Here’s the thing if you consider yourself a member of particular religion then by definition you are likely to adopt the standards which that religion has for defining morality. Thus, if I became a Hindu (which according to many is not possible since many Hindu’s believe or so I am told that you must be born in the Indus valley to be truly Hindu) then I might have to accept becoming a vegetarian and accepting caste restrictions as a “moral” guidelines. If I took it a step further and became a Jane then even eating vegetables might not be acceptable (I think they eat fruit and nuts since these do not involve killing). On the other hand if I became Amish (again I’m not certain that it’s possible to convert to the Amish religion, but it’s not central to my point) then it would be likely that I would accept that owning a television, computer and other worldly items is not “moral” behavior. Orthodox Jews believe that doing any sort of work on Saturday (to perhaps include flipping a light switch or cooking) is not moral behavior. Morality in the context of religion is usually defined by the religion to which one subscribes (there are exceptions, for example many Catholics reject the Churches position that most if not all artificial contraception is not moral) and many Baptists don’t see the immorality in taking a drink from time to time.
My particular church the Church of Christ believes that homosexuality (at least my church does since there is considerable variation from local church to church) is a sin, basically because God said so in the Old Testament. With that said I also believe that this is a secular nation that should respect all faiths (or lack there of) so we should not legislate these beliefs into law. Indeed, and here I’m getting a bit off topic, I think that the gay rights community has gotten a little off track in pushing gay marriage (which is not politically feasible in most states right now) instead of promoting civil unions which even President Bush has said he would support. The recent ruling in Florida underlines the danger (to the homosexual community) of not obtaining such unions. Keep in mind that even the significantly conservative Bill O’Reilly has come out (no pun intended) in support of homosexual adoption (it seems I recall him saying that he supported this in an interview of Rosie O’Donald). Again, I see homosexuality as a sin. Then again I also see gluttony and sloth as sins, and at 270 pounds if I were to convert just those sins (in my life, not including many others) into gayness then I could be the poster child for the sequal to Queer Eye for the straight guy.
I guess all morality is somewhat arbitrary, but for me morality is about respecting your fellow human being. While I cannot honestly call myself a Christian anymore, one of Christ’s teachings forms the entire moral framework of my life: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All issues of morilty boil down to that issue for me.
Cheating, lying, stealing, murdering, all violate this principle. Most sexual practices between consenting adults do not. And sexual orientation most certainly does not.
So for me to truly believe Christ’s teachings AND believe homosexuality is wrong, well…there’s some serious cognitive dissonance there. I could not accept the fact that Christ would find homosexuality morally wrong.
And if he did, well, I really don’t want to anything to do with that kind of God.
I do believe that the belief that homosexual acts are morally wrong is a bigoted position. That doesn’t mean that I want to outlaw the thought or the expression thereof: in fact, just holding that opinion alone doesn’t automatically make one a bad person (but is one factor.)
But I stand by my statement that I don’t know anyone who wants to sanction the expression of these thoughts as “hate speech”. For all I know, Spectrum could be the Fred Phelps of the left. We don’t have a lot of “hate speech” laws in the U.S.: however, sometimes your opinions do matter, in the form of increased penalties for committing already-illegal acts that are also “hate crimes”.
One more thing. And, really, I am trying to understand this mindset of homosexuality as sin and morally wrong.
Now, I can understand how some people view abortion as morally abhorrent. I’m pro-choice myself, but I certainly don’t like the idea of abortions. I don’t think anybody does. But I can see how some people would find the moral objection to that. It mostly boils down to a definition of “life.” So I totally understand the pro-life mindset.
Your examples of sloth and gluttony (which I don’t feel are ‘immoral’ insomuch as being disrespectful to oneself. Unless your sloth and gluttony is directly disrespecting another human being) don’t work. These “deadly sins” are choices. I don’t believe homosexuality is a choice for the most part. Why would anyone choose to societally marginalize themselves? Have you ever witnessed somebody going through a coming out process? It’s rough to watch. The anti-homosexual societal mores take quite a toll on people struggling with their sexual identity. There’s no way in hell that anyone who could choose to be straight would put themselves through such a psychologically trying process.
Why does whether or not homosexuality is a choice determine if it is morally wrong or not? Or more germanly, whether it is a moral issue or not?
Do kleptomaniacs choose to steal? By definition, no.
