanded it, not because the science and collected data demanded it.
 
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Choosing to act on it is a sin.

A problem with many discussions regarding this subject is the failure to discern the difference between condition and action.

Humans are capable of self control and self mastery.
 
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We shouldn’t limit .animalistic view of the human person though, gender and sexuality seem to extend beyond the body as part of the soul. We don’t need to keep talking about being wired, you might as well say we are wired to lie. We are not fixed, we have free will. non chosen desires are definately not a sin, but it would be in good conscience for one to try to shape their desires toward holy ones. Phsycology can play a role in this, but we hardly understand phsycology, the brain is intimately linked with the soul as I see it. We get decieved and tricked into liking sin in different shapes and forms from rational/emotional/spiritual confusion. I might have replied to the wrong person.
 
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How about YOU show something? I’ve cited to both research and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. You’ve just sat there with your arms crossed and gone “no, you.” Stop trying to play second-rate Socrates and actually put forth some evidence for your position.
 
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No one is saying otherwise. At least, no one in this thread.
 
I don’t think people are trying to say that the involuntary desires themselves are sinful, just that its unwise to embrace them as permanent, and do nothing to attempt to heal them. If one knows they can find healing that makes them less susceptible to temptation, then they might be in the wrong for not seeking it out.
 
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So the desires themselves are not sinful, but they might be a proportianal result of sin. maybe its a semantics issue.
 
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The referenced letter to Bishops is just that a letter on pastoral care.

It didn’t weigh in definitively on the nature of attractions…
 
Not necessarily so.

If someone gets addicted to alcohol…and their attraction to alcohol causes them to sin…then what they did to first get addicted is sin.

Gambling

Serial adultery…etc.
 
I’m saying desires can in fact be sinfully fanned and intensified, via the will.

There’s no question about it.

Joe above just sincerely described his own course.
 
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Edward_H said:
It didn’t weigh in definitively on the nature of attractions…
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It didn’t make the science of attraction a dogmatic issue, no. But it did express a definitive opinion on the moral character of homosexual attraction, vis-a-vis sin. That it did so in the context of a letter on pastoral doesn’t make the judgment on the moral nature of homosexual attraction ambiguous.
Edward_H said:
I’m saying desires can in fact be sinfully fanned and intensified, via the will.

There’s no question about it.
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Yes, of course they CAN. It’s just not always the case that they necessarily ARE. Someone with homosexual attraction who deliberately seeks out gay pornography is sinning. Someone with homosexual attraction who seeks to avoid things that might “trigger” their inclination is not sinning, and is, in fact, showing great moral courage.
 
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Joe_73 said:
We don’t need to keep talking about being wired, you might as well say we are wired to lie.
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We can reasonably say we are wired to sleep, to eat, to procreate, and so forth. Now these 3 things are not all identical in necessity or impact on individuals. But there is a rationality about them.
 
Edward_H said:
My point is it’s irrational to suppose:

that same sex attraction is fundamentally different than a sexual attraction to animals, to children, to threesomes, to black women (if one is a different race), to big women, to feet, to bondage, to you name it.
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The person attracted to any of these things listed does not choose that attraction, either. Indeed, why would they choose it? Presumably, because they were already attracted to it! What other reason could there be?

I mean, think: suppose we say that a man “chooses to like” sunflowers. What could this mean? It cannot mean he turns a distaste for sunflowers into a liking, by the force of will. The mind is not capable of that. All it can mean is that he realizes that he already liked sunflowers. This happens in ANY case of liking things. It is always involuntary. The same with all temptations – NONE of these are chosen. But falling to temptation does make further temptations along those lines more likely. (There we agree).
 
Remember the Church often weighs in on some matter long after there are questions on it.

The Church hasn’t spoken definitively about the nature and even the formal moral culpability on this topic.

The pastoral document is clearly an example of gradualism.
 
Oh sure they do…most of these fetishes and unnatural attractions begin “solo”…with one’s imagination, perhaps gradually fueled/fed by porn, and then sadly strongly reinforced (a la Skinnerian explanations) by masturbation, intense pleasure and climax.

As I said earlier…it begins with little departures (just as Joe described above) and then reinforcements…and then the next step…then one leaves one’s imagination and privacy of the bedroom…and onward it goes.
 
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