God and Gay Marriage

Quote: FrGamble

You know what is absolutely ridiculous is you saying this and pretending it is fact, when it is wrong. I feel embarrassed for having to educate you on these things but here is one site you can begin to learn about it from; facts about semen .

I find it interesting that you post a link which discusses improving the taste of ejaculate.

Has your church come out in favor of oral sex?

Quote: petroglyph

Seems it is an absolute reality. Mens body's through eons of time have evolved to produce ejaculate fluid and harm can come to us from not expelling it. That is what is told to me by the urology dept. of the Mayo clinic this year. I have a friend who was amazed to find the same thing happened to him, just by not masturbating he had caused himself an awful urethra infection .

My urologist told me the same thing.
But apparently the Vatican urologist
got all his medical training from the
Bible and is not up on current studies.
Oh well, their god is protecting them,
wink wink..

Quote: Evenbob

My urologist told me the same thing.
But apparently the Vatican urologist
got all his medical training from the
Bible and is not up on current studies.
Oh well, their god is protecting them,
wink wink..

I wondered that, but hadn't felt the desire to post it. If the men are healthy enough for sexual activity, than willing or not, their bodies fulfill their rolls of seed bearers.

I don't wish to insult so keep many of my opinions to myself, but surely the priests must question why their bodies go through the motions of reproduction and why their faith demands they go without wives.

Going through your life, making yourself suffer doesn't seem to me something their religion should support. Isn't the new pope loosening up on that rule a bit?

It seem ridiculous to me, especially with all the pedophilia [that we know about] going on. Hard to fight nature for an entire lifetime.

Could be worse I suppose, could have been nominated to be one of the flagillators and also a non sexual.

Quote: petroglyph

I don't wish to insult so keep many of my opinions to myself, but surely the priests must question why their bodies go through the motions of reproduction and why their faith demands they go without wives.

Many people go without wives as do many women without husbands, sometimes by choice, others by chance, or some by necessity. The human body is more than capable of handling these situations. It is really strange to have to go into detail, but there are such things as nocturnal emissions. Celibacy is a spiritual discipline that is blessing to those who are called to it. It is not unhealthy physically or spiritually. Maybe in our sex crazed and undisciplined lives such things seem hard to understand and lead to your ridicule and disbelief, but this reinforces the example and witness of celibacy for the Kingdom is needed.

Quote: FrGamble

Maybe in our sex crazed and undisciplined lives such things seem hard to understand.

Sex crazed because the Church makes people
that way. My friend Ed, the ex priest, says
confession was the worst part of his job. 90%
of it was listening to people confess 'thought
crimes' about lusting after whoever they were
lusting after. He's says he was bored to death.
And those were the days when 90% of Catholics
went to confession.

Do you think the natives of Hawaii or Tahiti were
ever wracked with any guilt over their sexuality?
Heck no, they had to be 'instructed' to feel guilt
by the Catholic missionaries that came to 'save'
them. The Church has always been obsessed with
sex, and it's losing the battle. Obsession in never
a good thing, it always ends badly for the obsessed.

The Church is losing ground on every front. People
have wised up to the fact that the Church's claws
have been clipped, they no longer have any power
to enforce their 12th century rules. No power at all.

Quote: petroglyph

Going through your life, making yourself suffer doesn't seem to me something their religion should support.

I thought that was the whole point of Christianity.

All religions are little more than collected ideas, laws, prejudices, superstitions, customs and traditions thousands of years old. Following them to the letter, or even following them loosely, makes as much sense as following Hammurabi's Code of Law, or Egyptian burial customs, or Pythagorean numerical mysticism.

To be sure they're not totally worthless, but neither is Hammurabi's Code, or parts of the Pythagorean mathematics. Some good ideas remain good and relevant millennia after they're formulated. But we don't go around mutilating people for theft, or believing the square root of negative numbers ought to be kept secret. So why should we treat religion any different?

Catholicism, in the various sects it has split into, does update itself when it has to, but then only minimally and often just by default. In the end it's no different from the cherry*picking done by all other religions. I've yet to find an observant Jew or Christian who will walk the prescribed distance out of the city before undertaking a bowel movement, and it's been a while since anyone has tried to impose a value of 3 on Pi.

I really don't care what people believe in or why. It's their business and right to do so. But the minute their beliefs impact my rights, I do care. I will not make myself miserable the rest of my life because it offends your beliefs, I will not have my civil rights restricted because it offends your beliefs, I will not tolerate a second's worth of intolerance because it offends your beliefs.

