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Comment by nabnob | Hacker News Reader

I've definitely noticed this trend in my own thinking - hyper-individualism, along with a healthy dose of woe-is-me. It's especially bad on sites like Tumblr, where people list out their mental health problems along with other ways they define themselves in the header of their blog.

On the one hand, I think it's good that people are discussing things like depression, anxiety, etc. more openly. But as someone who has struggled with depression and feeling suicidal at various points, I think there's a healthier way to frame your thinking, so that you're not acting like depression, or loneliness, or sadness are inevitable, and like you have zero control over your mood or feelings.

I had this epiphany after going through a break up, where I could feel myself heading towards a depressive spiral. I was obsessing over how sad I was, replaying happy moments and unfulfilled fantasies about the future in my head...and then I realized I was actually making myself feel worse, and that I could actually make myself stop wallowing in my own sadness by thinking about other things.

I think the most important thing to do is to get away from staying in your own head and overthinking things. Interact with other people in real life (not on social media), do physical exercise, practice mindfulness meditation, and try observing your feelings and separating your sense of self from those feelings.

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This is the meaning of the phrase, "depression is a choice." Unfortunately, depression robs you of the skills you need to make the choice.

Glad things worked out for you.

A bummer this perspective is shunned. This is exactly what I realized when I went through many years of depression. I never saw a therapist: "If I can't fix or accept this on my own, it's not worth fixing."

I slowly started seeing more friends, thought deeply about why I felt so horrible via substances, and eventually came out the other side. Now, you simply cannot get me down, and I'm lovin' it. :)

I believe it is shunned because it points the blame back mostly on the sufferer. Since it's a "choice" it's often deduced (incorrectly) that it's similar to choosing something menial like what clothes you want to wear or what you want to eat for lunch.

Instead, if you want to think this way (that depression is largely a choice) then you need to reflect on the fact that one can make a series of choices in order to better control one's mood and outlook. A sustained series of choices over a period of time can elevate the mood and mental state.

This isn't ignoring the fact that some should seek professional help, or chemical aides in getting this done. Depression is simply a spectrum (like everything else these days) which may or may not require more outside sources to circumnavigate.

In that way it's a choice, and becomes less of an issue with "someone is broken, but they choose to be". Their selective consciousness is controlling their outlook.

>because it points the blame back mostly on the sufferer.

It's certainly perceived to do that, but it can also be read as putting the power to change back mostly on the sufferer. Which is exactly right. Unfortunately it's a chicken/egg kinda situation where the advice is right but entirely indigestible to someone in need of it.

Happy to hear you've got yourself back on track :)

I heard/hold a similar take on depression that sounds a little nicer, for better or for worse: it's an issue for which you must seek the answer to on your own, but the problem is that the condition itself takes away your motivation to do anything about it...

Thanks, I'm doing a lot better now. I definitely think this is something that has to be learned over time - at my lowest point, if someone gave me this advice I'm not sure I would have been able to use it effectively.

That's the joke. It's just not funny. But please, don't discount therapy. It can hardly hurt.

The only thing that has been working for me was following traditional Catholic teachings to a "t". I know religion is taboo in scientific circles, and educated people think of it as just another psychological tool, but it's actually the other way around. Catholicism encompasses everything about psychology, but while remaining grounded in the philosophical truths and principles that make up objective existence.

Without that, we have no anchor, and so psychological principles change regularly as the leaders of the field "learn more" about how they were previously mistaken (and then wipe their hands clean of the damage done to innocent people by their incorrect teachings, as they cover it up and move on). Saint Frances de Sales and Saint John Bosco were called masters of human psychology, and secular psychology is only now catching up to them in agreement.

Before we can get rid of negative problems in ourselves or others, we must first understand the nature of ourselves, and of the problems, because if we misunderstand these true natures, we're going to be remedying it the wrong way. And thinking of life or the mind as merely effects of the material world is already starting off on a bad principle, and leads to things like over medication, presuming that the mind can be fixed by changing things in the physical brain, which is really only a telephone by which the soul interacts with the physical world.

