Hey dude, is man a dolphin? Is man any animal besides himself? If we were to take animal's behavior and apply it to mankind then we would sometimes eat our own babies, sometimes be monogamous and other times polygamous; your dad would go around beating up other adult males to have the right to sire you, etc.
Except he wasn't trying to claim that man is a dolphin, rather he was countering your claim of "unnatural". He was simply showing that since it is common in nature, it cannot be unnatural.
The animal world has nothing to do with us and since animals are incapable of higher conscience such as ourselves they are not held responsible for any actions on a moral level.
See, here you seem to prove his point for him. Since the do what is "natural" rather than acting consciously, homosexuality is a natural occurrence.
The rest of what you did was just absurd.
So you claim but much of what you claim appears to be absurd.
Homosexuality goes against the nature of man as ordained by God; evidence of this is the preference of men to be with women and vice versa that is prevalent.
But preferences or prevalence have nothing to do with what is natural. If prevalence determined what is natural, both blond hair and blue eyes would be "unnatural" since both occur less frequently than homosexuality.
As for Romans 1, where most Christians get this idea of "unnatural", there are two problems. First, the chapter is talking about what occurred with those who rejected God. The homosexual acts occur after these people rejected God, they do not appear to be homosexual prior to that. Which plays into the second point: this word is used to talk about what is natural for the person (not for all people). Paul uses it in later writing when he talks about God going against his nature (I think you would agree that God wouldn't go against nature, like you are wanting to use the word against homosexuals).
So, it would appear those people in Romans 1 were heterosexual who had homosexual sex -- something common in some Greek Pagan rites, which fits in with the idea that these people rejected God and replaced him with idols.
More evidence is the fact that homosexual sex can cause damage to men (and to that extent anal sex amongst married people is also a sinful activity).
And heterosexual sex can (and does) cause damage in women. So does this mean heterosexual sex is sinful as well?
It abuses the body, so to speak.
Again, just like heterosexual sex can. Though, I notice you are only talking of anal sex, something lesbians don't practice. So does this mean lesbianism is okay?
It goes against the natural will...
Proof? In fact, pretty much all the evidence here (aside from your interpretation of the Bible) goes against you.
And more than that: Christians are not supposed to engage in excessive amounts of any pleasure. This includes everything from gluttony towards food to luxury to sex itself being taken to too far of levels.
So, since lesbians in a committed relationship (see lesbian bed death) likely have less sex than heterosexuals, does this mean they are even more righteous?
The reason why the 'missionary' position was recommended by religious institutions as the proper way was to minimize the role of sex in one's life and not turn it into a sort of sport that began dominating your Earthly life.
Christians believe in a sense becoming dead to the world and alive in Christ, doing a sort of penance and bringing themselves closer to God by forsaking pleasures.
Aesthetic practices used to be inherent to most Christians but now they have fallen to the wayside, sadly.
Ideally people only have sex for procreation though 1 Corinthians 7 allows it also to ward off sin and temptation thereof. However, being that homosexuality is naturally a sin that cannot be used as an excuse for practice of even a monogamous homosexual relationship. [/quote]
So basically, God expects homosexuals to have more sexual control than heterosexuals?
And some people may be born with the desire to have sex with animals. So what makes it entirely different? OH yeah, I recognize one is more disgusting than the other but they are both deviations of the sexual desires. As is pedophilia.
They're malfunctions in the brain.
Except you have zero evidence of this. The Bible doesn't support this view (other than a using a questionable interpretation of Romans 1). And every major medical and psychiatric organization disagrees with you on this one. Not to mention, even using statistics from the various ex-gay organizations, the vast majority of homosexuals cannot change their sexual orientation.
If just being homosexual is "unnatural" like you claim, should not a majority (if not all) be able to "cure" homosexuality through the help of these Christian organizations? Yet for some reason, even using unverified statistics provided but the ex-gay groups, less than 20% can actually change. And if you use the claims of someone that actually tried doing a scientific study, one touted by the ex-gay groups, only 3% of homosexuals are capable of changing their orientation.
The harm from homosexuality is on a larger social level.
First, it dishonors the person and the family.
Do you have any evidence for that at all?
