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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: If we accept homosexuality as God given, why not paedophilia?
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Over here, Ender's Shadow has said:
quote:
quote:
in response to this post by Boogie You can't do that and hold to what you said above. If you reject a person's sexuality and treat it as a temptation to be resisted, you reject them as a person too.
You may not call it homophobia, but it is total rejection of who they are just the same.
[Please resist the temptation to stop listening when you read the first sentence of this response; it's NOT saying what you feel it is]
Indeed, but given that we have no hesitation in saying this to paedophiles, it's clear that we have the right to do so. The ONLY debate is where the line is to be drawn, and what constitutes behaviour that is spiritually damaging to the participants. Now I have no hesitation in arguing that sexual activity by adults with children is harmful - despite that the fact that many other societies have affirmed it as normal and acceptable. And until very recently our society placed a similar condemnation on gay relationships; that is no longer the consensus of our society - but it's not legitimate to argue it's obviously wrong because it rejects who they are. Unless you are going to offer the same free pass to paedophiles...
[Yes, folks, the logic is impeccable. Don't get diverted into arguing that 'gay relationships have a record of being good for the participants'; that's setting experience against a bible based morality. This is about our affirmation - or otherwise - of what we believe about the bible as an accurate guide to what God regards as good. It's nice to be a dead fish and to go with the flow, but that doesn't make it right.]
That argument has developed and I want to continue arguing it, but suspect the discussion should be on a different thread, not the one discussing what we would like Justin Welby to have said in his acceptance speech.
Here I argued that:
quote:
There is a difference between paedophilia and homosexuality because
- we know children do not have an adult understanding of sexuality and adults wanting to have sex with children is allowing an unequal relationship which tend to be unequal. How can you equate that inequality of power to a relationship between two consenting adults?
- sexual acts between grown men and children are often physically damaging as well as psychologically - the relative sizes being an issue here. And before you suggest anal sex is physically damaging
- not all homosexuality involves anal sex and
- a whole lot of heterosexual sexual activity includes anal sex.
which means that anal sexual activity is not a marker to be used in considering homosexualitythose people who are denigrating homosexuality have an image of hedonistic relationships that bear little similarity to the sorts of relationships many homosexual couples enjoy.if you're condemning male homosexuality, what about female? Does that attract the same condemnation? There's nothing in the Bible about that one.
Rereading the thread, I think I missed what Ender's Shadow was saying, and that he was asking the question in the title.
I guess the question becomes - are paedophiles made by God? Could we argue they were made by man and their experiences?
Genuinely asking here, I don't know enough psychiatry of sexuality to know.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
Why stop there? Why judge murderers, after all God made them so. Obviously homicidal tendency is merely an orientation.
ETA: homosexuality does not offer harm. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, respond to the sexual characteristics developed by the body as it becomes mature. Paedophiles are attracted to the lack of such.
[ 12. November 2012, 15:57: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I didn't say I agreed with the comments, just that I understood that to be Ender's Shadow's argument. I wondered what made him think this, and what others thought too.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
I realise this is not your opinion. Just taking it to its furthest point to illustrate the problem with the reasoning.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Considered logically, it's not an argument against homosexuality. It's merely a counterargument to one essentialist argument for homosexuality. It's supposed to show that it's not sufficient for the gay and straight are equivalent side of the argument to claim that sexual orientation automatically requires equal respect. But I don't think that's the only argument available to the equivalent side of the argument, or even the best. I don't know that the equivalent side of the argument even wants to stick to the essentialist claim about sexuality.
Rhetorically, of course, the argument has been spiked by the equation of homosexuality with paedophilia by some homophobes. It's therefore hard to use the argument at all without looking as if you're insinuating the homophobic equation.
Anyway, as I said in the other thread, someone arguing from the accepted wrongness of paedophilia to a Biblical morality has a problem. Because the Bible really doesn't comment on paedophilia. In other words, you either have to give up a blanket condemnation of paedophilia or you have to give up a commitment to the sufficiency of the Bible for morality.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Ender's Shadow
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# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I guess the question becomes - are paedophiles made by God? Could we argue they were made by man and their experiences?
Genuinely asking here, I don't know enough psychiatry of sexuality to know.