I know enlightened minds will scoff at these ideas, assuming religion to be for the ignorant, and maybe I am an ignorant fool, but anyone who agrees that there are absolute and objective truths will see clearly that the world is going insane. Parents proudly teaching their children that they can choose their gender, encouraging safe spaces where intellectual growth is supposed to be sought by mature young adults, grown men and women spending all their free time chasing every physical and mental pleasure as slaves of their passions without ever accomplishing anything of value, left wondering why they feel unfulfilled at the end of each wasted day.

Anyone who recognizes these truths and is frustrated by the world going in the wrong direction, especially with how it has been addressing (or rather enabling and encouraging) mental health issues, should not scoff at the ideas, principles, values, and beliefs that produced men and women who were willing to give up every good pleasure on earth for the honorable and noble goal of selflessly doing good for others in this life, that they may reap rewards for themselves and others in the next life. The Catholic Church has produced so many saints like Saint Benedict, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint John Paul II, Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and so many more that you'd do well to look further into what biases and inaccurate beliefs you have against its objective, intellectual, noble truths.

The Catholic Church also held orgies in its sacred halls, enabled and hid a variety of pedophiles, and led a variety of violent conflicts for selfish gains. That doesn’t mean Catholicism is bad, or even “the church”. but citing a few saints as evidence that something is good is some pretty serious cherry picking.

Religious structure is good. People do better when they have a compelling framework and a strong social community. The issue with specific religions is it holds specific beliefs as a pre requisite, so it’s hard to just jump in amidst large bodies of diverse opinions and conflicting scientific evidence. Most people would benefit from joining any well intentioned religious group. And most of the moral arguments for any specific one tend to be compatible with the rest. So yeah, religion is generally a good thing for people; no, it’s not fair to claim it’s unilaterally good; and in general, mixing emotional arguments with world views on the nature of existence is likely to annoy others.

> The Catholic Church also held orgies in its sacred halls

You were lied to, my friend.

> enabled and hid a variety of pedophiles

Individuals did that, and that's very sad and damaging.

> and led a variety of violent conflicts for selfish gains

Read up on the Crusades (and Spanish Inquisition) from a Catholic perspective. It's not as cut and dry as people make it.

> The issue with specific religions is it holds specific beliefs as a pre requisite,

That's fine, as long as the beliefs are true.

> so it’s hard to just jump in amidst large bodies of diverse opinions

Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them to be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism. That's why I'm here. It is the only belief system fully compatible with intellectual integrity. Saint Thomas Aquinas said the same thing when he said that anyone who actually looked into Islam would see clearly that it is utterly absurd and full of contradictions.

> and conflicting scientific evidence.

There is none.

Sure

> Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them to be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism. That's why I'm here. It is the only belief system fully compatible with intellectual integrity. Saint Thomas Aquinas said the same thing when he said that anyone who actually looked into Islam would see clearly that it is utterly absurd and full of contradictions.

Roman Catholicism says that communion will turn wine and bread into literal flesh and blood. How on earth is that "compatible with intellectual integrity"? Or believing in a literal virgin birth? Another thing I can't intellectually justify is insisting on priest celibacy and keeping women out of the priesthood.

I'm not going to debate in favor of Islam, but it seems that mainstream protestant beliefs (or at least those which I'm familiar with, the beliefs of United Methodism) are just as capable of claiming the good parts of Christian philosophy, without insisting on the parts which clearly just exist due to the the Roman Catholic penchant for power wrangling and hierarchies.

> Roman Catholicism says that communion will turn wine and bread into literal flesh and blood. How on earth is that "compatible with intellectual integrity"?

That is called Transubstantiation and it is a daily recurring miracle. Miracles, by definition, are God bending the rules of physics, which He created and continually sustains, and is thus allowed to bend. This is philosophical but logically consistent.

> Or believing in a literal virgin birth?

Another miracle.

> insisting on priest celibacy

That's a rule, and put there for a very good reason. The less divided your heart is by worldly cares, the more you can care only for the people God put in your care.

> keeping women out of the priesthood

Just as much as men are kept out of giving birth. Consider this quote from G. K. Chesterton: "How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

> are just as capable of claiming the good parts of Christian philosophy, without insisting on the parts which clearly just exist due to the the Roman Catholic penchant for power wrangling and hierarchies.

They say "you are saved by faith alone" and "the Bible is the sole authority on religion" and yet the Bible literally says "you are not saved by faith alone". That's plenty enough to disregard all their remaining arguments in my opinion.

