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Pope Francis On Transgender Ideology And Same Sexton Unions


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On May 23, 2016 at 3:28 PM, Era Might said:

Accepting one's body means accepting one's lust.

No. It does not.

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I see marriage and family as a civilizing institution, but not the reason for our bodies.

Marriage and family is not the reason for our body? Who has said such a thing, and what would it even mean?

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Like all institutions it has its positives and negatives...

It has more positives than negatives. And there is nothing better to replace it with.

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but let's not be deluded and imagine family as some ideal...

It is the ideal until you can tell us what you would replace it with that is better.

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rebellion against family, like rebellion against all institutions, is absolutely necessary.

No. Rebellion against family is not absolutely necessary.

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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.

You do not always need to chalk everything up to sin or morality, nor does the Catholic Church do so. The Church analyzes actions in terms of both ethical permissibility and in terms of what is good for the man from a nonethical perspective. And it just so happens to be that God has ordered the universe such that what is ethically permissible is also good for the man.

For example, affection is a real human need. There are ways of attempting to receive affection that are good for people, such as marriage between a man and a woman, and there are ways of attempting to receive affection that harm people, such as prostitution. As with all things, what God prohibits (prostitution) harms people and what he allows (marriage) is good for people.

So regardless of whether you desire to act according to an ethical standard or "real human needs" I recccommend that you stay away from the hookers and find a spouse. 

But aren't your objections to the idea of "sin" simply a masked objection to the fact that God has authority over your life? You like engaging in acts that Catholics claim are sinful, you want to continue engaging in those acts, and you do not want to answer to a god who would prohibit you from doing so. Isn't this really what is behind all of your posts?

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16 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.

Not all change is good change. All other factors held equal,monogamous male-female unions have proven to be the best for society. What would you replace it with that is better?  Go back to the days of polygamy perhaps? 

16 hours ago, Era Might said:

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.

So what? Again, not all change is change for the better.

16 hours ago, Era Might said:

Christian critiques are usually reactionary and just focus on morality,

No. That is not true.

16 hours ago, Era Might said:

 

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.

Morality police? I see. Again, it seems simply that you just desire to sin, and that you do not want there to be a God (or a church, etc.) who has authority over you, and who can tell you what is right and wrong, and what you can or cannot do. You simply want to decide everything for yourself. You want to be your own god. Is this not true?

16 hours ago, Era Might said:

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.

What do you base your decision to accept or unlearn on? You do not seem to believe in any objective morality, so then I assume that you accept what ever is consistent with what you want to do, and reject whatever is inconsistent with your desires. There is no objective right or wrong but only "what I want". Am I misunderstanding you?

16 hours ago, Era Might said:

 

Usually, we just passively reproduce our families and societies, and they become repressive and conservative in a bad way, they prevent growth and progress,

No. That is not true. Monogamous male-female unions have been extremely beneficial to mankind. People who come from broken homes are much more likely to do things that harm society, such as murder, etc.

16 hours ago, Era Might said:

 

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?

I am not sure, but I would be willing to bet that we would be in a much better place than we would be if the basic family unit were destroyed.

And I think there is a difference between exerting independence from one's family as one becomes an adult, and advocating for the idea that the traditional unit is not the best for society. Sure, it is good for children to be independent and think on their own. But that does not mean that it would benefit society to go back to polygamy (or whatever else you might replace the traditional family with).

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10 hours ago, Not A Real Name said:

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. 

That's just where we depart in how we view this. I don't believe in a mythological or theological ideal, whereby God created the world a certain way and we messed it up, and have to recover the ideal model. I don't believe reality matches up with ideals (I'm not a philosophical Idealist, I mean to say). But we just have two different starting points, and that's fine. I look at the Bible and see polygamy and slavery...apparently, even God lets the ideal slide in the interests of reality.

6 hours ago, Peace said:

But that does not mean that it would benefit society to go back to polygamy (or whatever else you might replace the traditional family with).

How can something be "the traditional family" when going back means polygamy, not middle class romanticism. Arranged marriages, polygamy, matriarchy, all are part of the human experience of family. I don't want to "replace" the traditional family with anything because I don't believe there is any traditional family. Peasant families lived in communes...they didn't have suburban models of family.

