Pope makes eejits of the Church again.

[Heneni]

It's not up to much interpretation that such activity was wrong according to the culture in which the Bible was compiled. What may be in question for some is whether this is yet another case of Bronze-age cultural mores mistaken for divine command.

There is really no way to mistake the moral code though. The law is not in a book (though it is there as well), but it written on our hearts. It doesnt change with time. The only thing that it changes is us.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There is really no way to mistake the moral code though.

Of course there isn't. It's right there, nailed to the cross, nullified by the sacrifice of Christ. All that's left to guide you is love.

 

[gnomon]

"What is often expressed and signified with the word 'gender' leads to the human auto-emancipation from creation and from the Creator. The human being wants to make himself on his own and to decide always and exclusively by himself about what concerns him.



"But, in so doing, the human being lives against the truth and against the Spirit creator. Rain forests deserve, yes, our protection but the human being - as a creature which contains a message that is not in contradiction with his freedom but is the condition of his freedom - does not deserve it less."

Babbling nonsense accepted only because its the pope. Any other human being making this statement would be recognized as nearly imbecilic.


Human beings do think for themselves already shocking as it may seem to many.


"Lives against the truth"
"Creature which contains a message"


For Steve's sake.

 

[Wandered Off]

There is really no way to mistake the moral code though. The law is not in a book (though it is there as well), but it written on our hearts. It doesnt change with time. The only thing that it changes is us.

Cool! Then obviously I am not mistaken, since the law written on my heart says that consenting homosexual acts are not harmful, morally or otherwise. They are perfectly natural to those so oriented.

 

[Heneni]

Of course there isn't. It's right there, nailed to the cross, nullified by the sacrifice of Christ. All that's left to guide you is love.

What do people think love is? Its not to destroy yourselves and/or others by living an immoral life. The law of love your neighbour as yourself, wasnt a new law...it was there all along. This law wasnt nullified it was fullfilled, that and all the other requirments of the law that nobody could adhere to.

When i talk about LAW im not talking about the trillions of laws god gave the isrealites, about unleavend bread..etc..etc...I thought that would have been obvious. But it might not have been.

Heneni

 

[gnomon]

There is really no way to mistake the moral code though.

Disregarding the second Vatican council, of course.

 

[Heneni]

Cool! Then obviously I am not mistaken, since the law written on my heart says that consenting homosexual acts are not harmful, morally or otherwise. They are perfectly natural to those so oriented.

Which brings me back to the original dillema. People have different moral codes. There can only be one code not thousands.


I'm not the standard that anybody should live by. The law of god...written in the bible...(love your neighbour as yourself..which of course opens a whole new can of worms, because every person thinks love is something different, but what it clearly is not...is living an immoral life), is also written on our hearts.

That means i can wholeheartedly agree with the pope because

1. Sexual immorality is not a loving way to live
2. The same law is written on my heart.

What would be your two points of feeling that the homosexual act is right? Would it be

1. It is written on your heart that it is ok
2. Its natural.

Ok...(you can interrupt here any time you like) then what needs to happen is that our reasons for believing either way has to come into the light of god.

If we both bring our reasons before him, is there anyway he can show us different opinions on the matter?

Heneni

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm not the standard that anybody should live by. The law of god...written in the bible...(love your neighbour as yourself..which of course opens a whole new can of worms, because every person thinks love is something different, but what it clearly is not...is living an immoral life), is also written on our hearts.

No, it's not. Or at least it's not written on mine. I have no idea what's written on your heart.

Personally, I find many of the core messages of the Bible to be abhorrent.

 

[Heneni]

Personally, I find many of the core messages of the Bible to be abhorrent.

Your an atheist....there is no reasonable way to try and convince you otherwise. Atheists are sure, even up to the point of death presumably that they are right. If god hasnt been able to convince them otherswise...helll no..im not going to try!:sorry1:

Still happy holidays to you and your family. Its now the 24th of december here in south africa. One day before christmas.

Heneni

 

[Magic Man]

Which brings me back to the original dillema. People have different moral codes. There can only be one code not thousands.

Why can there only be one code? It seems to me there can be many.

If you want to make one universal code, you could say that it would be to do what you want as long as you don't hurt yourself or others (in a real-world, proven way, not in an afterlife kind of way). That, I think everyone could go by. That's pretty much what I go by now.

