Homosexuality Questions

lawndartboy · Jan 3, 2012

What is the best way to explain to a secular person why homosexuality is sinful?

rusmeister · Jan 3, 2012

I can think of intellectual approaches - but most people, not really being interested in intellectual explanations of a worldview, won't hang around for them.

Probably the best way to get their attention immediately and go for the throat of the issue is to challenge how people see sexual relations today.

Just ask what the purpose of the sex act is.

Whether a person thinks us created by God or evolved by chance, they must admit that its prime purpose is reproduction. (An appropriate analogy is that of an internal organ like the stomach, not the mouth or the hands.)

So then why do we act today as if its prime purpose was to give us pleasure and to subvert its prime purpose? Either we are going against the intent of the Designer or working to evolve ourselves out of existence by rebelling against evolution in the name of pleasure.

The basic fact is that we have gone insane on the use of sex, and comparing it to the use of food (which Lewis did somewhere) is a good illustration:

Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, 'Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.' Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong. But I have other reasons for thinking so. The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function. Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act - that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?

Once a person can see that the modern view of sex for pleasure cannot be right, they might be open to listening to something else. If they can't get that, they won't understand anything else. They don't really want to.

Mariya116 · Jan 3, 2012

lawndartboy said:
What is the best way to explain to a secular person why homosexuality is sinful?

In order for someone to be convinced by you, you have to at least share the same discourse and terminology. If the secular person you are talking to embraces the concepts of "sinful" etc. to begin with, you can go further (then, they are not so secular already). If not, you speak two different languages, and I would not go on waste both of your time.

I remember talking to someone on a forum who was saying something like "doesn't being in the presence of a real man make you act more feminine?" To that, I said (in part) that I do not use either the term "real man" or the term "feminine" because neither has a defined meaning. He said, well nothing in this world has a defined meaning.

gzt · Jan 3, 2012

First you have to explain to them why much of heterosexuality is sinful!

Ioannis · Jan 4, 2012

I like to use the idea of natural selection, actually. A homosexual society could never reproduce. On top of that, when a baby is born, it has genes from both parents. A child of a homosexual couple (let's assume they use donors or surrogates to get the job done) can only have one parents genes and the genes of a stranger.

So, I just use that idea to say why I don't think that homosexual behavior is, in any way, natural. When I talk to someone who is not religious and they ask my views on the topic, I leave religion out of it. Why? Because when talking to someone with different religious views, it's easy to discard your thoughts with "Well, those aren't my beliefs." I like the more scientific approach, personally.

Kreikkalainen · Jan 4, 2012

I don't think you can define or explain sin in a secular context.

ArmyMatt · Jan 4, 2012

I think you gotta do two things. first you can explain that it doesn't work biologically. and why it does not fit the best (in my opinion) definition of love, which is to do to the highest good of the other at the sacrifice of the self. so if God defines sex as between man and woman in marriage, if one truly loves another man, he will not have sex with him and struggle against those temptations.

and I think we should always remind them that homosexuality, although more accepted, is not a worse sin than any other sin. it seems that modern TV Christianity there are three major sins: homosexuality, abortion, and reading stuff like Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code, and you can fudge on divorce, making millions on people's donations, etc. I think nowadays they must be aware that homosexuals are not a worse sinner than a heterosexual, but someone with differing struggles.

rusmeister · Jan 4, 2012

ArmyMatt said:
I think you gotta do two things. first you can explain that it doesn't work biologically. and why it does not fit the best (in my opinion) definition of love, which is to do to the highest good of the other at the sacrifice of the self. so if God defines sex as between man and woman in marriage, if one truly loves another man, he will not have sex with him and struggle against those temptations.

and I think we should always remind them that homosexuality, although more accepted, is not a worse sin than any other sin. it seems that modern TV Christianity there are three major sins: homosexuality, abortion, and reading stuff like Harry Potter or the Da Vinci Code, and you can fudge on divorce, making millions on people's donations, etc. I think nowadays they must be aware that homosexuals are not a worse sinner than a heterosexual, but someone with differing struggles.

I don't think your first point will get very far with someone who denies the existence of God.
Your second point is quite right and helpful. I would note the reason we hear so much about those particular sins, though, in all fairness to modern Christians - the modern, and mostly successful effort, to deny that they are sins at all.

ArmyMatt · Jan 4, 2012

I don't think your first point will get very far with someone who denies the existence of God.

I was thinking more of the folks who try to combine Christianity and homosexuality, but you are right, not gonna get very far talking to an atheist.

ProScribe · Jan 4, 2012

lawndartboy said:
What is the best way to explain to a secular person why homosexuality is sinful?

Because its a male having sex with a male. :sick:

Damaris · Jan 4, 2012

I think Vladyka Jonah made an excellent point when he said that we don't oppose sin because it says so in a book someplace, we oppose it because it destroys people's lives.

Homosexual relationships cannot inherently procreate anything. Also, it's not the same as a heterosexual relationship where one of the members is totally sterile (woman lacks a uterus and ovaries, or man lacks testicles, etc), because there's another purpose of marriage, which Fr. John Behr brought out in a lecture he gave on sexual differentiation he gave last summer, and that's the experience of otherness that comes from our sexual differentiation. Homosexual behavior is sinful because it gratifies lust without that godly and grace-filled experience of sexual differentiation. Not to get too graphic, but heterosexual sex is biologically indicated in a way that homosexual sex simply isn't. That's an aspect of our design as human beings, and why homosexual desires are disordered, and shouldn't be acted upon.

