Posts tagged Catholicism

Anonymous Asked:

I understand that being homosexual isn’t a sin but homosexual acts are. Why? What is so sinful about homosexual acts?

Anonymous Asked:

If homosexuality is the disposition, what is the sin? Gay sex? How is it sinful?

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Homosexual acts are sinful for several reasons.

1.  Condemnation in scripture.

“In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another” (Romans 1:27).

“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”  (Leviticus 18:22)

Genesis 19, the story of Lot and the angels.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh, (Genesis 2:24)

2.  The nature of marriage.

Marriage is by nature between a man and a woman because marriage requires a sexual component.  In fact, an inability to consummate the marriage can be a significant obstacle to the marriage and even grounds for an annulment.  Since sex is the symbol and renewal of the marriage vows, use of one’s sexual organs are restricted to that purpose.  Since a gay marriage is impossible because gays cannot consummate the marriage, gay acts, including oral or anal sex, mutual masturbation, and any other kind of deliberate sexual stimulation with another person of the same gender is forbidden.  This is better explained here:

http://www.aboutcatholics.com/life_in_christ/why_gay_marriage_impossible/

At the most fundamental level, a gay marriage is impossible because the same-sex couple can never consummate their marriage; they can never become one flesh (or unify). Also, the combination of their sexual organs can never produce children; they only have half the parts necessary but doubled.

It is not to say that gay people are incapable of loving each other in the same fashion as anyone else or that they cannot care for their partner and stay as committed as anyone else if not better. A homosexual union is intrinsically impossible because they cannot unify.

Sexual intercourse is the sign of marriage and the act of sexual intercourse is the renewal of the covenant of marriage so two same-sex people can never complete their marriage.

For this reason it is intrinsically impossible for two people of the same sex to marry. It is not discriminatory, it is not homophobia, and it is not hatred of gay people. The marital act can simply never occur between two people of the same gender.

This is not to say that homosexual people are any less of a person than heterosexuals. All people, regardless of age, color, race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. are equal in dignity.

As a member of God’s creation each person should be given the due respect that a person deserves because in the eyes of the Lord we are not separated by age, color, race, or sexual orientation (Cf. Gal. 3:28). Each person may not be equal in all abilities, but we are equal in dignity.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/05/on-wanting-to-eat-your-baby.html

I’ll make you a deal, too; if you can sufficiently answer my question, or at least provide a convincing or otherwise insightful answer, I’ll start following you. Possible win-win, eh? And I shall clarify the question. Can one, with or without God, determine the objective wrongfulness of any action? Do we even comprehend what a moral judgment is? Why believe there is any objective morality at all?

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With God, sure.  If an omniscient, benevolent, and omnipotent creator God exists, it means the universe was His Creation.  In the universe we see an apparent rationality, (or to be fair, the appearance of one.)  If a creator God exists, the rationality is a result of a God creating the universe rationally for a specific ‘purpose’/’end.’  From this, we can discern morality.   To use an example Marc Barnes from ‘Bad Catholic’ makes, take a rosebush.  A rosebush flourishes/’achieves its natural end’ in the sun.  It is ‘good’ for it to be in the sun.   To put it in the closet would cause it to wither.  That would be obstructing it from its natural end, and that would therefore be contrary to the natural law.

Another example.  If an omniscient, rational, benevolent God made us, then he made us for a good purpose.  Therefore, when we kill someone, we are preventing that person to fulfill that purpose, and that is bad.  Therefore, killing is morally wrong.  Since we are doing something wrong, our God given good purpose cannot be to kill someone, and therefore by killing someone we are not fulfilling our own purpose.

If you allow me the use of scripture it becomes even easier, but I didn’t think you would, so I’ve ignored that. 

Is it possible to come to the same conclusions from an atheistic standpoint?  It’s harder but I guess one could use Kant’s categorical imperative or something like that.  It might be easier just to point out that many people from different continents and different time periods when reacting to some similar situations can have incredibly similar emotional reactions, suggesting as the apostle Paul would say, ‘a law written upon our hearts.’  Even Nietzsche who spurned concepts of morality said that sometimes he just internally felt a universal morality. 

To your next question: A moral judgement is a decision about the rightfulness or wrongfulness of an action.

Why believe in objective morality?  Because I sense something fundamentally wrong at the idea that the only thing wrong with murder is that I don’t like it. 

You forget the much of the state was controlled by the Church.

The Church certainly held some influence and that’s how the Church’s inquisition was able to stop or at least mitigate the more brutal State inquisitions.  If your insinuation is that the State inquisitions were at the behest of the Church, then why would the Church feel the need to create their own inquisition in response to the State ones? 

I’m sorry, but two things have popped out to me: 1) All your arguments are either an appeal to the authority of your church or rely on the inherent “unnaturalness” of homosexuality. and, of course 2) you have never actually proven that homosexuality is unnatural. As appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, and homosexuality is found in many species in nature, your arguments are invalid because their premises are flawed.

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1)  An appeal to authority is not necessarily a logical fallacy.  If the authority is relevant and undisputed in the matter, an appeal to authority can be a perfectly legitimate argument.  Therefore, with other Catholics, an appeal to the Catechism, especially on dogma would not be a logical fallacy.  For example,

A.  That which is in dogma is true

B.  X is in dogma.

C.  Therefore, X is true. 

Now, this of course would not be the case in most arguments about gay marriage since people for gay marriage typically do not believe in the authority of dogma of the Catholic Church.  However, I do not believe I have ever used, “Because the Catholic Church said gay marriage is wrong, gay marriage is wrong,” in any argument, especially not against a non-Catholic.  If I have, please show me.

2) As for natural law, I think you’ve misunderstood natural law.  Natural law is not about, “what happens in nature?”  The only thing natural law is about (in regards to the gay marriage debate) is “What is the natural end of marriage?”  Here is some reading for you:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/02/why-contraception-is-a-bad-idea-1-natural-law.html  (This is about contraception but still is relevant as far as natural law goes.  It’s a brilliant description.)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/05/the-christian-case-for-gay-marriage-the-smackdown.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/05/4-ways-the-gay-marriage-debate-has-been-rigged.html

You have claimed that one can logically deduce that murder is wrong, which is acceptable insofar as murder is classified as ‘purposeful and wrongful killing.’ However, this does not speak at all to what a ‘wrongful killing’ is. While the justice system may have a working definition of murder, I think it is difficult to try to explain moral judgment in any logical terms. I hope you will agree that “because God says so” is insufficient to describe objective morality, so then how can you?

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That’s a good question.  Now, we can accept that if God does in fact exist “because God said so” would be sufficient to describe objective morality.  Even better would be, “Because we are all reflections of God/because we all have a purpose in creation given by God/Because all people are equal/ or Because we all need to develop virtue, it is wrong to murder.” 

Therefore, if I were to logically prove the existence of a God, I would also prove the immorality of murder.

But I guess I should ask you first, do you believe that murder is not objectively wrong?  If so, why?

The reason I ask is that if you wish to claim that an objective law against murder can be deduced from an atheist perspective, I’d like to see how you do it. 

If you believe that there is no universal objective condemnation of murder, do you have any response to the problem one philosopher had suggested, “I refuse to believe that the only thing wrong with murder is that I don’t like it.”