Thanks Curiosity killed... for stating my position so much more clearly than I'd achieved ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) My own perception is that the psychiatry of sexuality hasn't got a clue what it's doing, so I wouldn't want to accept any of its conclusions as 'scientific'. In reality much of psychiatry is at the anecdote stage - which, after all, was the basis from which Freud built; all sides produce their anecdotes, but there's no replicable science there. The fact that Sex Offender Treatment Programmes are Cognitive Behaviour Therapy based, (i.e. giving the offender tools to control their deviant sexuality rather than seeking to address the roots of their behaviour) seems to be evidence for this. The decision of the APA to define 'being gay' as no longer a disorder seems to be a function of the premise 'Sex is a drive seeking to be fulfilled and the object of that fulfillment does not matter so long as you are not seriously disturbed by your sexual drives.' This of course has been leveraged by the gay community to encourage the belief that 'the psychiatrists say it's OK to be gay' as a means of forcing this view onto the wider public, with a remarkable degree of success. On that basis paedophilia has an identical claim to its place as 'not a disorder', especially in societies where it is a part of the culture. WHICH DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT, before anyone sulks at me for seeming to suggest that.
Beyond this point, of course, we get into a discussion that comes down to our beliefs about what is, or is not, good for a person. The fact that from the traditional Christian perspective that gay sex is 'inherently disordered' and therefore will be damaging, however much we like to hope otherwise, puts gay sexual relationships at the same qualitative level in terms of being damaging to the participants, although the damage is less obvious (and denied by some, of course). Yes, this is an extrapolation from the traditional Christian understanding, and deeply unfashionable these days.
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
I think all it says is that the argument "that's just the way I am" doesn't hold much water. It's unreasonable to apply that argument to any old negative character trait, and I don't think it's helpful for gay people to simply say "well that's just the way I am" and expect that to be the end of the conversation.
But most gay people don't simply say that and leave things there. And it's a tiny part of the whole discussion anyhow. So it really doesn't make much of a difference. I'm not sure why pick on paedophilia - that just seems inflammatory. Why not just pick "I have a short fuse, God made me that way" - the point made is the same, but you're going to piss a lot fewer people off.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Doesn't Paul say that if people cannot control their desires they should marry in 1 Corinthians 7:9?
I'm not sure that the treatment of paedophiles is quite as you suggest from a bit of research in Google Scholar - the papers I read there suggests there's quite a bit more to it than that.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
"If people can't control their desires, they should marry" but then the ultra-Christians prevent some people from marrying, for reasons which are more about some perverted "ick" factor on the part of the "ick"ing person than they are about the person who desires a relationship.
Why should members of a club that doesn't want particular people as members get to direct the behaviour of those people who are not in the club, and cannot join?
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Latchkey Kid
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# 12444
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Posted
I can't imagine a committed caring paedophilic relationship that puts the other's, i.e. the child's interests before their own.
I can imagine that in a GLBT relationships, just as I can in hetero relationships, though it does not always occur there either.
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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art dunce
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# 9258
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Posted
So, wait, if you believe that men can stick their penises somewhere other than their wive's vaginas that means you have to accept they are free to stick it anywhere, whether it be in kids or sheep or women without consent? How do sexist, patriarchal, coercive or deceitful practices become excused because of the private choices of two consenting adults?
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
ad,
I can't work out who, if anyone, you are responding to. It doesn't seem to be the OP.
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
Sorry it was Ender..I blame the IPad.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why stop there? Why judge murderers, after all God made them so. Obviously homicidal tendency is merely an orientation.
This does nicely illustrate that we can't go all the way down the road of 'act on your impulses'.
But nor can we go to the other extreme of 'deny all your impulses'.
It has to come down to results. What are the benefits? What are the consequences?
Doing that assessment, it's not at all hard to see that acting on desires for sex with children creates all sorts of harm.
What I don't think some people grasp in the argument about homosexuality is the massive harm that comes from NOT acting on the 'impulses' involved.
I've been there and lived it. I've spent years of my life rejecting and suppressing my homosexual impulses because I believed that it was the 'right' thing to do, mandated by an interpretation of the Bible.
And you know what? It's a fucking disaster. It creates huge psychological damage.
And for what? What harm got prevented in the meantime?
More than anything else, when I came to realise that the relevant Bible passages (of which there are precious few) could actually be interpreted more than one way, what tipped me in favour of an interpretation that didn't bar homosexual sex was the RESULTS.
