Homosexuality-->Unnatural-->Wrong

[Fluffy]

Wow you know this is only the fourth thread in this section and 2 of them are started by me . I hope that says something good about me and not something bad lol .

Anyway, I find that one on one debates are very useful for thrashing out the details of a focused issue, especially if I am in two minds about it. In this thread I wish to close in on two linked issues to do with the argument that looks like this:
homosexuality-->unnatural-->wrong

I would like to debate steps 1 and 2 in this argument:

1) Homosexuality is unnatural
2) What is unnatural is wrong
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong

since the third step is fairly elementary given the first 2.

I would like to keep this debate religion free. Your god might condemn homosexuality but mine sees nothing wrong with it so in order to prevent this ace deadlock from being played, I feel it is better to avoid the issue.

I am taking the position that homosexuality is natural and is amoral ie it is neither right or wrong. As per the subforum rules I would be happy to debate with one or more people who wish to defend the opposing views.

A warning to anyone who wishes to take part: I want this thread to be creative and get somewhere. I will probably heavily analyse any argument given to me and criticism will form a large part of my posts but this is just the way I debate and I mean no harm with my words. Come with a strong argument and you will leave having convinced me that I am in the wrong.

Thank you
Fluffy

 

[Darkdale]

Nothing can be unnatural. Everything is natural.

 

[Fluffy]

Nothing can be unnatural. Everything is natural.

I agree to an extent. I believe that only those things which I can't percieve with my five senses are those things that are unnatural and since I cannot know about those things which aren't percievable, they might as well not exist from my sheltered outlook,

 

[nutshell]

I agree to an extent. I believe that only those things which I can't percieve with my five senses are those things that are unnatural and since I cannot know about those things which aren't percievable, they might as well not exist from my sheltered outlook,

That seems to be an extremely limiting opinion of existence. Surely, things exist which you cannot perceive with your five senses. For example, with which of the five senses do you perceive the smallest bits of a molecule we have yet to uncover or the farthest reaches of space we wait to explore. You haven't perceived either of these things with your five senses and yet, I trust you admit their existence.

 

[Fluffy]

That seems to be an extremely limiting opinion of existence. Surely, things exist which you cannot perceive with your five senses. For example, with which of the five senses do you perceive the smallest bits of a molecule we have yet to uncover or the farthest reaches of space we wait to explore. You haven't perceived either of these things with your five senses and yet, I trust you admit their existence.

It is extremely limiting yes. I view it as onestep up from global scepticism which was a position I found myself in until very recently. However, until I can know something, anything, about the farthest region of space or the smallest undiscovered particle, then surely they will have an equal impact upon my belief system than as if neither existed? Therefore, until such a point in time occurs, it does not matter whether I treat them as existed or not.

 

[Fluffy]

Bump. Are there no takers at all?

 

[DonB]

Wow you know this is only the fourth thread in this section and 2 of them are started by me . I hope that says something good about me and not something bad lol .

I fully agree (sorry, no argument here). BTW, I am not homosexual, but have many friends who are. I find that there is really no justification for passing moral judgement on an issue which, as you said, is natural. I did not choose to be right-handed, but I am.

 

[robtex]

I would like to debate steps 1 and 2 in this argument:

1) Homosexuality is unnatural
2) What is unnatural is wrong
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong

since the third step is fairly elementary given the first 2.

I would like to keep this debate religion free.
Fluffy

It is impossible to keep the arguement religous free. There is no secular argument against homosexulaity. Only religious ones. You can dance around the subject pro and con but at the heart of the matter is a god full of vengence and spite.

 

[michel]

I fully agree (sorry, no argument here). BTW, I am not homosexual, but have many friends who are. I find that there is really no justification for passing moral judgement on an issue which, as you said, is natural. I did not choose to be right-handed, but I am.

Hi DonB,

As I notice this is your first post on the forum, I thought I would take the opportunity to welcome you here.

