It Makes Me Sick

[R. S. Martin]

Every time the topic of "homosexuality is a sexual preference" comes up, this Christian says pedophilia is a sexual preference. He digs up scripture to support it and defends this scripture. Makes one think he's a closet pedophile. How come he's not in jail?

 

I only know him online but the very idea makes me sick.

[Dhampir]

Far as I can tell, that's not far from the truth, but what your opponent neglects is that to act upon one's homosexuality is not inherently harmful. In any case, he's equating one with the other, which would make him seem more like a closet homosexual, in that we KNOW that acting on one is bad, and we can point to reasons why, however, he doesn't point to why being gay is in the same league. It's a simple mistake these puritans tend to make.

[Thurisaz]

<sarcasm>

 

Well if he claims its so easy to to hop into bed with either men or women (or kids!) depending on "preference" (read: how you feel at the moment), maybe he's projecting? Maybe he's at least bi, if not indeed a suppressed pedophile?

 

Dunno, I find it easy to tolerate homosexual men but somehow the thought of being involved in any homosexual activity myself is just... it comes up as so absurd that I don't think I should have to discuss it. It's just the feeling of "too incompatible to me".

 

So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if one found out that most of this "it's just a preference / personal choice" crap is being babbled by those who are just projecting from their own situation... doesn't mean that it must be that way, just that I can easily imagine it.

[owen652]

i think it can be both. human sexuality is fluid and changeable, up to a point.

[Overcame Faith]

The best comeback I've ever heard on the issue of whether homosexuality is a choice is to ask a person when they chose heterosexuality.

[R. S. Martin]

I'm not interested in sexual activity. See AVEN. So I see little difference between hetero and homo except that one has the potential to produce children and the other doesn't. What gets to me is the insistence that sex with children is okay if children can give consent--and he argues that they can give consent. He claims when he was a child he was able to give consent.

 

In one thread he argued for the case of a three-year-old being given in marriage in the OT, saying it would be okay in the case that the little girl were physically and emotionally mature. Which he claims could be possible though we don't know of an instance in which it is.

 

It's the thread: What does the bible say against pedophilia?

 

Here are a few of his posts:

• Post 56 re adolescent child giving consent; also defense of pedophile's feelings
  
• Post 108 his reply to me (basically just a rant) when I charged that he might be a closet pedophile
  
• Post 101 is a long post on his views, as part of a formal philosophical convo with an atheist, whose posts appear at the same link.
  

In Post 124, someone asks: Are you a pedophile, Archsage?

Archsage's Answer: Not by any sense of the word.

 

Sounds so very slippery to me. Is he hiding something? Or is he merely making an objective statement that if it were legal then he would agree with pedophilia?

 

I'm totally out of my depths here and the topic has a way of coming up time and again.

[Akheia]

I'd say that the Bible's grasp of healthy psychology is, at best, limited and at worst, utterly inaccurate. The Bible saying that little kids can give consent doesn't in any way convey any sort of truthfulness regarding our modern understanding of consent any more than the Bible saying that taking (likely unwilling) female captives to be "wives" (read: sex slaves) is a perfectly normal and valid courtship technique. Modern humans understand so much more about how children's minds are wired and how people mature that it doesn't even compare to what the Bible's writers knew. Hell, just the idea that the earth is just a speck in a galaxy's vast reaches and not a marble set in the middle of another marble would be a stunning concept to people of that era. So I'm not sure why this guy is going on and on about how the Bible's support of pedophilia is in some way an endorsement of pedophilia or in any way a reason to conclude that homosexuality is evil. One doesn't logically follow from the other. But drawing invalid conclusions from the data certainly isn't a new trick to Christians, is it?

 

I'm with you. I'm guessing that he's having some major struggles in his own life right now.

[Suzy]

I'm not interested in sexual activity. See AVEN. So I see little difference between hetero and homo except that one has the potential to produce children and the other doesn't. What gets to me is the insistence that sex with children is okay if children can give consent--and he argues that they can give consent. He claims when he was a child he was able to give consent.

 

In one thread he argued for the case of a three-year-old being given in marriage in the OT, saying it would be okay in the case that the little girl were physically and emotionally mature. Which he claims could be possible though we don't know of an instance in which it is.

 

It's the thread: What does the bible say against pedophilia?