And I think homosexual 'marriage' does threaten marriage in general, because it forces people to see marriage not as what it should be, the matched pair of a sexually dimorphic species, and as simply a domestic and sexual contract between two people of indeterminate gender. Sexuality is reduced to a means of gratifying lust rather than fulfilling the human experience. Has a lot of this damage already been done by failed heterosexual relationships? Obviously. But that's no reason to allow the error to be compounded.

lawndartboy · Jan 4, 2012

rusmeister said:
I can think of intellectual approaches - but most people, not really being interested in intellectual explanations of a worldview, won't hang around for them.

So true, unfortunetly! I find that most people rely on bumper sticker philosophy to get through their day

JediMobius · Jan 4, 2012

Here's another logical approach, much along the lines of rusmeister's suggestion: What Is Marriage?

Orthocat · Jan 5, 2012

If you look at the studies that have been done:

Homosexual men have a much shorter lifespan than heterosexual men.
The vast majority of gay relationships are not monogamous, as some may claim. They have 3 times as many partners as single heterosexuals, exposing themselves to much greater risk of STDs.

Sorry I don't have the studies offhand but they are on the net...

rusmeister · Jan 5, 2012

Begging your pardon, Ortho, but studies can be produced "proving" nearly anything at all. Many studies are driven by the agenda of the people funding them to produce the results they want to see. It would be one of the weakest and most easily countered points.

Damaris touched on a much stronger point and Jedi's linked thesis is outstanding. (I'm not finished with it yet, but its even-handed treatment of the people defending immorality makes it impossible for them to object that that is not how they see and present the case.)

Mariya116 · Jan 5, 2012

ProScribe said:
Because its a male having sex with a male.

truefiction1 · Jan 5, 2012

Kreikkalainen said:
I don't think you can define or explain sin in a secular context.

Actually, I've seen this done quite well by certain human behavioral scientists who were searching for the reasons that such evil exists in the world of man. The conclusion of some of them is that Christians as long as two-thousand years ago understood exactly what is awry in the world just as well (if not more perfectly) as modern human science does. I have studied human corruption from both perspectives, Christian and scientific, and find that they have arrived at pretty much the same understandings and conclusions, the only difference being the approach and terminology used.

truefiction1 · Jan 5, 2012

From the perspective of cultural anthropology, we might consider it a distinct possibility that certain taboos, such as those against homosexuality, came to exist because they (taboos) served or protected communities in some important way.

I'm no expert in this matter. But I would like to suggest that we may indeed see, someday, what the ultimate impact of the removal of this particular taboo from within our modern society will be, and we might painfully discover that its effects are not in society's best interest.

gurneyhalleck1 · Jan 5, 2012

Great point, rus. Education is a great example. It seems like every year there is some new philosophy shifting our paradigms and the pendulum swings. As they try to get us to swing with it, we hear, "the research says..." and then five years later a totally contradictory agenda comes again with "the research is telling us...."

I think that's true with issues of sexuality here as well. The research can be manipulated by the interest group at hand, as you say. Looking at what the Bible, the Church, and the natural law (to employ a Catholic term) says all point to the innate disordered chaos that homosexuality is by its nature. The STD's and infidelity can happen with heterosexuals...

rusmeister said:
Begging your pardon, Ortho, but studies can be produced "proving" nearly anything at all. Many studies are driven by the agenda of the people funding them to produce the results they want to see. It would be one of the weakest and most easily countered points.

Damaris touched on a much stronger point and Jedi's linked thesis is outstanding. (I'm not finished with it yet, but its even-handed treatment of the people defending immorality makes it impossible for them to object that that is not how they see and present the case.)

Ignatius21 · Jan 6, 2012

rusmeister said:
I don't think your first point will get very far with someone who denies the existence of God.
Your second point is quite right and helpful. I would note the reason we hear so much about those particular sins, though, in all fairness to modern Christians - the modern, and mostly successful effort, to deny that they are sins at all.

In the circles where I used to run (those wild and crazy Calvinists) there was a strong emphasis on "presuppositional apologetics," that is, in identifying and deconstructing the opposing presupposition rather than just going point-for-point with topics...something like treating a disease rather than the symptoms. I learned a lot from reading that material, like how to identify presuppositions lurking behind statements that can be very hard to detect...often they're not detected by the person making them. And we usually don't know our own presuppositions without a great deal of self-reflection. The highest aim of this approach, though, was to make all your presuppositions "consistent with Scripture" (and buried in this was the presupposition that the Calvinist approach to Scripture was the correct one :sorry:

).

So I think you're right, in saying that a person who denies the role of God will not be much persuaded by arguments based on the authority of God. And the weakness of the "presuppositional apologetic" method could only progress to "yep, you aren't presupposing the authority of God" and it was hard to move beyond that. You do, or you don't. And trying to make appeals to the evidence of a creator isn't necessarily always effective, either...after all, even a deist will agree that some higher being created us.

It's a very tough nut to crack.

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