Perhaps you would like to post on:- Are you new to ReligiousForums.com? , in order to introduce yourself to the members here.

Nice post, by the way; of course, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I would warn you, though that this is a 'hot topic' on this forum. Tempers have been known to get frayed............

 

[Mike182]

I agree to an extent. I believe that only those things which I can't percieve with my five senses are those things that are unnatural and since I cannot know about those things which aren't percievable, they might as well not exist from my sheltered outlook,

i have often walked down the street, seen someone who i thought was a friend, looked again, and it has turned out to be a complete stranger! this is a fault with the brain translating the signals from my eyes (one of my sense perceptions) - so my question is this - can you trust the knowledge you gain from the things you percieve? can you trust that you know the truth about those things you claim to eb able to percieve?

 

[michel]

It is impossible to keep the arguement religous free. There is no secular argument against homosexulaity. Only religious ones. You can dance around the subject pro and con but at the heart of the matter is a god full of vengence and spite.

I disagree. My father's generation - and he in particular - were 'revolted' by homosexuality. I hate to confess the fact (my father was a very dear man, who I loved dearly), but his attitude as a young man, (as was that of all his fellow officer cadets) was that all homosexuals should be shot, as one would a sick animal.

I offer no excuse for dad's way of thinking; it was the 'way things were' when he was young - he was not in the slighted bit religious, but he had a very good moral code (believe it or not) - his behaviour otherwise was exemplary, as far as I know. He proved himself to be a man of his word, and would never compromise his beliefs.

He faced being shot as a traitor when he decided he could no longer continue accepting orders from the German army (of which he became a part after the occupation of Belgium), and he walked from belgium to Portugal, in order to reach Britain, so as to join the free foreign forces. I am not blowing his trumpet, I am merely proving his dedication to his morals and beliefs.

Later in life, just a few years before he died, there was a TV news item on a homosexual relationship (I'd guess at a pop star - I really can't remember). He looked as if he had seen a Martian..........it was something that didn't exist in his book.

Now, to your point.

1) Homosexuality is unnatural - wrong, nature is full of homosexuality
2) What is unnatural is wrong- perhaps, but that is irrelevent, since homosexuality is natural.
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong - irrelevent again.

Q.E.D

 

[AtheistAJ]

Nothing can be unnatural. Everything is natural.

True, but it's rarely that two plusses attract and retract minuses. I am not against gay marriage I just don't get it physically and mathematically. I don't see it causing any harm since statistics have shown it hasn't affected population growth negatively.

 

[Mike182]

1) Homosexuality is unnatural - wrong, nature is full of homosexuality
2) What is unnatural is wrong- perhaps, but that is irrelevent, since homosexuality is natural.
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong - irrelevent again.

the natural course of humans is to continue with the evolution of the species! as darwin argued that the fittest survive to breed and continue the species, homosexual couples do not pro-create, erego they will not survive to carry on the species. with this inmind, it is logical to conclude that if this is the natural course of the human species, homosexuality has no place!

"but homosexuality can occur in a person without them being produced by a gay parent!" i hear you exclaim, and that is true, however, it is often an event of significant psychological damage that can affect a persons idea of who/what they are to be attracted to sexually, and as this does not happen naturally, it is logical to conclude that induced homosexual feelings are unnatural

"but bisexual people could reproduce, creating a child who can either be bisexual or gay!" i hear you say, and this is also true, however, providing that this child grows up without any traumatic experiences of a homosexual inclination, they should grow up to become a healthy, natural hetrosexual human being

C_P

note:
oh my gosh,how flawwed is this argument, fluffy, do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with any remotley decent arguments against homosexuality??? you are sure to win this debate, but i will argue the points out for a while, see if i can't get this stubborn, ignorant, homophobic, and totally patheticly flawwed line of argument to stand

for the record, you all should know this by now, i am 100% for homosexuality, i just think this could be a fun debate

i await your reply, m'lady

C_P

ps, i would reference soem sites to backup my points about psychological influences on homosexuality, but a)i could only find a few, and b)they were crap

 

[AtheistAJ]

the natural course of humans is to continue with the evolution of the species! as darwin argued that the fittest survive to breed and continue the species, homosexual couples do not pro-create, erego they will not survive to carry on the species. with this inmind, it is logical to conclude that if this is the natural course of the human species, homosexuality has no place!

