The urge to consider homicide upon others may also be a genetic trait, yet, the overt exercise of that trait is going to get the poor genetically twisted individual into trouble.
There is no sin in being predisposed to a certain cast of mind. What makes that urge a sin is to act upon it, especially as it may cause undue harm when such action is directed at an unwilling or unsuspecting individual.
In each instance, the moral strength NOT to simply follow the predisposition is a sign of great intestinal fortitude and a supreme test of one’s worthiness as a human being.
Not so sure about that as you. Jesus said a man is guilty of adultery just for looking on a woman with lust. That's pointed right at the mental operation that precedes the act, the inclination of the heart, and Jesus is putting it in the same class as the act itself. Honestly, I think we are too easy on ourselves. God sent Jesus to save us from our sin, but we cannot even acknowledge the true depths of our sin, that it is not measured simply by outward application of the "do no harm" principle, but by confronting the rancid nature of one's innermost soul being in rebellion against God.
BTW, this is a line that must be crossed. In preaching the Gospel we are obligated to preach the whole truth about God, including his righteousness and rejection of sin, even if that puts us at odds with the corrupt laws of our current civil authorities. Only a sinner who knows his own sinfulness and the power of it will see any need to seek out a Savior. No human law has the power or the authority to stop that work from going forward.
Exactly. Its amazing that so many who either call themselves conservative/Republican/libertarian seem to be deniers of “freewill” which is acceptance of the core justification for socialism. Most are born with capability for sexual desire as well as many other drives but we have a choice to do the right thing or not. Denying that choice is dangerous because if you are going to justify being gay with genetics then you must justify adultery, molestation, and even murder. It is a very bad path we are on when we are basically saying you are doomed by your birth and can’t possibly choose a different path than that defined by your environment and genetics.
Throw in karma and reincarnation, and you get to keep a loving God in your religious theory. Because it would mean that the difficulty of the struggle is related to past behavior that must be dealt with now. But without those dynamics, what's left?
What's left, is a God who makes person A, and person B, with no karma and no reincarnation. Person A has sexual feelings for the opposite sex, while person B has sexual feelings for the same sex, .
So person A knows that their sexual drive is so powerful that even within the bounds of heterosexual dating and marriage, they have sinned many times. But that their sexual drive is so powerful it could never be completely extinguished. Even when they have tried to remain non-sexual, they have failed, every time.
But person A is told to completely extinguish their sexual drive and never act on it - period.
Punishments?
Person A goes to purgatory, and then after a period of time, they go to heaven - forever.
Person B goes to hell, forever.
Which means that, for being unable to stop homosexual sexual urges during a lifetime of, say 80 years - the same strength urges that a heterosexual has - that after a million years of pure heaven, of love and laughter and discovery and pleasure, the heterosexual has an infinite amount of time ahead of them for the same joy, while after a million years in hell, a million years of screamin agony, terror, suffering and abject horror, the homosexual has an infinite amount of time of the same, endless suffering ahead of them.
All because of the difference between who they were sexually attracted to, for 80 years each, at the same level of sexual intensity, which the heterosexual admits they could never ignore themselves (towards the opposite sex).
M'kay.
I could even go along with this if you admitted the God of such a scenario was a psychopath.
But a LOVING God?
Maybe that's why Pope Francis recently said "who am I to judge"?