When you do all that, or try to, I will go on the offensive. Your holy books are rife with logical and factual inconsistencies. For example, if sex is meant to be used only for procreation, why did your deity, in its alleged infinite wisdom, "create" humanity as only one of a handful of species without a mating season? Wouldn't that have insured sex is not misused in the manner in which you so dread?

It offends your beliefs that people masturbate, enjoy sex for their own sake, use contraception, or engage in other types of sex for purposes other than procreation? Blame your idiot god for not thinking things through. Not the people who simply have found a way of making good, enjoyable use of their natures.

Quote: Evenbob

My friend Ed, the ex priest, says
confession was the worst part of his job.

No wonder he is an ex-priest. If you don't find joy in freeing someone from the burden of their sins and allowing them to experience anew their self-worth and that they are loved by God you probably shouldn't have been a priest in the first place. In contrast it is one of the best parts of my vocation, I rarely feel more like a priest of Jesus Christ than in the confessional.

Quote:

Do you think the natives of Hawaii or Tahiti were
ever wracked with any guilt over their sexuality?

Of course the young man who used the beautiful young woman for his own pleasure without any desire for a relationship felt guilty about his abuse of sexuality. Do you want to guess how the young woman felt? Of course the man who was in a committed relationship felt guilty by sleeping with another woman. No one needs to be instructed about what to feel after they misuse the powerful gift of our sexuality. The Church not only gives them the freedom to begin again and no longer be a slave to their sexual desires, but also the grace to live a chaste, pure, and respectful life we are all called to.

Quote:

The Church has always been obsessed with
sex, and it's losing the battle.

I had to laugh about this. Take a look around our culture or watch a little TV and I think you will see what someone obsessed with sex looks like. The Church is obsessed with the teachings of Jesus Christ, which has a lot more to do with how we treat each other, especially the poor and needy, than it has to do with sex. Get your head out of the gutter.

Quote:

No power at all.

Only the power of truth and the power of Jesus Christ. That is all we ever need. It is a good thing to be purified from the corrupting influence of worldly power.

Quote: FrGamble

No wonder he is an ex-priest. If you don't find joy in freeing someone from the burden of their sins

Could be the fact that he listened to
literally 8 or 9 times as many confessions
a week than you do. 50 years ago most
Catholics went to mass and went to confession
regularly. Today it's the opposite.

Quote: FrGamble

The Church not only gives them

You mean forced them. The people of
Hawaii and Tahiti didn't ask to be
converted.

Quote: FrGamble

I had to laugh about this. Take a look around our culture or watch a little TV and I think you will see what someone obsessed with sex looks like.

What you see as obsession is actually acceptance
of sexuality on a grand level. I grew up in a
time of sexual repression by all churches. Sex
was portrayed as filthy and sinful and something
you did but weren't supposed to enjoy. The
only accepted sexual position taught by the
Church is the now infamous 'Missionary
Position', because it's the one taught to the
natives by Catholic missionaries.

"They assumed that the proper posture for marital sex ought to be the one in which the man lay atop his wife. Deviations from this posture were perversions, motivated by a quest for unusual pleasures."

That's what sexual obsession looks like. Must
not have any 'unusual pleasures'.

Quote: Evenbob

Could be the fact that he listened to
literally 8 or 9 times as many confessions
a week than you do.

I doubt that very much. There were also more priests then to hear confessions. You are not getting the point, being an instrument of God's mercy and loving forgiveness is not a burden it is one of the best things I can do.

Quote:

What you see as obsession is actually acceptance
of sexuality on a grand level. I grew up in a
time of sexual repression by all churches. Sex
was portrayed as filthy and sinful and something
you did but weren't supposed to enjoy.

I've said it many times before and I will say it again, you need to find some better Christians in your life. I'm sorry you had such a traumatic experience and example of poor examples of Christ and very inadequate teachings. I really explains a lot of what you are talking about.

Sex is a wonderful thing, a gift from God, and it is obvious that it was meant to be enjoyed. What you see as acceptance is a gross corruption and distortion. Sex was never meant to be done for recreation. Like any precious gift it is meant to be treated as such. Our culture today has demeaned and degraded sex to use another position "doggy style". We treat sex like animals not as human beings. We have forgotten the true meaning and nature of sex.

Quote:

That's what sexual obsession looks like. Must
not have any 'unusual pleasures'.

Like anal sex or sex with multiple people at the same time or orgies or sex with family members or cougars, MILFs, mature on young sex. These are the symptoms or sexual obsessions and sexual problems. They are unusual and unnatural - are you trying to defend them and say they are perfectly fine?