Maybe homosexuality is nature's way to compensate for overpopulation of humans?

"but bisexual people could reproduce, creating a child who can either be bisexual or gay!"

I don't know who said that, but I have to disprove that logic, as I was raised in a Christian family.

 

[Mike182]

Maybe homosexuality is nature's way to compensate for overpopulation of humans?
I don't know who said that, but I have to disprove that logic, as I was raised in a Christian family.

no, my point is, if you have a hetrosexual man, and a bi sexual woman, they could be attracted to each other! they could have a child, and so long as that child grows up without any psychologically damaging homosexual experiences, the child should grow up to be a healthy hetrosexual

my point is independant of family religious background, besides, were keeping religion out of this one :tsk:

C_P

 

[Fluffy]

It is impossible to keep the arguement religous free. There is no secular argument against homosexulaity. Only religious ones. You can dance around the subject pro and con but at the heart of the matter is a god full of vengence and spite.

Yet there continues to be secular people who attempt to argue against it. If nothing else, I hope to indicate to them the invalidity of their position via their inability to reply to this thread.

i have often walked down the street, seen someone who i thought was a friend, looked again, and it has turned out to be a complete stranger! this is a fault with the brain translating the signals from my eyes (one of my sense perceptions) - so my question is this - can you trust the knowledge you gain from the things you percieve? can you trust that you know the truth about those things you claim to eb able to percieve?

I follow the empiricist view that whilst I cannot know whether my perception of a grapefruit is being created by a round, yellow object or a square, green object, I can know that I am percieving sensory data and I can know that I am interpreting such sensory data as a grapefruit. I cannot know anything about the grapefruit's existence outside of my perception of it, however.

I believe that, so far, there are only two ways of aquiring knowledge either through foundationalism (whether that be rational, empirical or revelationary) or from analytic statements.

Thanks for the frubals by the way. I am most definitely up for the challenge .

the natural course of humans is to continue with the evolution of the species! as darwin argued that the fittest survive to breed and continue the species, homosexual couples do not pro-create, erego they will not survive to carry on the species. with this inmind, it is logical to conclude that if this is the natural course of the human species, homosexuality has no place!

I find three things wrong with this argument.
1) This assumes an intention of nature, more specifically that such a concept intends for humans to procreate. However, this is not the case. It is only statistically likely that those who are able to breed and pass on their genes will be the ones that have traits that shall survive. There is no reason or rhyme here. It is merely the laws of probability. Yet homosexuality exists. Therefore either homosexuality is not genetic, the laws of evolution no longer apply to humans or homosexuality is beneficial to the statistical laws of survival that we have not yet identified.
2) Many animals are born without the ability to breed. This is because it is actually preferable for a single animal of one sex to breed with many of the opposite sex since the family will be more closely related to the resulting offspring than had they all bred when it comes to 3 or 4 generations down the line. This is most common amongst drone animals like bees or ants.
3) Finally, homosexuals can breed. They are able to have sex and fertilise members of the opposite sex. Keep in mind that love is a human concept not an evolutionary one and it could be that this has simply be given precedence over the base feelings of pleasure that one gets from sexual intercourse. Additionally, homosexuals can breed with each other through egg fusion and sperm fusion with a surrogate mother or a aritificial womb.