After using the process of elimination, only the Catholic Church's doctrines remain intact.

So for #1 and #2, you just hand-wave your doctrine as "miracles" that defy all otherwise known and consistent laws of the universe. Doesn't seem like intellectual integrity to me.

And #3 and #4 are directly at odds. You say Priests are not allowed to have children, which is why they are celibate (fair enough) but we all know children can't be born without both a Father and Mother involved. So when men choose not to have children for the priesthood, it's seen as noble. But Women aren't given that same choice in your view (Except they are, because nuns exist, yet Nuns cannot ever actually lead the Church).

Why don't you admit that the reason the Catholic church does not allow women priests is not because "a women's function is laborious" (a function not all women naturally can even do, otherwise why can't barren women be priests?), but rather because you take the words of Paul literally and do not allow a woman to hold authority over a man? That's the real reason and you know it.

Also, the "faith alone" thing is a bit misunderstood to be honest, mostly caused by how protestants overload that word. They basically mean that you cannot be saved by works alone under any circumstance, and that if you are unable to produce any works but have faith, you can still be saved (the example here is the penitent thief on the cross). After that, they consider works to be a natural outcome of legitimate faith, and that if you have the chance to do works and don't you'll lose your justification by faith.

There's a sermon by Wesley on that here: http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley...

St. Paul's words come from a deeper natural distinction between man and woman, and have to do with the fall of Adam and Eve, where Eve was the one who was deceived by the serpent, and also that Eve was created from Adam, and thus woman from man. Man was created first, because man is the default gender of humanity, and from man came woman. "But now man is born of woman," St. Paul also says, "and all things are from God." We are equal in dignity but not in our roles. Some women cannot bare children, but all men cannot bare children. Some men cannot be priests, for example if castrated, yet all women cannot be priests, because man is the gender God assigned to fatherhood and leadership, to represent his fatherhood and paternal leadership. Yet we are not to lead as the world leads, by "lording it over" others; we are to lead as Jesus led, meekly, humbly, with gentleness, by example, and doing everything in our power to help those whom God has put in our charge to accomplish their duties, unlike the Pharisees who "lay heavy burdens" on their charges "but will not lift one finger to help them carry it." Everyone has the heavy burden of going through a wearisome life, and our jobs as fathers are to show them how to make that burden lighter, first and foremost by bringing them to Jesus, who says "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

St. John Paul II talked a lot about this subject about 45 years ago, here's a PDF with a clickable table of contents: https://d2wldr9tsuuj1b.cloudfront.net/2232/documents/2016/9/...

> So for #1 and #2, you just hand-wave your doctrine as "miracles" that defy all otherwise known and consistent laws of the universe. Doesn't seem like intellectual integrity to me.

It is not intellectually dishonest to believe that God, who governs the universe and it's laws is able to suspend them if he so chooses.

> Why don't you admit that the reason the Catholic church does not allow women priests is not because "a women's function is laborious" (a function not all women naturally can even do, otherwise why can't barren women be priests?), but rather because you take the words of Paul literally and do not allow a woman to hold authority over a man? That's the real reason and you know it.

No, that is not the real reason. The idea that men and women are complementary is rooted in Christian teaching since the beginning. My understanding is that the reason women are not allowed to be priests is partly because during mass the priest stands in for Christ ( in persona Christi ) and Christ was born a man. Women hold authority over men all the time in the Catholic church, many doctors of the Church are women.

> Also, the "faith alone" thing is a bit misunderstood to be honest, mostly caused by how protestants overload that word. They basically mean that you cannot be saved by works alone under any circumstance, and that if you are unable to produce any works but have faith, you can still be saved (the example here is the penitent thief on the cross). After that, they consider works to be a natural outcome of legitimate faith, and that if you have the chance to do works and don't you'll lose your justification by faith.

This is just a long winded way of saying you are not saved by faith alone.

Doctor of the Church means a teacher whose teachings are universally applicable to everyone in the Catholic Church. It has nothing to do with authority. Many nuns were traditionally teachers of children, too. And each of the female doctors of the church, as far as I know, where nuns who submitted all their teachings to their superiors and confessors, who then examined and verified her writings for orthodoxy (1 Timothy 2:14) before recommending them for others or permitting them to be published (cf. Imprimi Potest).

