Simple question?

Quote: Nareed

More likely Socrates irritated people by not going along with their sensibilities, in trying to uncover their ignorance and shortcomings. That's why he wound up murdered.

I agree that this is more likely. It scares me a bit. Archbishop Chaput once said that he will die in his bed, his successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr. If we can't handle better having our ideas questioned and confronted with objective truth than I fear this may happen.

Quote: FrGamble

Your view is that Oppression is Truth.

My view is that curtailing natural desires which harm no one and provide a great deal of life-affirming support, love, enjoyment and happiness to a couple is oppression. You call it love. Therefore your view is that Oppression=Love.

What you call "truth" pompously with a capital T isn't even truth. It's opinion at best, and ancient cultural prejudices of desert tribes at worst. Why this neurotic need to cling to it?

BTW, what did Jesus say about same-sex love and attraction? It must have been said loudly, demonstrated amply and repeated so often as to be unmistakable. Yet I can find no Christian who knows it. perhaps you do.

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ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Why do you think that intimacy with the person one loves can only be expressed or even best expressed using genitals?

Why do you think sexual intimacy must be restricted to heterosexual vaginal sex only. What the hell is your hang up about that?

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Of course not,

Aber natürlich mein herr.

All people are equal, but Catholic, cisgender, straight people are more equal than others

BTW, explain why a straight couple past their childbearing years is allowed to engage in sex. Explain further how they are different from any same sex couple as regards procreation.

Quote: rxwine

Oh, I don't either.

Still try to get Prof. Fears doing his version of Socratic dialogue. It's amazing.

I don't suggest spending on a Great Courses lecture, unless it interests you, but if he was that histrionic in class, surely someone has put it on Youtube by now.

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As far as I'm concerned, much of the Catholic Churches moralizing on things like the concerns of the LBGT community, is no more physiologically, than a war of righthanders on the lefthanders

I don't think it was ever church doctrine to "correct" left-handedness, but there was a widespread prejudice against them in Christian Europe. Traces of it still populate many European languages. Like the word "sinister." In Latin it merely meant "left."

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Their contempt for it continues until they see otherwise, which I doubt will actually happen. You can't lack contempt until you absolutely resolve to stop blaming the thing for its existence, no matter how nice you are about it.

Very well said!

Quote: rxwine

You can't lack contempt until you absolutely resolve to stop blaming the thing for its existence, no matter how nice you are about it.

Great point. No matter what direction they
spin it, by trying to 'correct' the behavior
of certain people who were born the way
they are and can do nothing about it, no
matter what excuse they give for correcting
them, they come across as making the person
feel 'less than'. Unequal, wrong, 2nd class.
And this is devastating. This is their god. They
can have him..

Quote: Nareed

My view is that curtailing natural desires which harm no one and provide a great deal of life-affirming support, love, enjoyment and happiness to a couple is oppression. You call it love. Therefore your view is that Oppression=Love.

I can't tell you the weight I feel in my heart reading this. I hear you and can't help that you must be in some ways feeling the way I feel when it is obvious you guys do not understand my own personal loving relationship with Jesus Christ. I do not know and will not know what it feels like to love another man so deeply that I would feel called to having sex with them. I don't want to pretend that for an instant this is a comfortable teaching to proclaim or for many to hear.

Quote:

What you call "truth" pompously with a capital T isn't even truth. It's opinion at best, and ancient cultural prejudices of desert tribes at worst. Why this neurotic need to cling to it?

BTW, what did Jesus say about same-sex love and attraction? It must have been said loudly, demonstrated amply and repeated so often as to be unmistakable. Yet I can find no Christian who knows it. perhaps you do.

I don't feel a neurotic need to cling to it and it is much more than some ancient cultural prejudice. It is based on natural law and the obvious ways our bodies were made to be complimentary. However, Jesus did not preach about this and while He did say marriage is between one man and one woman and that it was an unbreakable and exclusive covenant of love I do believe He would not condemn anyone who committed homosexual acts. He ate with prostitutes for goodness sake and publically forgave a woman caught in adultery. Believe it or not this is NOT on the hierarchy of truths something that ranks right up there with Jesus is God or the Holy Trinity. It is the consequence of our moral theology and understanding of what JPII called, "The Theology of the Body" much like our belief about contraception. I do not want to fall on my sword over this issue, I'd much rather go back to talking about the clear evidence and existence of God.

But then I read this post from Evenbob and I am reminded of why I do and must hold to these things:

Quote: Evenbob

Great point. No matter what direction they
spin it, by trying to 'correct' the behavior
of certain people who were born the way
they are and can do nothing about it, no
matter what excuse they give for correcting
them, they come across as making the person
feel 'less than'. Unequal, wrong, 2nd class.
And this is devastating. This is their god. They
can have him..

