Bingowings said:
FauxRic said : I am saying they are both abnormal types of sexuality, however one is far worse than the other, and they are different types of abnormalities.
What you are saying is anything that isn't a normal is wrong and some abnormalities are just more wrong. Ergo my Godwin warning.
Homosexuality is my normal sexuality and almost everyone else I know isn't remotely interested in it because it's so day to day and commonplace the only perception of wrongness comes from people such as yourself and your clerics.
Opinions, opinions. You can't try to change my mind with your narrow-minded opinions. Sure, what I say may be narrow-minded too, and it could be considered opinion, but what makes my opinion less valid than yours? Because it is held by the minority?
FauxRic said :That is an opinion. The problem I see with personal belief as opposed to religion is that at least their is general consensus within a religion, but if everyone decides for themselves, who's to say that Johny can't live by the rule "survival of the fittest" and eliminate members of society he deems useless while Bob thinks there is nothing wrong with running around in the nude because that's how he was born? And why should dog being god in reverse give me pause for thought? That makes no sense.
Well of course it's an opinion. I thought about the subject, after reading around and through it and considering experience I formed a personal view of it. I didn't read an old book, watch a conjuring trick every Sunday and listen to what an old guy in a dress told me to think. You do realise Darwinian Evolution isn't a political movement and it doesn't work like that? 'Survival of the fittest" isn't a commandment it's an observation that in a certain environment organisms that have favourably adapted to it tend to pass on their genetic material more than those who don't. The massacre of all those Gnostics really did work you guys didn't it.
I said nothing about Darwin. I used the same term, but not the same way. Just because I have beliefs that you think are stupid doesn't mean that I am entirely stupid. I know what Darwinian evolution is, and what "survival of the fittest" means when it is used in that context. It may surprise you, but not all my religious beliefs are entirely based on the Bible or the Catholic Church. Many of them are supported by other evidence as well.
FauxRic said You have some good points there, but of course, being religious, I don't think those are the only reasons. I think that if there is a reason other than "God said so" or "its in the Bible", etc. then that sexual act is more wrong than it would be if it was only stated in the Bible or by the Church.
The Bible says selling your children and raping people if God tells you to is not just okay but a requirement. You have to obey God even when what he is telling you goes against the disgust response and the law. It's a nebulous, sometimes fun,collection of contradicting stories about a group of bronze age desert people. Some of which comes from older oral traditions which have nothing to do with those people. Expecting it to make practical sense in the modern context is bizarre.
Most of the rules he made for that bronze age people were due to their unwillingness to follow the truth, so God made many rules that don't apply today. We have moved beyond that now, but God had to make a stepping stone which was far more moral than other tribes' beliefs and rules before giving us a better law.
FauxRic said :Again, that is assuming that God doesn't exist and I don't think he can be conclusively proven to be real or unreal, unless through a supernatural experience. Even then it is only proven to that person and not everyone, so believe what you will, but hopefully you (and I think you do) realize that their isn't enough evidence against God that you can come in with your "superior intellect" and disprove him conclusively.
No it doesn't.
No what doesn't what?
Even if your model of God is 100% correct the book that conclusion is based on is written by bronze age people channeling their personal revelation about what he is telling them. It was then amended and edited and translated multiple times. It requires faith that those authors were telling the truth, that they were not insane, that their text hasn't been altered so much over time that no longer has the same meaning to derive that supposed truth from that data (even if it's true).
I don't need to make a leap of faith to see that consenting adults rubbing their genitals for pleasure in private is nothing at all like raping a child.
It was translated and I don't believe there aren't translational errors, but that is why I believe the Catholic Church is necessary, being an authority higher than the Bible.
Again, the only reason I was comparing pedophilia with homosexual sex acts, masturbation, etc. was because I believe they are all morally wrong sex acts, not because I believe there is the same degree of immorality between them.
FauxRic says : I was not comparing stealing cars to homosexuality, but rather making a point that it is possible, as Warbler mentioned, to love the sinner and not the sin. I was defending the fact that it is possible for Catholics to not hate homosexuals, but love them, and accept only their homosexual acts as wrong....
....Again, that is an opinion. I do not condemn you for opinions of yours I find very offensive, so please don't condemn me for my beliefs even if they seem outrageous.