What makes, for example, Hinduism unsustainable?

What is a social organization but a group of individuals?

When individuals agree on basic absolute truths, they are organized into a social group. When a few individuals deviate from what the original group agreed on to be absolute truth, and the remaining individuals who do agree with the originally agreed upon original truths say that those people are not "one of us", even if the dissenters shout "we are part of the original group", it's obvious to everyone that they aren't. This is also true of the Protestants (Luther, Zwigli, Calvin) and all heretics before and after them. But it's just as true for those in the Church who do evil, because even though they aren't committing formal heresy, they are showing by their evil actions that they do not really know the God that we teach, because otherwise they wouldn't be doing evil. That's not to say they aren't formally part of the Church -- the Catholic Church is a hospital for sinners just as well as a museum of Saints. But these evil people don't at all represent what we teach, because they don't follow it. I myself have done plenty of wrong in my past and I have no excuse except that I was a poor excuse for a Christian, and I did not represent what my holy Church teaches, and for that I am deeply ashamed. But that doesn't change that what my Church teaches is true, even though I did not understand it correctly it apply it to myself well.

Couldn't agree more with that. Despite some of the talented thinkers the Roman Catholic church has produced, there are too many obviously despicable things they've supported to hold them in very high regard in my views (their refusal to allow women in leadership is another one which just doesn't jive). It's not honest to ignore that the bad parts were created by the exact same doctrines and structures that enabled good parts. After all, "By their fruits you will know them."

The saints are people who followed the principles of the religion. It's disingenuous to suggest that the actions of those who flouted Christianity's principles and rules should be allowed to define it.

> mixing emotional arguments with world views on the nature of existence is likely to annoy others

Perhaps, but the moral framework you cite as a benefit of religion is inextricably tied with a particular view on the nature of existence. People are far more likely to follow rules if they make sense.

It’s not that disingenuous when it’s the officials of the governing body of the faith as defined by the faith.

But this is the problem with any movement from feminism to Catholicism. It’s defined by its members but it’s members are individuals. If a group of people in the name of a movement do a bunch of things that most find disagreeable it’s not easy to separate them from the vanilla definition of the movement. There’s no objective definition of a collection of ideas. Religions and political persuasions can’t be intrinsically good, (though perhaps they can be intrinsically bad). There are certainly excellent ideas to be found in feminism and Catholicism. Yet Individuals in a belief system still have their own beliefs. There’s no purity of belief that can be identified. It’s a pointless endeavor.

And thus, saying my belief system is good as evidenced by these good people adhering to said system is a meaningless statement. I have no reason to believe that your interpretation of said system is the same as theirs. Similarly pointing to the villains of the system doesn’t mean anything either.

That's the beauty of the Catholic Church: there is purity of belief. There is a core set of things that all Catholics absolutely must believe, and any who do not, are not truly Catholics. These beliefs are laid down in many different ways and in many different books but they're all saying the same thing. The "table of contents" of these beliefs would be a book called the Catechism of The Catholic Church: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM Even though it's a full book of its own, it only barely touches on the core beliefs of our religion, like a tree trunk. The branches go very far and very wide, and you'll find them in all the writings of the Saints, all the writings of the Fathers of the Church, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Bible, and many other good books. A good portion of them are laid down for free online at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/index.html which has the Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology), many writings of the Fathers of the Church, the Bible, and many other Catholic Church documents such as Papal encyclicals.

I object that "religious group" is a per-requisite (we live in a religion-soaked culture still, it's a default).

Most people benefit from joining any structured organization with strong-shared belief system. For example, the military very specifically operates and trains this way (it's in the wording - "a soldier will..." etc.). There's of course obvious reasons they should, but the concept is the same - build up a shared base of truth.

If we look to another area, think about the term "company man" and what's actually happened in the last 50 years to how the big corporations (or maybe any?) treat their workers. That used to once be a source of a identity and purpose as well (possibly not the most healthy or reliable one) but it's very much something which has changed. The active effort to kill the Union movement has similar consequences.

You may find the story of science fiction author John C Wright interesting. Wright was an atheist who converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of 42. He once said, "If Vulcans had a church, they'd be Catholics."

https://strangenotions.com/wright-conversion/

His book "The Golden Age" from his younger atheist years is grand post-scarcity sci-fi for those interested.

