RE: Abstinence before marriage

[dd74]

Originally posted by Kurt V

The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old husband are now being given sex therapy lessons while the university clinic undertakes a study to try to find out if there are more couples with a similar lack of sex education.

They need therapy to stick "A" into "B"?

Wow! Sounds like a (heterosexual) Hollywood couple

[Isabo]

I don't want to offend those who believe in it but... Abstinence before marriage: LMAO! You guys are winding us up.
It's said that Europeans have a sex life and the English have hot water bottles. It isn't true in England but what's the excuse in the States? Hormones in meat? Lead water pipes? I've heard of abstinence being promoted by old nuns and celibate priests, but anyone normal, living in the real world? And actually thinking it would be taken seriously by a majority?
I think those kids that pledge it need councelling.

[dd74]

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
But if you take religion out of it, what would make having sex without marriage immoral?

It seems like it IS a religious thing. I've never heard of a non-religious moral code that says that sex between two consenting, unmarried adults is immoral.

Anyways, my goal as a kid was to get laid as quickly as possible. It took until I was 17 or so, but not for lack of trying. And after that, the goal was as much as possible, with the best looking girls within my reach (literally and figuratively). Looking back . . . I wouldn't change a thing! It was all fabulous, and some of the best memories of my life. If that was wrong, I don't want to be right!

Well the way it was preached to me didn't have much of a religious bent to it - so I can only go by what I know. Out where I live, we were more concerned with paternity suits than anything involving religion, what God thinks or any of that mess.

Personally, I like to take religion out of all things. I agree that it's become a front for the Christain right who have absolutely no place in personal decisions such as whether or not someone wants to have sex.

BTW: Isabo is spot on about this.

[Aurel]

Evidently, nobody really reads the thread, because the link that I originally posted has now been reposted for the third time...
Nevermind, no big deal. Sex is actually a good way to get in touch with god, and this is why it was made a sin by the Church, because that was short-circuiting them. Read the Da Vinci Code, a truly excellent book.

Aurel

[woodman]

[i]Sex is actually a good way to get in touch with god, and this is why it was made a sin by the Church, [/B]

I strenuously beg to differ. The way the Lord ordained for us to know him is through his written word. He has declared what is sin and what is not. Sex is not sin, when it is enjoyed in the marital union. He set this up for our good, our pleasure and enjoyment. Sex outside of marriage, as He has defined, is sin.
Do you think that thousands of years ago, a bunch of fornicators were sitting around in a cave and suddenly decided to become monogomous, joining couples together on their own?? Really, what good what that do them? Why not just keep fornicating and enjoying themselves?

You can't seperate "religeon" (used loosely) from life. We were all created by the living God of the Bible and unless have turned from our sins and believe in His Son for life, are living under his condemnation every day. If you do not deal with that problem, the problem of your indwelling sin, you are not dealing with reality. You are running away from what is real, seeking pleasure for yourself in anyway possible. But death comes like a theif in the night. Are you ready? Are you comfortable with the possiblility that tonight may be your last? I don't know about you, but nothing in this world is worth losing my soul over. I value nothing more than the work of His Son on the cross for me. His granting of unmerited favor to me puts me in debt, a debt I can never repay.

I know most of these posts thus far attempt to cast of and seperate God from every aspect of life. That attempt is fallicous. Cant happen. It's like the clay pot being formed demanding of the potter to be told what it is he's doing. For the most part I ignore a lot of these posts, but I feel compelled to attempt to rebut things that are not founded in truth.

Steve

[Neilk]

Steve, please

[techweenie]

There's nothing in the Bible that says you shouldn't have sex before marriage, AFAIK.

Bible experts say that adultery is defined as sex between two people who are married to others. And the Bible definitely says that's bad.

There is lots of religious revisionism going on at the fundamentalist end of the spectrum these days and it mostly seems to be focused on taking away pleasurable things.

[woodman]

Please what...?

Look, we're living in a post-modernist society...right is wrong and wrong is right. There are no absolutes. If it's good for you, who am I to say otherwise? Right? This is the change in philisophical thought during the last 50-60 years.

Does anyone else have the answer?

I make no opologies for the published truth. If you don't believe it, it's your problem, not mine. I know the truth is not popular, because it pricks the concience. This goes way beyond the subject of pre-marital sex. We all have two things in common: the first being that we've inherited a sentence of death. Our nature is corrupt and as a result, we seek to please ourselves first, not God; the second is that because of our sinful nature, we commit sins. They may run the gammet of fornication, lying, to none of these. Some may not commit some of the worst sins some of us are guilty of. But, that does not relieve us from the state that we find ourselves in. Without Christ, we're burnt toast.

You may roll your eyes, but I rest in nothing but Christ crucified for my sins.

[Isabo]

Originally posted by Aurel
Read the Da Vinci Code, a truly excellent book.

Aurel

A good read but the last third was a bit obvious if you've read a lot of the holy blood, holy grail type books.
Also check out Vicars of Christ - Peter da Rosa.

[woodman]

Originally posted by techweenie
There's nothing in the Bible that says you shouldn't have sex before marriage, AFAIK.

Kindly, you're mistaken. It's spelled out quite clearly.

Bible experts say that adultery is defined as sex between two people who are married to others. And the Bible definitely says that's bad.

