Thread: How concerned is God with what we do in the bedroom? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on
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On a Hell thread I've been sulked at for 'prying in my bedroom again.' This was in response to my arguing: Paul comments:
quote:
Don’t you know that your bodies belong to the body of Christ? Should I take what belongs to Christ and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 Don’t you know that when you join yourself to a prostitute, you become one with her in body? Scripture says, “The two will become one.” (Genesis 2:24) 17 But anyone who is joined to the Lord becomes one with him in spirit.
18 Keep far away from sexual sins. All the other sins a person commits are outside his body. But sexual sins are sins against one’s own body.
19 Don’t you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is in you. You have received him from God. You do not belong to yourselves. 20 Christ has paid the price for you. So use your bodies in a way that honors God.
1 Cor 6:15-20
Jesus, apart from his striking comments about lustful glances being on a level with adultery, the worst of offences to his listeners, reserves a special condemnation for those guilty of encouraging sexual indulgence:
quote:
But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.
Rev 2:20-22
To continue my introduction to the new thread: I think that it's important to see Paul's comments in the context of a society that was probably as sex obsessed as we are, whereas Jesus was speaking to one where sexual excess was relatively unusual. But to me the crucial point is that what we do sexually has a spiritual impact - whatever 'becoming one flesh' means, Paul is clearly indicating that it's a big deal.
By contrast modern society is very relaxed about sexual relationships before marriage. It is therefore tempting for the church to conform to this attitude, failing to challenge such behaviour 'because there are more important issues', despite Paul's comment suggesting otherwise.
Of course there is a balance to be struck: going on endlessly about sexual sins to the exclusion of anything else is as bad as totally ignoring the issue. I guess I'm interested in hearing from anyone who thinks sexual behaviour before marriage / committed relationship doesn't matter, and how they square that with the biblical material. My understanding is that this view is pure gnosticism, a denial that the behaviour of the body has any effect on the spirit, whereas Christianity is a very body focused religion.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I guess I'm interested in hearing from anyone who thinks sexual behaviour before marriage / committed relationship doesn't matter, and how they square that with the biblical material. My understanding is that this view is pure gnosticism, a denial that the behaviour of the body has any effect on the spirit, whereas Christianity is a very body focused religion.
Doesn't matter? Of course it matters! It affects our health, emotions, mental state and sense of worth and well being.
I don't believe casual sex particularly helps any of these so, personally, would steer away from it. But within free, adult, consensual relationships which do no harm? I certainly wouldn't ban it.
As far as sex before lifelong commitment goes - how do we know which relationships will really 'stick'?
Once my sons were 18 I bought them double beds and left their sex lives up to them. They have been wonderfully faithful and caring to their partners. One has had three girlfriends over nine years - and is still very good friends with the first two. In fact two of them have become best friends. The other is still with his original girlfriend. I am enormously proud of them both.
I believe a lot of angst would be saved if people lived together for a good period before marrying.
Biblical teaching? I have no idea - I think our culture is too far removed to listen to Paul et al. on sexual matters. The only one I would go for is "Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God". In this matter as in any other.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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When you point out the scripture where Paul condemns King David and other Patriarchs for shagging around, I think you'd have a point.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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quote:
On a Hell thread I've been sulked at
This is the second time recently you've brought a discussion from one thread to another with the allegation that you've been "sulked at". It's not a phrase I'm used to, but would you concede it is possible for people to disagree with you, in good faith, without them "sulking"?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I guess I'm interested in hearing from anyone who thinks sexual behaviour before marriage / committed relationship doesn't matter, and how they square that with the biblical material.
As Boogie says, of course it matters. I just don't agree with you about whether it's good or bad.
As for how I square that with what's in the Bible - that's an easy one. Paul may have had a major hang-up about sex, but that doesn't mean I have to. Paul wasn't God, you know - he was just some bloke who managed to wangle his way to the top of what passed for the church heirarchy in those days and then wrote a few letters. Human. Fallible. Wrong.
And even if you could seriously claim that Revelation is an accurate transcript of Jesus' own words, it says the square root of fuck all about homosexuality.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
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Yes God is concerned about what goes on in the bedroom. I do not think is too happy when sex is used in an exploitative way or treats people as objects whether people in the relationship or those around.
The problem with David was not that he slept around, God seems to have accepted that, David had many wives and concubines already by the time he bedded Bathsheba, it was that he, in doing it, did not pay good concern to the relation between Bathsheba and Uriah and the structure of society and saw himself above it. In other words God was worried about it as a relationship that was disruptive of Uriah and Bathshebas relationship and also of David's relationship to Israel.
Solomon equally had many wives and concubines. The problem was not that he had sex with them but they led him to permit the worship of other gods. A big No! No! in Isael. Abraham had Hagar as well as Sarah, Jacob had two wives and two concubines. It is a bad idea to argue for modern sexual standards on the basis of the behaviour of patriarchs and kings of ancient Israel.
As far as modern relationships are concerned, I think all need to strive to mirror God's to us, whether or not they involve the bedroom. In which case issues of respect (whether deserved or not), faithfulness and care seem to me more important.
By the way nobody is saying what goes on in a bedroom does not matter. Look at the problems over child sexual abuse. Or are you saying that that does not fall into the same category?
Jengie
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
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When Christians obsess about the minutiae of theft, injustice or covetousness with the same enthusiasm as they do over sex, then I'll believe that they are driven by a thirst for righteousness. Until then I am just seeing prurience, repression and displacement.
Posted by Tubifex Maximus (# 4874) on
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No, Ender's Shadow, this is not what you were being "Sulked at" for and you know it. What you actually posted is below, bold is mine.
quote:
Whilst I'll agree with you over women, the gay issue has a far higher claim to being a matter of great concern. Paul comments:
quote:
Don’t you know that your bodies belong to the body of Christ? Should I take what belongs to Christ and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 Don’t you know that when you join yourself to a prostitute, you become one with her in body? Scripture says, “The two will become one.” (Genesis 2:24) 17 But anyone who is joined to the Lord becomes one with him in spirit.
