sex and religion
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Felix_Jones
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Me
I'm pretty well what you'd call a materialist. (not the greedy kind, the kind that believes nothing exists but the physical universe). So you'd think that religion hasn't caused any sexual hang-ups, but I can attest that I have sex less than just about anyone I know.
I think religion does play a role in how we approach our sexual lives, but it is the context that religions create rather than the actual rituals/practices that affect how we have sex. I see no contradiction in someone going to church, saying the Hail Marys and then attending an orgy or something. But if the sermon delivered by whomever the religious leader is constantly outlines the evil of orgies, then that hypothetical person will be given pause. He might still go to that orgy, except do it secretly then maybe feel some latent shame about it. My point in a roundabout way, is that the religion part of it is almost beside the point, it's the religious people whom we accept as scholars or leaders or oracles and follow on a regular basis that create the hang-ups and problems. Keep in mind, these are people too (the priests, ministers, shamans, rabbis, etc.), with their own sexual hang-ups and peculiarities, don't follow them too blindly or they might transpose those traits unto you.
I'm pretty well what you'd call a materialist. (not the greedy kind, the kind that believes nothing exists but the physical universe). So you'd think that religion hasn't caused any sexual hang-ups, but I can attest that I have sex less than just about anyone I know.
I think religion does play a role in how we approach our sexual lives, but it is the context that religions create rather than the actual rituals/practices that affect how we have sex. I see no contradiction in someone going to church, saying the Hail Marys and then attending an orgy or something. But if the sermon delivered by whomever the religious leader is constantly outlines the evil of orgies, then that hypothetical person will be given pause. He might still go to that orgy, except do it secretly then maybe feel some latent shame about it. My point in a roundabout way, is that the religion part of it is almost beside the point, it's the religious people whom we accept as scholars or leaders or oracles and follow on a regular basis that create the hang-ups and problems. Keep in mind, these are people too (the priests, ministers, shamans, rabbis, etc.), with their own sexual hang-ups and peculiarities, don't follow them too blindly or they might transpose those traits unto you.
Felix_Jones
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Does anyone else think that people practice religion because they might be bored otherwise? It's like this strange mental hobby.
newbiebabe
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Absolutely Not...
We are made up of Mind, Body and Soul... therefore, we are spiritual beings and as such we many look to fill their souls ... it has nothing to do with boredom but rather with wanting a connection to something bigger than ourselves, whatever higher power one's beliefs lead them to.
To trivialize other's spiritual beliefs by stating that it is a boredom filler or as others on this board have intimated that it is stupid... is to trivialize the person themselves.
If you choose to not believe, that is fine but don't attempt to make others feel inadequate because they decide to follow their own spiritual path.
We are made up of Mind, Body and Soul... therefore, we are spiritual beings and as such we many look to fill their souls ... it has nothing to do with boredom but rather with wanting a connection to something bigger than ourselves, whatever higher power one's beliefs lead them to.
To trivialize other's spiritual beliefs by stating that it is a boredom filler or as others on this board have intimated that it is stupid... is to trivialize the person themselves.
If you choose to not believe, that is fine but don't attempt to make others feel inadequate because they decide to follow their own spiritual path.
As I understand it, Aisha was 6 when she was married to Muhammed, but he refrained from consummating the marriage until she was 9. And as far as I'm concerned, that is still child molestation, flat out.
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PeyoteCactus
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I'm Jewish.........and I consider myself to be a 'shikseh',
known in Yiddish as a "wild Jewish girl"......'nuff said
tigerjen
Actually I believe it means "a non Jewish woman" which in Hebrew traslates to
unclean,dirty,loathsome etc... this word can be broken down into many different
translations in many different lingos.
The actual word is derived from the Hebrew term "sheketz".
Side note... I too am Jewish and someone had asked me if I was "wild jew girl".
Wild can mean many different things to many different people.. wild as in love
my lover and want to have crazy nasty sex then YES. But I am not a lil lady
who sleeps with several different men. I had sex with my partner at the time
for 8 years, when I am not in a realtionship I DONT sleep with anyone.
