Wicknight wrote: » Well you have introduced the word "natural", I'm not sure what context you are using that word. Everything that happens to our bodies is natural unless one introduces a supernatural element.
On the other hand I'm not a believer in the way nature intended line of thought, so if that is what you mean by nature I would have to step out of that discussion.
Not sure. If a persons paedophilia is related to serious mental trauma then I would imagine that psycho-therapy could help for some people
Er .. ok
I think what you are asking is if paedophilia is the result of biological, genetic, settings determined at conception in a person, is it psychologically sound to be a paedophilia. I would imagine yes, excluding the social issues that come with being a paedophile and the issues with repressed sexual urges that apply across the board.
No, for the trauma the person has suffered due to abuse. The attraction to children stems for that, or at least does in the cases where this applies.
Think of it this way. A some what common result of post traumatic stress syndrome is night terrors or night violence, where a person may, still asleep, have the sensation of being under attack and lash out around them. This can seriously injure anyone in the bed with them, such as a husband or wife. Now you could say that this person should get help to stop them hitting their wife. But really they should get help to over come the PTS syndrome, to stop the night terrors, and hitting the fudge out of your wife comes with that. The same applies in my view to those who are padeophiles due to childhood abuse.
Schuhart wrote: » Does this mean I can envisage a society where rape and child abuse were permitted? Given we know of societies that permitted slavery, down to quite recent times, I expect I can.
AtomicHorror wrote: » There is also a difference in the extent of the innate desires plus a pathological element to the individuals psychology and in combination their impact on agency. It does not require extra-ordinary drive to defy mere social taboo. Perhaps it does not require extreme desire to defy laws with severe penalties. To defy broadly-accepted morals is another matter. That requires a detachment from some key element of those morals, such as empathy. In our moral assessment of homosexuality at birth, it is worth noting that no such extreme drives or psychopathology exist. This has implications for how we morally assess their actions. They are acting in accordance with an innate nature that is morally benign and very, very different to the innate nature of a sex offender.
Schuhart wrote: » I hesitate to intervene, as this has been effectively covered already, but I feel that the point is that the difference is in those social rules.
PDN wrote: » S Is today National Troll Day?
AtomicHorror wrote: » And I maintain that there's a big difference between being born with the desire that would require one defy certain specific and rational social rules in its fulfillment and the desire to have sex with a consenting man. You might as well compare homosexuality to psychopathy.
PDN wrote: » For those who want to be part of the Christian Church, because of the teaching of the Bible. The Christian Church is a community of people who commit together to try to follow Jesus and to live by the teachings of the Bible. The Church also has commonly accepted principles of interpretation of Scripture (I'm including that statement to hopefully forestall trolls from quoting out of context passages from Leviticus). Therefore I believe that homosexual acts are incompatible with membership of the Christian Church. I make no comment on those outside of the Church since homosexuality is hardly the biggest problem they have. I am not interested in judging non-Christians for not following Christian standards and practices. Some people have urges to commit idolatry and want to bow down and pray to statues. I also believe that they should repress those urges if they want to be a part of the Christian Church. I also believe that Jews should repress their urges to eat bacon sandwiches if they want to be a part of the synagogue, and that people should repress their urges to eat any meat if they want to join the Vegetarian Society.
PDN wrote: » Once again, no one is comparing the two. Is that really so hard to understand?
AtomicHorror wrote: » Fair enough. We can discard the not-for-reproduction bit then. What I'm asking you is if you think that homosexuals should suppress their urges and if so, why?
And I maintain that there's a big difference between being born with the desire that would require one defy certain specific and rational social rules in its fulfillment and the desire to have sex with a consenting man. You might as well compare homosexuality to psychopathy.
Akrasia wrote: » I have been consistent in saying that as long as the relationships are consensual between people who know what they're doing, then there is nothing wrong with the relationship
PDN wrote: » I think you're missing the point. No-one is comparing homosexuality to paedophilia. We are simply using the example of paedophilia to demonstrate the rather glaring loopholes in the "How can you say something is wrong if people are born that way?" argument.
PDN wrote: » I'm not quite sure where you're getting these ideas about me. If your portrayal of me were accurate then I would have ceased sexual relations with my wife as soon as I had my vasectomy. That certainly was not, and is not the case.
AtomicHorror wrote: » Then what in fact you advocate is the suppression of any and all sexual urges that do not serve the purpose of reproduction? Why?
How does the homosexual impinge upon anyone's personal rights in his expression of his desire? Do his actions disregard the agency of his partner? Any comparison (outside of a discussion of the biological workings of sexuality) does homosexuals a great disservice.
Akrasia wrote: » but the punishment takes the form of disease and death and earthquakes and all the nasty things that god sent unto man after the fall...
PDN wrote: » I see original sin as a consequence, not as a punishment. A child inherits sin, it is 'in our blood' (I am using the term in its normal everyday sense, not scientifically). Therefore we are predisposed towards sinful behaviour. We see similar consequences in that a child of a drug addict is statistically much more likely to become an addict themselves. Indeed, a baby may even be born an addict due to its pregnant mother abusing drugs. That is not a punishment, but it is a consequence. While a child inherits this predisposition towards sin (original sin) it would, according to my understanding of the Bible, be totally wrong to see that child as somehow deserving of punishment for that reason. We are accountable for our own sins, not for those of Adam.
PDN wrote: » There is a common belief that one's sexuality is inherent and cannot be changed. That, in my opinion, is a myth. Men who consider themselves as solely heterosexual quite happily indulge in homosexual behaviour when they are incarcerated in prison.
