Pope Francis On Transgender Ideology And Same Sexton Unions

[Guest]

[Era Might]

Accepting one's body means accepting one's lust. I see marriage and family as a civilizing institution, but not the reason for our bodies. Like all institutions it has its positives and negatives...but let's not be deluded and imagine family as some ideal...rebellion against family, like rebellion against all institutions, is absolutely necessary. Homosexuality was an institution as well for the Greeks and Romans, though separate from the family. Prostitution is another institution that man has never extinguished, not even in Christendom. For me, chalking it up to "sin" completely misses the real human needs and frustrations that preserve institutions like marriage, prostitution, celebrity, etc.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Era Might

[Era Might]

Just to add: I find the New Testament's ideal of Love to be beautiful, but I don't equate that with the institutions we call marriage and family, for the same reason I don't equate philanthropy with the Good Samaritan.

But it is when he deals with a sinner that Christ is most romantic, in the sense of most real. The world had always loved the saint as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of God. Christ, through some divine instinct in him, seems to have always loved the sinner as being the nearest possible approach to the perfection of man. His primary desire was not to reform people, any more than his primary desire was to a relieve suffering. To turn an interesting thief into a tedious honest man was not his aim. He would have thought little of the Prisoners' Aid Society and other modern movements of the kind. The conversion of a publican into a Pharisee would not have seemed to him a great achievement. But in a manner not yet understood of the world he regarded sin and suffering as being in themselves beautiful holy things and modes of perfection.

It seems a very dangerous idea. It is - all great ideas are dangerous. That it was Christ's creed admits of no doubt. That it is the true creed I don't doubt myself.

--Oscar Wilde, "De Profundis"

[Maggyie]

Family is not a social institution, it is a biological and evolutionary reality. We are born into one and we die in one. Everyone has a mother and a father and ultimately, an endless number of cousins. To try to rebel against the family would be like a lion rebelling against the pride. 

[Era Might]

1 hour ago, Maggyie said:

Family is not a social institution, it is a biological and evolutionary reality. We are born into one and we die in one. Everyone has a mother and a father and ultimately, an endless number of cousins. To try to rebel against the family would be like a lion rebelling against the pride. 

The family is certainly a social institution. Even in the Bible there was polygamy. Our modern middle class family is our own creation. Family is always a reflection of its society. When St. Francis told his father, no, I won't be like you, he was rebelling against the medieval family.

[Maggyie]

3 hours ago, Era Might said:

The family is certainly a social institution. Even in the Bible there was polygamy. Our modern middle class family is our own creation. Family is always a reflection of its society. When St. Francis told his father, no, I won't be like you, he was rebelling against the medieval family.

Family takes different forms across time and culture but it is always there. The "lone wolf human" does not exist. I believe Francis was rebelling more against class expectations. In fact so little was his rebellion against family that he founded his own family of Brothers and Sisters. Someone who rejected family would not have done that. 

[Era Might]

15 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

Family takes different forms across time and culture but it is always there. The "lone wolf human" does not exist. I believe Francis was rebelling more against class expectations. In fact so little was his rebellion against family that he founded his own family of Brothers and Sisters. Someone who rejected family would not have done that. 

Certainly I agree that family always exists. I just don't think it's something sacred. Families are good for accommodating someone into society, but not much else. When someone fails in society family can be an important fallback, but in itself it has little to teach. One only learns apart from the family, especially in attempting to create one's own.

[Maggyie]

3 minutes ago, Era Might said:

Certainly I agree that family always exists. I just don't think it's something sacred. Families are good for accommodating someone into society, but not much else. When someone fails in society family can be an important fallback, but in itself it has little to teach. One only learns apart from the family, especially in attempting to create one's own.

Actually family is the first school, and research shows this. We learn how to be human in the context of the family; when we create a new family we put into action these learnings, usually subconsciously. You should read some of the research on great apes and other primates. 

[Kateri89]

4 minutes ago, Era Might said:

Certainly I agree that family always exists. I just don't think it's something sacred. Families are good for accommodating someone into society, but not much else. When someone fails in society family can be an important fallback, but in itself it has little to teach. One only learns apart from the family, especially in attempting to create one's own.

I strongly disagree on this point.  The family is supposed to teach us many things, namely complementarity of the different members and how each contributes his/her gifts, how to be obedient, how to sacrifice, how to compromise, how to love, etc.  It can humble us and make us more appreciative. For instance, I grew up with an older brother and sister in a relatively low-income family.  I was the youngest and often wore secondhand clothes, had to share a bedroom (and a bed) with my sister, had to forego certain interests because my parents couldn't afford them, had to share one bathroom amongst 5 people, and was expected to do as I was told or else be punished by my parents.  That all sounds kind of bleak but I promise you I had a good childhood; I have lots of fond family memories and I love them all very much.  As an adult, I feel like I have a good work ethic, good interpersonal skills, good money management, etc. because of the values I learned growing up in that family setting.  Of course I have plenty of faults and so do my family members but learning how to work on your faults and to live with the faults of others is essential in all aspects of life and the family life teaches you that.

[NadaTeTurbe]

Another source, please ? I would like to read it on its context. 