Do pyromaniaccs choose to set fires? By definition, no.
Again, I do not think homosexuality is a morally wrong, or a moral issue myself, but I do understand why some think so. Morality is either human defined, or god given. If you believe in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God, then the Old Testament is pretty clear on it, as was Paul, and I believe the Koran. If you think those laws still apply than it is both a moral issue and wrong. If you believe morality is determined by societal convention, then all issues are moral issues, if some segment of the society so decides. Again, homosexuality (and hetero) is a moral issue, and societies can choose to think it wrong. If it seems bizarre, remember that many societies have or had some form of arranged marriage, which means “moral sex” was not necessarily between consenting adults.
I heard a philosophy professor once say something like: “When ever you think you are right, stand if front of a mirror. Say, ‘I might be wrong.’ I might be totally and completely wrong.’ Then you might be right.”
Sure they do. Do they choose to want to steal or set fires? No. It’s a cop out to claim “I’m a kleptomaniac therefore I can’t help but to steal.” A more correct statement would be “I’m a kleptomaniac therefore I can’t help but want to steal.” People don’t take enough responsibility for themselves these days.
Look I believe that almost all acts involve some degree of choice. In my opinion the Bible is very clear that sloth and gluttony are sins. They show disrespect for the body that God has given us. I chose to eat too much and exercise too little (yes predisposition also play a role, but in the end I made and continue to make wrong, yes sinful choices that perpetuate my problem). I don’t choose to be attracted to women, but I am making the choice to go and attempt to “get some” from my wife. Despite the attraction I feel, I could choose instead not to have sex. There are those who say they are attracted to fourteen year old girls (in many cases the girls willingly participate) however society says that despite their possible predisposition that they have committed a wrongful act. Now any consenting sex between adults is in a different league, but the basic principal holds. A predisposition to like something in no way exonerates one from any possible moral issues involved in doing the act.
I fear we have digressed too far into the debate area. The OP was intended to focus on perceived bias on this board that contradicts the overall bias of the Internet (the Internet is perceived to be biased too the right, and I believe that it is, but this board seems to overcome that bias to achieve a left of center perspective).
Not I really care about whether homosexuality is a choice or not. That’s a non-issue for me. But for some it is, so there you have it.
A kleptomaniac or pyromaniac or pedophile all have predispositions to do something that violates my “do unto others” litmus test of morality. But it’s still a choice. One need not act on impulse. If you could prove to me that kleptomaniacs or pyromaniacs have no choice but to act on their impulse, then of course their actions are NOT immoral, for morality is a function of free will. Without free will, morality is meaningless.
Perhaps I should start a Great Debates thread, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. It’s kinda scary.
This is a tangent, but I thought it might serve the general purposes of the SDMB to respond to Roland’s Hinduism example.
Traditionally, you must be born of Hindu parentage to be a Hindu. Today, most Hindus don’t really care one way or another. Most Hindus still view “converts” as being peculiar, though.
Hinduism does not mandate vegetarianism. Most Hindus in the northern half of the subcontinent are not vegetarian. Many of those who are vegetarian might view it as a moral issue, but primarily it is an issue of purity. Strict vegetarians eat dairy products but do not eat onions and garlic.
Caste restrictions are not matters of morality, but of purity. The only caste restriction that continues strongly today is with regard to marriage, and this is breaking down among the educated middle class.
Jain.
Jains eat vegetables that grow above ground. They do not eat anything that grows underground, like root vegetables. They also don’t eat garlic and onions. This is an issue both of morality and purity.
Generally, moral codes among Hindus come not from the religion itself but from cultural norms.
My point was simply that different religions define morality in different ways. My religion happens to define homosexuality (as does much of Islam, and Judaism) as not being moral behavior. I cannot believe that I’ve been reduced to making an argument for “moral relativism” which is something that I’ve opposed in the past. I will have to analyize how this came to pass.
It’s not really Apropos of anything else in this thread, but I just had to comment on this. I lived in SLC for four years, and I met a lot of Catholics, and not just at the churches (SLC has The Cathedral of the Madeleine, by the way, only a few blocks from Temple Square). Catholicism has to be the second biggest religion out there.