I do not lump all sex acts I believe wrong into one. There are varying degrees of seriousness between them, and child rape is not the same thing as homosexuality or sex outside of marriage, as the latter two are much less serious (serious nonetheless in my opinion, but much less serious just as stealing a car is serious but is still far less worse than murder).
Again yes it is. It's a discussion board not a lab. You are doing it again. You are using the examples first of child rape and then car theft (you have later added murder in the name of Darwin and streaking to the mix) to equate with the wrongness you perceive in consenting adults rubbing their genitals in private for pleasure and then denying it. Really think about what you are typing, is this really the message you are trying send the readers of this thread? A person wishes to buy a car doesn't necessarily buy a car. A car owner is known by ownership of cars alone. So by saying you don't dislike the homosexual but don't like the homosexual acts that define them as homosexual is a logical paradox. If they didn't do those acts they wouldn't be homosexual. What you are saying is you don't want them to be homosexual, further you want them to conform to your standards and be Catholics and anything else is wrong.
First of all, you are completely missing the point of my analogies, and maybe take some time to think about my points, rather than repeating yourself over and over again so that I have to repeat myself as well. Really Bingowings, you are smarter than this. All you are doing is playing the devil's advocate and messing up my thread and I bet you aren't even trying to see the point of my analogies.
Also, I did not compare the "survival of the fittest" analogy to anything, so I am beginning to wonder if you are reading my posts before accusing me of things I didn't do. I was also not using that term in connection with Darwin, though that was not clear.
Homosexuals have tendencies to be attracted to their own gender, but they have not engaged in a homosexual act until they (a) have sex with someone of their gender, (b) marry someone of their gender, or (c) engage in some other "sex act" with someone of their gender. You can't say I'm not straight until I have sex with a girl because that would be ridiculous. Homosexuals can be homosexual WITHOUT ENGAGING IN HOMOSEXUAL SEX ACTS! Is that such a hard concept for you?! I'm fine with them being homosexual. God made them that way. However, I don't think they should engage in homosexual sex acts because they are homosexual. Just because I am physically able to have sex and am sexually attracted to women, doesn't mean I should go and try to have sex with every attractive woman I see. (I know you're terrible with analogies, so I'll explain that for you. What I mean is that just because you have a desire doesn't mean that you should follow through with it.)
Faux Ric said :The members of the Catholic Church are not perfect, and Church leaders (Popes, Bishops, et al.) have made mistakes--serious mistakes--in the past and present. That shouldn't be enough to discredit our religion though if that is what you believe.
I posted that in response to you saying the Church isn't a den of thieves.
Crime is a major part of what they do. It is my OPINION it is the major impulse behind the whole organisation and has been since medieval times. It has inspired and produced astonishing cultural artifacts. So did the British Empire but I'm glad it's not around much anymore.
Crime is a major part of what they do? Seriously Bingowings, just because there have been bad Church leaders doesn't mean that crime is a major part of their lives. I think that is a little bit of a generalization there, and perhaps you should stop being so judgmental when you criticize my religion and me for being judgmental of homosexuals et al.
Faux Ric said : It also isn't sustainable for older generations to have greater populations than younger generations (unless you kill off all the old people which is an acceptable solution for some people, but I would beg to differ).
Old people die eventually without any assistance, the planet doesn't get noticeably bigger though does it...? but every sperm is sacred.
Not every sperm is sacred and that is not what we believe. On its own a sperm cell or an egg cell is just another cell. I believe that preventing them from combining to form a human life is wrong. Natural family planning is the alternative presented by the Catholic Church and others. This means that you control the number of children you have just as effectively (i.e. it has approximately the same failure rate as contraceptives like the pill) as you would be able to by using the pill or other popular contraceptives. Natural family planning involves abstaining from sex during the time the woman is fertile.
Just because Catholics believe that procreation of the human species is the primary purpose of sex doesn't mean that we believe that sex can never be for enjoyment or that it cannot be done when one partner isn't fertile. However, preventing sperm from reaching the egg is considered wrong. Again, I'm terrible at explaining some things, so maybe that doesn't make sense to you or you don't see the difference, but don't think that Catholics think everyone should produce the maximum number of children they can with their spouses.
And I'm not a fake Ric. :( I'm just a later version of him, and maybe not as good. But I'm not fake! *sniff*