Pope Francis: “Being Homosexual Isn’t a Crime.”

[Silvanus]

Yes.

You're being too narrow. Even if a perfectly fertile, heterosexual couple begin a sexual relationship, if their intention is to not procreate, that is still a significant dedication of their life to the singular end of physical gratification.

So part of your belief system is that infertile people, those past menopause, and gay people should ideally never have sex or form romantic relationships? And what good does this do, except for denying happiness and encouraging repression & misery? Or is it just enough to be "evil" if it's written in that book, with no discernible downside?

The idea of someone peddling this bronze-age bullshit calling anything else "comically silly" is hilarious.

EDIT: Honestly, I also fail to see how any of this squares with your self-affirmed belief that gender doesn't exist and that people of either sex should be able to behave in whatever way they want, ignoring all behavioural preconceptions about that sex. So you believe that... while simultaneously believing that people should only have sex with others whose sex doesn't match their own. So... behavioural preconceptions about how each sex should behave, then. You do in fact ascribe specific acceptable behaviours to the sexes, and all that stuff about behaving however you want regardless of your sex was just wrong.

 

[Buyetyen]

The rest of your analysis is comically silly. You're trying to dig out my secret psychological motivations as though I'm not sitting here typing out my beliefs for you.

I mean, you're making pretty clear what kind of person you are, and the picture is not a flattering one.

 

[Absent]

I have already done that. I did not shy away. To be specific, I did not say "you are evil", because that is not the accurate statement. It is "you have a natural tendency toward committing evil acts", which is true of literally everyone to ever exist but Jesus and Mary.

Again, you are cowardly hypocritical. Because you are being asked a specific question (about the evil of homosexuality) and pretend to be answering with a generality (blah everyone has evil tendencies). This is purely manipulative, because in a dialogue answers are assumed relevant. "Shall we go for a golf ?" answered with "it's often raining in this season" implicitely means "no, because it is likely to rain and golf isn't fun under the rain". Conservatives do it a lot, pointing out that "the criminal is a migrant" which implies that being a migrant is relevant to him being a criminal - as opposed to "the criminal wears grey socks". Or "the journalist, who is jewish, claims", which implies that remembering that he is jewish is useful, adds to the understanding of the situation and puts his discourse in perspective. Here, "lust is sin" is implicitely only relevant to the question if "homosexuality is lust therefore a sin", or else (if it was just a generality about all humans being sinners anyway) it would be a completely random information like "humans have opposable thumbs". You only pretend to not be answering about homosexuality in particular when you are cornered to face your homophobia.

Homophobia for which, again, you have little excuse nowadays. You'd have all the required tools at your disposal to overcome your prejudice, if it was your intent. But you prefer to revel in it instead. Because : you are a very bad person. But hey, you follow to a tee the cult leaflet which roadmap for applied evil start with "magical invisible bearded father says we are the good guys". So your self-worth is safe, I guess.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Lust is a sin.

And?

If the nature of humanity is inherently sinful, then avoidance of sin is the denial of human nature. Saying "lust is a sin" is meaningless. It's like saying "oxygen is toxic" and expecting people to stop breathing.

 

[tstorm823]

So part of your belief system is that infertile people, those past menopause, and gay people should ideally never have sex or form romantic relationships? And what good does this do, except for denying happiness and encouraging repression & misery?

It is your subjective, modern perspective that this denies happiness. I don't know if you understand how recent a phenomenon "romantic relationships" are. The ancient Greeks famously had 7 words for love, and none of them were romance. Each of those 7 types of love, even eros, was considered to have a purpose, a goal, a telos. Modern notions of romance, the state of perpetual courtship that people put themselves in, is without purpose, and noncoincidentally also kinda really sucks. People who move beyond that nonsense are not repressed or unhappy. Even amongst marriages, the lasting joyful marriages are those marked more by friendship than romance.

I would take a guess you're thinking "that's not what I meant by romantic relationship", but then the question is what is a romantic relationship? What is the actual distinction between friendship and romance beyond someone perpetually stroking your ego and also stroking your "ego"? What virtue is being pursued in the relationships you desire?

Edit: because I want to answer my own question: it's all shallow imitation. People imitate who they admire, and people admire those who are joyful, those with purpose in their lives feel the most joy, and those who successfully establish a family to have kids feel the most purpose. And now we have people who imitate the customs of those who would have children in the past without any appreciation that it was never those customs actually bringing people joy.

This is purely manipulative, because in a dialogue answers are assumed relevant.