Allowing myself to have homosexual desires doesn't make me into a psychological basket case. It doesn't cause harm to me or those around me. It does the exact opposite. It enables me to be a normal human being with all the normal experiences of love and attraction and rejection that my heterosexual peers were going through from their teenage years onwards.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The fact that from the traditional Christian perspective that gay sex is 'inherently disordered' and therefore will be damaging, however much we like to hope otherwise, puts gay sexual relationships at the same qualitative level in terms of being damaging to the participants, although the damage is less obvious (and denied by some, of course).
See above. I deny it completely. What on earth makes gay sex damaging?
And please, for the love of God, if you mention HIV I will point you to every page I can find about the millions upon millions of heterosexual Africans and Asians dying from it.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
On a certain level religious conservatives just don't seem to "get" the whole concept of consent. There was a follow-up to the blog post cited by Justinian that deals with this.
quote:
In that post I said that “conservatives divide sexual acts into “wrong” or “okay” based on what God thinks of them, and progressives divide sexual acts into “wrong” and “okay” based on whether or not they are consensual.” As I created two boxes for conservatives and two for progressives, and went to put sexual acts into them, I found I had a problem when it came to rape. Take a look below:
[Picture goes here]
Do you see “rape” in those boxes? Yes, it’s there in the “non-consensual” box under progressive sexual ethics, but what about conservative sexual ethics? No, you’re not seeing things – it’s not there. It’s not there in either box. And there’s a reason for that. As I tried to figure out where to put rape, I realized that the fundamentalist evangelicalism in which I grew up doesn’t treat rape as a separate category. Instead, rape is grouped under either “premarital sex” or “marital sex.” It’s not treated separately.
Part of this could just incompatible world views. Religious conservatives simply don't see non-consensual sex as wrong per se, but instead have to parse it through the "within/outside marriage" filter first.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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The Silent Acolyte
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# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
The fact that from the traditional Christian perspective that gay sex is 'inherently disordered' and therefore will be damaging...
See above. I deny it completely. What on earth makes gay sex damaging?
Orfeo, you are worrying about the wrong end of the stick.
To say "gay sex is 'inherently disordered' and therefore will be damaging" is tautological. Whenever we are not properly ordered to our inherent image and likeness, we are damaging the creation.
Back things up and hammer away at the presupposition that same-sex orientation is inherently disordered.
That is the only place to gain traction. It is also the scriptural exegetical controversy that Ender's Shadow avoids, because he has no adequate contribution to make (as others have pointed out).
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
TSA, I had in fact more or less already got there. I was just giving a small chance for the emergence of something that wasn't a circular argument.
Mostly because the assertion was that there IS damage, not merely that it's "wrong". Apparently the damage is difficult to spot, but the assertion was that it exists nevertheless.
[ 13. November 2012, 03:53: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
Indeed, and for some interlocutors, a multi-pronged argument from scripture and reason (or experience) might gain traction with the spectators. So, seeking an explanation of the putative damage, might prove fruitful. In this case, though, I think it must be solely Sola Scriptura.
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
This seems largely based on different assumptions about the source of sexual orientation. Those who defend homosexuality have tended to base their argument on the essentialist idea that sexual orientation is innate and unchangeable, and since people can't change who they are, it can't be right to prohibit them from expressing their true nature. The traditionalists claim that everyone is innately heterosexual, and that homosexuality is a choice, which ought to be rejected. I think there's an alternative--that people are the owners of their bodies and their sexuality, and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose, whether or not they are compelled by some essential nature.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
This seems largely based on different assumptions about the source of sexual orientation. Those who defend homosexuality have tended to base their argument on the essentialist idea that sexual orientation is innate and unchangeable, and since people can't change who they are, it can't be right to prohibit them from expressing their true nature. The traditionalists claim that everyone is innately heterosexual, and that homosexuality is a choice, which ought to be rejected.
I don't think traditionalists have thought this far. Their brains seem to be running on tracks that say "if Bible says something is good then it has to be good, if the Bible says bad it has to be bad" - without noticing all the discrepancies between this narrowed down belief and things in the Bible we would say are bad, like slavery, polygamy, child marriage,
quote:
I think there's an alternative--that people are the owners of their bodies and their sexuality, and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose, whether or not they are compelled by some essential nature.
That's actually what Ender's Shadow is saying, if I understand him correctly. If you say that people are owners of their bodies and sexuality and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose then paedophiles have an equal right to express their sexual desire as God obviously made them too.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
...and as ES has been told a million times, that principle still doesn't give anyone the right to use someone else's body who can't or won't give informed consent.