Bible experts?...what about THE Bible? It does not define adultery that way. It goes so far as to say that a man that looks at a woman with lust in his eyes commits adultery. It's not just the physical sex act.

[There is lots of religious revisionism going on at the fundamentalist end of the spectrum these days and it mostly seems to be focused on taking away pleasurable things.

God created all things for man to enjoy without sinning. Fundementalists believe some things that cannot be supported by scripture. Dancing is not a sin, nor is drinking. Fornication, yes..drunkeness, yes. But it's not the acts of a variety of sins that condems a man...it's the state he finds himself in from birth.

Most people have a stack of good things they've done that saaves the guilt that is indwelling. "I've done this and this and that and I haven't done this or the other" one says. "Surely I'm going to Heaven when I die." ?? On what does one base such an assumption? Do you think this is your end? Why? The bible says that the Lord is angry at the wicked every day! Why should he let you into his holy heaven??

Or maybe there is no God at all and we just evolved out of the primortial (sp?) ooze?

[Isabo]

Originally posted by woodman
Please what...?

Look, we're living in a post-modernist society...right is wrong and wrong is right. There are no absolutes. If it's good for you, who am I to say otherwise? Right? This is the change in philisophical thought during the last 50-60 years.

Does anyone else have the answer?

I make no opologies for the published truth. If you don't believe it, it's your problem, not mine. I know the truth is not popular, because it pricks the concience. This goes way beyond the subject of pre-marital sex. We all have two things in common: the first being that we've inherited a sentence of death. Our nature is corrupt and as a result, we seek to please ourselves first, not God; the second is that because of our sinful nature, we commit sins. They may run the gammet of fornication, lying, to none of these. Some may not commit some of the worst sins some of us are guilty of. But, that does not relieve us from the state that we find ourselves in. Without Christ, we're burnt toast.

You may roll your eyes, but I rest in nothing but Christ crucified for my sins.

Your truth, your beliefs, your understanding of sin. I respect you for being true to them. But one man's religion is another man's belly laugh (Robert Heinlein).
In your previous post you stated you can't separate religion from life, but I see religion as a crutch not all of us need. I won't criticise your belief or need but I would object if you tell me I have to use a crutch.

[CamB]

Originally posted by techweenie
There's nothing in the Bible that says you shouldn't have sex before marriage, AFAIK.

Bible experts say that adultery is defined as sex between two people who are married to others. And the Bible definitely says that's bad.

There is lots of religious revisionism going on at the fundamentalist end of the spectrum these days and it mostly seems to be focused on taking away pleasurable things.

Fornication is a sin (thunders Cam from the pulpit)!

eg Galations 5:19 (thanks internet).

Of course, it depends on which version you read - in the New International Version, it says:

"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

King James reads:

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

The changes are interesting - I wonder what the Greek says?

And, the $1 million young Christian person's question - what about oral sex...

[fintstone]

Oral sex is forbidden as sodomy.

[Isabo]

Originally posted by fintstone
Oral sex is forbidden as sodomy.

Forbidden by who?
Those that promote this drivel only have power if we take them seriously.

[techweenie]

"Or maybe there is no God at all and we just evolved out of the primortial (sp?) ooze?"

That theory's got my vote.

[woodman]

There is really no difference between the two versions, the original Greek being more succinct (don't have it handy at the moment). But why split hairs? Sex is sex is sex. What should grab ones attention is that the people described in the text will spend eternity apart from God! Natural man now enjoys the fruits of Gods temporary grace and patience. You may think, I can bang every chick in sight without recourse, but now is not when it counts. "It is appointed for all men to die, and then the judgment" is said in Romans. When we stand before our creator in death and He reads to us all the wicked things we've done, what will we say to Him? Unless you're heart has been regenerated, He will say to you"Depart from me you workers of iniquity, for I never knew you." And then sentence you to an eternity I cannot come to describe herein.

Why burn? What can you gain in this temporal life that is worth losing your soul?

I can think of nothing.

[woodman]

That theory's got my vote.

Sorry to hear that.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by Isabo
Forbidden by who?
Those that promote this drivel only have power if we take them seriously.

The bible of course....only answering the question asked previously...not selling anything.

[dd74]

I just don't think kids are thinking of gods and religion when the more personal and inheriantly human aspect of sex is brewing inside them. C'mon: we were all twelve and thirteen when we had our first taste of "spring fever." The only "sin" we worried about was getting caught necking behind the school bungalows, not whether or not we'd be cast in the shadows of hell.

This sort of sexual need is hard to suppress, and if forced down by talk of "sin" and other intangibles that aren't nearly as real as a boy with a hard-on, this boy might possibly grow into a sexual predator no god or religion will ever stop.

Let's get real: abstinence is a mighty tall order for a simple human who is simply acting like a human. Bringing guilt and damnation into it is as much a wrong approach.

[techweenie]

"Bringing guilt and damnation into it is as much a wrong approach."

But a popular one. :-)

I did some quick bible research, but can't find anything except general inferences as to what consitutes adultery [it includes 'putting away' your wife and marrying another]. Then there's fornication and whoredom. Fornication appears to be the most popular by far.

I think some contemporaneous translation from aramaic or hebrew, or whatever, would be useful.

There's an interesting link here:

http://essenes.net/virgin.htm

That explains the mistranslation of 'maiden' as 'virgin.' Apparently Mary uniquely had the ability to have sex but "remain pure."