My answers are relevant. I am answering the questions. What ridiculous knots are you tying to convince yourself that I am trying to disguise the relevance of my answer?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

You're being too narrow. Even if a perfectly fertile, heterosexual couple begin a sexual relationship, if their intention is to not procreate, that is still a significant dedication of their life to the singular end of physical gratification.

I cannot find the words to express how happy it makes me to see that your backwards, hateful views are falling out of favor across the world.

 

[Kwak]

Lust is a sin.

Lust is an inherent feature of every mammalian nervous system. Why would an alleged god who allegedly created that system decree it a sin?
Oh that's right, it wouldn't because a god is just a collection of a cultures persistent prejudices and projections and doesn't really exist.

 

[Buyetyen]

It is your subjective, modern perspective that this denies happiness. I don't know if you understand how recent a phenomenon "romantic relationships" are. The ancient Greeks famously had 7 words for love, and none of them were romance. Each of those 7 types of love, even eros, was considered to have a purpose, a goal, a telos. Modern notions of romance, the state of perpetual courtship that people put themselves in, is without purpose, and noncoincidentally also kinda really sucks. People who move beyond that nonsense are not repressed or unhappy. Even amongst marriages, the lasting joyful marriages are those marked more by friendship than romance.

I would take a guess you're thinking "that's not what I meant by romantic relationship", but then the question is what is a romantic relationship? What is the actual distinction between friendship and romance beyond someone perpetually stroking your ego and also stroking your "ego"? What virtue is being pursued in the relationships you desire?

Edit: because I want to answer my own question: it's all shallow imitation. People imitate who they admire, and people admire those who are joyful, those with purpose in their lives feel the most joy, and those who successfully establish a family to have kids feel the most purpose. And now we have people who imitate the customs of those who would have children in the past without any appreciation that it was never those customs actually bringing people joy.

Pretentious, presumptuous and prudish in three paragraphs. Gotta say dude, your worldview seems really anti-fun.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I don't know if you understand how recent a phenomenon "romantic relationships" are.

I don't know if you understand how recent a phenomenon your warped ideas about moral conduct are.

A thousand years ago, one of the duties of the Catholic church was to license brothels.

I would take a guess you're thinking "that's not what I meant by romantic relationship", but then the question is what is a romantic relationship?

A relationship based on the ideas of the romantic movement. Specifically, a relationship based on an idea of "true love" that is transcendental, eternal and requires a lifelong commitment expressed through faithful marriage. The kind of love found in fairy tales or at the end of a romance novel. In reality, often believed in very deeply by people who claim that successful marriages resemble friendships.

In a modern sociological context, often contrasted with "confluent" or "liquid" love, increasingly the typical pattern of modern relationships, where love is implicitly understood to be conditional, transactional and based on the meeting of emotional and sexual needs.

And I agree, romantic love sucks. That's why it's dying. It fundamentally doesn't make people happy, which is why half of marriages end in divorce. Because if your spouse can't do anything a friend can't, what's the point in them? Why not just be friends? Why live with the expectation that the only person who can meet your emotional needs also be someone you want to have sex with, much less the only person you want to have sex with?

And now we have people who imitate the customs of those who would have children in the past without any appreciation that it was never those customs actually bringing people joy.

You're correct that for most of history marriage wasn't arranged on the basis of romantic love.

What you have failed to understand is that this whole idea that marriage should be "joyful" is an idea of romantic love. That's not a thing people ever subscribed to. Noone believed that two people in an arranged marriage would be happy, and there was often little expectation that it would be faithful. Noone believed that sending your 12 year old girl off to marry some 40 year old was going to make her happy. Everyone had a duty to accept their station in life, and often that station really sucked.

If there was a "reward" for any of this, it wasn't some special pleasure that you'd be given in this life as a prize for being such a good boy or girl, but your eventual salvation.

You are a creature born into sin. Your very nature is defiled. You still inexplicably believe this as your ancestors did, and yet you genuinely think something that would have been absolutely ludicrous to them, that your destiny on this earth is to be happy, and that doing what God commands you to do will come with some magic built in reward so you conveniently never to have to face any real struggle or conflict. Moreover, that doing these things will make you the best person and everyone will secretly be really jealous of you (pride is a sin).

That is some romantic bullshit.

 

[Silvanus]

It is your subjective, modern perspective that this denies happiness.

Ah yes, because telling people who they can and can't be with, and what they can and can't do with them in the privacy of their own bedroom, has such a good track record of promoting happiness.

I don't know if you understand how recent a phenomenon "romantic relationships" are. The ancient Greeks famously had 7 words for love, and none of them were romance. Each of those 7 types of love, even eros, was considered to have a purpose, a goal, a telos. Modern notions of romance, the state of perpetual courtship that people put themselves in, is without purpose, and noncoincidentally also kinda really sucks. People who move beyond that nonsense are not repressed or unhappy. Even amongst marriages, the lasting joyful marriages are those marked more by friendship than romance.