Being on here.... helps as an outlet. HE created us this way... so why be ashamed
of self pleasure?
culloden
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That's an excellent question. I'm a Christian, and I enjoy sex. I'm monogamous, married for more than two decades, although my wife and I each had other partners before marriage. The things we've learned from this site have improved our sex life, thereby strengthening our marriage. I think God would approve of that.
IndustrialBondage mentioned being able to walk the walk. It's important to avoid hypocrisy, but we're human and therefore imperfect. We don't have to get everything right to still be good examples to our children and upstanding members of our communities.
There are things discussed on this site my wife and I would never do because they'd violate our marriage vows. Still, they're fun to read about, and if those acts are sins, well, the Bible is pretty explicit about not judging others. (That's good advice for nonbelievers as well.)
IndustrialBondage mentioned being able to walk the walk. It's important to avoid hypocrisy, but we're human and therefore imperfect. We don't have to get everything right to still be good examples to our children and upstanding members of our communities.
There are things discussed on this site my wife and I would never do because they'd violate our marriage vows. Still, they're fun to read about, and if those acts are sins, well, the Bible is pretty explicit about not judging others. (That's good advice for nonbelievers as well.)
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Re:
Sweetnpetite wrote:
I grew up here in the mid Ohio Valley end of the Bible Belt and was "Bible thumped" black and blue about sex as a child . Like so many other children it seemed to instill a sense of overwhelming guilt in me that had me only socializing with the guys my age far too long. But in my grade six year that
changed. Years later when I saw the movie "Carrie", after Stephen Kings novel, I was reminded of some of my own childhood. I also remembered that Mark Twain once referred to his America as "the land of Bibles", and went on to write some scathing novels about it.
But by the fourth and fifth grade the self loathing I felt began to fade as curiosity and intrigue emerged with the first traces of male hormones. Walking home from school with some of the older guys was always wroth with discussions of the workings of girls sexual anatomy. Occasionally some of the guys would have pages torn out of "Men's Magazines" with photos of
nekkid people engaged in sexual activities. I even got to see a picture of two
Rhinoceroses "doin it" one day after one guy read from a paperback of some
incredibly dirty details of a couple young lovers activities.
Did I feel guilty then ? No. Embarrassed a little ? Yeah. Why ? It ain't easy
trying to keep an erection & wet spot from showing as you're walking home holding your books to your crotch. You just know your buddy's would never let you hear the end of that.
By the time I learned to masturbate and began to collect magazines for my own "wank bank" I felt some guilt once again. Understand I had seen the older guys talk to each other about hair growing in the palm of the hand you jack off with, and then looking around quickly to see which of the younger kids around them were staring into the palm of their right hands with a frightened look on their faces. But I had learned to avoid that humiliation.
But I was in my later twenties before I began to become curious about where all these sex taboo's and restrictions had originated. Was it God ? Jesus ? Ancient Hebrew's whose names are lost in antiquity, or those pesky Gay Clergymen from the early Christian beginnings like Pope Paul II (1467-71) who allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.
Now if sex is so WRONG why was Pope Leo VII (936-9) reported to have died of a heart attack while having sex ? Or Pope John VII (955-64) being bludgeoned to death by the cuckolded husband of the woman he was having sex with at the time ? Or Pope John XIII (965-72) also murdered by an irate husband during the act ? Then we can't forget Heloise (1101-1164) and Abealard (1079-1142) who took their sexuality and love affair into the Clergy
and practiced it there as Nun and Priest. But these are just some of the casualties of this folly. St Jerome advocated Jehovah had forseen the fall
of Adam and Eve and had given them their genitals so that they could propagate like animals bringing forth their young between the "Urine & Feces",
implying a special humiliation with it. St Jerome (347 420) had advanced the reasoning of Jehovah that man would have propagated by more angelic means to populate the earth, although those means were never described
in any detail. I'll even give you Chapter 19 of Genisis which makes the best Jerry Springer - De Sade Show look benign by comparison.
Having a sense of history here, I've focused it on the past history which has given us so much of today's worn out "old" thinking from the earlier wise men. Some here still believe we have to live up to the letter of it yet to this day, for whatever their motives, but it's a convention in life I've grown past. The onus of leadership is to lead, right or wrong leaders must lead and never sit idle and these religious leaders are no different. Obviously many of our early
Clergy enjoyed a lucrative industry from their leadership roles too whether they saw fit to practice the laws they laid down for the rest of us or not, as I've presented above.
