[ClancyJ]

but groups like NAMBLA have adults speaking out that claim they were sexually active with an adult as children and that they function normally today

How funny!!!! Normal? Then why have they formed an organization to promote their seeking out young for their pleasure? They think they are normal. Normal to them means sex with children so that they feel like big important men. Normal to them is not heterosexual sex or they would be forming some other type of organization - not one promoting sex with the children of our society.

[Texaggie79]

Normal is what society defines it as. Today, our society is defining normal sexuality as anything you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone else. Fortunately we still define child sex as harmful to the child but that is slowly eroding. However, within those adults that claim to be "normal" they do claim that they are hetero sexual and have no desire for homosexual or phedophile sexual activity. Basically they are trying to cover all their bases.

[r9etb]

Hold on a moment. I (and I imagine Frapster) don't disagree with you on whether it's wrong. The underlying issue is to determine why it's wrong.

I believe it's because there is a God, and that He has set before us certain standards, which He has made known to us, which we know to be true, and for which we will be held accountable.

I also believe that without God it is impossible to say that something is wrong.

One interesting thrust of this debate is that religion and God are being held up as mere points of view by both believers and non-believers -- at which point the religious argument is lost, because believers have given up the right to fall back on God.

The only remaining grounds for debate are pragmatic and emotional, and neither of them allows us to say pedophilia is "wrong, wrong, wrong."