"but homosexuality can occur in a person without them being produced by a gay parent!" i hear you exclaim, and that is true, however, it is often an event of significant psychological damage that can affect a persons idea of who/what they are to be attracted to sexually, and as this does not happen naturally, it is logical to conclude that induced homosexual feelings are unnatural

How do you define unnatural? People are either talking about the intention of nature/evolution with is a misunderstanding of the concept or they are talking about it as opposed to the supernatural (ie that which we cannot percieve with our five senses). The first concept does not exist in reality and via the second homosexuality is natural just like anything else which we experience.

oh my gosh,how flawwed is this argument, fluffy, do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with any remotley decent arguments against homosexuality??? you are sure to win this debate, but i will argue the points out for a while, see if i can't get this stubborn, ignorant, homophobic, and totally patheticly flawwed line of argument to stand

for the record, you all should know this by now, i am 100% for homosexuality, i just think this could be a fun debate

i await your reply, m'lady

Lol I like playing devil's advocate myself . And its m'lord to you . I just want to make absolutely certain, in this case, that there is no secular nor scientific reason for homosexuality to be immoral. There have been people on this site who have taken such a stance and I had hoped to engage them in debate and discovered what caused them to believe in such a way.

By the way, it is interesting to find a Christian who is willing to state he is 100% behind homosexuality and I applaud you for it. I am of the opinion that there is no convincing Biblical evidence that homosexuality is wrong from a Christian perspective as well but I'll keep that seperate from this thread.

 

[lilithu]

We keep arguing in RF whether homosexuality is moral or not, and every time we do I cringe, even while I participate in the argument. I cringe because I think to myself how I would feel if someone were arguing whether being female is moral or not, or being Asian is moral or not. We keep arguing over the morality of a existence that simply exists; it is not a matter of choice. Having said that, I'm still throwing in my two bits.

I would like to debate steps 1 and 2 in this argument:

1) Homosexuality is unnatural
2) What is unnatural is wrong
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong

since the third step is fairly elementary given the first 2.

Nothing can be unnatural. Everything is natural.

What Darkdale says is true, everything is natural, at least everything that is relevant to this thread. Homosexuality is certainly "natural." It occurs in this world, it has a physical basis. Whether or not it is "natural" is not the source of the argument, which is why all the evidence that it is natural has not changed the minds of most people who oppose it.

So you're first two premises are not correctly stated. What people really mean by "natural" in this context is "that which is used for its intended purpose." or what they believe to be its intented purpose. No, I am not introducing God into the argument. People can believe that things have an intended purpose without believing that there was a designer. All they have to do is believe that there is a "goal" that is relevant to themselves. In the case of sex, the believed intended purpose for sex originally was to procreate. One can believe this without believing in God.

Anything that is used for purposes contrary to its intended purpose is a "perversion." That word carries a lot of emotional baggage, but that is the original, dictionary definition.

So the real argument is:
1) Homosexuality is a perversion of sex
2) What is a perversion is always wrong
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong

Then the two questions become:
1) Is homosexuality really a perversion of sex? ie - does it violate the intended pupose of sex? If the purpose of sex is procreation, then yes, homosexuality is a perversion. But then so is masturbation, and so is sex with contraception. In both of those cases, the participant(s) are using sex for pleasure, not for procreation. How many people here really believe that sex with contraception is a perversion? If not, then you can't believe that the purpose of sex is procreation. There must be another purpose. If the other purpose is pleasure, then homosexuality is not a perversion.

2) Is perversion always wrong? All we have to do is think of an example where using something contrary to its intended purpose was not morally wrong. I don't know about you but I can think of dozens of examples - too many and mundane to list. Just looking around my livingroom, my flatmate is using her bike handlebars as a coatrack; we used a shoe heel to hammer in a nail into a wall; my cat is sleeping inside a grocery bag...

I argue that neither premise one nor premise two are true. Therefore, the conclusion is also not true.

 

[michel]

We keep arguing in RF whether homosexuality is moral or not, and every time we do I cringe, even while I participate in the argument. I cringe because I think to myself how I would feel if someone were arguing whether being female is moral or not, or being Asian is moral or not. We keep arguing over the morality of a existence that simply exists; it is not a matter of choice. Having said that, I'm still throwing in my two bits.