It breaks down there.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Following on from my answer to Timothy, I think the logic is flawed, and Justinian's link does make a lot of sense.
I think there are several arguments here. One is the Biblical one that Dafyd used to explain that paedophilia between a man and a pre-pubescent girl is not proscribed in the Bible, and if that's so, can we rely on the Bible?
Secondly, can we be sure that paedophiles are made by God? From my digging around in Google Scholar last night, it seems that there is evidence for a cycle of abuse: a significant proportion (I saw 47% quoted, but with caveats) of paedophiles were abused as children (but not all those abused as children go on to abuse). In addition, the loss of a parent in childhood was another risk factor. Another research finding was the belief in paedophiles that the child had consented*. And I wonder if that is the result of those paedophiles not being taught empathy as children. I wonder if these findings suggest that paedophilia is man made - a symptom of man's brokenness, abuse of others and lack of parenting skills?
Thirdly, the major difference between paedophilia and mature homosexual relationships is consent. There are no direct instructions in the Bible that relationships must be consenting. We have accounts of upstanding church leaders using their rights as head of the household as a reason to indulge in marital rape. Now, I'm sure we could use 1 Corinthians 13 and the Ephesians passage (in chapter 5?) on marriage to argue against that one, so surely we can use those passages to argue against paedophilia, with about as much eisogesis as we use for the 6 homosexuality passages.
* just to make sure, I do not think children have the physical or mental maturity to make informed consent, I'm paraphrasing research here.
(Cross post with LydaRose)
[ 13. November 2012, 06:24: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I think there's an alternative--that people are the owners of their bodies and their sexuality, and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose, whether or not they are compelled by some essential nature.
Agreed - so long as their expression of that desire is between consenting adults and does no harm.
Controlling what people do in the bedroom is pointless and counter productive imo.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I think there's an alternative--that people are the owners of their bodies and their sexuality, and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose, whether or not they are compelled by some essential nature.
Agreed - so long as their expression of that desire is between consenting adults and does no harm.
I am a bit dubious about this. The same principles expressed in economic matters lead to right-wing libertarianism, with all the resulting inequality and injustice. So I don't think the principles are sufficient or entirely correct.
The idea that I have the right to express my sexuality as I choose is defeated by the idea that I may only express my sexuality in a way that causes no harm and requires consent. (That is the substance of Ender's Shadow's argument, and to that extent only, it is correct.)
The underlying anthropology is one of the human being as a rational economic agents seeking his (sic) satisfaction of desire and negotiating boundaries with other equivalent agents. That's not a Christian anthropology. I'm not sure it's even an anthropology that most left-wing atheists would be comfortable with when spelled out.
What one might say is that lack of consent is the only thing that is absolutely wrong. But that doesn't mean that there may not be other things that aren't wrong under most circumstances. For example, prostitution or other areas of the sex trade where there are large imbalances of power are probably wrong. (Unless you finesse the idea of consent; but I think ruling that some consent isn't really consent is a dubious idea.)
The Christian argument for same-sex sexual relations is that the good theological accounts of sexuality don't give grounds for treating them as a different case from different sex sexual relationships.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I think there's an alternative--that people are the owners of their bodies and their sexuality, and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose, whether or not they are compelled by some essential nature.
Agreed - so long as their expression of that desire is between consenting adults and does no harm.
I am a bit dubious about this. The same principles expressed in economic matters lead to right-wing libertarianism, with all the resulting inequality and injustice.
Tangent, but isn't that where the aforementioned libertarianism fails the "does no harm" test, given that inequality and injustice are harm?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
...and, furthering that, why the likes of JOhn Stuart Mill were against the legalisation of drugs on the basis that addiction was harmful to the user.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
If the stakes were not so high with sexual offences against children, the very idea of this thread would be simply silly.
There is a wealth of data to support that xenophobia, racism and genocide are 'god given' in the same way as the paedo argument would go. It is well established that human beings tend to see their small tribal group as The People, and Others as simply other, and are willing to take what the others have and to kill them. A little digging into anthropology, comparative psychology / ethology, will establish this. I'm recalling particularly research in New Guinea where when strangers meet, they have to figure out why not to kill each other if from different groups. Do we accept that racism and xenophobia are god given (Joshua notwithstanding)?
