What do you find immoral?

[DC Al Fine]

Abortion: Immoral
Death Penalty: Depends
Doctor Assisted Suicide: Immoral
Sex before Marriage: Immoral
Divorce: Usually immoral
Polygamy: Immoral
Pornography: Immoral
Birth control: Depends
Teenage sex: Depends
Homosexuality: Immoral (I took this to mean the act of homosexual sex, not orientation)
Gambling: Immoral
Unwed birth: Not immoral
Stem cell research: Depends
Medical testing animals: Depends
Wearing fur: Not immoral

Cloning: Undecided

[DC Al Fine]

I mean in the strictest possible sense. Given that homosexual behaviour has been observed in almost all animals (and I say almost as any inference has to be based on an observation) that procreate (and by extension, are 'sociable') in species separated by up to 200 million years of evolution, then given that it presents itself across species then there must be a reason why it still does, even as animals have evolved.

That assumes you accept the evil "theory" of evolution.

Or that animals are somehow a moral guide.

[DC Al Fine]

Just realized I never responded to these. Whoops.

Homosexuality: Immoral (I took this to mean the act of homosexual sex, not orientation)

That's a lot to ask of someone, to forgo sex and intimate relationships.  I wonder if moral is ever the right word for this fundamentalist Christian idea.  Homosexuality is a taboo from back in the day, but it's certainly not wrong in the way stealing is wrong.  What's the moral reasoning there?

"It's haaard" is a pretty silly reason to reject any moral view.

Homosexuality: Immoral (I took this to mean the act of homosexual sex, not orientation)[/color]

Give me one good reason why you believe this.

Well if "good reason" means one that will satisfy you, I don't have one. We don't share the same moral foundation. You reject my basis for morality and I reject yours, so "good" reasons to convince the other will be hard to come by.

That said, here's my quick and dirty reasoning: Like all sin, it boils down to idolatry. By doing what God has forbidden, the sinner is putting themselves or something else ahead of God, violating the first commandment.

[DC Al Fine]

That's not really my point.  If you are going to ask another person to ruin their own life, there is a burden of proof on you.  For most people, "my interpretation of the Bible says so" is just a silly argument.  Would you at least admit, taking the Bible out of it, there's nothing wrong with homosexuality? 

Yes, but I would admit that for every facet of my morality from shoplifting on up through murder. If there was no God I'd be a moral nihilist.

[DC Al Fine]

I think the average reasonable Christian view is the following:  The Bible is largely metaphorical and poetic.  There are myths and non-historical tall tales in the Bible that never actually happened. And furthermore, the Bible was written by fallible human beings, based on oral traditions and textual mistranslations so not every detail is true on a sentence level.

Speaking as a practising Christian with a very wide group of contacts, that's simply not the case. I mean, most Christians would agree that parts of the Bible are metaphorical or poetical, but full throttle view you're describing is almost exclusively the domain of the liberal Protestant sects. This is even more true once you eliminate Chreasters from the sample.

Taking that into account, you have to interpret the Bible using common sense.  If the Bible appears to say something absurd, like the creation story or that homosexuality is wrong, you have to find a non-absurd interpretation. 

Let's back up here a second. You keep using loaded terminology like rational and absurd. On what basis are you declaring things from the Bible rational or absurd?

[DC Al Fine]

That's not really my point.  If you are going to ask another person to ruin their own life, there is a burden of proof on you.  For most people, "my interpretation of the Bible says so" is just a silly argument.  Would you at least admit, taking the Bible out of it, there's nothing wrong with homosexuality?  

Yes, but I would admit that for every facet of my morality from shoplifting on up through murder. If there was no God I'd be a moral nihilist.

It's hilarious how you always whine about how we supposedly portray socons unfairly, yet you manage to come up with posts that candidly summarize basically everything that's wrong with the religious right. You perfectly explained us why your political/religious views are a mark of moral depravity.

You are aware that without a God, we all would be moral nihilists, whether we want to be or not.

What about people who are already atheists and aren't moral nihilists? And don't tell they don't exist, I know you're smarter than that.

Chairman, I'm an atheist, and one time I gave a homeless person some money and a hug around the holidays.  Explain why I didn't punch him in the face instead.  

(Here's the catch.  You can't say, "because of God"... because it wasn't)

That's completely irrelevant to the existence or non-existence of morality.

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As for the other commenters, I just worked 16 hours straight and need some sleep. F[inks] tax season... Anyways I'll try to address your points in the morning.

[DC Al Fine]

Ok starting with Bedstuy since he was fisrt

To be honest, I know nothing about theology.  I've never been to a Christian sermon presentation.  I've never really read the Bible.  But, I know a good deal about interpreting specific meaning in a text so I have a valid, if unconventional, opinion on this stuff.

Here's what I mean:  Text generally has numerous potential meanings.  You can't truly understand something just from reading the words.  So, you have to use interpretative tools, you look at dictionaries, you look at the text in context, you compare similar text, you get to know the history when it was written, you learn about the author, etc. 

But, those don't always arrive at one clear meaning.  A good rule of thumb for resolving ambiguity is just common sense.  A meaning that is common-sensical should be preferred over a meaning that is absurd.  If one interpretation means the Earth is 6000 years old, it's an absurd interpretation, so you take another interpretation.  Similarly, the idea that homosexuality is immoral is absurd, so you need to find another way to understand the text. 

Here's what I was getting at: On what basis are you declaring opposition to homosexuality absurd? Creationism is a question of fact. Either it is or isn't true, and it's relatively easy to determine that. Morality is much more ambiguous.

[DC Al Fine]

Just ethically then.  If you don't understand why murder is ethically wrong, aside from your belief in God's rule on murder, you're mentally ill.  That sounds strident, but it's true.  That's an intellectually dishonest position to take.

It's hilarious how you always whine about how we supposedly portray socons unfairly, yet you manage to come up with posts that candidly summarize basically everything that's wrong with the religious right. You perfectly explained us why your political/religious views are a mark of moral depravity.

But as others have said, if you base everything you think is moral and immoral on what a book tells you and don't care why those laws are there and proclaim that you'd reject all morality if you didn't believe in a God, you're either seriously f**ked up in the head or you need to reevaluate yourself on, well, everything.  I don't know what else to tell you.

The basis of common sense.  Though frankly, it would seem you don't have it if you believe faith to be the only basis for your morality. 

Might as well address these all at once.

Let's see here, four insults and not a single attempt to address my view. This started well.

Now let's recap what moral nihlism is; it's the view that nothing is moral or immoral. It's not embracing evil acts like what Mordecai or Hockeydude were talking about. If I woke up a moral nihlist tomorrow, my behaviour wouldn't change very much at all. I'm a creature of habit, policemen exist, and it wouldn't change what 20 odd years of upbringing has imprinted on me.

Now getting to my main issue: If we are random piles of atoms brought together for a tiny amount of time in some unimportant corner of the universe as the atheists assert, where does morality come from? Why isn't this all meaningless?

Now please tell me one rational (yes) argument for why homosexual sex is wrong.  "The Bible says so," does not count, as "the Bible says so" also justifies slavery, the stoning of adulterers, and sexism.

Now getting to my main issue: If we are random piles of atoms brought together for a tiny amount of time in some unimportant corner of the universe as the atheists assert, where does morality come from? Why isn't this all meaningless? On what basis can Tony call me morally depraved? What basis does Peter have for asserting that slavery, stoning or sexism is wrong?