The prevalence of relativism and its political correct consequences are disastrous. We seem to not be able to 'correct' anyone these days without someone getting in a huff and saying you are condemning the person (with the notable exception of a Christian). We feel if anyone challenges our ideas or way of life they are saying that we are fundamental 'less than' 'unequal' or '2nd class'. Why can we not say that sexual practices of homosexuals while subjectively normal to them are objectively against natural law and can be harmful? Why is pointing this out not loving and looked at as oppression? I am very much overweight and chew tobacco. The people that love me the most tell me I need to be careful and watch what I eat and give up the habit. The people that don't care about me don't say anything. God has a vision of love that is not tied explicitly and exclusively into the use of our genitals. As I celibate I know very well that you can love someone deeply and intimately and never even desire to see them naked or have sex with them. Many of us know this as well through the love of our parents and our loving and honoring them back. By telling a divorced couple that you cannot marry again before first going through a process of healing from your first broken marriage I am not condemning, oppressing, or torturing them even if at first they may think that. Afterwards they are effusive in their thanks for the difficult but true teaching of the Church. By telling a homosexual couple that you can love each other intimately and forever with all the civil rights of a heterosexual couple without having sex and labeling marriage I am not trying to oppress or hurt them. I will, and God will for sure, walk with them always the journey of discovering this truth and forgiving them and giving them the grace they need. I believe in the end they will realize the truth and be happier because of it. Call me naïve or evil or oppressive if you like, but I have heard nothing besides the heart rending personal experience of a person I have come to respect on this forum to show me I am wrong. When I read Nareed's posts I feel like I am wrong but then when I read Evenbob's posts I am reminded that as painful as it might be I am correct.

Quote: FrGamble

I do not know and will not know what it feels like to love another man so deeply that I would feel called to having sex with them.
.

Neither do I. And neither of us has the right
to tell them what to do about it. It's none
of our business, and surely not the business
of some fictitious god who claims to have
created them that way. God says 'I'll make
you Gay but you can't express that Gayness
sexually with another Gay man. Ha Ha.'

Nice joke.

Quote: Nareed

I don't think it was ever church doctrine to "correct" left-handedness, but there was a widespread prejudice against them in Christian Europe. Traces of it still populate many European languages. Like the word "sinister." In Latin it merely meant "left."

I see it as analogous to a bigger issue.

Righthanders (the majority) have of course forced lefthanders to conform before. It's pointless shaming.

Imagine if someone who needs corrective lenses, was told to do without glasses or contact lenses? Imagine if you have a foot size out of the ordinary and you're told to cram it into the sizes available and walk all day in that? Imagine if you have the wrong skin color. Imagine if you're the wrong anything?

You could make lists of societies, ideologies, and religions who have categories of people who are good and ones that are bad divided into two tables labeled "good' and "bad." It's not just Nazis who do such things, it's all of them to some degree.

Much of it makes no sense.

I'm sure you could write an enormous book of true story after story of people being told, shamed, chastised, hurt and destroyed and forced to conform to someone's else's idea of normality all over the world and through history.

Thankfully, most western societies have gotten away from things like forcing the born crippled/disabled to beg just to live, but they haven't gotten far enough in reassessing what's really harmful and what should be allowed.

Quote: Evenbob

Nice joke.

As a married man God made you heterosexual and He also at the same time says you can't express that orientation with any other female.

I don't get the joke.

Quote: rxwine

Imagine if someone who needs corrective lenses, was told to do without glasses or contact lenses? Imagine if you have a foot size out of the ordinary and you're told to cram it into the sizes available and walk all day in that? Imagine if you have the wrong skin color. Imagine if you're the wrong anything?

How can you have the wrong skin color? Ignoring that clumsy aspect of your analogy the other couple of examples can be discussed. What is not natural about correcting someone's eyesight or giving them the proper size shoes? Nothing.

What if someone wanted to wear an ill fitting shoe and you allowed them to cram their feet into the shoes they wanted and walk all day in that?

Quote:

You could make lists of societies, ideologies, and religions who have categories of people who are good and ones that are bad divided into two tables labeled "good' and "bad." It's not just Nazis who do such things, it's all of them to some degree.

Much of it makes no sense.

None of it makes any sense. People are not good and bad, they are good but struggling with the temptation to do bad things.

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I'm sure you could write an enormous book of true story after story of people being told, shamed, chastised, hurt and destroyed and forced to conform to someone's else's idea of normality all over the world and through history.

I'm sure you could, such is the sad human condition and history. Can you think of people being told they are wrong for doing something that is not normal throughout history like polygamy or human sacrifice?

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Thankfully, most western societies have gotten away from things like forcing the born crippled/disabled to beg just to live, but they haven't gotten far enough in reassessing what's really harmful and what should be allowed.

I think you have a far too positive view how far western societies have come. How many hundreds of people are killed every day in America because they crippled/disabled or just because they are a surprise or called "unwanted"?

Quote: FrGamble

How can you have the wrong skin color? Ignoring that clumsy aspect of your analogy the other couple of examples can be discussed. What is not natural about correcting someone's eyesight or giving them the proper size shoes? Nothing.

You can't have the wrong skin color, that's the point.

You can only have biological differences. Your religion making moral judgments about them is the actual evil.

As to another point, I'll refer you to the following for example.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/understanding-deafness-not-everyone-wants-to-be-fixed/278527/

As to another point -- you comparing human sacrifice to what we talking about. C'mon. I am not endorsing anything other than consenting adult behavior.