I don't think so. We accept that civilization requires and civil society requires suppression of our god given animal nature and tolerance. So we are required to suppress out murderous, incestuous, pedophilic tendencies and desires because God gave us brains and societies as well as well as sexual urges.
Homosexuality is entirely different. Consider the dimension of harm. Exploitive sexuality is the problem.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why stop there? Why judge murderers, after all God made them so. Obviously homicidal tendency is merely an orientation.
What I don't think some people grasp in the argument about homosexuality is the massive harm that comes from NOT acting on the 'impulses' involved.
I've been there and lived it. I've spent years of my life rejecting and suppressing my homosexual impulses because I believed that it was the 'right' thing to do, mandated by an interpretation of the Bible.
Just to pick you up on this...
You may or may not recall that about six months ago I started and contributed to a thread in Purgatory entitled "Called to marital celibacy?"
I am a heterosexual male, married, with no sex life whatsoever (and none for some time). I have heterosexual impulses, quite strong ones as it happens. I am tempted, sorely at times, by several of the mums at the school gate,and indeed other women, married and single/ divorced, one or two of whom have indicated that they might be 'up for something'.
Should I, following your logic, follow through on my impulses or suppress them?
(You see, things aren't always as rosy in the straight sexual garden as you might think...)
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
(You see, things aren't always as rosy in the straight sexual garden as you might think...)
Of course they aren't - and if we have committed our lives to someone and the sexual landscape changes, then we have choices to make.
But this would be true whatever our sexuality or the gender of our partner, would it not?
It's certainly no argument against homosexual sex or relationships.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
I almost hesitate to wade into this - but a few things stand out.
OP'd by Croesus:
quote:
Part of this could just incompatible world views. Religious conservatives simply don't see non-consensual sex as wrong per se, but instead have to parse it through the "within/outside marriage" filter first.
I'd consider myself a religious conservative, and I most definitely DO see non-consensual sex as wrong; I don't know a single soul (that I wouldn't consider a danger to society) that does not.
OP'd by no_prophet (and voiced by others)
quote:
We accept that civilization requires and civil society requires suppression of our god given animal nature and tolerance. So we are required to suppress out murderous, incestuous, pedophilic tendencies and desires because God gave us brains and societies as well as well as sexual urges.
What (I believe) the Bible teaches is that we are fallen, and only in the sense that God created the world is He responsible for our fallen-ness; in fact, I believe He is not responsible. So that if I find in myself something that goes against Scripture, it is not God's fault and not God-given. If I am opposed to anything, from not being a tale-bearer up and down amongst my people, or being a sluggard, or a liar, or whatever (and of course, some Christians put homosexuality in "the list"), then it is not for society's good that I repress an anti-social "god-given" instinct or appetite, but because I believe the Word defines what my character should be like and seek to mortify anything in me that isn't Christlike.
Sorry if that's clear as mud, I'm really short on time...
Matt, continued prayers for you... I recall that thread.
Tom
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
Posts: 1570 | From: Pittsburgh, PA USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I am a heterosexual male, married, with no sex life whatsoever (and none for some time). I have heterosexual impulses, quite strong ones as it happens. I am tempted, sorely at times, by several of the mums at the school gate,and indeed other women, married and single/ divorced, one or two of whom have indicated that they might be 'up for something'.
Should I, following your logic, follow through on my impulses or suppress them?)
Perhaps you are looking more at the word used than the meaning conveyed. Your use of "impulse" and orfeo's are, IMO, not exactly the same.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Just to pick you up on this...
You may or may not recall that about six months ago I started and contributed to a thread in Purgatory entitled "Called to marital celibacy?"
I am a heterosexual male, married, with no sex life whatsoever (and none for some time). I have heterosexual impulses, quite strong ones as it happens. I am tempted, sorely at times, by several of the mums at the school gate,and indeed other women, married and single/ divorced, one or two of whom have indicated that they might be 'up for something'.
Should I, following your logic, follow through on my impulses or suppress them?
I guess it depends on what you mean by "follow through", since you indicate being tempted by "several" women but that only "one or two" have indicated any interest. This comes back to whether or not consent matters, which is one of the key ways your situation is different than a pedophile's.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow via Curiosity Killed
You may not call it homophobia, but it is total rejection of who they are just the same.