Second, it pushes the lines of moral behavior back. This seems entirely irrelevant in modern society as we know it but discipline and adherence to local culture and laws was a form of strength and still is. Communities that did not tolerate decadence, indulgence and immorality were communities that were closer and healthier, more prepared for the challenges of the day. People really were 'warriors' in every sense of the word back then.
It sounds like you are trying to claim the lawless days of the "wild wild west" were more moral (despite the prevalence of prostitutes and murders) than today. I'm sorry, the way we treated minorities (including the Italians, Irish, Blacks, etc.) makes it hard to claim those days were "moral". In fact, it would be fairly easy to show that "morality" in the "good old days" had less to do with morality and more to do with being part of the majority.
When the society becomes morally disjointed it is no longer united and can become subject to its neighbors. Do you see what I am saying?
And this plays into what I just said. In fact, this is why the arguments made against homosexuality today mirror, almost exactly, the arguments made against minorities historically. The idea isn't "moral", it's "they aren't like us".
Thirdly, it is irrelevant if the sin does not harm others if it does harm yourself. A person can be a drunk their whole life and never, ever hurt anybody. However, they have still have damaged their spiritual life by beign chemically dependent and also have not honored their parents.
Except that there is no evidence that homosexuality harms the person -- except your belief that they will be judged by God for it after they die.
So why did you make those claims if they are irrelevant?
Morality is not measured by what hurts and does not hurt others -- that is rather a measure of a legal code. Even though it is legal to hurt other people's feelings it does not make it morally right.
Which just brings us back to an argument of what is moral. And there are lots of Christians who disagree with your claims of what is moral, not to mention the non-Christians.
They are singled out of it because Eve came from Adam's rib and thus in a roundabout sense woman and man were intended to be of one flesh from the beginning; it is clear that men and women ought to be attracted to one another and to create families together.
But as has been said numerous times on this thread, just because something was "intended" does not make unintended results bad.
It is abuse of the design that God has of the world, it si a deviation thereof. It is abuse of your own temple primarily and it does bring dishonor to the family and weakens the morals of the greater community.
So you claim, but this is not even a universal belief among Christians.
As I say again... A lot of things do not have inherent harm to the whole society or even to others but are still immoral.
It is not harmful to society in a direct way to abuse a dog or torture a cat but it is wrong; it is not harmful to society directly to to be wrathful. In fact, sometimes wrathful people can use this to benefit themselves and theoretically others... Yet, it is still immoral.
Except there are many (possibly even most) that find that abusing animals is directly harmful to society -- at least in part because it often is a precursor to abusing people. And that by teaching people that abuse of any sort is wrong when they are doing it to animals keeps these people from abusing people. And that is just one of the arguments.
As for "wrath", I think you'd have a hard time making an argument that it is always immoral, unless you are wanting to claim that God has acted immorally. In some cases, it even seems like the sentences given by the law are a form of wrath.
And in Christian morality, sex is for procreation primarily and warding off of sexual impurity.
At least according to you. Then again, I can remember fundamentalists here quoting the statement about how "fundamentalists have the best sex" -- which seems to be contrary to what you are claiming Christians believe.
If you had limited it to a belief that is primarily limited to the tenets of the Catholic church, I might agree, but most Protestant denominations do not agree with this idea.
Sex should never be the focus of a relationship
I'll agree. Yet I have seen little evidence that it is a problem in homosexual relationships. In fact, as linked earlier, it definitely is not a problem in lesbian relationships.
Christ set down specific instances where divorce and re-marriage are good.
It was actually recommended to widows and widowers not to re-marry. Some sects I beleive still think re-marriage is impossible after death.
The only total basis for divorce that God gave was adultery by one party. I tend to agree with this.
If I marry a woman and she dies I do not think I want to get remarried as I cannot have two wives in heaven.
Yet what does this have to do with the OP?
I think they definitely could create a family that is loving but it is not natural to me, and in that sense there is a malfunction.
And here we get to the truth... it is not "natural" to
you. In the same way heterosexual sex is not "natural" to a homosexual. But you are trying to make it so everyone has to live by what you feel is right and "natural".
But logically, you cannot say that they could not create a loving family as homosexuals just as us are capable of doing so.
So you appear to accept you have no evidence for your claims, and that reality contradicts your claims.