I would take a guess you're thinking "that's not what I meant by romantic relationship", but then the question is what is a romantic relationship? What is the actual distinction between friendship and romance beyond someone perpetually stroking your ego and also stroking your "ego"? What virtue is being pursued in the relationships you desire?

"Romantic" relationships are bonded relationships between two (or more) animals that tend to be long-lasting and promote emotional stability. They're usually differentiated from platonic relationships by the level of emotional and physical intimacy (not necessarily sex).

I'm sorry to tell you that relationships of this kind, including amongst those who won't or can't have children-- what humans call "romantic"-- predate Christianity. And predate humanity. Your specific religion isn't actually as formative for human behaviour and/or morality as you believe it is. It's just one of hundreds, even thousands, throughout our history.

The benefit of having such a relationship (I'm not going to employ the quasi-religious language of "virtue") is in emotional stability and happiness. Physical intimacy and emotional openness with someone are well established as improving wellbeing.

It's more than a little backwards and regressive that you wish to deny this to anyone who won't fulfil your perceived sole function of reproduction.

Edit: because I want to answer my own question: it's all shallow imitation. People imitate who they admire, and people admire those who are joyful, those with purpose in their lives feel the most joy, and those who successfully establish a family to have kids feel the most purpose. And now we have people who imitate the customs of those who would have children in the past without any appreciation that it was never those customs actually bringing people joy.

You one minute: "I'm being respectful and treating you with dignity".

You the next: "Your relationship is pointless, without virtue, and could only ever be a pale imitation of a relationship a straight person could have".

 

[Absent]

My answers are relevant. I am answering the questions. What ridiculous knots are you tying to convince yourself that I am trying to disguise the relevance of my answer?

You still hide in deniability, which is the point of keeping your answers implicit. Of course your answers function on implied relevancy, that's how indirect implications work : "use relevancy assumption to fill the blanks yourselves so that I don't have to be caught expressing them". But at a literal level, these blanks can be denied by the seemingly detached statement.

- You know tstorm ? Should we hire him for the job ?
- Well, everyone drinks alcohol sometimes.
- Yes, well, why are you saying this now ? He's a drinker ?
- I mean who isn't, to some extent. It's humane.
- Okay but where does that non-sequitur come from ? Are you accusing him of being an alcoholic ?
- Oh no no, I wouldn't, right ? Just saying, that's all.

In the 1930s, such weaseling took the form of "jews shouldn't be allowed to leave the country but we should get rid of them" ("you mean kill the all?" "oh i just say we should get rid of them"). I've seen greeks vote for "anti-european politicians who are tough on migration" ("you mean you support the neonazi golden dawn ? because they're the only ones who" "oh I just say I vote for anti-european politicians who are tough on migration"). It's a petty game of hide and seek, mostly used by absolute creeps who know that, if spelled out, they views are incompatible with decency or a forum's code of conduct.

You view homosexuals as subhumans. Inferior people who bond on lust instead of love. That's what make your answers implicitely relevant. But spelling it out might get you banned from the forum, and rightly so. So you answer with generalities about humans, supposedly concerning heterosexuals just as well, and avoiding to stress out in a direct answer how much it's "especially" relevant to homosexuals in your eyes. You don't go "yes homosexuals are more evil than heterosexuals", you go for "Oh everyone is a bit evil aren't they".

So yes you are a hypocrite and a coward. Because you somehow know how indefensible and shameful your honest, explicit answer would be.

 

[Satinavian]

Honestly, tstorm, i wondered for a time, why you defended Ratzingers letter so vehemently while not paying much attention to all the less extreme opinions and guidelines from the church.

But now it seems as if you are invested in seeing the church be so extreme to be able to use the church to justify your own views on homosexuality. I might be wrong, but...

 

[tstorm823]

What you have failed to understand is that this whole idea that marriage should be "joyful" is an idea of romantic love. That's not a thing people ever subscribed to. Noone believed that two people in an arranged marriage would be happy, and there was often little expectation that it would be faithful.

I did not fail to understand that. I understand that. That's one of the things I'm talking about. The idea that marriage just makes people is silly. You're being overly negative about it, because marriage has made lots of people happy, but transitively. Their marriage served a purpose, the purpose made people fulfilled. Marriage without purpose won't offer fulfillment.

Ah yes, because telling people who they can and can't be with, and what they can and can't do with them in the privacy of their own bedroom, has such a good track record of promoting happiness.

