Gay, Catholic and Doing Fine

[athrock]

This is what saddens me about atheism...to see how people who are enslaved by their own emotions, their own carnal desires, and their own limited understanding actually believe themselves to be free.

I am a happily married woman, and faithful wife to my husband; No slave to my carnal desires.  I don't understand why you don't feel you deserve the very same.  And yeah, you're right.  I don't need a sky daddy to show me right from wrong any more.  I grew up and learned to think for myself.  Freedom.  

Carnal desires include far more than sexual matters, LC.

To be "carnal" means to live according to the desires of the flesh. This could mean anything from a desire for more chocolate, a bigger house, a promotion at work. These things are not bad - nor is sex, btw - but our DESIRES for them can be the things that DRIVE us each day. As such, these desires are disordered.

You may have seen the bumpersticker "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins." This is an example of a carnal, or worldly, philosophy. Perhaps you have a friend or neighbor whose whole life revolves around his new boat, her vacation plans, her wardrobe, his promotion. Bigger. Better. Faster. More expensive toys. They are not trying to merely keep up with the Joneses, they want to BE the Joneses. They have a hunger for things, for pleasures - drugs, alcohol, sex, money, power - that is insatiable, and they strive to find anything to fill the emptiness they feel inside. Something to distract them from the pain. This is because the things of this world cannot satisfy us for very long. We are eternal and these momentary, material pleasures are not.

And not to replay a subject which has been beaten to death in this forum, but without God, you can ACT according to your ideas of right and wrong, but you cannot KNOW what is right and wrong.