"...against nature:" Always a sin?

[intricatic]

I don't know... that wasn't part of my analogy.

But, answer your question, yes, that's a perfectly natural reaction to some sort of unnatural act in the past. If you felt drawn to be abused because you felt inferior, chances are you had really bad parents who didn't provide you with the appropriate upbringing...

That upbringing caused the emotions... and those emotions are compelely natural... Now, it is up to that person to get the psychological help to work on those emotions and have a better life.

But do you think it's perfectly natural for them to feel normal about it? That is to say, for them not to see it as a problem?

That's the key - the unnatural use of our natural emotions to further draw a person into a spiral of self-loathing and pain, and then make them feel that it's a normal or natural thing.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

Animals are not made in the image of God. Man is.

Man IS an animal, by definition

 

[intricatic]

that's an interesting philosophy...

So, animals are alien to humans in your opinion. Coming from a science background, I can't agree with you. DNA studies prove how similar we all are... how similar humans are to animals...

I think it would be a safe bet that you have never owned a dog.

Coming from a scientific background as well, I have to agree with you on that point, but you're looking at the superficial. I said their state of being - the way they operate and percieve reality - is far different from that of a human being.

EDITED:

I have bred dogs all my life, right now I'm keeping German Shepherds.

 

[JunkYardDog]

Man IS an animal, by definition

By whose definition? Not God's.

 

[intricatic]

Man IS an animal, by definition

By definition of science, perhaps. By definition of mind, or soul, man is above animals.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

But do you think it's perfectly natural for them to feel normal about it? That is to say, for them not to see it as a problem?

That's the key - the unnatural use of our natural emotions to further draw a person into a spiral of self-loathing and pain, and then make them feel that it's a normal or natural thing.

Well, it certainly isn't a good or productive thing for them, emotionally.

Whether it's natural or not... that's an interesting question. I'm thinking of my partner's mother, who is clinically depressed due to trauma in her childhood. She has tried to get help and is currently on medication... the medication doesn't work well, and she is still quite depressed most of the time. She sees a psychologist once a week, and it's only helping a little bit.

So, is her depressed state and her sadness about her life natural? I suppose it must be... That's how she is... She's trying to get out of her depression, but she can't. So, she's just as natural as anyone else, I suppose.

 

[intricatic]

Well, it certainly isn't a good or productive thing for them, emotionally.

Whether it's natural or not... that's an interesting question. I'm thinking of my partner's mother, who is clinically depressed due to trauma in her childhood. She has tried to get help and is currently on medication... the medication doesn't work well, and she is still quite depressed most of the time. She sees a psychologist once a week, and it's only helping a little bit.

So, is her depressed state and her sadness about her life natural? I suppose it must be... That's how she is... She's trying to get out of her depression, but she can't. So, she's just as natural as anyone else, I suppose.

Indeed, I've been in simmilar situations before. But there is a cause to that, a concious choice we make, regardless of whether we aknowledge it or not. Being in a state of depression is addictive. It gets to a point where we know nothing else but the depression, and though we may think we want something else (happiness, joy, etc..) it seems fleeting or improbable. That is the unnatural reaction to sadness.

In certain emotional struggles, there is an ephemeral beauty, sadness is not always dark and brooding, but when it's made to be dark and brooding, it becomse something unnatural to us. That's an element of man's fall.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

By whose definition? Not God's.

Proven science... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

 

[DevotiontoBible]

Proven science... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

Science does not prove humans are animals. Human philosophy calls humans animals, not science. The Bible agrees with science but not science fiction.

BTW, there are no homosexual animals. True science has observed animals to either be: asexual, bisexual (not in the perverted sense of this word), heterosexual. There are many psuedo-scientific studies claiming to observe homosexual animals, but there has never been any penetration with copulation observed among same sex animals, not even in the Bonobos study. Also, the so called gay penguin is claimed to have been observed by a single lone zoo keeper, that is hardly scientific. Reasonable people base opinions on science fact not science fiction. So even animals in nature act with more wisdom about their sexuality than homosexuals do.

 

[JunkYardDog]

Proven science... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human

So we have degenerated to relying on Wikipedia? The definition itself says that humans are defined in BOTH physical and spiritual terms. the remainder of the definition pretty much covers the physical, but not the spiritual. Indeed, humans have bodies like animals but that does not make them animals any more than the fact that humans have spirits like angels makes humans angels.

You are guilty of crass reductionism. You have described the basest level of a human and bleached out the MEANING and BEAUTY. It is like saying that marriage is just long-term prostitution -- sex in exchange for provision. I can tell you for a fact that marriage has much more meaning and beauty than that stark description.