PDN wrote: » We all have sexual urges and those urges can be expressed in different ways depending on our upbringing, environment and our choices.
PDN wrote: » The notion was expressed earlier in this thread that if a behaviour attracts ostracism etc. then it cannot be reasonably seen as a choice. However, I believe that notion is exploded by the example of paedophiles who choose to indulge in behaviour even though it attracts much greater negative societal consequences than does homosexuality.
PDN wrote: » Exactly. Different people get satisfaction from different things. Some people get satisfaction from collecting stamps, or posting annoying messages on internet fora, or eating Mars Bars, or raping children, or cheating on their wives, or robbing banks, or joining the Taliban, or torturing dogs etc. It would be nice if people only got satisfaction from doing morally upright things, but unfortunately that is not the case.
PDN wrote: » I think you are conflating two separate issues in this thread: 1. Our sexual behaviour is a choice that we make. We all have different urges and, unless we are mentally ill, we control our urges instead of allowing our urges to control us. 2. Certain sexual urges can be indulged legitimately whereas others cannot. Obviously, as a non-Christian, you will not agree with me as to which urges under point 2 are legitimate or not. However, that does not override point one. Sexual behaviour, including homosexual acts, is a matter of choice.
There is a common belief that one's sexuality is inherent and cannot be changed. That, in my opinion, is a myth. Men who consider themselves as solely heterosexual quite happily indulge in homosexual behaviour when they are incarcerated in prison. We all have sexual urges and those urges can be expressed in different ways depending on our upbringing, environment and our choices.
Wicknight wrote: » I imagine you wore it because you got a strong sense of satisfaction out of it. And that is probably due to biology. You decided to act in a manner that gave you satisfaction. But you didn't control what gave you satisfaction in the first place.
PDN wrote: » People often choose things that attract hostility. As a teenager I often suffered hostility because I wore punk gear. But I'm pretty sure that I wore it by choice rather than because I was in the grip of some uncontrollable genetic trait.
PDN wrote: » I see original sin as a consequence, not as a punishment. A child inherits sin, it is 'in our blood' (I am using the term in its normal everyday sense, not scientifically). Therefore we are predisposed towards sinful behaviour.
PDN wrote: » We see similar consequences in that a child of a drug addict is statistically much more likely to become an addict themselves. Indeed, a baby may even be born an addict due to its pregnant mother abusing drugs. That is not a punishment, but it is a consequence.
PDN wrote: » While a child inherits this predisposition towards sin (original sin) it would, according to my understanding of the Bible, be totally wrong to see that child as somehow deserving of punishment for that reason. We are accountable for our own sins, not for those of Adam.
Wicknight wrote: » That doesn't really support your position, in fact quite the opposite. Why would a paedophile choose to be a paedophile given that society is so hostile towards that behaviour?
Akrasia wrote: » Would you care to give us your interpretation of how 'original sin' isn't in fact punishing children for the sins of their parents?
Akrasia wrote: » Sexuality is sexuality, it's a sexual attraction to someone or something. There is no morality attached to the chemistry in your body. However, there certainly is morality attached to how you deal with these urges. It is wrong to rape children, It is wrong to take advantage of innocent people for your own gratification (whether you're gay or straight) A mutually consensual relationship between two men or two women is very very different from paedophilia which involves one person dominating a helpless child and destroying their life forever.
JimiTime wrote: » I meant same as in, acceptable, natural feelings to have.
JimiTime wrote: » Would you say once a paedophile, always a paedophile?
JimiTime wrote: » I don't know about such evidence. I've heard this before, but don't know how true it is.
JimiTime wrote: » Also, there are probably plenty that don't have such backround. If a paedophile hadn't got such a backround, would his attraction to children be psychologically sound?
JimiTime wrote: » For the attraction to children? What kind of help?
JimiTime wrote: » Can you elaborate on this?
Akrasia wrote: » It is hard to imagine an Irish nationalist who hates Irish people and is desperately trying to be a unionist but is driven by uncontrollable urges to join sinn fein.
Wicknight wrote: » I wouldn't call them the same, more they are all equally different and unique. No one persons sexual preference to a member of the opposite sex is the same as another. We simply create these classification ourselves. Bit like we do with things like skin colour, where we group two black guys together compared with two white guys, even if one white guy is the same height and build as the other black guy. We tend to see straight people as "the same", and heterosexual people as "the same" and paedophiles at "the same". I very much doubt nature works in a similar fashion, whether the sexuality is a result of genetics, environment or what ever.
Certainly. Sexual advances towards children are not bad because of the thoughts in the adults head, but because of the damage they do to the child if acted out with a child.
Not sure I would say all are psychologically sound There is strong evidence that paedophilia is often is the result of psychological damage suffered in childhood, though how this manifests itself in adult life as an attraction to children is not fully understood.
In the case of paedophilia a person having such attraction should seek professional help, for their own well being as much as anything else.
Homosexuality appears to have a biological cause, a genetic root, that can trigger homosexuality in certain (as yet unknown) environments. So it is a combination of genetics and environment.
JimiTime wrote: » I'm talking about the attraction itself, not the action. If you feel that having an attraction towards children, animals, objects, the oposite sex, the same sex are all the same, psychologically speaking, then fine, thats consistant. You would view sexuality as something that can never be improper in its essence, though in certain scenarios (e.g.children), it must be controlled. such a stand would mean that having a sexual attraction to a kid, or a dog, or a wall is psychologically sound. Would this be your view?