Although I grew up a Protestant, I've known the affections of various Jewish and Catholic girls beyond those of my own faith. Only with the Catholic girls
was I so cognizant of sin within sex as if it were a dynamic part of the activity.
It made sex better for me in some perverse way I do believe. It seemed to be that they were into a mental bondage with their passions and beliefs that led to a kind of obsessive compulsive hunger for sex and then redemption or atonement. And because I wasn't of the same faith any union between us wouldn't have been recognized so she could receive absolution. No wonder
it seemed I could never over do it with them or wear out my welcome in their bed.
Today I see sex with any single uninvolved female as amoral. It isn't sin or non sin. The sins involved in sex are more external to the point and occur by the way we relate to each other in good faith or not.
When this subject of guilty pleasures of the flesh comes up I think of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of 5 basic needs. Safety, Hygiene, Love, Ego, Self Actualization, with Love/Sex in the center. If only our ancient theologians had realized the natural order the Creator laid out before us as Maslow saw it and seen fit to lay off the sexual prohibition reinforced with their devinly inspired fairy tales. Fast forward to our life & times the sin of sex appears to me that a more perfect contraception for those who want or need it isn't available while meds which will enable us to continue having sex beyond our fertility span are.
But this is just my view on the question.
But for some entertaining reading on this subject, let me suggest "Good Book" by David Plotz (the editor of "Slate") Nov. 2009
Sweetnpetite wrote:
I grew up here in the mid Ohio Valley end of the Bible Belt and was "Bible thumped" black and blue about sex as a child . Like so many other children it seemed to instill a sense of overwhelming guilt in me that had me only socializing with the guys my age far too long. But in my grade six year that
changed. Years later when I saw the movie "Carrie", after Stephen Kings novel, I was reminded of some of my own childhood. I also remembered that Mark Twain once referred to his America as "the land of Bibles", and went on to write some scathing novels about it.
But by the fourth and fifth grade the self loathing I felt began to fade as curiosity and intrigue emerged with the first traces of male hormones. Walking home from school with some of the older guys was always wroth with discussions of the workings of girls sexual anatomy. Occasionally some of the guys would have pages torn out of "Men's Magazines" with photos of
nekkid people engaged in sexual activities. I even got to see a picture of two
Rhinoceroses "doin it" one day after one guy read from a paperback of some
incredibly dirty details of a couple young lovers activities.
Did I feel guilty then ? No. Embarrassed a little ? Yeah. Why ? It ain't easy
trying to keep an erection & wet spot from showing as you're walking home holding your books to your crotch. You just know your buddy's would never let you hear the end of that.
By the time I learned to masturbate and began to collect magazines for my own "wank bank" I felt some guilt once again. Understand I had seen the older guys talk to each other about hair growing in the palm of the hand you jack off with, and then looking around quickly to see which of the younger kids around them were staring into the palm of their right hands with a frightened look on their faces. But I had learned to avoid that humiliation.
But I was in my later twenties before I began to become curious about where all these sex taboo's and restrictions had originated. Was it God ? Jesus ? Ancient Hebrew's whose names are lost in antiquity, or those pesky Gay Clergymen from the early Christian beginnings like Pope Paul II (1467-71) who allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.
Now if sex is so WRONG why was Pope Leo VII (936-9) reported to have died of a heart attack while having sex ? Or Pope John VII (955-64) being bludgeoned to death by the cuckolded husband of the woman he was having sex with at the time ? Or Pope John XIII (965-72) also murdered by an irate husband during the act ? Then we can't forget Heloise (1101-1164) and Abealard (1079-1142) who took their sexuality and love affair into the Clergy
and practiced it there as Nun and Priest. But these are just some of the casualties of this folly. St Jerome advocated Jehovah had forseen the fall
of Adam and Eve and had given them their genitals so that they could propagate like animals bringing forth their young between the "Urine & Feces",
implying a special humiliation with it. St Jerome (347 420) had advanced the reasoning of Jehovah that man would have propagated by more angelic means to populate the earth, although those means were never described
in any detail. I'll even give you Chapter 19 of Genisis which makes the best Jerry Springer - De Sade Show look benign by comparison.
