Except that so-called ‘inner’ sense of morality surely comes from how you are brought up by your parents and society’s morality? Im not convinced at all it is somehow innate.
If you look at Roman society in Jesus’ day, the killing of female babies, after birth, was widespread and viewed as ‘normal’. As was having sex with your slaves or others whom you had power over. As was violence and death. I could go on. Society’s morality affects how we as individuals who live in and are part of that society view our own sense of morality.
Today, for example, in western societies it is now viewed as the ‘norm’ that gay sexual relationships are widespread, and you are viewed as ‘immoral’ if you dare to say such relationships are ‘sinful’ and inappropriate. At the very least youre laughed at for having such an ‘antiquated’ view of morality, yet just a few years ago such a view was the norm. So how does one decide what is immoral or moral?
For one thing one can realize that it is moral to give others the space they need to complete their moral development. We’ve made mistakes and we can’t always shield others from making them too. Morality is so much more than following rules. If it doesn’t flow from empathy, morality can become little more than proper comportment. As an impetus for right action, pride in one’s proper comportment isn’t very strong or reliable. Fear of eternal torture likewise does not foment a very good moral brew, actions taken on one’s own immortal behalf are not entirely praiseworthy.
But how do you know which are the ‘mistakes’? Is a ‘mistake’ for you a good choice for someone else? And empathy varies considerably from one individual to another. Though of course you could argue a definition of empathy is summarised in Jesus’ command - do to others as you would have them do to you. Note that Jesus had to instruct people to do that, it is not ‘innate’.
As for fear, I think fear of consequences can and does affect behaviour. But that varies between individuals. Some have commentated how some of the world’s most evil regimes had no sense of future consequences for their awful behaviour, only if they were ‘caught’ in the here and now. How wrong they were.
The biblical writers had no knowledge about sexual orientation, which people are born with. But if you’re going to condemn gay relationships, why not condemn divorce also?
There is little to no evidence that one is ‘born’ gay or straight. The Biblical writers were concerned with actual behaviours. As for divorce, it seems far too easy to now obtain a divorce, thus making vows for life rather meaningless.
Then how has society changed over time? From what I have seen, there has been a lot of progress in human rights over the last 300 years, and it has come about by going against what society has taught in the previous generation.
Segregation throughout the southern US was the norm just a couple of generations ago, and now it is reviled by the vast majority of people in the southern US. What was once considered moral by the majority is now considered immoral. So how did that change?
No one is born Christian, Hindu, or Muslim, yet we protect freedom of religion even though we choose which religion to belong to.
No one is born a reporter nor is anyone born with an article critical of the government, yet we protect the freedom of the press even though it is a choice.
No one is born with the words of protest in their mouth, yet we protect the freedom of speech even though we choose what we are going to say.
I think we have come to understand that protecting freedoms is moral.
As the old saying goes, your freedom to swing your fist ends where another person’s nose begins. As long as someone’s actions do not violate the freedom of others then why shouldn’t we protect those actions?
Would it make much sense to say that you shouldn’t have freedom of speech, freedom of press, and freedom of religion because you can’t behave as you wish?
We observe that when we are part of a minority, thought it’s also part of “do unto others.” I grew up in a country where another faith vastly outnumbered ours. I was grateful that the constitution of that country protected religious minorities, because in an adjoining country, people were persecuted or killed for switching faiths.
My point is that ‘freedom’ is in reality limited, though it varies from country to country. The US is probably one of the most ‘free’ societies when it comes to freedom of speech, the press or religion, compared to say France or Germany. But is the US viewed as more ‘moral’ compared to France or Germany. No. Less so in many cases.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
34
Yes, we’d rather have freedom from than freedom to. Freedom from domestic terrorism rather than the freedom to terrorize being pretty fundamental.
There is the dismal failure of the horribly abusive “conversion therapy” industry. Do you think that you could change your orientation? Or is your orientation just part of who you are?
I’m asking you if you condemn divorce as immoral. Is a divorced person who remarries committing adultery against his former spouse?
the failure of conversion therapy says little about whether youre born gay or straight. Youre born with a certain gender. Sexuality comes later as you develop. Im not saying there are no genetic or physical factors involved, but so far research has failed to identify them and so to claim one is ‘born this way’ per that song is nonsense. I think sexuality comes with psychosexual development in early childhood on into adolescence. Most people now accept that sexuality is not as fixed as previously thought, and I do know of some men and women who have gone on to marry the opposite sex despite having same-sex attraction. I would suggest they have ‘changed’ to some extent, though they still tend to experience that attraction but perhaps less so.
And yes in certain circumstances if a divorced person remarries then they are committing adultery - Jesus made that clear. It’s up to people if they take his teaching seriously or not.
Do I understand correctly that sexual orientation can change throughout life? Can it be that a person was heterosexual for the first 25 years of life, and then became a homosexual? Or is sexual orientation determined by genetics and is that what a person is born with? Thank you.
I wouldn’t doubt that it has happened, but it would seem to be rarer than having the same orientation throughout life.
There is no 1 to 1 correlation between an allele and sexual orientation that I am aware of. Some studies claim to have found alleles that predispose towards different orientations, but nothing I have seen is overwhelmingly strong. My own speculation is that it has a lot more to do with early development (brain developing as a child) than any genetic predisposition. I do think there is very strong evidence that our experiences as a child strongly influence how we view sexuality later in life.