God designed us to have normal sexual desires. In a Christian marriage, sex unifies the couple and is God’s plan for bringing children into the world. God intended sex in marriage to be unitive and procreative (Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 2366).
Misused, sex can be “a selfish drive for one’s personal satisfaction, disguised as ‘love,’” but it is not simply that.
I know why you keep using the word ‘logic’. Correct me if wrong, but someone accused you of being ‘illogical’ at one point, maybe from within the environment you are in, currently, or before, and so you are reacting to that person or them by stating that your faith and so too your own mind by means of your faith is quite logical.
Respectful Greetings to you, my dear friend, Stephen!
I understand your words, Steve. And I agree. Sex is God’s plan for bringing children into the world. It may be of interest to you to understand that in the Vedic tradition, and even in the path that I follow, those who wish to bring a soul into the world are instructed to engage in a rosary-like process for 8 hours, husband and wife, before engaging in the act of procreation. This is a way of aking God to please send them a soul who will be a gift to all the people of the the earth. In this way, sex can be as sacred as attending mass. The condition of the heart is the most important factor.
I can understand that you are very much concerned about the Catholic letter of the law. But there is also the spirit of the law, which is very much about love and compassion. For example Jesus broke the Jewish law when passing through the fields and picking a few grains, and when healing people on the Sabbath. These are infractions of the scriptures. But Jesus was influenced by his quality of inconceivable kindness and love…which caused him to work on the Sabbath due to the spirit of the law, as opposed to being fanatically adhering to the letter of the law. The Jewish clergy were prepared to rubber stamp these actions as “sin”, just as you are rubber stamping the lives of others as lives of sin.
How do you know that “Race is a natural occurrence, gender-related deviations is human choice.” I do not believe that a board of scientists would agree with you. Also, you are assuming that all same sex people are indfferent to the church and tindfferent o whether or not we are pleasing to God. This is surely not valid. These people are born into the world with these inclinations. God has created them in this way. And many have struggled with this internally…and other have accepted the way in which they are…and try to be godly in their everyday lives as much as possible. Otherwise, why would such a same sex couple choose to be celebate?
One point of consideration is that we have to examine our hearts in an attempt to understand if we are simply using our religion as a justification for being hateful and judgemental. A doctor doesn’t hate the sick patient for being ill. He sees the disease, but thinks only about how he can be kind and helpful. Therefore Jesus says, “Hate the sin; but not the sinner.” I ask you to contemplate Jesus’s reason for counseling us in that way. Even the propensity to sin…this is also an affliction. If Jesus condemned everyone who was a sinner…he would never have walked among us…because all of us fall into that category, one way or another.
The “spirit of the law” is not in contradiction - ‘A house divided against itself, cannot stand’.
“Infractions” against what is now the Jewish religion, were not infractions but fulfilment. And the Church’s understanding on all-matters-moral stem from that fulfilment.
I’m not “rubber-stamping the lives of others”; as said in a previous post, I am asserting Church teaching.
I don’t need to answer as to how I came to the conclusion that race is a natural occurrence. And the natural and moral order identifies itself in the outcome of events and in this case moral disorder makes for chaos in the natural world, e.g. disease as opposed to family.
It doesn’t make any difference whether a self-stated SS individual claims to be in the Church or not.
A baby doesn’t have SS inclinations, nor any, and so the point is a non-starter.
God doesn’t create disorder.
An SS self-stated combination might practice celibacy because they have guilt concerning their actions and because they are trying to excuse their choice to exist in sin.
You are mixing judgementalism with knowing the difference between right and wrong.
A militant atheist will not oppose and refuse termination from pro-choicers, if that would be what you’re referring to. Unfortunately, many practitioners are indeed sociopaths.
Are you going to give a child poison, simply because they stamp and sulk? Fact is fact and we are not called to be unintelligent.
People who sin are condemning themselves and Christ told the woman caught in adultery not to sin again.