18 Keep far away from sexual sins. All the other sins a person commits are outside his body. But sexual sins are sins against one’s own body.
19 Don’t you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is in you. You have received him from God. You do not belong to yourselves. 20 Christ has paid the price for you. So use your bodies in a way that honors God.
You were then told that this was a Dead Horse tangent by Sionis Sais and Comet.
The passage from Paul is about Adultery and Fornication. You were called out because you used I Corinthians 6 : 15 - 20 which is about men seeing prostitutes in support of your beliefs about homosexuality.
If you're going to support your beliefs successfully, you'll need to come on straight.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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Song of Songs is also in the Bible. To quote the lad dressed as a vicar with a Bible* under his arm, part of a group of other ecclesiastically dressed rugby fans off to the Rugby Sevens, "That's porn, that is".
My point is that the Bible as a whole is not against sex the way St Paul would have us believe.
* He was fumbling around in what was obviously an unfamiliar text being silly. I said, "The Bible isn't that bad, read this bit!" and found him Song of Songs. Hopefully it opened his eyes.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
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I'm not into proof texting but I think God is more likely to be concerned by our failures in love, justice and mercy rather than what any consenting adults are doing in their bedrooms.
Full personal disclosure here - what I do in my bedroom is s ![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
, read and avoid the cat attacking my feet. I don't think even the most conservative fundamentalists would object to that.
Huia
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
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I think a more valid question is "Why do people have so much sex?"
Setting aside the issue of sex crimes and peer/boyfriend pressure, surely it is because both parties are enjoying it!
If two people meet up in a nightclub and have consensual sex afterwards (hopefully in a bedroom, not on the bins!) then it's because both parties THINK they will get a goodly amount of pleasure from it. Fine, crack on. Take precautions and know that it carries risks, but sex is really good. They know it, I know it, you know it, so that's why we do it.
That isn't going to stop anytime soon.
God gave us those feelings, that pleasure and why would he get angry about it other than if, in the course of having sex, we cause harm, either through gluttony (in the form of affairs) or pride (another notch on the bedpost), or what have you.
I believe we should be more concerned with ensuring people take sex seriously, rather than trying to limit it.
I speak, by the way, as one who is very happily married and has ONE sexual partner (my wife) in forty five years.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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As the person who 'sulked' at you, all I'm going to do is point out to you what I said last time: I agree that sexual ethics matter. I don't agree that the gender of my partner has anything to do with sexual ethics.
And you were banging on about 'the gay issue', not about sexual ethics in general.
Frankly I find it a bit galling that you now want to talk about things like sex before marriage, but portray it as if that's the same subject you were discussing in Hell. It simply isn't. If you want to talk about sexual ethics, go right ahead, but it's clearly not the same topic that was occurring in Hell, otherwise you'd be forced to go to Dead Horses rather than Purgatory.
[ 28. November 2012, 09:20: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posted by *Leon* (# 3377) on
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Liberals do need to do some serious work in order to put their theology here into a better intellectual framework, but there are good reasons for changing opinions.
All the 'sexual sins' that Shadow considers wrong are fairly obviously unacceptable if you assume a society like the middle east in the first century. It is very important that everyone knows who their father is, there's no contraception, divorce probably renders the woman destitute, it would bring great dishonor on a family if a woman wasn't a virgin on her wedding night (and families are very important; the interests of a family take priority over the interests of all the living members of that family).
The only non-obvious one is homosexuality; in my opinion the major change in society that has allowed us to tolerate homosexuality (in purely practical terms) is the invention of pensions. Without them, your well-being in old age is the responsibility of your children. Since society never likes having destitute old people about, it needs to put all possible pressure on everyone to have children. Why is the bible so completely obsessed about widows and orphans, while today our charities (un-biblicaly) care for children and old people without regard to which living relatives they might have? Because society knew it was failing the widows and the orphans but didn't really know what to do about it.
So it might appear that the task is to disentangle the sexual prohibitions that are entirely based on the aspects of society that made them necessary from the ones that are 'eternal laws'. I reckon that's impossible. What should be possible is to work out a teaching that is consistent with the wider principles of the gospels while recognizing the different consequences of actions in our society.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Yes, ancient societies were ferociously patriarchal, in other words, men were dominant, and not only that, men had to conform to certain identities themselves.
Some anthropologists explain this by pointing to the very harsh conditions under which people lived, so that it was essential to produce many children, men had to be fairly tough, in order to protect the tribe, and so on.
So the corollary is that we live in a less harsh patriarchal society, and therefore sexual mores and in fact, social mores in general are bound to change. Women now have the vote, female sexuality is now not as suppressed, homosexuality is no longer a great taboo, and so on. I suppose you could argue that Christian theology should resist these changes, but that sounds Canute-like to me. It also runs the risk of supporting a patriarchal system!
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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When you put it like that, it does seem odd that some people think Christianity should not be subject to the mores of this age, but subject to the mores of an age that has long since passed.
Posted by *Leon* (# 3377) on
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It often seems to me that when liberals and conservatives are talking past each other, the reason is because liberals assume that rules must have reasons in this world (if something is a sin, I must be able to work out who is harmed by the sinful action), while conservatives assume that there are god-given laws and it's completely inappropriate to question why they are.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
When you put it like that, it does seem odd that some people think Christianity should not be subject to the mores of this age, but subject to the mores of an age that has long since passed.
The nub of the question is to what extent they are mores of a particular age, and to what extent they are eternal mores that may or may not have been entirely in sync with a particular age.
To put it another way: some Christians are very keen on being 'counter-cultural' now, and their best support for their views would be if they were 'counter-cultural' THEN.
[ 28. November 2012, 10:14: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Marvin
That is a very good summary, which gives it added sharpness. Anyway, enough of this mutual congratulation.
I suppose the opposite argument is that eternal verities and morals have been revealed, even if through ancient Jewish society, and these should not be changed. This is a very hard sell, today, I guess, but not without merit.