No. That’s not quite true. Being a Republican in Chicago is like being Catholic in Salt Lake City. I would hesitate to call Chicago liberal. It’s definitely unabashedly Democratic, but a lot of that allegience stems from Chicago’s history and the stranglehold the Democratic party has had on the city. Chicago Democrats more closely resemble Labor Democrats rather than Liberal Democrats, and tend to be conservative on social issues (especially given the Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s influence). Sure Chicago has its liberal pockets (Hyde Park, Rogers Park, Edgewater, etc.), but overall I wouldn’t consider the citizenty overall as such.
I think that is fairly tough to be conservative and still be a Democrat (Leiberman may come the closest). The top issues for the conservatives that I know include things like:
Opposition to abortion especially partial birth abortion.
Getting school choice expanded.
Getting Social Security reformed preferably with personal accounts (partial privatization).
Getting health savings accounts promoted rather than any form of nationalized health insurance.
Opposition to any further gun control laws.
Fighting treaties like Kyoto which many see as an attempt to reduce on Sovreinty. Indeed, fighting attempts at “globalizing” our nation at the expense of independence in EU fashion is becoming a top issue for Conservatives.
It’s hard to really care about these issues and still vote Democratic.
only because you set the guidelines, arbitrarily (your word), since homosexuality doesn’t fall into your moral guidelines it is seen by you as a “cognitive dissonance”. But it’s only dissonance is because you have ignored all the mentions of it in the many moral frameworks mentioned.
Mind you, I’m not ranting for or against homosexuality here, I’m just pointing out that to state that sexual actions are not/should not be considered as part of a moral framework is to ignore most of human history.
Big fat hairy “me too.” I don’t engage in most debates that I’d like to mostly due to fatigue. I got tired of carefully making my point just to have 50 posts calling me names or ignoring my points. Oh and:
It’s precisely because I do depend on reason that it takes so much effort to debate with care. The pile-ons are almost entirely appeals to emotion.
Note that this is most prevalent in the same-sex marriage threads, as is obvious in this very thread.
Well, come to Chicago. There’s plenty of pro-life Democrats round here.
Seriously, the Democrats in Chicago are pretty conservative compared to, say, New York or California Democrats. Chicago is a weird beast.
I don’t remember Christ saying anything in the New Testament against homosexuality but I may be wrong.
Yep, those obviously are my moral guidelines, based on Christ’s teaching (although, like I said, I neither believe in Christ nor consider my anything but a nominal Christian). The Bible also condones slavery. Yet don’t most of us, as Christians, consider slavery to be abominal? Why the moral flip-flop?
Need I really run down a list of contradictory moral guidelines in The Book?
“Love your neighbor as yourself” seems to contradict a whole lot of proscriptions in the OT.
Human sexuality does not fit into any sensible moral framework that I can comprehend. Tell me WHY is it bad. WHY it’s immoral. The WHY to every single other moral guideline I could think of in Christianity is “because it hurts or disrespects another person.” This is why the sexual ones make no sense to me.
I don’t care that most of human history had problems with it. I think for most of human history it was the “ick” factor that made it immoral. I mean, damn, for most of human history slavery was moral. Doesn’t mean it makes sense, nor is right.
No, the cognitive dissonance is independent of my own formulations of morality. The cognitive dissonance is caused by being taught one code of morality in the NT and constrasting that with a different code of morality in the OT. Like the example I used in the last post “Love your neighbor as yourself” in the NT, and then all that crap about slavery and beating your slaves in the OT. Are you seriously telling me that the cognitive dissonance is extratextual?
You are contradicting yourself, “I do not believe in Christ” followed by “I am a nonminal Christian” a Christian, by definition is one who who believes in, and follows Christ.
Your Biblical mistakes are so many that I will not hijack this thread any further about it, I apologize if this is debating in poor form, I did not mean to go off on too much of a tangent with this subject. I am in no way trying to be snarky or offensive. You’ve obviously given this matter a great deal of thought. Perhaps you would like to start another thread about it? I’d be happy to contribute.
There are many threads about the supposed “contradictions” of the Bible, you are not saying anything that hasn’t been said a million times before. Nothing new here.
As I indicated above I would oppose homosexuality even if I was an atheist or agonostic. That is because I do not believe that we should define ourselves by our sexualilty. I believe that doing so tends to deemphasize our free will. It is possible to be with someone based upon reasons that have little or nothing to do with sexual attraction. Furthermore, it is possible to live life without having sex with other people at all.
