What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[abaris]

I don't think any sex outside of husband and wife is moral, whether it is between 2 people of the opposite sex or 2 people of the same sex. And I know it is hard for you to understand why I believe this. I don't blame you! It is one of those things that doesn't mean anything unless you believe in God, since I use God in my explanation of it.

The more important question would be if you feel it, not if you believe it.

I grew up as a catholic, so I remember much of the dogmas. But even as a child I was anything but a strong believer. My parents didn't pressure me. As far as I can tell, they weren't dogmatic believers either. As I often repeat on this board, having religious conversations isn't as common in Europe as it seems to be in the USA. Gallup polled Austria as having 51 percent of irreligious people in 2011. And that's nothing compared to Scandinavia.

You know, what little I believed as a child started to fall apart rapidly when some priest told us kids that god would take what's dearest to us if we sin. That must have been before first communion, so I may have been sevenish at the time. My feelings ranged from instant fear for my parents and other relatives to outright disgust. But it got me thinking. I didn't like that god guy for making such a threat, but as a child I made a distinction between god and Jesus and so I was able to go through the motions for another decade. But I never felt anything other than fundamental boredom when sitting through a mass. Communion was a relieve, since it meant, one more song to go and it's over.

In Austria, religion is part of the curriculum at school, if your parents don't opt you out. So we had religious classes and what I heard there, finally did it for me. I still remember a priest going berserk because one of my classmates brought a Playboy magazine. We were 14 at that time and as it is when you hit puberty, your hormones tell a more convincing story than some morality going against natural needs.

But even without religion, I have been a homophobe up until my mid 20ies. I considered them a laughing stock until I discovered my best friend to be gay. Through him I met more and more gay people and once you know them as real people with real feelings and real lives, there's no way you can stay homophobic unless you don't care about other people at all. That's my road to Damascus experience without any religion involved. And given my own past, I take every opportunity to argue the case of the LGBT community.

Wow, well this thread has turned into a regular kumbaya around the campfire.

A little understanding goes a long way to having a decent conversation. Usually we only get the missionary types kicking down the doors with all bibles blazing, so we're not used to actually have a talk.