[ 28. November 2012, 10:13: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on
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quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
in my opinion the major change in society that has allowed us to tolerate homosexuality (in purely practical terms) is the invention of pensions.
One of the ironies (for me as a destitute Leftie) is the way $$$ or Pound equivalents has driven the Holy Spirit (or, i would suggest: vice verca) in recent years. Envioronmental and human and animal rights only really became sexy when they bit into the hip pocket ...
Nevertheless, I get sick yet again at an implied bibliolatry (?sp) when it comes to matters of penises, vaginae (?pl) and other receptickles and projectickles ... where is rape in marriage condemned in the bible? It isn't. Yet could I look youse guyz in the eye tomorrow if I raped my wife tonight? I hope not. Because i would be scum if I did that, no matter what the bible fails to say.
The biblical world is different to ours - you know: 'the past is a different country' and all that. 'Wives submit' was and is carte blanche in many centuries and still is in some religious cultures. Forgive me for not quoting chapter and verse, but I suspect it makes the Big Grown Up Jesus cry when it becomes an excuse for what we do in private, if it is exploitative or uncaring, unloving ...
Consenting adults? To a point. An adult might consent to have sex with me, but that of course would be wrong, because I'm married to kuruman. She might be a little cross ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
and rightly so, if I betrayed our trust ...
But I sort of digress. Is there a victim in this sexual encounter? A power imbalance? Transmission of a sexual disease? An unplanned, unwanted preganancy? A betrayal? Yes? Then Jesus will weep. Is it a glorious edifying life-enhancing expression of love between adults by which no outside party will be harmed? Sweat it out, dudes - have fun. I think even the angels will rejoice.
[ 28. November 2012, 10:17: Message edited by: Zappa ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
It often seems to me that when liberals and conservatives are talking past each other, the reason is because liberals assume that rules must have reasons in this world (if something is a sin, I must be able to work out who is harmed by the sinful action), while conservatives assume that there are god-given laws and it's completely inappropriate to question why they are.
I think that hits the nail on the head. Even citing patriarchal society as a source of morality and religious law strikes many conservatives as somehow impermissible, whereas, for most liberals, I suppose it is an historical necessity. I mean that social formations change, and we are interested to know how and why, and how these formations give rise to different kinds of mores. I suppose the problem with this is that it seems to end up in relativism, oh the horror, the horror.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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The bible, as far as it has any coherence with regard to human sexual relationships (which is not very far, in my opinion) upholds and promotes committed relationships, forgiveness and sticking-with-it. At times it appears to elevate sex, at times it seems to dismiss it. At best it is ambivalent about the mix of power and sex.
Our modern concepts of 'biblical family values' seem to have mostly come from the epistles, where the writers use mixed theological metaphors to put across opinions on behaviours of their day, the details of which have been lost in the midst of time. But to say that these comments therefore unambiguously therefore reflect God's prohibition of premarital sex and homosexuality is something which can only be stated from subsequent interpretations.
Even if the writers really meant that, then it doesn't necessarily follow that they're doing anything other than trying to enforce norms on their sect to distinguish it from the rest of society. In a similar way, early Quakers (whom I'm still researching) banned their members from marrying out of the Society. Or you might include the idea of celibate church leaders, the wearing of particular clothing for religious rites, etc and so on.
Personally exactly what these authors meant, who they were talking to and for what purpose are so hidden to me in the 21 century as to make it a largely pointless activity to try to decipher.
I think people experience most support and wholeness in committed relationships. I believe that any 'sharing' of individuals by having sexual relations with more than one partner concurrently inevitably leads to spiritual malaise. I don't need the bible to tell me that, and can only see it say anything on the subject by reading backwards from that position.
What does God want? If there is any sense in the universe, God must want people to be fulfilled and to meet their potential. But what does that mean? What if I only have fulfillment as a mass murderer (Samson?).
As far as I am concerned, the idea that it is possible to discern what God thinks about anything based on the bible is a morally bankrupt.
[ 28. November 2012, 10:38: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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I agree with where I think that Ender is coming from here.
I think that marriage is much more central to spiritual life than society seems to think.
The love that is shared in our most intimate relationship is, in my opinion, the fundamental love of all the loves a person can have, and it is the foundation of all happiness.
Therefore I think that marriage should be highly valued, that sex outside of marriage is highly problematic, and that infidelity is hurtful both to individuals and to society in general.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
[ 28. November 2012, 10:50: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
Go on then, let me in on the secret of how you know whether God is going to be harmed by a sexual misdemeanor yet isn't harmed by some crazy fool running around killing people with a donkey jawbone.
How does anyone know for sure that God is/isn't giving them a pass on this particular sexual misdemeanor?
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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The problem with upholding marriage as being of great importance in society is that it can hit the mark some of the time and be a distraction at other times. For instance, I'm much more pleased to see a committed couple who love each other, who are chaste with each other, practice fidelity, who are charitable to each other and deeply respect one another, than the couple who are married, abusive, miserable and locked into that misery by the social pressure of remaining married. The loving couple who live together have a better understanding and experience of marriage than the ones who are in a living hell. It is possible to make an idol of the institution without ever actually knowing what it really should be. The flip side is that the social pressure to be married can be so immense that people rebel against it, and thats always going to happen. But there are others still who simply can't live up to social expectation and can't afford the big wedding and party afterwards. They can barely afford a flat together, let alone the bill for a wedding; and yes, you can argue that they can do it on the cheap in a registry office, but I've seen this happen and the family fall out can be truly terrible, and its a perfect example of how the institution of marriage can be held up to such an extent that it no longer resembles what marriage actually is.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
Go on then, let me in on the secret of how you know whether God is going to be harmed by a sexual misdemeanor yet isn't harmed by some crazy fool running around killing people with a donkey jawbone.
How does anyone know for sure that God is/isn't giving them a pass on this particular sexual misdemeanor?
I didn't suggest the answer, just that it was a valid question.