Having a sense of history here, I've focused it on the past history which has given us so much of today's worn out "old" thinking from the earlier wise men. Some here still believe we have to live up to the letter of it yet to this day, for whatever their motives, but it's a convention in life I've grown past. The onus of leadership is to lead, right or wrong leaders must lead and never sit idle and these religious leaders are no different. Obviously many of our early
Clergy enjoyed a lucrative industry from their leadership roles too whether they saw fit to practice the laws they laid down for the rest of us or not, as I've presented above.
Although I grew up a Protestant, I've known the affections of various Jewish and Catholic girls beyond those of my own faith. Only with the Catholic girls
was I so cognizant of sin within sex as if it were a dynamic part of the activity.
It made sex better for me in some perverse way I do believe. It seemed to be that they were into a mental bondage with their passions and beliefs that led to a kind of obsessive compulsive hunger for sex and then redemption or atonement. And because I wasn't of the same faith any union between us wouldn't have been recognized so she could receive absolution. No wonder
it seemed I could never over do it with them or wear out my welcome in their bed.
Today I see sex with any single uninvolved female as amoral. It isn't sin or non sin. The sins involved in sex are more external to the point and occur by the way we relate to each other in good faith or not.
When this subject of guilty pleasures of the flesh comes up I think of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of 5 basic needs. Safety, Hygiene, Love, Ego, Self Actualization, with Love/Sex in the center. If only our ancient theologians had realized the natural order the Creator laid out before us as Maslow saw it and seen fit to lay off the sexual prohibition reinforced with their devinly inspired fairy tales. Fast forward to our life & times the sin of sex appears to me that a more perfect contraception for those who want or need it isn't available while meds which will enable us to continue having sex beyond our fertility span are.
But this is just my view on the question.
But for some entertaining reading on this subject, let me suggest "Good Book" by David Plotz (the editor of "Slate") Nov. 2009
Last edited:
Little Bird
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I grew up as a pastors child in Germany. Though christian mythology does not do a thing to me and I've never found any wisdom in the bible (at least any that wasn't allready obvious to me), we kids were raised with certain values regarding dignity and respecting other peoples worth as a person and trying your best at doing what is the right thing to do. I'm not sure if these could really be called Christian values, but I think that this is what our parents wanted to teach us. It's not that imporant that we believe in the words of the bible or observe the rituals that work for them. I think if we know how to treat other people the right way and respect everyones dignity, that is all they really want of us.
And I think we come from a very liberal group within christianity. As I've been raised it's wrong to think negatively of homosexuals and actually "the Christian thing" to support them. And I think that most pastors in our area think the same.
As long as everyone is genuinely sure that nobody involved will come to harm, I think it's morally right to do about everything you like. Unfortunate accidents may happen or things turn not out as intended, but it only becomes morally wrong if you did not care about the wellbeing of others.
I also do not think that sexual activities have to be limited to a commited monogamous relationship. I accept that other people have other views on this, but for myself, I think that any kind of sexual activity should only happen as a form of expressing your affection for other people. If you engange in sexual activities primarily to gain sexual gratification, I want to have no part of it. To my it feels indignifying and like not treating someone as a person first. If people have sex anyway and both do not care about it, I do not judge them or would want to stop them. But it somehow reduces my respect for them.
And I think this respect for a persons dignity has influenced my sexual life to a great deal. I was never "actively looking" for a partner, because to me it feels like searching for someone to fill that role, instead of turning a relationship romantic, because I feel affection for that person. I never had any interest at getting a girlfriend at school when about everyone felt that you just had to have sex to be a respectable person. I still have not meet anyone yet, with whom I would like our relationship to turn to a romantic and sexual level. I'm not at all proud of being a virgin or protecting myself for marriage. But I feel quite good about not having had sex for the sake of having sex.
And it also influences my taste in porn. Really nothing wrong with same-sex sex, polygamy, or even "casual" sex between friends. I even like some BDSM porn at times, but only if it does not seem abusive to me. Which unfortunately it very often does. I think control can be a very nice thing, but not if it causes someone any discomfort. More enthusiastic fans may claim that it's only fantasies and actual pleasure for everyone in the end, but I just don't get convinced most of the time.
And I think we come from a very liberal group within christianity. As I've been raised it's wrong to think negatively of homosexuals and actually "the Christian thing" to support them. And I think that most pastors in our area think the same.
As long as everyone is genuinely sure that nobody involved will come to harm, I think it's morally right to do about everything you like. Unfortunate accidents may happen or things turn not out as intended, but it only becomes morally wrong if you did not care about the wellbeing of others.
I also do not think that sexual activities have to be limited to a commited monogamous relationship. I accept that other people have other views on this, but for myself, I think that any kind of sexual activity should only happen as a form of expressing your affection for other people. If you engange in sexual activities primarily to gain sexual gratification, I want to have no part of it. To my it feels indignifying and like not treating someone as a person first. If people have sex anyway and both do not care about it, I do not judge them or would want to stop them. But it somehow reduces my respect for them.
And I think this respect for a persons dignity has influenced my sexual life to a great deal. I was never "actively looking" for a partner, because to me it feels like searching for someone to fill that role, instead of turning a relationship romantic, because I feel affection for that person. I never had any interest at getting a girlfriend at school when about everyone felt that you just had to have sex to be a respectable person. I still have not meet anyone yet, with whom I would like our relationship to turn to a romantic and sexual level. I'm not at all proud of being a virgin or protecting myself for marriage. But I feel quite good about not having had sex for the sake of having sex.
And it also influences my taste in porn. Really nothing wrong with same-sex sex, polygamy, or even "casual" sex between friends. I even like some BDSM porn at times, but only if it does not seem abusive to me. Which unfortunately it very often does. I think control can be a very nice thing, but not if it causes someone any discomfort. More enthusiastic fans may claim that it's only fantasies and actual pleasure for everyone in the end, but I just don't get convinced most of the time.
Felix_Jones
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Trivializing
Where exactly on the body would one find this 'soul'? Is it somewhere near the pancreas? You talk about some mystic ethereal connection, but don't you realize that it's all in your head? That's why I think it might be a by-product of boredom. There's so many things right on this earth strange and wild and fascinating, which can occupy one's mental headspace rather than mooning about some sort of imaginary higher power.
Maybe your senses are somehow diminished? Like are you blind or deaf or something so that you can't experience the awesomeness of the world around you. If you are then that's tragic, and I totally feel for you. But if not, if you have all your mental and physical faculties and waste your time imagining some connection to nothing, then that's even more tragic.
Where exactly on the body would one find this 'soul'? Is it somewhere near the pancreas? You talk about some mystic ethereal connection, but don't you realize that it's all in your head? That's why I think it might be a by-product of boredom. There's so many things right on this earth strange and wild and fascinating, which can occupy one's mental headspace rather than mooning about some sort of imaginary higher power.
Maybe your senses are somehow diminished? Like are you blind or deaf or something so that you can't experience the awesomeness of the world around you. If you are then that's tragic, and I totally feel for you. But if not, if you have all your mental and physical faculties and waste your time imagining some connection to nothing, then that's even more tragic.
operaBaritone
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Actually according to Descartes it was a connection in a small pea shaped organ inside the brain, but I digress...
I myself am not a believer, and do not believe in the concept of a soul, but you might realize sir, that many consider it equally silly to believe in a "mind" as a separate entity or the "mental" as separate from the physical. Duality, as this is referred to, has serious philosophical issues. But again, a digression.
The point I wanted to make is that this is not a byproduct of boredom. Perhaps I'm thinking of Lewis Black's quote
"Atheists don't even have enough energy to have faith for f***s sake!"
Unless you speak of boredom in some kind of longing for something more, like what is sometimes discussed (usually negatively) in the existentialist literature, I can't see how boredom would develop these characteristics.
A search for meaning might lead to these beliefs. A fear of death might lead to these beliefs. An innumerable number of ideas might lead to these beliefs, but I am rather certain that no one has been led to faith out of boredom.
operaBaritone
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Two reasons probably
1) Because we (the nonbelievers) have to take an enormous amount of shit from the religious
and
2) Because some of some religions' tenents are deserving of ridicule
culloden
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Specifics please? What do you count as "shit?"
Personally, I've never given anyone shit about their beliefs or non-beliefs. I think it's a personal decision that should be respected either way.
As to being deserving of ridicule, I used to think that too, particularly of some LDS tenets. But as I've aged and gotten to know more people, it's become apparent that in most cases I lack the context to judge what works for others. Of course there are limits - but I'm not focusing on the extremes here.
operaBaritone
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Eh, crap, my whole post just got killed in an accident.
Oh well, here's the gist.
What shit have I endured?
1) Being told that I have no morals because I am an atheist
2) Knowing that millions of children are being indoctrinated to believe absurd myths and superstitions
3) The whole concept of a savior saving me from something I never asked to be saved from being told to me by all sorts of people
4) Knowing that many children will be stained permanently by the beliefs inflicted on them in psychological and sexual ways.
5) The knowledge that my dear friends who are gay will not be able to marry so long as the LDS has any say in it.
The last time I did this I think I came up with 7. And they were explained in more detail, sorry do not have the time right now to fill in the blanks.
1) See the whole of the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
2) The rejection of masturbation as sinful
3) The rejection of homosexuality as sinful
4) The rejection of permarital intercourse regardless of context as sinful
5) The story of Soddom and Gomorrah and everything it entails
6) The idea of Heaven and Hell and the paradoxes thereof
7) Any of the multitude of statements in the holy books which have led to any number of ridiculous pronouncements
8) The absurd rejection of the theory of evolution
9) That Charles Manson could go to heaven if he accepted Jesus at his death bed, and yet Darwin, Whitman, Voltaire, Sartre, Einstein, several brilliant philosophers, and many others whose contributions to society are well known and can in their totality hardly be comprehended by someone such as myself.
I could go on.
operaBaritone
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One thing I forgot.
Should people's religious beliefs be respected?
Not out of hand. I respect the people and their intellect very much in some cases, but I do not respect their religious beliefs in the sense that I will not criticize them. In many cases I respect the person enough not to do this to his face, but I will in print and otherwise be critical, usually in as cordial a way as possible, of their beliefs.
Should people's religious beliefs be respected?
Not out of hand. I respect the people and their intellect very much in some cases, but I do not respect their religious beliefs in the sense that I will not criticize them. In many cases I respect the person enough not to do this to his face, but I will in print and otherwise be critical, usually in as cordial a way as possible, of their beliefs.
DarkAmaranth
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I am a CofE Christian and am monogamous. I also believe that sex (vanilla or otherwise) is designed to be enjoyed, by 2 consenting adults in a committed relationship.
However, I don't try to force my beliefs on others, or mock others' beliefs simply because I don't agree with them.
I have to say, that is one question that I have asked myself many times, and still don't understand either. To avoid sounding like I'm tarring all with one brush, can I just add that many of my friends and associates are atheists, and I have interesting discussions (i.e. not arguements or debates) with many regarding differences in beliefs.
However, I don't try to force my beliefs on others, or mock others' beliefs simply because I don't agree with them.
I have to say, that is one question that I have asked myself many times, and still don't understand either. To avoid sounding like I'm tarring all with one brush, can I just add that many of my friends and associates are atheists, and I have interesting discussions (i.e. not arguements or debates) with many regarding differences in beliefs.
culloden
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Thanks, operaBaritone, I appreciate your reply. I disagree with much of it, but not all. And I suspect there's as little point for me to try to rebut your views as there would be for you to rebut mine.
My chief response is that I think some of what you object to has little to do with God's word, and a lot to do with how some people have perverted it. It's important, I think, to be careful that what one blames on God isn't properly blamed on people who use religion for their own ends.
My chief response is that I think some of what you object to has little to do with God's word, and a lot to do with how some people have perverted it. It's important, I think, to be careful that what one blames on God isn't properly blamed on people who use religion for their own ends.
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culloden
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I am a CofE Christian and am monogamous. I also believe that sex (vanilla or otherwise) is designed to be enjoyed, by 2 consenting adults in a committed relationship.
However, I don't try to force my beliefs on others, or mock others' beliefs simply because I don't agree with them.
I have to say, that is one question that I have asked myself many times, and still don't understand either. To avoid sounding like I'm tarring all with one brush, can I just add that many of my friends and associates are atheists, and I have interesting discussions (i.e. not arguements or debates) with many regarding differences in beliefs.
There's often an undercurrent of hostility that I don't get. I guess that's not entirely true. Certainly there are areas of the world, even in the US, where you're an outcast if you don't toe the line of the local faith. The insularity of many members of the LDS church is one reason why, much as I love some things about Utah and Idaho, I didn't raise my kids there. If a gentile had lived in such an area, I could understand a certain hostility to any religion. But as I said in my last post, it's important to try to separate God's wishes from man's.
operaBaritone
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Which "word" do you subscribe to?
Everything I mentioned there can be cited chapter and verse in the Holy Bible of Christianity, and just as easily in the Tanakh of Judiasm or the Torah if you want to go to the smallest piece.
I don't blame god... but that's probably because I don't believe in a god... and therefore blaming a nonexistent entity would be pointless.
People always make this argument, and I suspect that those who do either have not read their holy book (in the cases of the three major religions that I'm familiar with, Judaism, Islam and Christianity) or are being willfully ignorant.
As I said, I can provide chapter and verse, in the Holy Bible at least. And I can put most people to shame in a theological argument, because I have read... depending on your definition of extensively... extensively on the subject.
But the original point of this thread was the relation to sex and religion.
If you could see what I have seen, and undergo what I have undergone, you would understand the hostility. The hostility is entirely merited. Especially with regards to the ideas about sex proclaimed by religions of various sorts (to be sure, my knowledge is limited mostly to the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, and I have a cursory knowledge of the Qu'ran, but I have not read it, or read examples of its exegesis, extensively).
But again, it'd probably be pertainent to stay on topic
culloden
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2006
- Posts
- 715
Which "word" do you subscribe to?
Everything I mentioned there can be cited chapter and verse in the Holy Bible of Christianity, and just as easily in the Tanakh of Judiasm or the Torah if you want to go to the smallest piece.
I don't blame god... but that's probably because I don't believe in a god... and therefore blaming a nonexistent entity would be pointless.
People always make this argument, and I suspect that those who do either have not read their holy book (in the cases of the three major religions that I'm familiar with, Judaism, Islam and Christianity) or are being willfully ignorant.
As I said, I can provide chapter and verse, in the Holy Bible at least. And I can put most people to shame in a theological argument, because I have read... depending on your definition of extensively... extensively on the subject.
But the original point of this thread was the relation to sex and religion.
If you could see what I have seen, and undergo what I have undergone, you would understand the hostility. The hostility is entirely merited. Especially with regards to the ideas about sex proclaimed by religions of various sorts (to be sure, my knowledge is limited mostly to the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, and I have a cursory knowledge of the Qu'ran, but I have not read it, or read examples of its exegesis, extensively).
But again, it'd probably be pertainent to stay on topic
Far be it from me to minimize your evil experiences - I don't know what you've been through, and it's possible that given the same experiences I'd draw the same conclusions as you. I spent years in a relationship with a very religious girl who had a lot of issues with sex. Her conflicts ended our relationship, and not long after, her life. At the time, I blamed her church, her family, her church community. Time, and a growing faith, has softened that view, and made me realize that it was never that simple.
Nor do I care to argue scripture with you. There's no future in that for either of us. I suspect you know the words better than I do. Certainly there are contradictions within the Bible, and reconciling them constructively is one of the challenges of faith.
None of which is to say that we shouldn't be talking about sex. Fuck on, I say. It's one of the great pleasures of life, God given or as you believe, not. I'll keep it within my marriage, though. You do as you'd like.
operaBaritone
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2009
- Posts
- 267
I would agree that suicide is never that simple, suicide is quite a mind boggling endeavor in some ways. And I am sorry for your loss, though it was a time ago.
And again, as you point out, nothing is that simple. Of course this is true, and you will get no argument from me here. However, just because there are contributing factors, the fact that religion in my case and many others was a contributing factor is a travesty.
Interesting how I didn't bring up contradictions in scripture, you did. I have problems with the scripture that is quite straightforward and not contradicted. Besides that by the very definition of a contradiction you can't reconcile them. I think you mean "apparent contradiction", which is the word most defenders of the faith will use.
Again, I did not bring up the censorship of sex, you did. And I don't intend to have sex outside my marriage should I ever get married, but until the time that I am married I will at least consider premarital sex as a possibility.
