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To: Crusher138
Sure, people choose whether or not to act on their impulses. It is the attraction that is not a choice.
90 posted on 04/11/2003 7:51:12 PM PDT by Qwerty
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To: Qwerty
Yeah, and I'm sure arsonists would like us to all accept them because they have always liked playing with fire and we should all just look the other way when they burn down a building.

Kleptomaniacs would also like us to just let them go when they are caught stealing because they just can help it, it is a compulsion they can't ignore. Hey, those stores will never miss it, they have lots of money.

Alcoholics would like to chime in about now. They can't help it if they drink, they just can't stop themselves. Besides, being drunk never hurt anyone...

There are all sorts of attractions and compulsions that are neither healthy nor moral. Just about everyone struggles with something. The difference is the righteous or moral person recognizes the immorality of their actions, owns the action (confession, facing punishment, whatever) and then attempts to live their life without repeating that behavior. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. The important part is the effort (and the eventual success due to that effort).

The immoral (or amoral) person rationalizes or justifies the actions or behaviors that, while they know are immoral, are either too pleasurable to deny or too strong of a compulsion to easily resist. To further justify their actions and to deflect criticism, they pronounce everyone who sees their behaviors as immoral as being immoral themselves for having a moral stance - truly Orwellian "Good is bad, bad is good" doublethink.

To think that because one has "always known" that one is *blank* is a justification for behaving in an immoral manner would be tantamount to allowing absolute relativism, with every individual being their own arbitrator of what is good or bad. I postulate that given no societal structures or mores to guide or restrict them, most men would be polygamous, leading to a breakdown of the basic family structure, spreading of disease, and other unpleasant consequences. Given no law to stop them the strong would take from the weak.

I realize that I have strayed from the original point so I will tack back over.

***It is the attraction that is not a choice.***

It isn't the attraction society is worried about. It is acting on that attraction, and the demands of those acting on the attraction that every one else accept their immorality, that is the problem.
91 posted on 04/12/2003 8:33:21 AM PDT by Crusher138 (crush her? I don't even know her!)
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