Posted by *Leon* (# 3377) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
I said 'reasons in this world' because I think this position excludes the idea of harming God. I think it's right in this regard; we can't harm God.
quote:
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
But I would strongly agree that we should consider harm to our relationship with Him. Of course, if we believe something is a sin because it harms our relationship with God then, as you suggest, this rule would only apply to Christians. It would be improper to suggest that a non-Christian was wrong for doing it (although we should honestly point out that they'd have to give it up along with Sunday morning TV if they convert)
And I also feel it's possible to have a rational conversation about how an action might or might not have harmed our relationship with God; it's not just a matter of 'your relationship with God is harmed because you did something on the naughty list'.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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For instance, we know that God doesn't like it when I look at a woman lustfully. Merely looking at her doesn't actually harm her, but I know that it upsets (perhaps a better word than 'harms') God and therefore I shouldn't do it.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I didn't suggest the answer, just that it was a valid question.
I, for one, think it is a useless and totally incomprehensible question which is entirely useless for assisting with moral decisions.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
For instance, we know that God doesn't like it when I look at a woman lustfully. Merely looking at her doesn't actually harm her, but I know that it upsets (perhaps a better word than 'harms') God and therefore I shouldn't do it.
How do you know that?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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Er...because Jesus said so? I would have thought that that was quite obvious. quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I didn't suggest the answer, just that it was a valid question.
I, for one, think it is a useless and totally incomprehensible question which is entirely useless for assisting with moral decisions.
For me as a Christian, it is central.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
For me as a Christian, it is central.
Then for you the question remains: how do you know what harms God?
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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*Leon* has put down most of it. I'm going to go further.
The sexual morality as outlined in the bible is, by modern standards, vile. See, for instance, the provision a rapist take his victim as his wife. Which may be vile to modern eyes - but if we're going by *Leon*'s approach it makes sense as it ensures she will now be provided for.
There is also as far as I know only one sexual act handled in detail in the bible; that of Onan. Where Onan is wrong not for the act of coitus interruptus but for not fulfilling his obligations to give Tamar a son - it's breach of promise. And in the rest of that story Tamar is considered virtuous for dressing up like a whore and tricking her father in law into fucking her and paying for it.
So from these we can see clearly that it's the relationships and power that matter. As for homosexuality, there are six verses out of about 30,000 against it. Or approximately 0.02% of the bible; not something the bible bothers with much. And for anyone who wants to see more of how the bible treats sex Fred Clark is running a 'Biblical family of the day' series.
So what is the bible concerned with? What is the one common theme throughout most of the bible?
Simple. Money, power, and relationships. Mostly money - whether from Jesus telling people if you have two shirts you should give one to the poor to the injunction in Leviticus to not gather everything from the fields or the vineyards so there's something left there for the poor to the dozen or so distinct rules about usury (lending money at interest) to the parable of Lazarus and Dives (and the other parable in that chapter) to any of a hundred other examples the common thread throughout the bible is money and how we are meant to treat the poor.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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I have just given one example. 'Hurt' is perhaps a better word than 'harms'.
[cp with Justinian]
[ 28. November 2012, 11:16: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I have just given one example. 'Hurt' is perhaps a better word than 'harms'.
No you haven't. Jesus said that was a sin, not that it harms/hurts God.
How does God experience that pain compared to someone committing mass murder with a jawbone?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Er...because Jesus said so? I would have thought that that was quite obvious. quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I didn't suggest the answer, just that it was a valid question.
I, for one, think it is a useless and totally incomprehensible question which is entirely useless for assisting with moral decisions.
For me as a Christian, it is central.
I'm just querying whether you can actually know that God does not like something. I can see that you believe it, but how does belief turn into knowledge?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I think God is concerned about what we do in the bedroom (or wherever else we might do what we do in the bedroom).
I also think he is concerned that we aren't all judgemental about what other people do or don't do in their bedrooms - either in a prurient way or in a judgemental thou-shalt-not way (within certain boundaries and limits).
I also agree with Freddy that marriage is special and should be taken more seriously in society than appears to be the case at present.
None of which is contradictory.
I think the Orthodox principle of 'ekonomeia' is a good one and can be applied in various ways by the rest of us.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
And I think those who believe in the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth should realise that those that are easiest to hurt are the weakest. If you've an omnipotent being you can not hurt said being so hurting God is the least important factor anywhere.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I have just given one example. 'Hurt' is perhaps a better word than 'harms'.
No you haven't. Jesus said that was a sin, not that it harms/hurts God.
How does God experience that pain compared to someone committing mass murder with a jawbone?
Sin is against God's nature, therefore by definition it is going to upset him a tad.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Er...because Jesus said so? I would have thought that that was quite obvious. quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I didn't suggest the answer, just that it was a valid question.
I, for one, think it is a useless and totally incomprehensible question which is entirely useless for assisting with moral decisions.
For me as a Christian, it is central.
I'm just querying whether you can actually know that God does not like something. I can see that you believe it, but how does belief turn into knowledge?
I suppose that we can't really, truly, 'know' anything. By faith, we are told that we can be certain of things we cannot see; I guess that's the closest we can get, and that has to be good enough for me!
My sin does hurt God: Jesus was nailed to a tree because of it.
[ 28. November 2012, 11:30: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
When Christians obsess about the minutiae of theft, injustice or covetousness with the same enthusiasm as they do over sex, then I'll believe that they are driven by a thirst for righteousness. Until then I am just seeing prurience, repression and displacement.
This. God is concerned about what we do regardless of where we're doing it. He's also concerned about our attitudes - the whole putting him first and loving our neighbour as ourself thing.
However, as God appears to have not supplied a list of sins in order of sinfulness, some people in the church have decided to help Him out by telling us repeatedly that God is really worried about who we're shagging ...
Tubbs
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Of the Ten Commandments (depending on which list one uses) roughly half are concerned with our relationship with God and the other our relationships with other people. Of those, only one relates to sex. That seems a fairly good rule of thumb to me...
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
Can I back up to this a bit?
I think my "liberal" (if you like) answer to this is "seeing as God himself cannot be harmed, why would he have an objection to something that doesn't hurt anyone in the first place?"