[Please resist the temptation to stop listening when you read the first sentence of this response; it's NOT saying what you feel it is]
Indeed, but given that we have no hesitation in saying this to paedophiles, it's clear that we have the right to do so. The ONLY debate is where the line is to be drawn, and what constitutes behaviour that is spiritually damaging to the participants. Now I have no hesitation in arguing that sexual activity by adults with children is harmful - despite that the fact that many other societies have affirmed it as normal and acceptable. And until very recently our society placed a similar condemnation on gay relationships; that is no longer the consensus of our society - but it's not legitimate to argue it's obviously wrong because it rejects who they are. Unless you are going to offer the same free pass to paedophiles...
[Yes, folks, the logic is impeccable. Don't get diverted into arguing that 'gay relationships have a record of being good for the participants'; that's setting experience against a bible based morality. This is about our affirmation - or otherwise - of what we believe about the bible as an accurate guide to what God regards as good. It's nice to be a dead fish and to go with the flow, but that doesn't make it right.
I want to tackle this in two parts.
The first is the conflict between a consequentialist view of morality and a simplistic theistic morality. ES slips between the two in his argument in a way that isn't helpful. This may be slightly hypocritical of me but I wish to draw on the two in a slightly different way.
What I think ES is appealing to is a simplistic theistic morality i.e. what God says is Right is Right and what God says is Wrong is Wrong. Now I don't think that is an unreasonable biblical position but it is problematic.
Ultimately if God is the ultimate moral authority in the universe with complete freedom then he can simply declare things right or wrong. However it is more complex than that because most of us come to a partially-consequentialist position at least - i.e. God - we believe - has good reasons for his laws. They make sense. Most of us would much prefer to live in a society in which Do Not Steal was a maxim that everyone lived by - we'd leave our houses and cars unlocked all the time - in fact we wouldn't have locks. Good laws increase freedom. And that is the experience we have of God's laws.
This becomes problematic when we try to define and assess harmfulness. And it becomes even more problematic when we assess what is God actually saying in the bible about certain things. I firmly believe that God is against lying - it's even in the Ten Commandments but Rahab is praised in Hebrews for lying to her countrymen to protect the Hebrew spies.
If you want to prescribe a morality based on what God says then you will inevitably have discussions on what God is actually saying that cannot simply be dismissed - because your understanding of the bible is not the only one and could be wrong! Only God knows. You then slip into a consequentialist position which is seriously debatable.
The second problem is that the comparison with paedophilia is deeply offensive and completely misplaced. For a start you seem to be talking about hebephilia rather that paedophilia but skipping over that, the key characteristic of a paedophilic/hebephilic relationship is the complete power imbalance and the inability of one party to consent or otherwise. The key characteristic of a homosexual relationship is that it is between consenting and (sometimes - just like heterosexual relationships - loving) adults. This is a deeply offensive argument.
If you want to argue that acceptance of God's morality means accepting it regardless of how much we might not like parts of it, then I totally agree. I'm not very comfortable with loving my enemies or the fact that I have to put others before me. And indeed if God says homosexuality is wrong, then it's wrong.
But, firstly you have to win that argument and secondly you have to be very careful about how you address that in the real world. If you truly believe that Homosexuality is wrong and you truly believe that Jesus died for the homosexual as much as the heterosexual then you are faced with a couple of important consequences. Firstly you have to love the homosexual. Being deeply offensive is not love. Secondly you need to understand how best to share Jesus' love and concern with them. Equating them with the child-abuser is not doing that. If you seek to challenge homosexuality then you are challenging someone's identity. To do so with anything but the utmost humility is anything but Godly. If you are acting on God's behalf then you have to not only preach to the homosexual but to love them. Truly love them. Be concerned about their life and struggles. To listen to them and even if you don't agree with their theological position, to keep on loving them.
Furthermore your logic is flawed in a very simple way. It is entirely possible to believe that a homosexual may be created that way deliberately by a loving God and a paedophile is a paedophile because of their fallen-ness. I don't know if anyone on this thread believes that but it is a logically consistent position.
I firmly believe that the bible is an accurate guide to what God says is right. I also firmly believe that I am not the Sole Authority™on what the bible means.
I also believe that if God says something is wrong then it is irrelevant what society says, it's still wrong. (For example; our society venerates greed and sees sex as primarily a leisure activity).
