AEON said:
I am not claiming a book like this would change your mind. But I do think it would help you understand how they are reaching their conclusions.
A lot of my basis is a matter of "reading between the lines" in the context of Christian history. Much of conservative Christian philosophy reminds me an awful lot of the exact approach that St. Thomas Aquinas took a millennium ago, which, to me, was based on admirable intentions and a logically flawed approach.
St. Thomas Aquinas, like some of what you have said here, believed that God and reason were compatible, and he, ultimately picking up where St. Augustine of Hippo left off from 600 years ago, became the father of "natural law."
The trouble is that his logical basis for "natural law" was entirely disproven with the advent of science. That is, all of reason, science, logic, etc. could be made to correspond with what he read in the Bible. And, most certainly, anything that he disliked in this world and could not reconcile with what he read in the Bible, automatically--and without fail--went into the category of "Satanic."
And it was through these "natural law" arguments that they came up with a whole bunch of wacky theories of the world. It was here that the real homophobia of the Christian church started, not with the Bible or Bible passages. Indeed, like anything from "natural law," the Bible was merely used as justification after the fact.
But don't think that they stopped with same-sex acts (notice my distinction; "homosexuality," both in the concept of the sexual orientation and word did not exist until the 19th century) in these days. No, "natural law" also stated that every and all expressions of pleasure and pain were Satanic. Men were forbidden to express either. They were to go through life with a macho emotional detachment (hence, the origin of the modern adjective "stoic," in reference to their self-described "Christian stoic" movement).
And continuing with St. Augustine's deep misogyny, women were not expected to be "stoic," admitting to their "inherent weakness" as human beings. After all, "objectively," it was through the sin of Eve that mankind underwent "the Fall," right? From there came the extension that, if women are weak and cry, then that must mean that they're inherently Satanic too. Since it would be several hundred years that science would reveal that pregnancy would be created through sperm and eggs, these "Christian stoics," without fail, "objectively" believed that life must come strictly from men and that women just held the incubating waters. After all, if women are "objectively" Satanic, they cannot have any part of life.
But what about female babies? Since women are "objectively" Satanic, how could a "Godly" male create a "Satanic" female child? After all, the woman only had the incubating waters. Rest assured, the Christian stoics covered this too! As a result, "objectively," all fetuses were really male, but that Satan, with his wily ways, would interfere with many pregnancies and, thus, create female children!
But back to the idea that all pleasure and pain were "objectively" Satanic, not only were same-sex acts "objectively disordered," since it was seen as the ultimate act of hedonistic "pleasure" with no responsibility, but opposite-sex acts, even amongst married couples, were highly regulated. No pleasure was permitted. The woman was expressedly forbidden from expressing any sense of enjoyment from sex, and the man was, theoretically, forbidden from it too. They could not look at each other, for fear of "objectively" sinning from lust from one another. Hence, it was sex through a "hole in the sheet." Obviously, in this climate, sex only occurred when they were to conceive a child and never at any other time.
...
Do you see why I ultimately end up rolling my eyes at a lot of conservative Christian arguments? They end up sounding like a bunch of medieval pseudoscientific nonsense to me. Like the Christian stoics, it is all "tradition first, Bible justification afterwards." Babble like "intelligent design" also takes a page from this era, and reading a papal encyclical, with its elaborate, purposely intimidating language to ultimately say nothing is also from this era.
In the end, like St. Thomas Aquinas, I do believe that God is represented through logic, reason, and science. However, I do not believe that the Bible inherently represents any of these concepts, and, as such, I look to science first. Science has long since dismissed the idea that people "choose" to be gay, and that's that. As such, it is "objectively" part of "God's plan."
But if you all are to look at sex as being strictly for procreation, you're certainly taking a page from Christian stoicism, not so much the Bible. As such, I hope you're using a hole in a sheet and not enjoying it, having sex solely when you're ready to conceive a child, because they would all frown upon you wanting to have sex with your wife. And, most certainly, she had better not want it either! You hedonistic lushes!
