Religion - a respectful discussion, for those interested

Are you serious?! Your post is so completely wrong, and clueless, that really I just feel sorry for you. Do you REALLY believe that nonsense, or are you just hell-bent on contradicting me no matter what??? HIV is rampant among the gay community in SF, due to the exchange of bodily fluids among so many "sex" partners (sodomy victims to be more accurate). Actually, heterosexuals who are promiscous, with multiple sex partners run the same risk, but for some reason HIV has been much more prevalent among the gay community. Maybe it's their deviant lifestyle that is closely associated with drug abuse as well. It's sad really.

We have so much technology today yet we are so incredibly stupid as a society it's almost mind-boggling. I guess it's not surprising, with the steady erosion of our public school system over the past 50 years or so.

 

Just ignore the trolls buddy. There are some extremely immature individuals posting in this thread, and it tests my patience as well. But like any good middle school teacher, we need to realize that they are simply uninformed, and in some cases probably just adolescents. Sadly, they have been brainwashed by the "MTV culture", so to speak, and have "learned" more from South Park and Family Guy than they have from school. Of course with the way public schools have declined over the past 50 years or so, they might not be much better off even if they did pay attention to their poorly educated young "teachers" nowadays. The curriculums are a joke as well.

So we have to be patient, and remember that there was a time when we too were in a similar place as some of the posters here. I will admit, when I was in my 20's I was still pretty naive myself, and immature.

So we need the Catholics, Protestant Christians, and others to post the important and live-enhancing truths that, sadly today, many people are not getting. If they don't learn these things here, they may not anywhere else. And even if they "push back" on the surface with their knee-jerk reactionary replies, secretly they may be thinking about these timeless truths that countless billions have treasured for centuries. They may not want to give you and I (and the other religious posters here) the satisfaction, but they may be getting something out of our posts. At least that's the hope. Sometimes all you can do is "plant the seed" and let God do the rest. And as Catholics, we are a people of hope, and love, and JOY. We need to work to share the wellspring of our joy with others, whenever possible, so that they too may one day benefit as we do. It's part of the charity that we try to practice.

 

Well, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), my post was right on target.

"Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) represent approximately 2% of the United States population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV. In 2010, young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24, and 30% of new infections among all gay and bisexual men. At the end of 2011, an estimated 500,022 (57%) persons living with an HIV diagnosis in the United States were gay and bisexual men, or gay and bisexual men who also inject drugs."
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/msm/

So, as you can see, my comments were based on facts.

 

...and again, according to the most current Merriam-Webster dictionary definition, Sodomy is defined as "anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex; also: copulation with an animal"

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sodomy

...shows how screwed up and ass-backwards our society has become in the year 2015, that we actually accept some of these deviant, abusive, and unhealthy behaviors. (with the exception of beastiality, although the way things are going who knows where public perception on that will be in 10-20 years. smh. Crazy, isn't it.

 

That's a good question, thank you for asking it. I realize that on the surface there seems to be no problem with anal sex (or oral sex, for that matter) between consenting adults...in fact until fairly recently I would have agreed with you. But when you study it more closely, some key points become evident. 1) Just because both people agree to engage in the behavior does not make it healthy for either one of them, and 2) psychology and the physical aspects of human sexuality are closely linked.

I'll try to explain. First of all, our human sex organs (genitalia) are like machines, in that they are designed for a specific function, namely procreation. Without spelling it all out (I assume we all know how this works, lol!), it's obvious that the dual role of the male "member" is urination and providing sperm cells for cooperating on God's act of creating new life, while the female genitalia is designed to receive those sperm cells and facilitate the development of a new human being. We all agree with that part, but the key to understanding why other forms of erotic behavior are unnatural and harmful is an understanding of the psychology built into human sexuality. In order to facilitate the continuation of the species, God created (or evolution produced, if you prefer) a dual system of the physical and psychological, both for the same end of creating new life. In other words, there is a strong psychological and emotional drive for a man and a woman to engage in intercourse the way God (or evolution) intended. (for believers, they are one in the same; evolution describes the mechanism by which God creates). There is a well-documented "bonding effect" in science; when a man and woman engage in sex (proper intercourse open to new life, that is), chemicals are released in the brain that create a unity between the man and woman. Think about the first time you had sex, and how attached you felt to that person. Now, when someone then has sex with multiple other partners, the brain is "confused" so to speak, and the bonding effect is diminished with each successive partner. (your feelings of attachment are "spread thin" so to speak). Makes sense, doesn't it? Sex is designed to be a physical expression of the love between a man and a woman, a perfect, complementary union; a man and woman each brings unique qualities that complement each other like a key in a lock, both in terms of the physical act and the psychological/emotional/spiritual bond.

So, we are designed to be united in love, man and woman, and this loving union naturally provides a stable home environment for children to be born into. The loving relationship between a man and woman, exclusively devoted to each other, provides a secure, stable, loving environment for the healthy development of the child. And the mutual love of the parents for their children further solidifies the marital bond.

But why not a man and another man, or two women? The answer, which should be self-evident when you really stop to think about it, is that 2 men do not complement each other, nor do 2 women. It's like "2 locks" or "2 keys" trying to fit together; only a key and its complementary lock fit securely together, united as one. Not only are 2 men or 2 women unable to conceive a child through natural means, but if they adopt a child, that child will have to grow up without a mother or a father. And artificial insemination is no better, in fact it is even worse since you are artificially, in a lab, "playing God" when normal sexual intercourse is a "collaborative effort" between God and man, and whether the extremely small chance of conception actually happens (in biology we learn how unlikely the process actually is, statistically speaking) is a matter of the will of God. It's no accident; of course this is a matter of faith, but when you have both a strong understanding of science as well as a strong faith, it makes perfect sense. A mother has a unique set of gifts which no man can duplicate, and a man has a unique set of gifts which no woman can duplicate. I realize this is counter-cultural today, but it's still true, no matter what popular opinion may be. Science understands that women and men are fundamentally different not just in terms of their biology, but psychologically as well.

As for individuals with same sex attraction (SSA), they are called to a unique lifestyle. Just as some people are not cut out to be married, some people choose celibate religious lives, some people choose to live as hermits, etc. But that does not mean that sodomy with their chosen life partner is healthy for them or their partner! That's NOT love, but disordered lust, just as masturbation is disordered lust, and psychologically/emotionally harmful.. Oral "sex", properly understood, is mutual masturbation, and has nothing at all to do with SEX. It represents 2 people abusing each other for their own lustful pleasure, and is psychologically harmful to both! ... Again, these ideas are not popular in our culture today, but that doesn't make then untrue. Science is not a popularity contest, human nature is not a popularity contest, truth is not a matter of popular opinion. That's what many people today don't understand.