Gay marriage thread

[Flosshilde]

I've read the Bible twice (many years ago) and yes, it is a wonderful work of literature (in the King James Authorized performing version of the draft score, particularly) but goodness, parts of it are like Moby Dick with all the the lists and tables! The bits in Leviticus that are hostile to gay men and Chinese cuisine are especially dull. (OK for lesbians, as long as they keep away from the bacon butties, it seems!)

& Viyella shirts (are they still made?)

[Mr Pee]

I wonder if sc's insistence is a mark of desperation? - if he declares often enough that the CC won't change, then it won't. I also wonder why he is so keen that it shouldn't?

Is standing up for your beliefs a mark of desperation? I don't think so. Desperation would be to abandon those beliefs because that would be the easy option.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

& Viyella shirts (are they still made?)

http://www.viyella.co.uk/fcp/categorylist/dept/mens-vy-shirts

[Serial_Apologist]

Is standing up for your beliefs a mark of desperation? I don't think so. Desperation would be to abandon those beliefs because that would be the easy option.

I didn't think you had any beliefs, Mr Pee.

[MrGongGong]

I didn't think you had any beliefs, Mr Pee.

Of course he does
F1 and Rupert
it's a way of life and a faith one can live by

[Julien Sorel]

It's not my 'beloved' moral consistency and stability. It's simply a fact. Your use of sarcasm hardly demonstrates any great objectivity in the matter and can you tell me any time between 1600 and 2013 (or before) when the Catholic Church declared that homosexual practice is 'OK'.?

The chances are that any one of us who enters hasn't a snowball in hell's chance of winning the National Lottery.

Believe me, there is even much less of a chance of the Catholic Church ever sanctioning 'gay marriage', which is supposed to be the topic of this thread.

That's all I'm saying whatever 'superannuated generation is at the top'!

In 1756 books based on a heliocentric theory were removed from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. In 1822 Pope Pius VII allowed the printing of books based on the heliocentric theory in Rome. Ancient theories of heliocentrism aside Copernicus's De Revolutionibus was published in 1543. Galileo's observations of the 1610s and his texts up to the 1630s all presented the heliocentric case. So it took the Catholic Church well over 200 years to permit something it had previously insisted could only be proposed as an hypothesis, not a truth.

So what's so not "OK" about "homosexual practice" that the Catholic Church can't change its mind about that? (there are all manner of texts, injunctions, prescriptions in the Old and New Testaments which the Catholic Church interprets allegorically not literally. So unless you propose an absolute literalist reading of the Bible - and as a Catholic you wouldn't, surely? - what you call a moral position is based on centuries old prejudice, not adherence to Biblical teaching. The Catholic Church has made all sorts of dogmatic, doctrinal changes over the centuries).

[Flosshilde]

Is standing up for your beliefs a mark of desperation? I don't think so. Desperation would be to abandon those beliefs because that would be the easy option.

But does sc hold those beliefs because the CC tells him he should? Would he change his beliefs if the CC abandoned them, or does he believe they are immutable, whatever the church says? I would assume that he believed in Limbo; has he decided that it doesn't exist now that the Vatican has abolished it, or does he insist that it still exists?

[Pabmusic]

But does sc hold those beliefs because the CC tells him he should? Would he change his beliefs if the CC abandoned them, or does he believe they are immutable, whatever the church says? I would assume that he believed in Limbo; has he decided that it doesn't exist now that the Vatican has abolished it, or does he insist that it still exists?

There's a bit more, Flossy. Can a person choose to hold a belief anyway? "Now, I think I'll start believing that..." seems strange to me. Either you believe something or you don't (I don't think there's a third option). It seems to me that there's no choice in the matter.

This raises the obvious point that anyone's beliefs will actually differ - at least slightly - from anyone else's (because we are individuals and give different emphases to different things), so that it must be the case that a group of people who profess to share the same beliefs (let's call them the Catholic Church) cannot actually be sharing true 'beliefs' entirely, but rather are accepting some degree of dogma from authority.

Makes sense to me.

[Richard Barrett]

Believe me, there is even much less of a chance of the Catholic Church ever sanctioning 'gay marriage'

No, I don't believe you. Someone like you would have said exactly the same thing about Galileo's observations five hundred years ago. As Julien says, there's nothing about gay marriage that makes it different in nature from various changes of mind, sorry, I mean reinterpretations of scripture, carried out by the church in the past.

[Flosshilde]

There's a bit more, Flossy. Can a person choose to hold a belief anyway? "Now, I think I'll start believing that..." seems strange to me. Either you believe something or you don't (I don't think there's a third option). It seems to me that there's no choice in the matter.

This raises the obvious point that anyone's beliefs will actually differ - at least slightly - from anyone else's (because we are individuals and give different emphases to different things), so that it must be the case that a group of people who profess to share the same beliefs (let's call them the Catholic Church) cannot actually be sharing true 'beliefs' entirely, but rather are accepting some degree of dogma from authority.

