I don’t believe you’re the type of person who values truth over ‘winning’ arguments.

(( Your ‘Grant Dexter’ is my ‘Heraclides’))

I really just don’t feel all that patient or courteous and I don’t believe you’re the type of person who values truth over ‘winning’ arguments.

The best advice I can give you is to go talk to fellow Christians who happen to believe, first, that the earth is somewhat older than 6000 years and, if you find their evidence compelling, talk to a theistic evolutionist. Maybe then we’d have enough of an overlap to even begin a dialogue.

I wish you all the best.

You’re still making things up.

Too much information bro – take it to confession! : )

Things can be wrong for lots of different reasons. Things that are ‘right’ in most circumstances can be ‘wrong’ in others. And of course, I don’t call people who engage in SGSS ‘evil’.

I just think the behaviour is contrary to how our bodies are designed, and that seems logical whether you think we’ve been designed by God+nothing, God+evolution, Evolution+god or evolution+Nothing… And yes, I’m well aware that your nose isn’t ‘designed’ to be picked either. But again, the wrongness or rightness of ‘nose-picking’ is tied up not only with the design of nose and of finger, but also with our relationship to others, self, etc., etc. There ARE wrong ways to picketh the noseth. I used to be (OK still am!) quite a picker, myself, and would often get nose-bleeds… This would be one of many shades, hues and degrees of ‘wrongness’. It makes me an evil-dirty-nose-picker. But this is different from being an evil child pornographer. And so it engaging in SGSS. I think it’s wrong – but wrong in a very different way to which other things are wrong.

Things aren’t wrong ‘just because they are dammit’. They’re wrong in the sense of breaking relationship between other, self, creation/nature, etc.

Anything for science eh! : )

Dale – how am I thinking about these things – well the word ‘wrong’ seems to be the problem in that does it mean ‘bad, evil, hurtful to others, immoral…?’ or something like ‘not socially acceptable,’or ‘not correct/abnormal’ or ‘an illness’. If my son picked his nose, I’d say don’t do that, you don’t stick your finger in there, even if you do enjoy it. If he just couldnt stop despite attempts to do so and just couldnt feel happy without frequent nose picking, and went about his nose picking in the privacy of his own room and always washed his hands afterwards and disposed of the bogies, and even if this behaviour was symptom of an underlying pyschological issue, at worst I would say he had some sort of problem/illness. At no point would I say he had been immoral or evil. So in many respects I’d see SSGS in much the same way. In saying that I appreciate that comparisions to sky diving and nose picking will fall short because when it comes to sexual connections, it seems there is a much greater psychological or spiritual impact.

On “psychopathic behaviour”:
Would it help if this was narrowed down to specific specific psychopathic tendencies?

Also, on the “not much you can do” point by the criminologist, I reckon he/she is mostly right. When it comes to humans developing self-control in their lives, their desire(will) to change is absolutely key. You can’t change someone’s desire(will) by brute force or by yelling at them. However, if they genuinely want to (in this case) not be a psychopath, then I think there IS much that can be done.