It's not "can" and "can't". You can do lots of things, many of them are bad for you or others. People imitating marriage with no underlying purpose is bad for them, and the Catholic Church isn't going to celebrate that.

"Romantic" relationships are bonded relationships between two (or more) animals that tend to be long-lasting and promote emotional stability. They're usually differentiated from platonic relationships by the level of emotional and physical intimacy (not necessarily sex).

I'm gonna recommend you check out TerminalBlue's post above yours.

You the next: "Your relationship is pointless, without virtue, and could only ever be a pale imitation of a relationship a straight person could have".

That's not it. It's not that relationships are pointless or without virtue. But marriage has a particular purpose. Acting out the patterns of marriage without the ability or willingness to have children is living out a vocation without ever making real the goal of that vocation. It'd be like taking up woodworking, making a bunch of cabinets, and then throwing them off a cliff so that nobody can even see, more or less use, the products of your efforts. If your desired relationship isn't going to make children, then you're going to have to find purpose somewhere else, because sex and marriage aren't gonna do it for you. Maybe your relationships can help you pursue different purpose in an unmarried way, maybe you're pursuing a different sort of virtue. Andrew Klavan (the only conservative commentator I would recommend) believes that gay people serve a unique purpose as society's avant-garde, which there might be something to that, but that only compounds the tragedy of gay people imitating parents with children as though it's the lifestyle that's desirable rather than parenthood.

So yes you are a hypocrite and a coward.

"This guy is being so forward and open with his religious beliefs that the entire thread is about him now... I should probably call him a coward."

Honestly, tstorm, i wondered for a time, why you defended Ratzingers letter so vehemently while not paying much attention to all the less extreme opinions and guidelines from the church.

But now it seems as if you are invested in seeing the church be so extreme to be able to use the church to justify your own views on homosexuality. I might be wrong, but...

There aren't less extreme opinions and guidelines from the Church is what I'm saying. That letter is exactly in line with everything else. The interview that inspired this thread is exactly the same rhetoric:

The AP Interview: Pope says homosexuality not a crime

Pope Francis has criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are.

apnews.com

Francis articulated the position: “It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin. Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime.”

If you think that's different, show me the difference, cause I'm not seeing it.

 

[Silvanus]

It's not "can" and "can't". You can do lots of things, many of them are bad for you or others. People imitating marriage with no underlying purpose is bad for them, and the Catholic Church isn't going to celebrate that.

The idea that you think I'm "imitating marriage" whenever I want to have a romantic or sexual relationship is utterly laughable, and demonstrates that you're only willing to push your own narrow boxes onto others.

My wish to have a stable, loving relationship is not bad for me. Self-repression and the pointless denial of happiness would be bad for me.

I'm gonna recommend you check out TerminalBlue's post above yours.

TerminalBlue's understanding of what constitutes a "romantic" relationship, as humans broadly understand it, is false.

The definition I already gave, the one I'm using, fits a type of relationship that predates humanity.

That's not it. It's not that relationships are pointless or without virtue. But marriage has a particular purpose. Acting out the patterns of marriage without the ability or willingness to have children is living out a vocation without ever making real the goal of that vocation. It'd be like taking up woodworking, making a bunch of cabinets, and then throwing them off a cliff so that nobody can even see, more or less use, the products of your efforts. If your desired relationship isn't going to make children, then you're going to have to find purpose somewhere else, because sex and marriage aren't gonna do it for you. Maybe your relationships can help you pursue different purpose in an unmarried way, maybe you're pursuing a different sort of virtue. Andrew Klavan (the only conservative commentator I would recommend) believes that gay people serve a unique purpose as society's avant-garde, which there might be something to that, but that only compounds the tragedy of gay people imitating parents with children as though it's the lifestyle that's desirable rather than parenthood.

Marriage can be said to have a purpose-- though such was not always about procreation, and varied widely by culture. People were having wedding ceremonies for millenia before Christianity enforced it's narrow social norms and obsessive ostracization of any who didn't procreate. You say "sex and marriage aren't going to do it for you" if you don't want kids... and yet literally billions of people (and quadrillions of animals) have sex without resulting in kids, and hundreds of millions of people pursue relationships that don't result in kids. It obviously works for them-- because it's proven to increase quality of life and emotional wellbeing. Who the fuck are you to insist it doesn't work for them, and they're just "imitating" your peculiar religious definition for a social construct that existed before your messiah was ever imagined? Its so mind-blowingly arrogant.

God, imagine arguing that those gay penguins at the zoo must be miserable because they're "imitating" the human construct of marriage. Fucking lol.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Who the fuck are you to insist it doesn't work for them, and they're just "imitating" your peculiar religious definition for a social construct that existed before your messiah was ever imagined?

