Immorality of Homosexuality

This seemed to be a more appropriate place to have this discussion. Probably the largest problem with your argument is that you are conflating relative morals with arbitrary morals.That is exactly the effect you are trying to have with comparing the reasons for rejecting homosexuality with beastiality. Your claim is that there is no relative reason. What you mean is that there is no arbitrary reason.Lets dig up a simple definition of relative from dictionary.com that I think is apt: What you are leaving out with your comparison is the external condition. Without anything else the comparison is arbitrary and your argument stands.The problem is once you introduce the appropriate external conditions, it immediatly destroys your argument. In this case, the external condition is a common value shared ammong participants in society, namely consent.Since we value consent in nearly all other aspects of life, it makes sense that we would value it in the case of sexuality. That is where the 'relative' part of relative morality comes into play.Relative to consent, rape, pedophilia, and beastiality are wrong because the participants are incapable of consent.Relative to consent, homosexuality is not wrong because all parties involved are expressly consenting to the activity.How is this not a rebuttal with substance to your claim?Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Just to start off, I am not talking about the reasoning in calling someone a bigot. I don't happen to care all that much and I hope this conversation does not descend into that. Okay. Lets examine this for a moment. Why do you consider it arbitrary?I explained in my previous post that consent is a valid external condition because it is a common condition to all other aspects of our functional life. A society without the concept of consent would fail and the evidence indicates that societies where these have had less ability to consent HAVE failed.That is why in this era we have democracy, the government is empowered by the consent of the governed. At least in theory.The upshot is, consent is absolutly not arbitrary. It is specifically chosen for its power and effectivness as a concept in a stable society. You seem to be missing the concept that relative does not mean arbitrary. Relative MEANS that it is in relation to something else. In this circumstance, the relative moral is in relation to the concept of consent.If you accept consent as an external condition, by the reasons I gave above, the moral difference in the two scenarios are derived easily. That is what it MEANS to be relative. I feel like the biggest misunderstanding you have in this discussion is literally not abiding by a REAL definition of relative.

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I just wanted to make a quick comment on your examples you raised regarding underage consent, incest, etc. What you are raising there are situations regarding law. Elements in law may or may not reflect what is moral. Elements in law also need to be much more strictly defined in order to be useful. Hence you have seemingly arbitrary ages for when you can "legally consent".Morally, I don't have a problem with a 15 year old consenting to sex with whomever they want under the condition that they seem mature enough to make that decision. The law cannot tolerate living in such a gray area as that.In short, lets try to avoid conflating law and morals. It may be illegal for a brother and sister to marry. The question related to this topic is how it would stand in a moral framework in comparison to other relationships such as homosexuality.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I think we may be getting somewhere for once. Lets start with this which is what I think is the crux of our differences. I suppose my challange to you then would be to clarify this because it seems contradictory.How can something both be arbitray and yet also "not haphazardly chosen"?To me, when you have a REASON for something, that negates it as arbitrary.I also listed a number of factors for why choosing consent as an external condition is non-arbitrary. In fact, I have reworded my reasoning for them twice now. You have yet to address them even once.How is it that examining our world and noticing that consent is a valid frameword to build rules for a stable society an arbitrary decision? That is what I feel you have yet to coherently support. I guess I disagree on your definition of "relative morality" which is where we might be having a misunderstanding. The biggest issue I have is with your use of the word "subjective".I don't consider relative morality to be subjective. Relative morality is simply means that a particular morality cannot be determined until you know all the circumstances of the situation.Where I think we are missing is that when I use relative I mean it in the sense of "The theory of realtivity". Really and actually using the root 'relative' as 'in relation to' something.You are using relative to mean, again the best word I can think of is, arbitrary. That is just simply not how I define it and, it is my understanding from other people's posts, that they do not define it that way either.Looking at the definition of relative, I cannot see any way you can equate it with subjectivity. Maybe that is why these conversations you have had with myself, among others, have never been very productive.I'll speak only for myself but I am confident that others would agree, relative morality is not the same as subjective morality.The differences that people are talking about are along the lines of:Absolute morality says X is always wrong.
Relative morality says X is wrong unless ...where ... is not always known completely.

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I also think you are trying to argue from the perspective that I think there is no such thing as an absolute morality. That is not true. There may be an absolute from which all the rest of our relative morality stemms. The concept of consent may be a piece of that absolute morality.I have tried to consistently say in previous debates that I am not arguing against an abolute morality. I am arguing against the claim that we currently KNOW what it is!If there is such a thing as an absolute morality, humanity has not found it. At the very least, it is ill-defined.

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Some housekeeping that I hope we can resolve quickly: It is too hard to tell I think. Until things are better defined who is to say that it is not moral to be a bigot?I have read a number of these debate where it turns into a spiral about people who are bigots of bigots. It just seems uninteresting to me.If homosexuality is moral and yet you speak out against it does that make you a bigot? I don't know. I also don't care. Right now at least. {ABE} What I would care about is if homosexuality is moral and you were restricting the rights of homosexuals. That would make you a bigot. It might even make you a bigot even if homosexuality was wrong. I don't think people much care about the preferences of other people except when those preferences manifest themselves in ways that hurt other people.{ABE}You are right thought that if you can never come to the conclusion about the morality of homosexuality that you cannot make the determination of being a bigot. I don't think that is as interesting a question than if homosexuality is morally wrong or if homosexuality is morally different than other things that you have claimed. It may be true when the day is done that it IS wrong yet STILL is less wrong than beastiality.The problem remember is with your comparisons. People are claiming that they are invalid. That is the issue.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

If you feel our discussion is more relevant in that thread I do not mind if you reply to me there.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)