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Your issue seems to be with the nuclear family, not "the traditional family." Traditional families in western culture are not nuclear.  Also you keep bringing up polygamy as more traditional. Again, this is only true (if by traditional you mean, most historical) in some societies. You also keep mentioning "middle class." I think your issue is not with the family but with alienation from the class system. 

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Not A Real Name
25 minutes ago, Era Might said:

That's just where we depart in how we view this. I don't believe in a mythological or theological ideal, whereby God created the world a certain way and we messed it up, and have to recover the ideal model. I don't believe reality matches up with ideals (I'm not a philosophical Idealist, I mean to say). But we just have two different starting points, and that's fine. I look at the Bible and see polygamy and slavery...apparently, even God lets the ideal slide in the interests of reality.

 

Sorry, I disagree. My religious view does not change the facts. Even when I was an atheist I still understood that the ideal family unit is a loving mother and father. I understood this because it's every persons dream whether you're heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, asexual, or otherkin. It's ideal because it's natural. Polygamy is not ideal because no one came from one father and 4 mothers. Homosexual "families" are not ideal because no one came from two daddies or two mommies. It's just simple logic then that if we're not working towards the ideal then we're working in the opposite direction. That's not progress.  You're just over complicating matters cause you got nowhere to go with this and you insist on not taking directions.

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9 minutes ago, Not A Real Name said:

Sorry, I disagree. My religious view does not change the facts. Even when I was an atheist I still understood that the ideal family unit is a loving mother and father. I understood this because it's every persons dream whether you're heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, asexual, or otherkin. It's ideal because it's natural. Polygamy is not ideal because no one came from one father and 4 mother's. Homosexual "families" are not ideal because no one came from two daddies or two mommies. It's just si.please logic from there that if we're not working towards the ideal then we're working in the opposite direction. That's not progress.  You're just over complicating matters cause you got nowhere to go with this and you insist on not taking directions.

Ok, you're an Idealist. You keep speaking of Ideals, but I don't believe in Ideals in the sense you do. You believe there is an Idea called Man and our task is to "take directions" to universalize that Idea. When you were an atheist you were an Idealist, too. Like I said, we're just starting from different points, and I can't argue with your belief in a world that has fallen from a primordial Idea. That's your belief, but that's not the basis of our civilization. Liberal ideologies also have their own Ideals which I do not subscribe to, because I'm not an Idealist, so I don't buy into their ideologies much, either (laissez faire, abstraction of gender, etc.)

But you think I'm just over-complicating matters. Ok, maybe so, I do believe in questioning everything, even when it complicates matters...I don't know how else to learn anything.

15 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

Your issue seems to be with the nuclear family, not "the traditional family." Traditional families in western culture are not nuclear.  Also you keep bringing up polygamy as more traditional. Again, this is only true (if by traditional you mean, most historical) in some societies. You also keep mentioning "middle class." I think your issue is not with the family but with alienation from the class system. 

I only mention middle class because that is our model of family, it's usually what we mean when we speak of family...professional parents, 2 point whatever kids, stable institutions that organize family life, etc.

My point about polygamy is not that it is traditional, but that it was based on social and economic reality, just as our middle class family is, or peasant communes were. In other words, our institutions (including marriage and family) reflect material reality, not a primordial ideal. If we are going to speak of a traditional family in the West, I don't think the middle class family much reflects it...a better example would be extended families in Latin America, though even there modernization is changing the form of the family, to the American-style middle class family.

Edited by Era Might
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But the concept of family as the church teaches it IS primordial, on the sexual level (and let's be honest, the teaching is really all about sex and reproduction). One's father having multiple wives does not change one's biology. 

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13 minutes ago, Maggyie said:

But the concept of family as the church teaches it IS primordial, on the sexual level (and let's be honest, the teaching is really all about sex and reproduction). One's father having multiple wives does not change one's biology. 

