Ok, here’s how I see it. I submit homosexual acts are immoral. Most of you believe they are not immoral.
Some of you have argued homosexuality is found in nature.
Counter: Irrelevant Guess what else is found in nature? Some animals eat their own young. Some animals kill their partner after mating.
Just because something is found in nature is not always an indication it’s good or bad/right or wrong.
Some of you argue homosexual acts do not hurt anyone and therefore are ok.
Counter: You are making the assumption no one gets hurt from homosexual acts. What are you basing such an assumption on?
Whether something causes harm or not is not based on whether the person intended to cause harm. Also, the person may actually be unaware of harm they are causing. Also, harm may be happening not only to others, but to themselves.
And don’t try to argue that lots of things cause harm and we don’t legislate it, because I would simply say -- I agree. And I am not advocating arresting those who engage in homosexual acts. I am simply arguing they are wrong (immoral). A person is always free to make whatever life choices they wish to make. I’ve never said other wise. My argument is right and wrong exist and my argument is it is always in man’s best interest to do that which is right vs. that which is wrong.
Some argue even if something is wrong – we have the right to do what we want.
Me: I agree. But whether a person has the right to do whatever he chooses has nothing to do with whether it is right or wrong.
Some argue, “you can’t tell a person who they can or cannot love”
Counter: Hogwash! We do it all the time. We tell pedophiles they cannot love children. We tell teachers they cannot love their students. We tell necrophilia’s they cannot love dead people. We tell people they cannot love a person who is already married.
Some argue the only arguments against homosexual acts are religious ones and therefore invalid.
Counter: Wrong. The only arguments against homosexual acts are not religious ones. Homosexual acts are immoral because they violate natural law. The body is being used in a way in which it was not intended. Design and purpose mean something. We all live by these natural laws. We all know necrophilia is wrong. It is disordered. The person is not hurting anyone as you cannot hurt a dead person. Yet we all know such behavior is not right. Some of you have arbitrarily decided to not accept natural law when it comes to homosexual acts. You recognize the disorder in things like pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality, yet you choose to not follow the natural order when it comes to homosexual acts.
Unfortunately, there are often very natural consequences when we use something in a way other then which it was intended. These aren’t always immediate, but often they are. We are all affected by these natural laws whether we want to be or not. It isn’t up to us. I didn’t create them and religion didn’t create them. And nature isn’t making a judgment. It is wise and smart to abide by natural law and it is the only thing that will bring true peace and happiness in life. This isn’t a judgment – it just IS.
Some argue in therapy, if the client expresses that they are homosexual, or that they are inclined to homosexual desires, then there is nothing wrong with that.
Me: Well, you’re half right. It may not be something they can help and it may not be something that is their fault, and it may even be something that can never be changed. However, this realization does not mean therefore it is right (ok) to engage in homosexual acts. You are making a huge assumption here. I may have the desire to murder my husband. My desire and “feelings” do not determine morality. Right and wrong exists outside of our “feelings”. Feelings come and go. Feelings change. Truth is constant
It also does not mean anyone should judge or condemn a person who has same-sex feelings or make them feel ashamed to be struggling with this difficulty. You are assuming that telling a person homosexual acts are immoral is harmful and mean. I would say quite the opposite – it would be more harmful to not tell your patient the truth.
Some, continuing to bring religion back into the debate argue . . . How is it that the church could possibly know that discouraging a homosexual lifestyle would be in the best interest of a person?
First of all it isn’t simply the Church which can know such. Anyone can know such -- through logic, observation, facts, science, and right reason. Male and female were designed to fit together. The body has a purpose/function. If man wants the best out of life – he remains true to these natural laws. Design means something. Quite honestly, it is foolish to argue otherwise. You have every right to deny truth, but it is never in your best interest to do so.
To argue that it makes one happy and does no harm is an opinion that has no basis on facts. Science shows us that when you put a part of the body into another part of the body for which it was not intended – there are negative consequences It is a fact that AIDS is much higher in the homosexual community than heterosexual. If one actually accepted this observation, he or she might then want to look into why that might be? And if the person was smart, he or she would not choose to engage in behavior that has been shown to not be in their best interest.
The fact that the world works in a certain way and has an order is not an opinion, nor is it a judgment. The fact that promiscuous people (whether hetero or homo) are more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease is not punishment from some “god” nor is it a judgment of them as a person. The truth is the body doesn’t really care if you are the sweetest person in the world. Nor does the body care that you really really like having multiple sex partners and believe monogamy is a silly outdated concept. The body is simply reacting. Do people have the right to sleep around as much as they like? Yes. Is it a smart decision? No. One could certainly make the argument that it is up to the individual to make the choices he makes, but to ignore the facts that promiscuity has very real negative consequences means something. It’s ignorant and delusional to deny these most obvious observations.
One can also observe in life that sexual intercourse has a procreative function. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to make such an astute observation. To deny the procreative purpose of sex again is to not be a very careful observer of life.
Always amazes me when people try to claim a Christian ignores the facts – that a Christian doesn’t listen to science – they simply believe the things they do because their god told them such. HA! I think you might have that a little backwards. Believing it is ok to engage in homosexual acts ignores the message from the world around us. A person who believes such wants to determine his own truth regardless of the facts. It’s irrational and delusional. Atheists are unaware of their own narrow mindedness. Their very worldview is more limiting not less because they are deluded enough to believe they can cheat nature. They are arrogant enough to think they know better and ignorant enough to believe that.
There you have it folks. Your arguments are arbitrary and pretty much come down to “yeah, well you can’t tell a person what to do – it’s mean!”
But as I pointed out, one can determine things from observing natural cause and effect. I am using a scientific knowledge of action and reaction to discover this truth regarding homosexual acts.
Our love and sense of community leads us to value the life and the welfare of others. If we really valued these things, we would respect the natural moral order that exists. The ramifications of not doing so are not in our own or society’s best interest.
In other words, religion is not a necessary condition for ethics or morality. Honesty and truth are. Observation is. Science is. Logic is. Reason is. And even that innate common sense inherent in our very being is. One could argue (and I’m sure some of you atheists agree) morality is an inborn human attribute! This “goodness” is not necessarily a gift of a deity. The standards of conduct, which we accept as right and good, flows naturally from our very being. We innately know it is wrong to steal or take the life of another. In fact, we humans, as a defense mechanism, have to psychologically lie to ourselves about certain things to make it bearable were we to violate the natural moral order we all know to be true. (For example we have to tell ourselves the baby is just a blob of tissue. There is no other way to rationalize such cruelty).
Knowing what we know regarding how the world works and listening to our innate sense of right and wrong, one could only conclude that homosexual acts are immoral. As citizens in a free society we have the freedom and obligation to speak out about ideas and behaviors that are not in the best interest of the individual, or our society. I am exercising this right.
And if you wonder how I can argue our knowledge of right and wrong is innate and yet many of you do not reognize this truth regarding homosexual acts, I would simply say because one of the biggest tragedies of our times has been the erosion of our consciences and the loss of our sense of right and wrong. Although we can all recognize right from wrong/good from bad, it is also possible to decieve ourselves. To buy into the twisted truth that comes at us from the culture today. We can all know right from wrong, but suppress it and choose to ignore it because it may be easier or more comfortable to do so.
Much is justified under the “My body. My right” mantra, even though as I have stated earlier, just because we have a right to do something – doesn’t mean it’s right.
Now I realzie some of you will now try to argue that morality is not innate – it is culturally determined. To that I post from
From
www.powertochange.ie/questions/qna6.html“Surveys tell us that most people in Western society claim to be moral relativists; that is, they claim that what is right for one person is not necessarily right for another. But it is very easy to say there are no objective or absolute moral principles. It is much more difficult, however, to live as if there are none.
The way we live, our behaviour and the way we respond when people treat us, the judgements we make when other people are mistreated-these things reveal what we really believe about right and wrong. For example, we believe it was morally wrong for the Nazis to torture and kill six million Jews during World War II. But we not only think it is wrong, we think everyone should agree that it is wrong. This is not to say that something is wrong just because everyone agrees it is wrong. There is a logical possibility that we are mistaken and it is just our cultural conditioning that tells us these things are wrong. This may be a logical possibility, but is it very likely that our deepest intuitions about this matter could be mistaken? That would mean torturing people is not really wrong; we just think it is. But if this basic intuition is wrong, that is, if it is merely the result of cultural conditioning, could it be possible that our other basic beliefs and intuitions, such as our belief in cultural conditioning, are also the result of this same conditioning process? If so, it seems this line of reasoning is self-refuting. It fails its own test.”
www.powertochange.ie/questions/qna6.htmlwww.newmediaministries.org/Morality/EthicsSection_S.htmlResponse to: "All morality is culturally determined
and is therefore relative, not absolute."
by Gary C. Burger, MDiv
Let's play a medley of criticisms we hear from the cultural relativists:
"Who are you to impose your moral values on someone else?"
"Who are you to say another's values are wrong?"
Let's put the cultural relativist on the spot. If the challenger is logically consistent he should agree with the following statements:
·
Blacks should never have been given civil rights in America because that was imposing the ideals of moral reformers like Martin Luther King, Jr. on the culture.
·
We should respect other cultures for oppressing women through female circumcision, widow-burning, or the burdensome dowry system.
·
We should not condemn abortions and infanticide in India and China performed to discriminate against female babies.
·
We should not have interfered with Hitler's plan to conqueror Europe and kill all the Jews.
I could go on ad nauseum, but hopefully this is all anyone needs to see the hypocrisy and double standard necessary to teach and practice cultural relativism.
Do you still believe that we don't have the right to impose good values on another culture?
www.newmediaministries.org/Morality/EthicsSection_S.html. - Johnson : Do Objective Moral Standards Exist in the World Today ...
www.quodlibet.net/johnson-morality.shtml - Cached
Well, I’m sure I will now be scolded for “preaching” and I doubt there is much left to say anyway. I have a feeling the only think you can come back with is I have no proof that a natural moral order exists. This of course always makes me laugh. No. I have no proof – at least not proof that would suffice most of you. Nor could I prove to you the grass is green or the sky is blue . . .