Better to just read philosophy & psychology from respected sources of academia than an ideology that ruined many lives unjustly. One major negative of religious influence is creating an assumption of free will existing and thus clouding the judgment of the person which can result in depression. The person becomes less aware to how everything effecting them is external forces they have no control over. Then blaming themselves instead of accepting reality.

If we don't have control over anything, isn't accepting that even more likely to lead to a downward spiral of depression?

I think the reality is that we don't have control over everything, not that we don't have control over anything. At a minimum, we have control over our own actions. I also think that accepting what we don't have control over is a path out of depression, not into it.

But that may depend on how much a control freak a person is.

Understanding the deepest sense of reality is best for navigating what's thrown at oneself. Even if one has no control over what happens in life, such as one's thoughts, or actions because its all decided by a linear progression of external forces upon oneself and one's genetics. Ultimately it comes down to the individual desiring to be the best person they can be with using their awareness to their advantage. I can definitely handle problems & emotions better when understanding how nobody has a choice in how they are as a person. Specifically if I'm wronged by someone. That's just a small portion of what philosophy and psychology can be used for in living life.

We have control over our own will, and pretty much that alone. God has ultimate authority over everything else, and works with all things for the good of those who love him and serve him faithfully.

You literally don't, unless you had control of the "starting point" being your birth. One cannot make an action of their own without the influence of the external forces upon oneself. This isn't a bad thing, it's just reality and even studying this brings awareness to how God cannot even have own will. Once again that's not a bad thing.

It's a bit strange to think that the one who is powerful enough to not only create the universe but sustain its existence with just as much power every nanosecond would be unable to stop things from happening within creation if it were against his will, or unable to make something happen within creation if it were in his will.

> I know religion is taboo in scientific circles, and educated people think of it as just another psychological tool

I've spent years working with scientists in research labs. In my experience, this isn't as true as people assume. There are plenty of hardcore scientists who are also religious.

Implicit argument from authority.

Just because hardcore scientists are religious, anything about the religion they choose. They are mutually exclusive.

I know a couple spiritual scientists, but they all critically adopt practices based on their personal philosophy... so I don't consider them to be "religious".

Religion requires dogma and worship, surrendering free will in the extreme. Those spiritual scientists fall in the same ballpark as agnostics/atheists (myself) that learned some life lessons from Marvel comics, Miyazaki animation, and other modern myths.

I've known scientists (in the hard sciences) who were evangelical Christians, Baptists, strict Jews, and so forth. They were certainly more than just vaguely "spiritual". Two of them even tried to convert me (I am roughly agnostic).

I wouldn't venture to guess as to whether they are less common than in the general population (although it wouldn't surprise me), but they certainly exist in enough numbers for me to have met multiples of them. In fairness, though, I have met and worked with quite a few scientists over the years, so I consider it unsurprising to have met religious ones.

Hey friend, don’t judge. The world is progressing as it should. There are a lot of people and we don’t really know how to give them super productive things to do, so they chase what they want. We have enough food to feed the world, and yet can’t due to human nature.

Gender and sexuality and identity and really all of reality is fluid.

Seriously, it’s good that you’ve found solace in Catholicism, spread the word and help other people who may benefit, but don’t cast judgement on people living their lives.

I'm in no way judging other people's souls, but we can and must judge right and wrong for ourselves. And if, along the way of learning right from wrong for ourselves, we realize that right and wrong applies to more than just ourselves, and we find solid evidence of this, we must believe accordingly. Truth is Truth. Reality is not fluid, our existence is very real, and so are the laws of reality just as real as the laws of physics. They apply to all people at all times, and they still would have even if you and I were never born.

> Truth is Truth. Reality is not fluid, our existence is very real, and so are the laws of reality just as real as the laws of physics.

But we still learn, right? Some things we once thought to be real turned out to not be.

From Wikipedia[1]:

> The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture".

I believe there are plenty of gaps in human knowledge into which people can pour their faith and turn to religion for answers. Some of those answers may one day prove to be correct and others prove to be wrong.

For more than half the existence of the Roman Catholic Church, they believed that the sun went around the Earth. It was a model that seemed plain as day. It was also wrong.