 

[intricatic]

Science does not prove humans are animals. Human philosophy calls humans animals, not science. The Bible agrees with science but not science fiction.

BTW, there are no homosexual animals. True science has observed animals to either be: asexual, bisexual (not in the perverted sense of this word), heterosexual. There are many psuedo-scientific studies claiming to observe homosexual animals, but there has never been any penetration with copulation observed among same sex animals, not even in the Bonobos study. Also, the so called gay penguin is claimed to have been observed by a single lone zoo keeper, that is hardly scientific. Reasonable people base opinions on science fact not science fiction. So even animals in nature act with more wisdom about their sexuality than homosexuals do.

Let me make a correction that is scientific:

Based on observation, animals are not homosexual. They resort to what might be concidered homosexual if the ratio of male:female is significantly unballanced, but it is not a permanent thing, nor is it a thing that occurs in a perfectly ballanced male:female environment. The gay penguine was such an example - there were drastically more male penguines than there were female penguines.

 

[intricatic]

So we have degenerated to relying on Wikipedia? The definition itself says that humans are defined in BOTH physical and spiritual terms. the remainder of the definition pretty much covers the physical, but not the spiritual. Indeed, humans have bodies like animals but that does not make them animals any more than the fact that humans have spirits like angels makes humans angels.

You are guilty of crass reductionism. You have described the basest level of a human and bleached out the MEANING and BEAUTY. It is like saying that marriage is just long-term prostitution -- sex in exchange for provision. I can tell you for a fact that marriage has much more meaning and beauty than that stark description.

This is a result of secular thinking, though it is not bad in and of it's self, it tends to reduce things to that human level where emotions and spirituality are seen as non-items. It's quite an interesting view of life, but not something I would like to experience. The romance of nature and reality is too great for me to ignore it.

 

[DevotiontoBible]

Let me make a correction that is scientific:

Based on observation, animals are not homosexual. They resort to what might be concidered homosexual if the ratio of male:female is significantly unballanced, but it is not a permanent thing, nor is it a thing that occurs in a perfectly ballanced male:female environment. The gay penguine was such an example - there were drastically more male penguines than there were female penguines.

Another so-called scientific study, paid for by tax dollars, crammed 16 rams in a pen with only 10 ewes. Of course, some of the males mounted other males (note: no copulation and no penetration observed) and the inferred results are plastered all over the news "science proves sheep are gay!".

 

[intricatic]

Another so-called scientific study, paid for by tax dollars, crammed 16 rams in a pen with only 10 ewes. Of course, some of the males mounted other males (note: no copulation observed) and the inferred results are plastered all over the news "proof of gay rams!".

Proof of the assertion I just made, maybe...

No copulation would infer that they're really randy, for lack of a better word, and the female rams were already "occupied" LOL

 

[DevotiontoBible]

Proof of the assertion I just made, maybe...

No copulation would infer that they're really randy, for lack of a better word, and the female rams were already "occupied" LOL

Nothing like "rational" scientists jumping to unsubstantiated conclusions is echoed by the verse "claiming to be wise they became fools" Ro 1:22.

 

[Sam Gamgee]

ok... I'm done... You're right...

humans aren't animals... everything is unnatural unless it's in the bible... and the dirty homosexuals are the most unnatural of all...

Have a great day. I'm not returning to this thread.

 

[intricatic]

ok... I'm done... You're right...

humans aren't animals... everything is unnatural unless it's in the bible... and the dirty homosexuals are the most unnatural of all...

Have a great day. I'm not returning to this thread.

That wasn't what I was saying, but okay. Take care, mate!

 

[DevotiontoBible]

everything is unnatural unless it's in the bible...

Not only is homosexuality shown in the Bible to be against nature but also shown by nature itself and observed by real science. Science has never contradicted the Bible, but science fiction has.

 

[JunkYardDog]

... and the dirty homosexuals are the most unnatural of all...

Have a great day. I'm not returning to this thread.

1. Pretty close.

2. When the going gets tough, Sam gets going -- away. (Run away! Run away! -- apologies to Monte Python)

 

[DevotiontoBible]

2. When the going gets tough, Sam gets going -- away. (Run away! Run away! -- apologies to Monte Python)

That is what happens when those strongholds get knocked down:


2 Cor. 10:3-5 (NLT)
We are human, but we don't wage war with human plans and methods. [4] We use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the Devil's strongholds. [5] With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God. With these weapons we conquer their rebellious ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ.