It's hard for me to participate in a discussion such as this, because the understandings of religious faith are so far from what is my reality. Steve Shaw asks, "why does the Catholic Church make such a huge thing about sex?"
Well, in my experience of 67 years as a Catholic, 8 years of seminary, and various periods of church employment, I haven't seen this "huge thing." It's there, and some individuals make a "huge thing" of it, but most priests I know are very critical of priests who speak about sex from the pulpit.
And the God that is argued about here, is a very simplistic God that is very foreign to the concept of God I learned in seminary.

Some people say I'm some sort of mystic, and I suppose I am. I think I prefer the word "contemplative." There are times when I put myself in a space where there is nothing but God...or maybe there's just nothing. But at the same time, everything is there, and I let it run past me and I contemplate it. That's what I do when I have the luxury of sacred space and sacred time. When I'm finished, I find I have a deeper appreciation of all that surrounds me, and I'm able to approach reality with deeper insight.

As I go through life, I encounter experiences and ideas that I consider to be significant, and I take them with me into my contemplation. And in that contemplation, I find an essence of things that I see to be divine, or to be an expression of the divine. I see the same things that everyone else sees - but in the essence of these things I see, I find something sacred, something that I see as divine. Others can look at the same things and not see divinity - and I accept that their perspective is legitimate but different from mine.

And part of my perspective is the tradition and teaching and ritual that I come from. I don't want to argue about this or prove anything - this is simply my perspective, and it means a lot to me.

-Joe-