DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:For your first sentiment, engaging in homosexual acts isn't WRONG by any means. They are humans, like we are, and should be treated as such.
These two sentences are addressing different things. Once again, the "they" in my statement are the actions, not the people. You're absolutely correct by saying that they are people, just like you and I, and that they ought to be treated with the same respect and dignity with which anyone else is treated.
However, with anyone else, if something being done is how it ought not be done, I would call that wrong as well. In my example, a husband was never intended to be verbally abusive to his wife. A husband that does so is a person, just like everyone else, and should be treated as such, but that doesn't justify his actions.
Under a biblical view, being a homosexual is no different than being unmarried. Either way, a person still sometimes desires sexual relationship in a way it was not intended to be.
DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:Just because someone does something that is different TO everyone, doesn't make it WRONG, it just makes it foreign to us.
Naturally. The distinction is not made on a "difference" basis. Moreover, in the current society, I wouldn't even say it's all that foreign, unless someone has been living under a rock.
I think it's good that it is out in the open, as well, because it allows it to be discussed in the public square.
However, suggesting that their identity is tied to their sexual behavior (not seeing a distinction between a person with homosexual desires that the homosexual act itself) is, I think, dehumanizing to anyone who would call himself or herself a homosexual. They are people. They are more than their actions. Thus, their actions can be addressed independently from attacking their identity.
DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:That is the INTENSE difference between thinking in a rational way, and thinking on terms of what "god" tells us.
There wasn't really a "rational" argument in that statement. Most of it was an emotional appeal. I'm not suggesting that a conclusion is without merit solely because of its emotional appeal, but such an appeal certainly cannot be defined as "rational."
DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:For your second question, I try to live my life based on being a good person.
What I mean is, whose definition of "good" do you use? As Kai Nielson once said, if man has no inherent value (based on a universal authority that defines it), then man's actions cannot have inherent value (goodness or badness), because that same authority which can attribute value to man is the only authority that can attribute moral value to actions. As such, at the end of the day, there is no inherent value that exists between someone who attempts to live a life of virtue and someone who apathetically lives as a "moral slob" (his words).
In a nutshell, as JP Moreland once put it, "The Big Bang didn't belch out moral values the way it did clouds of gas, I'm afraid."
Hence, I'm curious to what authority you appeal for your sense of being a "good person." A hedonist (there's at least one on this forum) would argue that what is good is what brings you pleasure, and what is bad is what brings you pain. Under that view, selfishness is one of the highest forms of virtue.
DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:I feel good doing something for others because i know I helped them out and they appreciate it. That in itself makes me feel good.
In a sense, then, this sounds hedonistic, because your actions make you feel good, which suggests they are moral.
What if pinching the heads off mice or punching my mailman in the face make me feel good? It would seem a defeater in the view of many hedonists.
DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:If the commandments said that you don't help your neighbor, you guys would not be helping your neighbor, plain and simple.
(1) If helping your neighbor brought you absolutely zero satisfaction (not even one single warm fuzzy) and was purely a sacrifice, it sounds as though you wouldn't either.
(2) If we were created by a malevolent creator to function in that way, you're right, but under that reality, I would merely be functioning as a human being was meant to function.
DeyDurkie5;697591 wrote:For the third question, I don't really understand what you are saying, dumb it down a bit for me.
Sorry. It was phrased awkwardly, I suppose.
What I mean is, you've asserted that a creator still acts within the boundaries of a moral law. However, if he created or defined said law based on his own nature, then he cannot do anything but good, because he's defined it according to his own default behaviors (there's a theological problem with using the word "behavior" but I can't think of a better word at the moment). As such, he does nothing but good, because good has been defined by how he acts.
A separate being, however, who is given the ability to either act in the same way, or to act in a different way, is capable of acting in a way other than "good."
Think about it like this: God created a board game. The board game has rules, and he created the rules based on how he sees fit for the game to be played.
Now, instead of gamepieces that are lifeless plastic, they are living, sentient, independent agents. God then communicates the rules of the game to the game pieces, but he has allowed them the freedom to either play out the game the way it was meant to be played or to break the rules of the game and try to play it out another way. Even further, the gameboard has been damaged since he created the game, and there are parts of the gameboard where the game pieces (us) can be hurt, harmed, or inhibited from reaching the end (think of it like the building of "Go to jail" or "Luxury Tax" spaces in Monopoly).
If someone, cheating or not, winds up landing on the "Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200" space, did God put him there? No. It's just a result of the board being turned into something it wasn't designed to be.
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