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
It depends what you mean by 'harm'. God the Almighty cannot be 'damaged' by our sin. I do believe however that He finds it deeply wounding. And then of course you have the small matter of the Crucifixion...
[ETA - without wishing to derail the thread with a whole "what did the Cross do: PSA, Christus Victor, etc etc" debate]
[ 28. November 2012, 11:48: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
Yes, I'm struggling with the idea of God being harmed, not so much from the point of view of liberalism, but classical theism, where God seems to be 'without body, parts or passions'. However, I think Matt Black's reply was a cogent one.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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Doesn't quite answer the question of why God would put a prohibition on something - i.e. declare it a sin - if it harms no-one.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Sin is against God's nature, therefore by definition it is going to upset him a tad.
Really. It is apparently 'God's nature' to allow Abijah to take 14 wives, Solomon to have countless concubines and others to own - and dispose of - slaves.
That doesn't even include the apparent directions from God to soldiers to kill all men, women and children in various massacres, to consider women as unclean and/or non-people and so on.
Or is that lot all against 'God's nature'?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Depends whether it's sin or not.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Doesn't quite answer the question of why God would put a prohibition on something - i.e. declare it a sin - if it harms no-one.
Does it harm me? Does it mar the imago Dei within me?
[ 28. November 2012, 12:00: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Depends whether it's sin or not.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Doesn't quite answer the question of why God would put a prohibition on something - i.e. declare it a sin - if it harms no-one.
Does it harm me? Does it mar the imago Dei within me?
Isn't that circular? Why would an action mar the imago Deil? Why, because it's a sin and that's what sin does! Why is it a sin? Because it mars the imago Dei...
[ 28. November 2012, 12:04: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Because it goes against the Creator's design and intention?
...and that's before we get onto the whole 'my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit' schtick.
[ 28. November 2012, 12:04: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Depends whether it's sin or not.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Doesn't quite answer the question of why God would put a prohibition on something - i.e. declare it a sin - if it harms no-one.
Does it harm me? Does it mar the imago Dei within me?
And the answer to that is something on the lines of 'by your fruits you will know them.' In other words (and skating round the Dead Horse) is someone's relationship making them a better, more loving, more generous person?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because it goes against the Creator's design and intention?
Isn't it rather petty of God? "Don't do that, even though it doesn't hurt anyone, because I intended you to do this, even though you don't like it."
I mean I can be a bit like that sometimes, but I consider it a bit of a character flaw.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubifex Maximus:
No, Ender's Shadow, this is not what you were being "Sulked at" for and you know it. What you actually posted is below, bold is mine.
quote:
Whilst I'll agree with you over women, the gay issue has a far higher claim to being a matter of great concern. Paul comments:
quote:
Don’t you know that your bodies belong to the body of Christ? Should I take what belongs to Christ and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 Don’t you know that when you join yourself to a prostitute, you become one with her in body? Scripture says, “The two will become one.” (Genesis 2:24) 17 But anyone who is joined to the Lord becomes one with him in spirit.
18 Keep far away from sexual sins. All the other sins a person commits are outside his body. But sexual sins are sins against one’s own body.
19 Don’t you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is in you. You have received him from God. You do not belong to yourselves. 20 Christ has paid the price for you. So use your bodies in a way that honors God.
You were then told that this was a Dead Horse tangent by Sionis Sais and Comet.
The passage from Paul is about Adultery and Fornication. You were called out because you used I Corinthians 6 : 15 - 20 which is about men seeing prostitutes in support of your beliefs about homosexuality.
If you're going to support your beliefs successfully, you'll need to come on straight.
This.
And I said as much in Hell.
Way to totally change the subject Enders.
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Of the Ten Commandments (depending on which list one uses) roughly half are concerned with our relationship with God and the other our relationships with other people. Of those, only one relates to sex. That seems a fairly good rule of thumb to me...
Some Christians appear think those could do with a bit of a re-write so they completely reflect God's "proper" priorities.
Tubbs
[ 28. November 2012, 12:27: Message edited by: Tubbs ]
Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Doesn't quite answer the question of why God would put a prohibition on something - i.e. declare it a sin - if it harms no-one.
You're making the assumptions that
a) the morality or immorality of something depends solely on whether it harms someone.
b) whatever particular behavior is in question (casual sex, say) doesn't harm anyone
I think (a) is really only true in the educated portions of modern Western liberal democracies. Psychologically speaking, human morality includes a whole lot of other factors. If you're interested, some especially good work has been done on this by the psychologist Jon Haidt, who suggests five or six "moral foundations": care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/treason, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation (and potentially liberty/oppression).
Which is why many people judge it wrong, say, if someone is eating their dead pet dog (sanctity) or disrespecting an authority figure or whatever, when these things don't obviously harm anyone.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubifex Maximus:
No, Ender's Shadow, this is not what you were being "Sulked at" for and you know it. What you actually posted is below, bold is mine.
quote:
Whilst I'll agree with you over women, the gay issue has a far higher claim to being a matter of great concern. Paul comments:
quote:
Don’t you know that your bodies belong to the body of Christ? Should I take what belongs to Christ and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 Don’t you know that when you join yourself to a prostitute, you become one with her in body? Scripture says, “The two will become one.” (Genesis 2:24) 17 But anyone who is joined to the Lord becomes one with him in spirit.
18 Keep far away from sexual sins. All the other sins a person commits are outside his body. But sexual sins are sins against one’s own body.
19 Don’t you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit is in you. You have received him from God. You do not belong to yourselves. 20 Christ has paid the price for you. So use your bodies in a way that honors God.
You were then told that this was a Dead Horse tangent by Sionis Sais and Comet.
The passage from Paul is about Adultery and Fornication. You were called out because you used I Corinthians 6 : 15 - 20 which is about men seeing prostitutes in support of your beliefs about homosexuality.
If you're going to support your beliefs successfully, you'll need to come on straight.