Remember that you're talking to someone who is utterly incapable of understanding why anyone would want to not be just like him, because he's just so very, very smart and always right.

 

[Buyetyen]

I did not fail to understand that. I understand that. That's one of the things I'm talking about. The idea that marriage just makes people is silly. You're being overly negative about it, because marriage has made lots of people happy, but transitively. Their marriage served a purpose, the purpose made people fulfilled. Marriage without purpose won't offer fulfillment.

I know a few married couples who don't have kids and don't plan to and they're way happier and nicer than you.

 

[Chimpzy]

Meneer de pilaarbijtende kadodder, altijd met dat opgeheven, verwijtend vingertje.

 

[Terminal Blue]

You're being overly negative about it, because marriage has made lots of people happy, but transitively.

So have many things. Pleasure, for example, tends to make people transitively happy.

But you're the one who tried to bring history into this, and the history of marriage is simply not a happy one. There is no way around that. Marriage exists in many cultures globally because it is an extremely useful way to create familial bonds in societies where familial bonds ensure loyalty. The purpose of marriage has never been happiness or fulfillment. Even the production of children is secondary, since that's entirely possible outside of marriage.

Their marriage served a purpose, the purpose made people fulfilled. Marriage without purpose won't offer fulfillment.

That's a pretty reductive platitude.

Generally speaking, people in history had no need to imagine some special made-up form of happiness or "fulfilment" distinct from pleasure, and when they did they certainly didn't ascribe it to anything as earthly and mediocre as marriage.

We know they weren't "fulfilled" with their marriages because they were extremely, extremely adulterous. In historical context modern people are probably among the least adulterous people in history. Pardoners would keep records of the pardons they sold, and adultery is always the biggest seller. Amongst those classes where heredity mattered women's sexuality may have been tightly controlled, but when it wasn't it was a pretty ubiquitous assumption that women would cheat on their husbands. After all, they still weren't marrying for love.

None of this mattered, because noone had a problem with the idea that humans enjoyed having sex or desired pleasure. They didn't believe in this ridiculous puritan contradiction where people are born with sinful natures but what truly makes them happy is not sinning.

 

[Absent]

"This guy is being so forward and open with his religious beliefs that the entire thread is about him now... I should probably call him a coward."

Your weaseling did backfire a bit, didn't it. Half the thread is "about" making you explicit and face what you're hypocritically tiptoeing around, if that's what you mean by "about you".

 

[tstorm823]

Your weaseling did backfire a bit, didn't it. Half the thread is "about" making you explicit and face what you're hypocritically tiptoeing around, if that's what you mean by "about you".

I'm telling you exactly what I think, and all of you are arguing with me, because I enjoy the discussion. Nothing is backfiring, everything is going exactly as I want it to, with maybe the singular exception that your specific responses have been depressingly bad and wholly detached from reality.

I know a few married couples who don't have kids and don't plan to and they're way happier and nicer than you.

You say this based on what exactly?

The idea that you think I'm "imitating marriage" whenever I want to have a romantic or sexual relationship is utterly laughable.

You say this as though "marriage equality" isn't the big fight of this arena. You laugh for lack of an actual answer.

My wish to have a stable, loving relationship is not bad for me.

But it isn't a vocation. Behaving as though a stable, loving relationship inherently gives purpose to someone is the problem.

TerminalBlue's understanding of what constitutes a "romantic" relationship, as humans broadly understand it, is false.

If that is the case, it is only the case in as much as people don't have an understanding of what a romantic relationship is in the first place. It is sort of just defined as something desirable without question, as a game you're just supposed to try to win, without ever considering what is actually entailed. The way people seek relationships without even a moment to ponder "why do I want that, and what is it I'm trying to accomplish", it is action without reason. There's an irony to this, that while I may be the one advocating adherence to long-standing tradition, the tradition is to act with reason and purpose. It is those trying to break the tradition who are actually just acting out whatever everyone else is doing.

So have many things. Pleasure, for example, tends to make people transitively happy.

I wouldn't call that a rule. Pleasure makes many people very miserable, I wouldn't try and point to a trend one way or another.

Generally speaking, people in history had no need to imagine some special made-up form of happiness or "fulfilment" distinct from pleasure, and when they did they certainly didn't ascribe it to anything as earthly and mediocre as marriage.

The idea of a sacrament might have escaped you momentarily, calling marriage "earthly and mediocre". You have to understand that religion has dominated human history, regardless of culture, and one of the major aspects of religion is the pursuit of peace and joy beyond base pleasures.