What Darkdale says is true, everything is natural, at least everything that is relevant to this thread. Homosexuality is certainly "natural." It occurs in this world, it has a physical basis. Whether or not it is "natural" is not the source of the argument, which is why all the evidence that it is natural has not changed the minds of most people who oppose it.

So you're first two premises are not correctly stated. What people really mean by "natural" in this context is "that which is used for its intended purpose." or what they believe to be its intented purpose. No, I am not introducing God into the argument. People can believe that things have an intended purpose without believing that there was a designer. All they have to do is believe that there is a "goal" that is relevant to themselves. In the case of sex, the believed intended purpose for sex originally was to procreate. One can believe this without believing in God.

Anything that is used for purposes contrary to its intended purpose is a "perversion." That word carries a lot of emotional baggage, but that is the original, dictionary definition.

So the real argument is:
1) Homosexuality is a perversion of sex
2) What is a perversion is always wrong
3) Therefore homosexuality is wrong

Then the two questions become:
1) Is homosexuality really a perversion of sex? ie - does it violate the intended pupose of sex? If the purpose of sex is procreation, then yes, homosexuality is a perversion. But then so is masturbation, and so is sex with contraception. In both of those cases, the participant(s) are using sex for pleasure, not for procreation. How many people here really believe that sex with contraception is a perversion? If not, then you can't believe that the purpose of sex is procreation. There must be another purpose. If the other purpose is pleasure, then homosexuality is not a perversion.

2) Is perversion always wrong? All we have to do is think of an example where using something contrary to its intended purpose was not morally wrong. I don't know about you but I can think of dozens of examples - too many and mundane to list. Just looking around my livingroom, my flatmate is using her bike handlebars as a coatrack; we used a shoe heel to hammer in a nail into a wall; my cat is sleeping inside a grocery bag...

I argue that neither premise one nor premise two are true. Therefore, the conclusion is also not true.

Well tought out and written, lilithu.

 

[Fluffy]

So you're first two premises are not correctly stated. What people really mean by "natural" in this context is "that which is used for its intended purpose." or what they believe to be its intented purpose. No, I am not introducing God into the argument. People can believe that things have an intended purpose without believing that there was a designer. All they have to do is believe that there is a "goal" that is relevant to themselves. In the case of sex, the believed intended purpose for sex originally was to procreate. One can believe this without believing in God.

I agree that this is what people imply when they say this. However, I contend this by saying that giving something intention or purpose implies intelligence at some point. Otherwise it is simply personifying a concept with attributes that it cannot logically have.

For example, how can one rationally talk about the goal of sex being procreation? Sex cannot have a goal. It is a word that we have defined as an act between 1 or more organisms. It certainly does result in things but, in the abscence of intelligence, such a result cannot be linked to its cause and therefore 'sex', without the capacity of thought, cannot have the goal of procreating unless either it, or its cause (ie God, human etc) develops such a thing.

 

[Quiddity]

1) Is homosexuality really a perversion of sex? ie - does it violate the intended pupose of sex? If the purpose of sex is procreation, then yes, homosexuality is a perversion. But then so is masturbation, and so is sex with contraception. In both of those cases, the participant(s) are using sex for pleasure, not for procreation. How many people here really believe that sex with contraception is a perversion? If not, then you can't believe that the purpose of sex is procreation. There must be another purpose. If the other purpose is pleasure, then homosexuality is not a perversion.

2) Is perversion always wrong? All we have to do is think of an example where using something contrary to its intended purpose was not morally wrong. I don't know about you but I can think of dozens of examples - too many and mundane to list. Just looking around my livingroom, my flatmate is using her bike handlebars as a coatrack; we used a shoe heel to hammer in a nail into a wall; my cat is sleeping inside a grocery bag...

I argue that neither premise one nor premise two are true. Therefore, the conclusion is also not true.

In Catholic theology sex is both for pleasure and procreation. If either of them are taken out of the equation then we raise a flag.

~Victor