 

Here are a few of his posts:

• Post 56 re adolescent child giving consent; also defense of pedophile's feelings
  
• Post 108 his reply to me (basically just a rant) when I charged that he might be a closet pedophile
  
• Post 101 is a long post on his views, as part of a formal philosophical convo with an atheist, whose posts appear at the same link.
  

In Post 124, someone asks: Are you a pedophile, Archsage?

Archsage's Answer: Not by any sense of the word.

 

Sounds so very slippery to me. Is he hiding something? Or is he merely making an objective statement that if it were legal then he would agree with pedophilia?

 

I'm totally out of my depths here and the topic has a way of coming up time and again.

 

I don't know if this person is a pedophile or not but I do know that pedophiles usually argue with the kind of things he says! They also like to argue with bringing up the ancient Greeks and Romans where pederastry was accepted. However child brides, sex slaves, human sacrifice and a lot of things were also accepted by ancient cultures that aren't today. That there were ages and cultures which accepted them doesn't make them right.

 

The age of consent is a touchy subject. In the US it's usually 16-18 years, in many other countries (for example, lots of European countries, including my country) it's 14. In Spain it's 13 years, in the Vatican it's 12 years... (Source: http://www.avert.org...-of-consent.htm )

 

Pedophiles work towards setting the age of consent lower and lower which I think should not be allowed. I personally would set the age of consent at 16 years but from the above data it seems a lot depends on a countries cultural background. But by no means I would put it under 14. There's no way a three-year-old can give consent and be emotionally and physically mature - that is bullshit by this guy!

 

I think in ancient times age wasn't considered an issue. It was common for girls to get married at the age 12-14, or even earlier if they had their periods earlier. Boys in the ancient Jewish culture were considered adults from the year of 13 (Bar Mitzvah), girls from the age of 12. If someone was mature sexually (period, wet dreams) I think she or he was considered fit for marriage and sex. But life was faster then. People generally lived shorter, they had to marry and make babies quick. Young people today however go to school at that age and not getting ready for marriage. Also children are easy to manipulate by adults - so when a 12 year old says he's willing because his molester was telling him things, is this child then really consent or just manipulated? I think the latter. You have to reach a certain age so that you really can make decisions regarding consent.

 

Because in ancient times age wasn't an issue, the Bible doesn't say anything about pedophilia. It's more concerned with the gender of the participants in a sexual act than the age. This just shows once again that there's no divine inspiration behind the Bible and it's not the unchangable, forever valid law of God. The Quran doesn't say anything about pedophilia either. In fact, Mohammed at the age of 50 or so married a 9-year-old girl...

 

Edited to add: This guy says that if one is consent then age does not matter. And then basically says that a child can possibly be consent at any age (ie. the 3-year-old example). That's bullshit, of course, but even his consent argument is flawed if he says that to defend the Bible's silence on pedophilia, because those girls in forced marriages in the Bible definitely weren't consent! I mean when the Bible allows an Israelite solider to take female virgin captives and marry one if he likes her (and then kick her out if he is not pleased with her) - nowhere in those laws does the Bible says he needs to ask the girl for consent first. The very situation suggests that in most cases it was NOT a consent relationship, since I don't think many girls would happily marry the guy who massacared her family before. Or her rapist, for that matter.

[R. S. Martin]

Thanks for your replies. As people here are saying, theist arguments are so inconsistent in these things.

 

The way women were used in the Bible is sickening. Those girls that the soldiers didn't want were no longer virgins when they got thrown out so nobody would have wanted them anymore. Another thing that has always stuck with me is the way King Saul gave his daughter to David as a war prize. When I read that, the question that screamed at me was: Did she like David?

 

If you raise this kind of issue with Christians they just argue that the culture was not advanced like ours....Come to think of it. That backward ancient culture is what they need to think about when they're using it and its laws for a benchmark for sexual laws and mores in today's society.

 

I'm sure it would not go over but it feels good just knowing this answer exists.

 

I suppose that's what all of you have been saying all along.

[jackbauer]

A typical conservative arguement. They can't think any reasons why homosexuality is bad so they resort to stupid comparisons and faulty analogies.

[Kurari]

He is actually correct. A paraphilic disorder, such as pedophilia, IS a sexual preference and at one time, homosexuality was also considered a paraphilia.

 

However, extensive and cumulative study over decades has shown that homosexuality is very dissimilar to the definitions of paraphilias and paraphilic disorders. In fact, homosexuality has not been considered a paraphilia for over 40 years by the psychiatric community, and was completely removed from the DSM over 30 years ago.