But, I also believe that God's laws are good laws and seeing the effects of things can be helpful in understanding what God is saying.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
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TomOfTarsus
Shipmate
# 3053
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Posted
AFZ,
That's some mighty fine stuff you have there. We often forget in these types of discussions that we are to love one another as Christ loved us. If homosexuality is a sin, it is one of many; I'd argue that the immorality of Washington or Wall St goes very much against our Lord's teaching.
And I am, as you said, being concerned with at least one person's homosexual life and struggles, and listening (or trying hard to), and loving, right now.
Love is difficult; love is not always schmaltzy & warm & fuzzy; and sometimes it's hard to figure out what God's love looks like; but it is what we are commanded to do. Too often the church overlooks that.
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By grace are ye saved through faith... not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ... ordained that we should walk in them.
Posts: 1570 | From: Pittsburgh, PA USA | Registered: Jul 2002
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Matt, I don't know if it helps to know that others feel strong urges - even from within long-term relationships.
I'm not a doctor, but I don't think what you experience is altogether unusual. I'm guessing many people experience differences in libido with their partner, whether heterosexual or homosexual.
So I think we're back to the idea of whether we should act upon 'unhealthy' urges, on the basis that they're part of who we are (presumably) created to be (and therefore cannot be bad). And how we tell whether a specific urge is healthy or unhealthy.
I'd class the desire to have sex with other partners for the purposes of sexual relief as being unhealthy. I wouldn't say that it is as bad as the desire to have sex with children and far worse than the desire to have sexual relations with someone of the same gender.
But then I can also see that acting on an unhealthy urge with another partner can easily be more destructive than someone who experiences the urge to have sex with children but never allows themselves to act improperly.
Which reminds me of Plato's divided soul, in that Reason is supposed to be a 'higher' part and hold in check the 'lower' emotional and appetite parts.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
Posts: 1310 | Registered: May 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
(You see, things aren't always as rosy in the straight sexual garden as you might think...)
Of course they aren't - and if we have committed our lives to someone and the sexual landscape changes, then we have choices to make.
But this would be true whatever our sexuality or the gender of our partner, would it not?
It's certainly no argument against homosexual sex or relationships.
It's the exact OPPOSITE of an argument against homosexual relationships. It's a perfect illustration of how foolish it is to deny homosexual people the opportunity to express their sexual desires in healthy, constructive ways.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Tangent, but isn't that where the aforementioned libertarianism fails the "does no harm" test, given that inequality and injustice are harm?
To say that, I think we'd have to have an account of injustice such that you can have an unjust situation that arises without violating anyone's consent.
A right-wing libertarian would argue that if each individual transaction is consented to by the parties who have the right to refuse then the sum total result cannot be unjust.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
A right-wing libertarian would argue that if each individual transaction is consented to by the parties who have the right to refuse then the sum total result cannot be unjust.
Surely there's more to this than having the right to refuse a given transaction? What about full information, disclosure, the possibility of deceit?
And @Matt: surely succumbing to temptation would cause harm -- to her relationship with her family, to your relationship with yours?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
And the consent has to be willing, not forced. I don't think this goes without saying.
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I think there's an alternative--that people are the owners of their bodies and their sexuality, and have a right to express sexual desire as they choose, whether or not they are compelled by some essential nature.
Agreed - so long as their expression of that desire is between consenting adults and does no harm.
I am a bit dubious about this. The same principles expressed in economic matters lead to right-wing libertarianism, with all the resulting inequality and injustice. So I don't think the principles are sufficient or entirely correct.
The idea that I have the right to express my sexuality as I choose is defeated by the idea that I may only express my sexuality in a way that causes no harm and requires consent. (That is the substance of Ender's Shadow's argument, and to that extent only, it is correct.)
The underlying anthropology is one of the human being as a rational economic agents seeking his (sic) satisfaction of desire and negotiating boundaries with other equivalent agents. That's not a Christian anthropology. I'm not sure it's even an anthropology that most left-wing atheists would be comfortable with when spelled out.
What one might say is that lack of consent is the only thing that is absolutely wrong. But that doesn't mean that there may not be other things that aren't wrong under most circumstances. For example, prostitution or other areas of the sex trade where there are large imbalances of power are probably wrong. (Unless you finesse the idea of consent; but I think ruling that some consent isn't really consent is a dubious idea.)
The Christian argument for same-sex sexual relations is that the good theological accounts of sexuality don't give grounds for treating them as a different case from different sex sexual relationships.