Of course that the whole passage is about prostitutes merely underlines the fact that it doesn't have a damn thing to do with what happens inside the bedroom. There is no physical difference between the act performed with a prostitute and with a wife. What there is is a difference between the power relationships. And, coming back to what I'm claiming the bible is about, prosititution is about money.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Doesn't quite answer the question of why God would put a prohibition on something - i.e. declare it a sin - if it harms no-one.
You're making the assumptions that
a) the morality or immorality of something depends solely on whether it harms someone.
Which seems a perfectly reasonable basis for morality to me.
Of the others you quote:
fairness/cheating
Cheating does indeed harm the cheated party.
loyalty/treason
Treason doesn't harm anyone?
liberty/oppression
Again, oppressing people harms them.
So the ones I actually care about in your list do in fact come down to harm or not. I really, really don't care about someone eating their dead dog.
[ 28. November 2012, 12:32: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Because it goes against the Creator's design and intention?
...and that's before we get onto the whole 'my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit' schtick.
It is the Creator's intention that we are not to be thieves, deceivers, liars, gluttons, drunkards, fornicators, adulterers and more besides; who are we to declare that "my body which is a temple to the Holy Spirit" is the physical body alone?
That isn't for us to decide. I'm not surprised Paul railed against the things he did in his letters to the Corinthians because it was a Greek seaport. Seaports have never been the most savoury of places and a Greek one in the first century AD, given the sexual predelictions of Greeks at that time, would have given him plenty to write about. It's no surprise he wrote what he did. It may be a surprise he did not concentrate on sexual ethics to an even greater extent.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
On Matt Black's question about looking at a woman lustfully and whether or not that 'hurts' (or 'offends') God ...
Well, I've been taught that a 'woman' in this context refers to a married woman - someone else's wife - so that brings 'covetousness' and other 10 Commandment Thou-Shalt-Nots into the equation.
It was also a way of Jesus upping the ante - as he often did in quite hyperbolic ways in order to challenges the prevailing status quo - 'You have heard that it was said ... but I say ...'
So what he was effectively doing was suggesting that the intention to sin was a no-no as well as the actual committing of it - adultery in this case.
Now then, I would also suggest that the lusting after someone else's partner is also going to be harmful to the person doing the lusting - for one thing they're going to be hankering after something they can't have ('hope deferred makes the heart sick') and although the lustee (or the person lusted over) may well be unaware of the unfavourable intentions it could well, I submit, damage the luster's existing relationship with their own partner ...
There's all sorts of stuff that could be said on this one - without entering into Dead Horses territory on the atonement etc.
For the record, though, I'd have thought that the 'sin' aspect that brought Jesus to the cross was more an issue of the sum total of mankind's propensity to sin not whether Matt Black, thee, me or anyone else had ever looked lustfully at anyone else - which doesn't let us off the hook, of course.
That said - I still have a sneaking admiration for the Orthodox view that the Incarnation may still have taken place even if humanity had not sinned ...
But that's a whole other issue.
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal
So the ones I actually care about in your list do in fact come down to harm or not. I really, really don't care about someone eating their dead dog.
The only time I can recall hearing of people eating their own pet dogs was in famine, war or emergency situations. And then I didn't think of it as sinful but emblematic of their horrendous situation.
I don't think I would think the same about digging up a relative for the same purposes though. Yuk.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
OK, now I've got "Dig up your dead grandmother and fuck her up the arse" by the Macc Lads going round in my head. ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
OK, so...um...necrophilia. Doesn't harm anyone does it? Everyone OK with that?
@ Sioni: I think it's pretty obvious that Paul's talking about the physical body (at least primarily) since he writes in terms of sexual sin being the only type which affects the body. (You can argue I guess about the primary emphasis being on temple prostitutes and what that might do to the Body of Christ, but I think that's a long shot frankly.)
@ Gamaliel: surely coveting harms no-one else and therefore isn't a sin according to Leon's 'liberal definition'?
Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on
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A little problem with it being consensual, Matt.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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But the grandmother's not there any more; it's just her body we're talking about.
OK, I accept I started this weird tangent but it's becoming too revolting even for me!
Sooo....what about keeping the Sabbath holy? Why's that in the Decalogue? Surely breaking it does no harm...?
[ 28. November 2012, 13:53: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But the grandmother's not there any more; it's just her body we're talking about.
OK, I accept I started this weird tangent but it's becoming too revolting even for me!
Sooo....what about keeping the Sabbath holy? Why's that in the Decalogue? Surely breaking it does no harm...?
People need time off to remain at peak efficiency. Keep the Sabbath Holy can be broken - but you need that one day of rest per week, and making it a holy day is an easy way to get through to people why you do it.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I think that marriage is much more central to spiritual life than society seems to think.
So what about the hundreds of millions of people who are not married and have no realistic hope of ever being married?
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
The only time I can recall hearing of people eating their own pet dogs was in famine, war or emergency situations. And then I didn't think of it as sinful but emblematic of their horrendous situation.
I don't think I would think the same about digging up a relative for the same purposes though. Yuk.
Lamentations chapters 2 & 4. I think the author takes the "emblematic of their horrendous situation" view.
Jeremiah 19.9 & Ezekiel 5.10 probably refer to the same events, and 2 Kings 6.24-33 something similar in Samaria. And the whole thing is prophesied by Moses in the curses in Deuteronomy 28.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
But if I work for 7 days, who is harmed by my actions?
Graven images?
[cp with Ken]
[ 28. November 2012, 14:05: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I think that marriage is much more central to spiritual life than society seems to think.
So what about the hundreds of millions of people who are not married and have no realistic hope of ever being married?
Clearly, they are left out of this blessing. Why is that dispositive against what Freddy said? We may want all blessings for all people, but the reality is that many things are denied many of us. Many of us do not have good physical health. Does that mean that physical health must therefore have nothing to do with spiritual health?
--Tom Clune
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
:
I would think that there may well be cultures which eat their dead dog as a gesture to honour it. I am pretty sure that some cultures have eaten the brains of dead relatives. I am not sure about fucking them up the backside; perhaps not.