 

Pedophilia however, is still considered a paraphilic disorder and he has no leg to stand on with his ridiculous and insulting comparison.

[R. S. Martin]

I looked up paraphiliac in wikipedia. It seems DSM V is being drafted and a new definition is being worked out. It says "severe paraphilias that distress or impair people or cause them to do harm to others are validly regarded as disorders." That would obviously include pedophilia, but probably not transvestites who are happy with their lifestyle.

 

I can just see conservative Christians go cross-eyed with rage over that one.

 

I really appreciate everyone's input. I might not have any comebacks for the guy but I'll know where I stand and have answers in my own head.

[Suzy]

If you raise this kind of issue with Christians they just argue that the culture was not advanced like ours....Come to think of it. That backward ancient culture is what they need to think about when they're using it and its laws for a benchmark for sexual laws and mores in today's society.

 

Yet, they are the ones claiming that without God's law you become a moral relativist and what a terrible thing it is to say that morals are not absolute. Then they turn around and say that the OT laws were only valid for a certain age (obviously because they are ashamed of those laws - at least the more sensible ones - because they sense our moral sense today is way superior to that of the OT). With this they also admit that the omnipotent God is dependent on a certain cultural context when creating his laws. Which contradicts the Bible's claim that God never changes, he is the same yestreday, today and forever. So this omnipotent God could not make a moral code that would set high moral standards for ALL ages and of that you don't have to be ashamed of as a Christian in the 21st century?

[London]

As Nan would say about this guy "What an old load of shit!" (she's a Catherine Tate skit)

 

What stuck out for me first and foremost was he said ,

young and pure more attractive than someone who is older and crusty

from post #101

 

He also refused to say he was a pedophile by definition.

These are red flags to me. He either is just a pedophile and is trying to justify that it is ok, or he was a victim of sexual abuse for an extended period of time and is now trying, as an adult, to perpetuate that cycle.

 

The nambla comment was funny. Glad that person posted that.

 

Anyhow back to this thread. And just to add a different perspective, the guy may not have any type of paraphilia. His interest in the "young" may have nothing to do with sex. Just like rape has nothing to do with sex. A sexual act is used to exert power over the other person. But sexual arousal/gratification is not the end result. If he was sexually abused, he may be wanting to exert his adult power. Unfortunately in the form of a sex act.

 

A disorder is defined as anything that disrupts your normal functioning (simple explanation). And anything can become a disorder. Sitting on ebay buying old pop bottles, hardly eating, not showering, sleeping a few hours a night. That type of disruption.

 

I always find the gay argument funny since there is no such original word "homosexual or homosexuality" in any version of the bible in history. That is a modern word. And there is not a word before that with the same or similar meaning. That word was put into the bible. And leviticus refers to having sex with temple slaves, it's a law for levitican priests only. Not for the rest of the peons in the world. The bible does not prohibit anyone else from having sex with temple slaves, male or female. Or having same sex with the everyday common person.

 

In some native cultures homosexuals were considered sages. They were in high regard and helped in many aspects of the tribes existence. So only xianity tries to make GLBT into a sin. And we wouldn't want to look to nature to see how many animals are gay (penguins, giraffes) because that would be admitting that god did not create the universe and being a homo is ok.

 

I used to let all their hate bother me but I am smarter now. Stupid people say stupid things and being gay is no different than having brown eyes.

 

People always think that gays go after young kids. Not true. I once read that 97% of abusers are straight. And those straight men also abuse boys. So it is completely false that a man who abuses boys is gay. There is a 3% chance they are gay.

 

And I wanted to speak to the age of consent thing. I really think no country should ever have it below 16. People mature at different rates and regardless of that fact, they should wait anyhow. If we don't have a standard then we help people get abused. And even the most mature 12? 14?yo may regret their action at a later date.

He argues that someone young could give consent. And in certain circumstances this is true. I gave consent at 15. I knew what I was doing and I don't ever regret it. I also knew that the other person was not looking for a child. And that person did not persue me. And was not interested in having sex with other underage people.

You can tell when some creepy ped wants to sack you. I've been in that situation. It's completely different. It feels unhealthy and sick. And you just get away from them.

 

It seems like this guy is looking for permission to have sex with kids, and he wants the bible to justify it.

[Suzy]

Wrong thread.

[JoeCoastie]

I used to be more passive on this issue. I'd say, "Its their religious belief, who am I to question it?" Now I'm fed up with people using ancient scriptures to discriminate and justify bigotry.