I agree with your statement "we can and must judge right and wrong for ourselves". I also believe in being humble with respect to what we "know" to be true.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei

That's a very complicated subject. Read it from a pro-Catholic perspective if you truly are unbiased, and you will see that it is not as cut and dry as you'd think. Incidentally I was just reading about it again the other day from this Catholic Dictionary printed in 1885: https://archive.org/details/catholicdictiona00addirich/page/... It starts on the bottom of the right page. Click the right page to go to the next. Archive.org is wonderful.

Thanks for the link, though the exact nature of the inquiry into Galileo was not my point. It was accepted _as truth_ that the sun went around Earth by a great many people back then.

Going back up the chain in this thread, pesmhey said: > Gender and sexuality and identity and really all of reality is fluid.

To which you replied: > Truth is Truth. Reality is not fluid, our existence is very real, and so are the laws of reality just as real as the laws of physics.

I can't speak to what pesmhey intended with "all of reality is fluid", and I don't agree with that as phrased… What we perceive as reality is limited by our understanding of it. If you look up and watch the sun travel across the sky, it's easy to think that the sun goes around the Earth, just as the moon does.

It would be folly to say that humanity collectively hasn't learned a ton about human biology over the past 100 years. When it comes to gender, sexuality, and identity, we're continuing to learn and what may be seen as "truth" today may prove to be not quite right with more knowledge.

Just this week, in fact, there was the news about Caster Semenya and how the olympic folks think her testosterone levels are too high for her to compete as a woman[1]. 100 years ago, they couldn't have tested for that (testosterone was apparently discovered around 1890[2], so I don't think they would have had tests for levels of the hormone then).

To be clear, I'm not trying to make a point about the Catholic Church, but rather about truth and reality. The Catholic Church can move forward with time. I wish more people in this country would get on board with Laudato si[3] and see "climate as a common good" that we need to take seriously. (Of course, most people in the US are already on board with respect to the need to address climate issues, but those holdouts are a problem.)

FWIW, I acknowledge that progress is not always forward and that there are, indeed, aspects to our current time that will prove to be objectively problematic when we look back at them from some time in the future (just as there always have been). I don't know how common it is in actual practice, but I think stifling contentious discourse at universities is likely to be harmful for the advancement of knowledge over time.

Anyhow, this has become a ramble, and it wasn't really my intention to write an essay. Given that, I'll just stop rather than write a proper conclusion. Sorry :)

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-caster-semenyas-case-c... [2]: https://youmemindbody.com/reproductive-health/The-Elixir-of-... [3]: https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/docum...

It's true that we're learning more about the physical nature of the universe, and that's called science, which the Catholic Church has been a major proponent of all along, as a way to learn more about God's creation.

But the physical nature of the universe is only the physical nature. There is another nature of the universe that is above the physical, and that the physical deviates from sometimes due to the corruption brought into the world by the fall of man.

That "metaphysical" nature is real, even though you can't experiment on it in a lab, and some examples are sexual identity and gender. These are not fluid, even if sometimes the fallen world deviates from it. There are exactly two genders, man and woman, and we are born into those genders, which nobody chooses except God. Sometimes we may have the wrong hormones, but that's part of the fallen nature of the world, and our job is to correct those hormones through science to match our physical gender.

This may seem trivial, but it's a very important example for me because the idea of being a Man and a Woman are very little known or understood by any of us today, whereas centuries ago they were widely understood and accepted, and this plays an integral factor in how I should raise my children as a Father and Man and the Husband of my wife, and the model I should set for these roles, and similarly my wife's roles, what they should be, and the example she ought to give them of a Mother and Wife and Woman.

But when we start to teach young people that these roles or even genders are all social constructs instead of roles built into our very nature which we must recognize and learn how to fulfill, we're soon going to have a chaotic world with everyone doing pretty much everything wrong.

Okay, I see where you're coming from and appreciate you taking the time to clarify.

There is evidence that there has always been a homosexual subset of the population. One can say that this is part of the "fallen" nature of the world, or one can say that this just an aspect of nature based on the makeup of the individual.

Anyhow, I understand where you're coming from, even if it doesn't match my worldview. This is not the kind of thing that one can easily convince another about given that, as you say, "you can't experiment on it in a lab". At a certain point, we do have to take some things on faith.

south america follows catholic teachings to a T and they have too many children to support. I think your black book lied to them.

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