I answer you, because to walk away in the middle of a conversation can leave a bad taste. But I will not challenge you further. I feel that your every assertion is in line with scripture. I am not standing in opposition to your counsel…but only questioning the heart behind it. I believe jesus also tells us to love our neighbor as oursleves, and to love our enemies. He also tells us not to cast judgement, because the harshness with which we judge others will come back upon us…“…for how so ever ye judge others…in that way ye shall also be judged.” Again, to “hate the sin, but not the sinner”…means, yes, we have the power to discriminate between what is right and what is wrong…but with compassion, we should see the wrong-doer as one who is afflicted, and think within ourselves how they can be helped, rather than acting as judge and jury. I think that this is in line with the compassionate heart of Jesus who comes to us who are born with sinful hearts, otherwise referred to as “original sin”. His hope is for our salvation rather than to jump at the opportunity to condemn us. As we prey for the afflicted we gradually come to love them as well. Otherwise there will be a lot of burning of souls at the stake. Although one can justify such hell-fire on the basis of scripture, I don’t think this gives pleasure to the compassionate heart of Jesus. We are all born as “prodigal sons”, but the love of the Father still stands. Otherwise I accept your vedict regarding what is right and what is wrong. Respectfully, Peter
Hello dear Stephen! As I have tried to communicate to you before…I cannot understand very well your mode of expression. I can only feel in my heart that you have a beautiful and wonderful faith that you abide in, and that you wish to share with all of us. Thank you for your beautiful heart. Peter
My divorced Parents both loved me, but in different ways. My Mom loved me by gifting me boundaries and showing me what it means to love someone, whereas, my Dad shows love by letting me do whatever I wanted to do and showing me what happens when someone lives without morals. Both loved me more than they could fully express, but one’s love was ordered to good and the other was ordered to an inversion of the good.
I could say, well, at least my Dad loved me (and that is certainly true), but there are more than two options of disordered love vs. no love at all. There is still the option of ordered love.
Does this make sense? It’s like people who say, “I vote for the lesser of two evils.” Well, both the Democrats and the Republicans are evil and both view the other as being more evil than themselves. But, there is the option of not voting for evil (either by voting for another candidate on your ballot or by leaving that position blank, essentially voting for NOTA, or “none of the above”).
I just saw this post from a former Anglican Priest who is now a Catholic educator, and I think his post relates to this topic. https://x.com/TaylorRMarshall/status/2048823644743213061?s=20
Well, I understand that, but the parenting example works for education, and it is not quite the same thing as a romantic relationship. Your father loved you, although he was naive in the way of raising you. But I wouldn’t say the form of love is the problem. Your example did make sense in showing that there are ways of loving that are better understood than others, and lives that are “chaotic” or tend toward the bad. It reminds me of yandere (idk if you know anime/otaku stuff, but basically, it is a possessive love that leads to violence). This is an example that may have some love, but it is obviously bad (I took an exaggerated example to make it easier to understand, but there are simpler examples of this). However, I don’t think homosexuality necessarily falls into this category of “bad love.” Not being the “usual” way does not mean it is wrong, especially when they have morals and try to stay within the right limits.
Now, about the US elections, I’m not a US citizen, but I agree that both US parties have problems (in my country too). In the US specifically, it is more difficult to elect other candidates than the two “main ones” because your vote isn’t direct; electors vote based on the votes of the state, and this always ends up making the election about two candidates (unfortunately). In this way, it kind of makes sense to choose the “less bad” option because it is the only real way of not electing the one you think is the worst option.
I can talk a lot about the US government, elections, my country’s elections and government… but I think that is not the discussion here, haha. If you want, we can discuss it later, but I don’t see how it would be really productive, although interesting.
This applies to presidential and vice presidential candidates, but as far as I know, all lower offices are filled by a majority of votes.
It isn’t about what is socially acceptable vs. not socially acceptable. If 99 percent of a population wrongly believes something to be good, it does not make it so. Biologically, we can see that God designed male and female to be both unitive and procreative. We call this natural law.
If a man sleeps around with many women, this is disordered. And the chances of this individual of contracting disease and spreading disease is highly likely. But, one man and one women, united in Covenantal Marriage, is not disordered (unless they are closely related to one another biologically)
If a man removes the unitive from the pro-creative or pro-creative from the unitive, it is by default disordered. So individuals of the same sęx would be in violation of natural law.
Pope Benedict wrote an encyclical on the different types of love. It is titled Deus Caritas Est (God is Love: On Christian Love). I think you are partially correct when you say that loving someone is not bad in of itself. I’m sure it falls under one of these types of loves.
But when one moves beyond one form of love to another that is beyond what God intended, it become disordered. So, for instance a parent/child love becoming more than that, becomes immoral (Leviticus 18:6-18).
Not all types of love are appropriate (nor good) for all relationships (in spite of what society pushes). Does this make sense?
My Latin is worse than rusty, but I’m pretty sure that “Deus Caritas Est” means “God Is Love.” Maybe the document was given a different title in the English translation, though.
Thank you. Yes, the Encyclical is “God is Love: On Christion Love” I will correct : )
I have a copy of this encyclical on my bookshelf at home, but you can find it here as well.