It just reinforces the point that many of these practices are contextually bound, and it is difficult to generalize therefore. Of course, this can lead to relativism; as I said before, the horror, the horror. But then we are all relativists today, aren't we? It is wrong to kill, except for these instances ...
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But if I work for 7 days, who is harmed by my actions?
If you do it long term? Anyone relying on you to do a competent job as well as yourself.
Short term only yourself.
Posted by Polly (# 1107) on
:
If we see sin as something that isn't primarily about whether I harm others but as a rejection of the commandment of 'Loving the Lord God with all our heart, mind, strength and soul' then what we do in every area of life matters to God.
I think we are called to live faithfully within our relationships both the sexual ones as well as the majority of non-sexual ones as well as seeking justice and the wellbeing of others.
We don't need to choose one or the other. It's a both/and way of living.
I think our understanding of marriage is at times based more on Victorian traditions but I also still believe that it is 'God ordained'.
On the matter of God accepting David and Solomon's polygamy nowhere in scripture do we see God saying this was ok and in 1 Kings 11 he expressively says to Solomon not to intermarry with the women from other nations.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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With a slight but significant tweak to add in "and love your neighbour as yourself". But you're right: it's not an either/or.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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The post topic is "How concerned is God with what we do in the bedroom?"
Given that God seems indifferent to the 30,000 of so who will die of unclean water, the 60,000 or so who will die from starvation (your numbers may vary), etc etc. These things seem to have a lot more impact on our bodies than mere sex. Thus I doubt very much if God is very much concerned at all about who bonks who. And those who think God is preoccupied with such trivia are avoiding the obvious, real concerns of the people of the world.
Thus, the answer to the OP is: not very much, and given that it is one of the few joys for many people in the world, I suspect God wishes us all satisfying orgasms. Is there a prayer for good orgasms? An orgasmic patron saint? Maybe there is a St. Orgasm? (Valentine seeming preoccupied with love and greeting cards, and not with good satisfying humping.)
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
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St. Roger?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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You've got a funny way of loving yourself their Matt.
Although I understand how PTSD works.
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
I guess I'm interested in hearing from anyone who thinks sexual behaviour before marriage / committed relationship doesn't matter...
After a page and a half, I think I can safely ask: Strawman much?
These liberals you rage on about sound like positively awful people. I hope I live long enough to actually meet one.
Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on
:
dead horses aside, we are talking primarily about pre and extra marital sex here, right? so it seems to me that the definition of "married" in this context is important. what constitutes "married"? is it purely an issue of a religious ceremony? whose? is it a matter of legal recognition by a government? which government? what is they are not the same in what they consider to be a marriage (polygamy in some countries)? what about cultures in which the act of moving in together IS what constitutes a marriage?
I would argue that promiscuous sex without any sense of commitment to the partner is potentially problematic. it may not SEEM to cause harm to anyone, but in fact it may be spiritually harming one or both partners. I know that I have been harmed in this way, although I didn't think so at the time. On the other hand, I think that the idea that "marriage" is the only criterion makes it a bit difficult in that there are many (even within Christianity) ideas of what makes a marriage a marriage. so, even if we accept that sex outside a marriage is sinful to some degree, I think there are many cases where the couple considers themselves "married" whereas the one judging their sex life does not.. obviously the only one whose judgment matters is God, but we don't know what "marriage" means to Him. we have to guess. and if we use the bible as a guide to understanding God's will in this, then we are still stuck with a fair bit of ambiguity.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
I would argue that promiscuous sex without any sense of commitment to the partner is potentially problematic. it may not SEEM to cause harm to anyone, but in fact it may be spiritually harming one or both partners. I know that I have been harmed in this way, although I didn't think so at the time.
What do you mean by 'spiritually harming'?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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In answer to the OP, no less than He is in what we do in the street, at work, in all our other relationships and behaviour.
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
I would argue that promiscuous sex without any sense of commitment to the partner is potentially problematic. it may not SEEM to cause harm to anyone, but in fact it may be spiritually harming one or both partners. I know that I have been harmed in this way, although I didn't think so at the time.
Well, fair enough, but I have to say that most men I know have had many partners and casual sex, although that has dropped off as they have married and aged! But not one of them would claim it harmed them. I suspect that if I were to ask any man if the casual sex they had had harmed them in any sense other than STD's, they would think me strange.
I have not had similar conversations with women of my aquaintance.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
For instance, we know that God doesn't like it when I look at a woman lustfully. Merely looking at her doesn't actually harm her, but I know that it upsets (perhaps a better word than 'harms') God and therefore I shouldn't do it.
The Sermon on the Mount doesn't give 'it upsets God' as a reason. It says that it's effectively committing adultery. There have been a number of threads on the Ship about what looking with lust falls under the condemnation - I'd assume that it either consists of a disposition to commit adultery should the chance arise, or else the kind of staring or voyeurism that makes the other person uncomfortable.
Either way, I don't think one can claim that a prohibition exists merely because for arbitrary reasons it upsets God. Firstly, God is not upset for arbitrary reasons. Secondly, because that's of no help in understanding the prohibition, so as to know what does and doesn't fall under the prohibition.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
fairness/cheating
Cheating does indeed harm the cheated party.
loyalty/treason
Treason doesn't harm anyone?
Consider adultery. If we assume that it's done with protection against disease, it's not clear that any identifiable harm is done to the wronged party. The only reason we would say that the wronged party is harmed is that we think that adultery is morally wrong.
I think that it's wrong to treat or see other people only as means to one's own gratification. By gratification here I mean not only physical pleasure, but more saliently, one's sense of one's own power or importance. I think that's true even if no identifiable harm is done and if all actions are consented to by all parties.
(I don't however think that the conservative evangelical question, 'is it married sex between a man and a woman - yes/no?' is an perfect way of determining whether any given sexual act is abusive in that sense, either positively or negatively.)
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
:
But is the sin "looking lustfully" or "looking lustfully, and then following it up with the lady in the hope of actual sex"?