Exactly. My point is that those who defend the morality of homosexuality by claiming it is innate--gay people can't help being gay, therefore it can't be wrong--implicitly accept the notion that if they could help it, they should choose to be heterosexual. This sets up the false analogy to pedophilia--i.e., pedophiles can't help being attracted to children, so it must be OK.
If you discard the essentialist vs. choice issue (whatever the case may be, it has no bearing on whether homosexual acts are moral), then sexual expression is subject to the same guiding principles as all other human actions--loving your neighbor as yourself. And then homosexual activity between consenting adults has nothing in common with the rape of a child.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
My point is that those who defend the morality of homosexuality by claiming it is innate--gay people can't help being gay, therefore it can't be wrong--implicitly accept the notion that if they could help it, they should choose to be heterosexual. This sets up the false analogy to pedophilia--i.e., pedophiles can't help being attracted to children, so it must be OK.
If you discard the essentialist vs. choice issue (whatever the case may be, it has no bearing on whether homosexual acts are moral), then sexual expression is subject to the same guiding principles as all other human actions--loving your neighbor as yourself. And then homosexual activity between consenting adults has nothing in common with the rape of a child.
This is true and well said.
On the other hand, if you take someone who believes that there is a right-and-good-and-healthy way to 'be' and an unhealthy-wrong-sinful-dangerous way to be, and who further labels particular physical acts as 'wholesome' and 'perverted', then I can see how one could put homosexual sex and paedophilia into the same 'perverted' box.
For that person, homosexual sex is just ikky and nasty and wrong. Something which does not compute and should therefore be rejected.
And I can see for someone who is used to thinking like that, it must require a dramatic leap-of-faith to appreciate homosexuality itself as being morally neutral and that the way it is expressed takes on a moral character.
And so I can see someone who is gay wanting to say to someone who thinks that they must be broken-sick-wrong that no, they're whole-healed-normal and that this is the way they've been put together. But I can also see that is probably at best confusing to the person I've described above.
I can imagine it must be something like the end of slavery, at one point the popular consciousness was that there was a race of sub-humans whose role was to serve, years later this was changed. There must have been a lot of people who found this change hard to cope with.
The popular phrase of the abolutionists
Am I Not a Man and a Brother? must have have sounded pretty silly at first, when the majority would have instantly thought 'no!'
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I am a heterosexual male, married, with no sex life whatsoever (and none for some time). I have heterosexual impulses, quite strong ones as it happens. I am tempted, sorely at times, by several of the mums at the school gate,and indeed other women, married and single/ divorced, one or two of whom have indicated that they might be 'up for something'.
Should I, following your logic, follow through on my impulses or suppress them?)
Perhaps you are looking more at the word used than the meaning conveyed. Your use of "impulse" and orfeo's are, IMO, not exactly the same.
Unpack, please: in what way is the meaning different other than the orientation behind the impulse?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Just to pick you up on this...
You may or may not recall that about six months ago I started and contributed to a thread in Purgatory entitled "Called to marital celibacy?"
I am a heterosexual male, married, with no sex life whatsoever (and none for some time). I have heterosexual impulses, quite strong ones as it happens. I am tempted, sorely at times, by several of the mums at the school gate,and indeed other women, married and single/ divorced, one or two of whom have indicated that they might be 'up for something'.
Should I, following your logic, follow through on my impulses or suppress them?
I guess it depends on what you mean by "follow through", since you indicate being tempted by "several" women but that only "one or two" have indicated any interest. This comes back to whether or not consent matters, which is one of the key ways your situation is different than a pedophile's.
With respect, you misunderstand: I am not in any way equating my position with that of a paedophile but rather approximating it to that to which Orfeo was referring earlier, in that I am a man with a sexual urge ('impulse', to use Orfeo's word) who has the potential of a consensual but not (IMO as far as my sitaution is concerned) morally legitimate opportunity to express that. Should I give in to that urge?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Matt, doesn't that imply that all urges are the same though? Doesn't consequences come into your calculation?
A homosexual may have urges to have sex with person of their own gender, but further wish to express that in a committed, permanent, long term relationship.
The urge to be in a committed relationship is not the same as the urge to shag someone - anyone - is it?
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
What if I then threw into the mix that my wife has indicated that she would be OK with me having a bit of legover outside the marriage (true, BTW)?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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