[Era Might]

I completely agree with you both about family being where we learn our way of being. But our families simply pass on to us our societies. That can be useful, but also deadening, because family becomes a model we conform to, just as we conform to other social institutions. The changing form of the family is always revolutionary because it reflects the changing forms of society. This is where I begin to have a problem with the Christian critique of homosexuality, because the emerging acceptance of gay families is just a natural progression of how society has changed, not merely morally, but economically, etc. Christian critiques are usually reactionary and just focus on morality, as if the problem with the modern family can be dealt with without questioning its entire foundations. Gays aren't destroying the modern family, just the opposite, they're being assimilated into it, just as women were, for example, assimilated into the workforce. You can't question women in the workforce without questioning the idea of the workforce itself, and I think the same is true of gay marriage. Otherwise, marriage just becomes an ideological prop for morality police and culture warriors. But to his credit, I think Pope Francis has recognized this...e.g., in his encyclical Laudato Si he extends his critique to objective factors like economics and technology, he doesn't just sermonize about morality. Of course, it's telling that the Pope's mild attempts to question our civilization have earned him a rep as a dangerous radical. Reactionaries want to uphold a mythical form of the family for ideological reasons, but the idea of family they hold sacred has nothing to do with reality, historical or social.

8 hours ago, Maggyie said:

Actually family is the first school, and research shows this. We learn how to be human in the context of the family; when we create a new family we put into action these learnings, usually subconsciously. You should read some of the research on great apes and other primates. 

Right, when I say the family has little to teach, I mean about one's self. Family is our first assimilation into society, but to mature, a person has to have the awareness and autonomy to unlearn what he has learned. Usually, we just passively reproduce our families and societies, and they become repressive and conservative in a bad way, they prevent growth and progress, which is why I say rebellion is absolutely necessary...where would we be if nobody challenged their family, struck out on their own, dared to be different, dared to question their small family in this large world?

Edited May 24, 2016 by Era Might

[Guest]

3 hours ago, NadaTeTurbe said:

Another source, please ? I would like to read it on its context. 

The original source https://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf

Edited May 24, 2016 by Guest

[CatherineM]

After we adopted our son, he came in while we were fighting, and I apologized. He started laughing so hard he almost peed himself. He'd been taught in his family of origin that fighting involved broken things, dishes, teeth or bones, and blood. He learned well. He still laughs every time we fight about something. Most of the time we forget what we were fighting about. 

[Not A Real Name]

13 hours ago, Era Might said:

I completely agree with you both about family being where we learn our way of being. But our families simply pass on to us our societies. That can be useful, but also deadening, because family becomes a model we conform to, just as we conform to other social institutions. The changing form of the family is always revolutionary because it reflects the changing forms of society. This is where I begin to have a problem with the Christian critique of homosexuality, because the emerging acceptance of gay families is just a natural progression of how society has changed, not merely morally, but economically, etc. Christian critiques are usually reactionary and just focus on morality, as if the problem with the modern family can be dealt with without questioning its entire foundations. Gays aren't destroying the modern family, just the opposite, they're being assimilated into it, just as women were, for example, assimilated into the workforce. You can't question women in the workforce without questioning the idea of the workforce itself, and I think the same is true of gay marriage. Otherwise, marriage just becomes an ideological prop for morality police and culture warriors. But to his credit, I think Pope Francis has recognized this...e.g., in his encyclical Laudato Si he extends his critique to objective factors like economics and technology, he doesn't just sermonize about morality. Of course, it's telling that the Pope's mild attempts to question our civilization have earned him a rep as a dangerous radical. Reactionaries want to uphold a mythical form of the family for ideological reasons, but the idea of family they hold sacred has nothing to do with reality, historical or social.

Right, when I say the family has little to teach, I mean about one's self. Family is our first assimilation into society, but to mature, a person has to have the awareness and autonomy to unlearn what he has learned. Usually, we just passively reproduce our families and societies, and they become repressive and conservative in a bad way, they prevent growth and progress, which is why I say rebellion is absolutely necessary...where would we be if nobody challenged their family, struck out on their own, dared to be different, dared to question their small family in this large world?

The family cannot change its form. God created man and woman and willed that they join together (marriage) to create more human beings (family). We conform to this design because it is part of the natural law. There is no exception to this and it's because of this, Homosexual "families" will never be a true family unit. Promoting them as if they are or could be, is not a sign of progress either.  Progress is achieved when we conform to perfection, not when we rebel against it.  The pinnacle of perfection for what is a family is a loving father (man) and mother (woman). We know this because no one would choose for a child a homosexual "family unit" over a loving father and mother family unit, and no change in society will change this fact. Only when humans abandon reason will the two be seen as equally ideal, and that abandonment could never be seen as a progressive step for humanity or society. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by Not A Real Name

[Socrates]

Wow!  Newsflash!  The Pope is Catholic!  (Yeah, I know everyone's in shock.)

This is simply reiterating what the Church has always taught about human sexuality and marriage.  It's not "conservative," "liberal," "radical," "reactionary" or anything else, but timeless truth.  (Despite that the media would have everyone believe that Pope Francis is in the process of radically changing the teachings on sexual morality.)

And despite what our resident Marxist might say, restraining one's lustful or disordered appetites is, of course, very different from mutilating one's body in order to pretend to be a member of the opposite sex.  Yes, that's just common sense, but common sense and leftist social ideology are natural enemies (which is why I wouldn't recommend spending too much time attempting to reason with such folks).