That means i can wholeheartedly agree with the pope because

1. Sexual immorality is not a loving way to live according to me.
2. The same law is written on my heart.

I changed that to be more accurate.

If we both bring our reasons before him, is there anyway he can show us different opinions on the matter?

Heneni

Why would an atheist bring his/her reasons before God?

 

[Wandered Off]

People have different moral codes. There can only be one code not thousands.

That's more of a contradiction than a dilemma.

Ok...(you can interrupt here any time you like) then what needs to happen is that our reasons for believing either way has to come into the light of god.

No need. Mine did already. :yes:

 

[Heneni]

Why can there only be one code? It seems to me there can be many.

If you want to make one universal code, you could say that it would be to do what you want as long as you don't hurt yourself or others (in a real-world, proven way, not in an afterlife kind of way). That, I think everyone could go by. That's pretty much what I go by now.



I changed that to be more accurate.



Why would an atheist bring his/her reasons before God?

Mball, all i can say to you, is that you are not not accountable for your actions. If you have to do what you believe is right, without consulting god on the matter, thats your business. If humans have been such good judges of what is right and what is wrong, we would hardly have poluted our word the way we have. That certainly does not show a loving attitude.

I stand by my reasoning, that the moral code of god is not designed to fence us in, but to give us freedom. Thats a bit hard to understand im sure. The only code that can keep us from slumping into a muddy puddle of poo is that of god. It might be nice to roll around with the pigs in the mud, but then at some point it isnt nice anymore and then the realisation hits that the mud isnt all that freeing.

For some moral decay feels like freedom. We like to call that which is bad for us good for us.

If we were naturally disposed to be loving, and to do what doesnt hurt others, we wouldnt kill unborn children, polute our world, wipe out forests, dump junk in rivers/oceans.....humans have no idea what love is unless god explains it to them.

And now if nobody has anything further to say/ask me...i think ill bow out of this discussion

Happy holidays to all of you!

Heneni

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

Now, its really without question that Ratzinger is a smart man, but I too found these comments to be ill-conceived.

What I imagine he was trying to do was to draw a parallel to the environmental crisis and the moral crisis Catholics see originating in the popular departure from natural law and perhaps the total abolition of "nature" as a moral category.

I think the observation is that, at a certain point, human beings conceived of civilization in a certain way that forgot nature, and the result is the present crisis where nature is being corrupted and becoming inhospitable for us because we have forced crude desires for efficiency, prosperity and its material pleasures over-top the natural rhythms and 'institutions' of the earth, violated their intrinsic laws, and are reaping the tragic and violent results. Likewise, there is a certain parallel here in a conceptualization of human sexuality that sees it without reference to those laws which arise out of nature itself- in this case its intrinsic link to procreation, and furthermore, the metaphysics which underlay "man and woman".


I think the Pope sees, in the calls to re-make much of society's industrial workings consonant with the regenerating laws of nature, a shift that points us towards moral considerations like that of homosexuality. I think there is real wisdom in this connection, as he says

"We need something like human ecology, meant in the right way."

Human sexuality is a more sublime sphere to be sure, but the Pope's point is that the question of man's "inner life" as well as his relationships with others are also called to be in accordance with certain laws of nature (in the philosophical sense), and that to ignore these moral questions is to make the error that gave rise to the present crisis on another plane of human existence that is, possibly, even more dear to us.

 

[the-flatlander]

...homosexual acts are not harmful, morally or otherwise...

My friend is a nurse employed at a San Diego hospital. She told me it’s not uncommon to see homosexual men come in with damaged sphincters. Sometimes they're torn so severely they’re difficult to repair.

 

[Magic Man]

Mball, all i can say to you, is that you are not not accountable for your actions.

True. I am accountable for everything I do. Just not to God.

If you have to do what you believe is right, without consulting god on the matter, thats your business. If humans have been such good judges of what is right and what is wrong, we would hardly have poluted our word the way we have. That certainly does not show a loving attitude.

Aren't you forgetting the many societies founded on Christian values over the last 2,000 years? We have polluted this world despite believing in God and the Bible, not because people haven't tried to go by it.

I stand by my reasoning, that the moral code of god is not designed to fence us in, but to give us freedom. Thats a bit hard to understand im sure. The only code that can keep us from slumping into a muddy puddle of poo is that of god. It might be nice to roll around with the pigs in the mud, but then at some point it isnt nice anymore and then the realisation hits that the mud isnt all that freeing.

Um...ok.

For some moral decay feels like freedom. We like to call that which is bad for us good for us.

No, we like to call that which is good for us, good for us. You think homosexual acts are bad for us, others don't. It's that simple. They are not inherently bad or wrong. So, people don't contradict themselves. You disagree that they are good for people, so to you they're bad for us. That's your opinion, but it's not shared by others.

If we were naturally disposed to be loving, and to do what doesnt hurt others, we wouldnt kill unborn children, polute our world, wipe out forests, dump junk in rivers/oceans.....humans have no idea what love is unless god explains it to them.

Um..yes, we do. There have been plenty of societies that didn't believe in your god and yet understood love quite well. That's quite an absurd assertion. Of course we know love without God explaining it to us. Some people do things we consider bad. Many people tend towards things we consider good. That has nothing to do with love.

And now if nobody has anything further to say/ask me...i think ill bow out of this discussion

Okey-dokey. It does seem to end this way usually.

Happy holidays to all of you!

Heneni

Happy holidays to you, too. I hope all goes well for you.

 

[Magic Man]

My friend is a nurse employed at a San Diego hospital. She told me it’s not uncommon to see homosexual men come in with damaged sphincters. Sometimes they're torn so severely they’re difficult to repair.

And? Anything can be harmful. It all depends on how you do it. I could cause my wife problems similar to that in a different area, if I do something wrong. Heck, I could give her exactly the same problem. It's not a problem with homosexual acts. It's a problem with sexual acts, hetero, homo or other, done incorrectly.

By the way, I can choke on a piece of apple. Does that make eating an apple inherently harmful or bad?

 

[emiliano]

While I agree with the Pope theologically, I can't help but be amazed at his lack of perspective. Countless millions are dying as a result of institutionalized poverty, including third-world debt. THESE, not abortion or homosexuality, should be the church's focus. Go ahead and be pro-life and pro-family, but please please please don't put those issues on the same footing as biggies such as systemic poverty/third world debt, environmental destruction (like poverty, a symptom of human greed), and warfare.

Offcourse you have to theologically agree, his theology is sound, I see his message as counselling to his people, we must prioritise, and we must attend to the spiritual first because that is the root of the problems, for example the greed for higher returns on investment, this is what caused the indebt-ness of the developing nations of the world, the greed of those offering loans at higher interest that is ethically appropriate, the greed of the developing nation’s leaders accepting this commercial deals and accepting bribes to get into them, greed and corruption are two spiritual diseases and must be attended to in the first place, what he is saying is prioritise, prioritise my people, seek what is spiritual, that is eternal, the destruction of the environment came about due the excessive greed of some nations and their refusal to stop and think, prioritise between profit and environment, which do you think comes second? How would you go about changing their mentality?

 

[emiliano]

The Pope’s duty is to guide his flock, I read somewhere that he is an Augustinian, thus I think that this is about warning his people about accepting behaviours that are clearly “contra natura” evil habits, it is as the Apostle Paul counselled the Church in Rom 1:32 who, knowing the righteous order of God, that those practicing such things are worthy of death, not only do them, but have pleasure in those practicing them.
What is the righteous order of God to a Christian?
Accepting these unnatural behaviours in our lives and faith leads to spiritual death, he must be thinking on the seven deadly sins and encouraging his flock toward the seven virtues that are required to counter these evils.

 

[the-flatlander]

It's not a problem with homosexual acts.

“anal intercourse, penile or otherwise, traumatizes the soft tissues of the rectal lining. These tissues... are nowhere near as sturdy as vaginal tissue. As a consequence, the lining of the rectum is almost always traumatized to some degree by any act of anal intercourse. Even in the absence of major trauma, minor or microscopic tears in the rectal lining allow for immediate contamination and the entry of germs into the bloodstream.” -Dr. Satinover J, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, Baker, 1997, page 67

 

[kai]

I don't really see what the hub-bub is about... I mean did anyone here not know what the Pope's stance on these issues was? Was this a suprise?

All he said is that we can't ignore human issues, and we all already know the Vatican's stance on those...

i am surprised anyones surprised, what the heck would you expect him to say?