True, the sexual aspect is biological, but sex is just part of man's physical potential. Institutions like marriage are cultural, they give us the space to exercise our natural potential...through gender roles, socialization of the young, etc. The Christian argument is that God created a man and a woman and envisaged a certain cultural form of marriage, but then God let man transgress this Ideal because polygamy was socially and economically necessary. Do you see why I find this kind of idealism unconvincing? Culture has always given man a space to harness and control his sexuality. The Greeks and Romans accepted homosexuality, but they also understood marriage as a social and economic institution distinct from one's sexual pleasure. That is, perhaps, the one common aspect of marriage across history, it is a stabilizing institution for the family...but the Christian moralization of sexual pleasure has led us to our current predicament, where we can't separate sexual pleasure and marriage, as the Greeks and Romans could. We have, ironically, made it necessary for gays to validate their pleasure through marriage. I'm making a big historical argument here, of course, but I think it's at least somewhat true that Christianity in fact created the milieu for gay marriage.

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Not A Real Name
1 hour ago, Era Might said:

Ok, you're an Idealist. You keep speaking of Ideals, but I don't believe in Ideals in the sense you do. You believe there is an Idea called Man and our task is to "take directions" to universalize that Idea. When you were an atheist you were an Idealist, too. Like I said, we're just starting from different points, and I can't argue with your belief in a world that has fallen from a primordial Idea. That's your belief, but that's not the basis of our civilization. Liberal ideologies also have their own Ideals which I do not subscribe to, because I'm not an Idealist, so I don't buy into their ideologies much, either (laissez faire, abstraction of gender, etc.)

But you think I'm just over-complicating matters. Ok, maybe so, I do believe in questioning everything, even when it complicates matters...I don't know how else to learn anything.

Everyone has an ideology they subscribe to including yourself. Your way of thinking is not new or revolutionary. Questioning everything is not only impractical but unreasonable. You say you question everything, but I think we both know this is a bs statement you could never truly live by since a person who questions everything never truly learns. You have to accept knowledge in order to learn. If you are questioning everything then nothing has been accepted by you, including your belief in questioning everything. If you truly lived by the "question everything" belief, you would be a perpetual blank canvas. No ideas, no thought, no points of view; nothing whatsoever!

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19 minutes ago, Not A Real Name said:

Everyone has an ideology they subscribe to including yourself. Your way of thinking is not new or revolutionary. Questioning everything is not only impractical but unreasonable. You say you question everything, but I think we both know this is a bs statement you could never truly live by since a person who questions everything never truly learns. You have to accept knowledge in order to learn. If you are questioning everything then nothing has been accepted by you, including your belief in questioning everything. If you truly lived by the "question everything" belief, you would be a perpetual blank canvas. No ideas, no thought, no points of view; nothing whatsoever!

I have plenty of ideas and thoughts, which I've expressed in this thread. You don't agree with them, which is fine. You want to convert me to your thinking. That's the only difference. Think for yourself, you don't need to agree with me, as long as you don't stop thinking.

As far as ideology, yes, we all live within ideology...which is precisely why we must always question, especially our assumptions. To be able to step outside your own thinking is the only way to see.

Edited by Era Might
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1 hour ago, Era Might said:

Ok, you're an Idealist. You keep speaking of Ideals, but I don't believe in Ideals in the sense you do. You believe there is an Idea called Man and our task is to "take directions" to universalize that Idea. When you were an atheist you were an Idealist, too. Like I said, we're just starting from different points, and I can't argue with your belief in a world that has fallen from a primordial Idea. That's your belief, but that's not the basis of our civilization. Liberal ideologies also have their own Ideals which I do not subscribe to, because I'm not an Idealist, so I don't buy into their ideologies much, either (laissez faire, abstraction of gender, etc.)

But you think I'm just over-complicating matters. Ok, maybe so, I do believe in questioning everything, even when it complicates matters...I don't know how else to learn anything.

I only mention middle class because that is our model of family, it's usually what we mean when we speak of family...professional parents, 2 point whatever kids, stable institutions that organize family life, etc.