Makes sense to me.

Indeed - so they believe something because they are told to by (an) authority, & cease to believe it when the authority decides that that 'belief' is no longer what they want people to believe.

[Resurrection Man]

Indeed - so they believe something because they are told to by (an) authority, & cease to believe it when the authority decides that that 'belief' is no longer what they want people to believe.

Ah, bit like Stalin and living in Russia ...or China...or North Korea. Possibly even Venezuela.....now that emotional outpouring on Chavez's death was scary.

[scottycelt]

Indeed - so they believe something because they are told to by (an) authority, & cease to believe it when the authority decides that that 'belief' is no longer what they want people to believe.

You are really not making much sense, Flossie ...

On the one hand you claim that 1.2 billion of your fellow humans (or whatever alternative figure Ahinton decrees) are like easily-led sheep and, on the other, you claim that most of them don't accept the Church's teaching anyway.

Will the real Mr Flossie stand up, please!

[Pabmusic]

You are really not making much sense, Flossie ...

On the one hand you claim that 1.2 billion of your fellow humans (or whatever alternative figure Ahinton decrees) are like easily-led sheep and, on the other, you claim that most of them don't accept the Church's teaching anyway...

Hmm. It is possible (quite likely in fact) that both propositions are true. As I argued in post 968, it is probably impossible for a group of people (let alone all the members of a faith) to believe exactly the same things. That means that many (most?) of the tenets of the faith are taken on trust - because the voice of authority dictates it to be so. Insofar as this goes, you could say that that the 'believers' are led like sheep.

Among these 'believers' there are likely to be those who wholeheartedly accept some tenets but are much less certain about others. The choice is not really "accept everything or leave the church", since they probably don't let on to those in authority that they have doubts. Perhaps they are content to live with some doubts for the benefit they get from the sense of belonging to the church community.

Whatever the reason, it is very likely that the church includes many who are easily led and many who don't fully accept all the teachings. There is no reason why these couldn't be the same people, either. An easily led person might not be inclined to question something that - if they did question it - they might not accept.

[scottycelt]

Hmm. It is possible (quite likely in fact) that both propositions are true. As I argued in post 968, it is probably impossible for a group of people (let alone all the members of a faith) to believe exactly the same things. That means that many (most?) of the tenets of the faith are taken on trust - because the voice of authority dictates it to be so. Insofar as this goes, you could say that that the 'believers' are led like sheep.

Among these 'believers' there are likely to be those who wholeheartedly accept some tenets but are much less certain about others. The choice is not really "accept everything or leave the church", since they probably don't let on to those in authority that they have doubts. Perhaps they are content to doubt some things for the benefit they get from the sense of belonging to the church community.

Whatever the reason, it is very likely that the church includes many who are easily led and many who don't fully accept all the teachings. There is no reason why these couldn't be the same people, either. An easily led person might not be inclined to question something that - if they did question it - they might not accept.

If you don't accept the obvious (to me) contradiction in saying that people are like sheep and follow the leader but at the same time go in different directions then let's try this:

We have civic laws. Every citizen is expected to obey these laws. Some of these laws we do not agree with but obey them anyway and, of course, there can also be rare cases of conscientious objection to a law on grounds of personal morality, such as in wartime. However, most people would probably accept that laws are necessary and indeed desirable for the general good of all.

Every organisation has rules and are bound to include some that individual members might find inconvenient.

Is the Catholic Church that different? At least I can leave and join another church or become an atheist if I don't like its rules.

I can hardly do that with secular law ... I'm forced to obey it or very likely end up in jail after being found guilty following an official 'inquisition'!

[Pabmusic]

If you don't accept the obvious (to me) contradiction in saying that people are like sheep and follow the leader but at the same time go in different directions then let's try this:

We have civic laws. Every citizen is expected to obey these laws. Some of these laws we do not agree with but obey them anyway and, of course, there can also be rare cases of conscientious objection to a law on grounds of personal morality, such as in wartime. However, most people would probably accept that laws are necessary and indeed desirable for the general good of all.

Every organisation has rules and are bound to include some that individual members might find inconvenient.

Is the Catholic Church that different? At least I can leave and join another church or become an atheist if I don't like its rules.

I can hardly do that with secular law ... I'm forced to obey it or very likely end up in jail after being found guilty following an official 'inquisition'!

I'm not arguing with the Catholic Church's right to have and apply its own rules. (This is of course subject to the caveat that the rules should accord with the civil and criminal law.) I am simply saying that (1) there can probably be no such thing as a group of truly unanimous believers, all with the same beliefs held to the same extent; therefore (2) at least some of what we often call 'belief' must in fact be direction from central authority, accepted with little or no thought. I do not find this surprising, or at all unique to the Catholic Church.

I was, in fact, commenting on your reply to Fosshilde, suggesting that he wasn't making much sense because he was stating two (to you) incompatible things. I was pointing out that there was no incompatibility.