My point about polygamy is not that it is traditional, but that it was based on social and economic reality, just as our middle class family is, or peasant communes were. In other words, our institutions (including marriage and family) reflect material reality, not a primordial ideal. If we are going to speak of a traditional family in the West, I don't think the middle class family much reflects it...a better example would be extended families in Latin America, though even there modernization is changing the form of the family, to the American-style middle class family.

You do not believe that there is any objective moral standard, is that correct? 

You not believe that certain things are always evil, is that correct? When someone rapes a baby instead of just calling it an evil atrocity, you would analyze the economics and "human needs" of the rapist to determine whether his action can be justified. That is correct, is it not?

For example, most people would agree that feeding a homeless person is always better than murdering an infant. Do you agree, or is this something also that should be questioned, given the fact that infanticide was common in the ancient world?

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2 minutes ago, Peace said:

You do not believe that there is any objective moral standard, is that correct? 

You not believe that certain things are always evil, is that correct? When someone rapes a baby instead of just calling it an evil atrocity, you would analyze the economics and "human needs" of the rapist to determine whether his action can be justified. That is correct, is it not?

For example, most people would agree that feeding a homeless person is always better than murdering an infant. Do you agree, or is this something also that should be questioned, given the fact that infanticide was common in the ancient world?

We're having two different conversations. You want to have a conversation about what is moral and what isn't, what is justified and what isn't. Presumably because you want to tell the world how to behave. I'm not interested in telling the world how to behave...if God is OK with permitting polygamy and infanticide and slavery, then my moral arguments don't mean much. I'm more interested in understanding why people behave the way they do, including myself. Of course, that's a large task, but if we start with the assumption of a primordial Idea of Man who had fallen from paradise, I don't see much light shed on human behavior. If you do, ok, I guess there's no point in debating mythology and theology. You believe what you believe about this Idea of Man, and everything will follow from that Idea...and of course, if you start from a different premise, such as Socrates who knew nothing except that he knew nothing, then everything will follow from that methodology, too.

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Not A Real Name
7 minutes ago, Era Might said:

I have plenty of ideas and thoughts, which I've expressed in this thread. You don't agree with them, which is fine. You want to convert me to your thinking. That's the only difference. Think for yourself, you don't need to agree with me, as long as you don't stop thinking.

As far as ideology, yes, we all live within ideology...which is precisely why we must always question, especially our assumptions. To be able to step outside your own thinking is the only way to see.

Oh Era, I'm not here to convert you nor would I ever think I could. Conversion is a matter of the heart and while you live life as your own god, it is something you have closed yourself off to. 

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3 minutes ago, Not A Real Name said:

Oh Era, I'm not here to convert you nor would I ever think I could. Conversion is a matter of the heart and while you live life as your own god, it is something you have closed yourself off to. 

Don't be so pessimistic. :) As long as we keep thinking and talking and thinking, we're not closed off to anything. Unfortunately, ideology easily makes zealots of us all, and society becomes our playground. That goes for gay ideologues as much as religious ideologues.

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14 minutes ago, Era Might said:

We're having two different conversations. You want to have a conversation about what is moral and what isn't, what is justified and what isn't. Presumably because you want to tell the world how to behave. I'm not interested in telling the world how to behave...if God is OK with permitting polygamy and infanticide and slavery, then my moral arguments don't mean much. I'm more interested in understanding why people behave the way they do, including myself. Of course, that's a large task, but if we start with the assumption of a primordial Idea of Man who had fallen from paradise, I don't see much light shed on human behavior. If you do, ok, I guess there's no point in debating mythology and theology. You believe what you believe about this Idea of Man, and everything will follow from that Idea...and of course, if you start from a different premise, such as Socrates who knew nothing except that he knew nothing, then everything will follow from that methodology, too.

If you want to understand human behavior I suggest that you invest in a psychology textbook. There are many good ones out there.

Again, you do not believe that any action,  such as raping and murdering an infant, is always evil, is that correct? You do not believe that there is an "ideal" concerning our actions towards infants or anyone else, that would make raping and murdering an infant always unacceptable. Correct?

I just want to confirm that, because if that is true, then there really is no point in us discussing much else. We have a fundamental disagreement in world view, as you seem to put it.

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