Because it seems to me that there is a genuine difference between looking at a pretty, sexily dressed lady who walks past you on the street, or even viewing pornography, and looking at your next-door neighbours wife lustfully, with the idea in mind that you might start something.
The former is not covetous - to me - but the latter is.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Either way, I don't think one can claim that a prohibition exists merely because for arbitrary reasons it upsets God.
Agreed.
It is true that a superficial reading of Scripture would suggest that everything called "evil" is evil because it makes God angry.
But surely the more authentic reason is that things are "evil" only if they cause harm.
The issue is that people are poor judges as to what does and does not cause harm - so we chafe against what may seem to be unfair and inaccurate designations.
When it comes to what we do in the bedroom, the truth must be that so-called "wicked" practices are harmful, both to the one commiting them and to others, in ways that are not always immediately obvious.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Because it seems to me that there is a genuine difference between looking at a pretty, sexily dressed lady who walks past you on the street, or even viewing pornography, and looking at your next-door neighbours wife lustfully, with the idea in mind that you might start something.
It takes a lot of gumption to actually start something. Timidity should not be taken as a virtue.
I think the real meaning has to do with what you would allow yourself to do if the opportunity arose.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
Sin = falling short.
How about if God is concerned that, having given us the gift of sexuality, we don't use it?
That we fall short of enjoying erotic pleasure?
That we 'sin' by not being attentive enough to our partners?
By not finding the time to find a partner?
By not spending enough time to be with our partner?
By not realising that sex is part of our prayer time?
Posted by Imersge Canfield (# 17431) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
The post topic is "How concerned is God with what we do in the bedroom?"
Given that God seems indifferent to the 30,000 of so who will die of unclean water, the 60,000 or so who will die from starvation (your numbers may vary), etc etc. These things seem to have a lot more impact on our bodies than mere sex. Thus I doubt very much if God is very much concerned at all about who bonks who. And those who think God is preoccupied with such trivia are avoiding the obvious, real concerns of the people of the world.
Thus, the answer to the OP is: not very much, and given that it is one of the few joys for many people in the world, I suspect God wishes us all satisfying orgasms. Is there a prayer for good orgasms? An orgasmic patron saint? Maybe there is a St. Orgasm? (Valentine seeming preoccupied with love and greeting cards, and not with good satisfying humping.)
What no prophet said.
[ 28. November 2012, 20:01: Message edited by: Imersge Canfield ]
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Consider adultery. If we assume that it's done with protection against disease, it's not clear that any identifiable harm is done to the wronged party. The only reason we would say that the wronged party is harmed is that we think that adultery is morally wrong.
Adultery is breach of promise. If there was no promise (implicit or explicit) there can be no adultery. And I have several friends in open relationships who demonstrate this - they have an open relationship they have agreed to so there is no adultery as long as they stick to what they have agreed.
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I think the real meaning has to do with what you would allow yourself to do if the opportunity arose.
That's fine. I'll keep looking then because even if the opportunity arose I wouldn't start something.
Looking and thinking about what it might be like are fine if you know yourself. If you are the kind of person who would definitely go further, perhaps even looking and thinking are best avoided.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
How concerned is God with what we do in the bedroom?
Flat answer is we don't know. Various assumptions are made but there is no absolute knowledge.
As for society in general and the church in particular, I would have thought the old attitude was best: a gentleman never alludes to his carnal activities, nor asks others about theirs. A lady is presumed to be chaste regardless of suspicions to the contrary because, put simply, IT'S PERSONAL.
Or, as you tell small children: the reason we call some areas of our bodies "private parts" is because they are meant to be kept private - and that includes what you do with them, with whom, how often, etc.
Could it be that if the church cared less about sex and more about love it might have a little more credibility in the eyes of wider society.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Either way, I don't think one can claim that a prohibition exists merely because for arbitrary reasons it upsets God.
Agreed.
It is true that a superficial reading of Scripture would suggest that everything called "evil" is evil because it makes God angry.
But surely the more authentic reason is that things are "evil" only if they cause harm.
The issue is that people are poor judges as to what does and does not cause harm - so we chafe against what may seem to be unfair and inaccurate designations.
When it comes to what we do in the bedroom, the truth must be that so-called "wicked" practices are harmful, both to the one commiting them and to others, in ways that are not always immediately obvious.
I think that's about right.
One contemporary theologian has said that the problem with casual sex is that it robs us of the ability to tell someone how much we love them by pledging that we will only ever have sex with them. 'I love you so much that you will be my life's only sexual partner' is a very powerful thing to be able to say to someone. Casual sex diminishes our vocabulary, because we can no longer say that.
It's not so terrible, though. You can express love in many other ways. The widowed and divorced manage to express love to subsequent partners.
I like the way it sees faithfulness not as a deprivation or restriction, but a power you can take to yourself, the power to express your commitment more fully.
Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Sin = falling short.
How about if God is concerned that, having given us the gift of sexuality, we don't use it?
That we fall short of enjoying erotic pleasure?
That we 'sin' by not being attentive enough to our partners?
By not finding the time to find a partner?
By not spending enough time to be with our partner?
By not realising that sex is part of our prayer time?
Sounds pretty solid to me.
And it fits in nicely with the wonderful love of much of Christianity for Aristotle. The presence of this capacity to physicalize love might mean that it's an important part of human flourishing.
Just to play prude's advocate, though, how do we know that other pleasurable things that God gives us (or some of us, at least) aren't important? Someone's masochistic tendencies, for example...What if God is concerned that, having given someone the trait of enjoying her own pain, she doesn't exercise it? That sounds off.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Consider adultery. If we assume that it's done with protection against disease, it's not clear that any identifiable harm is done to the wronged party. The only reason we would say that the wronged party is harmed is that we think that adultery is morally wrong.
Adultery is breach of promise. If there was no promise (implicit or explicit) there can be no adultery.
This assumes that the promise in question is one that it is moral for one person to ask another to make. If a man asked a woman to promise not to leave the house except in his company the promise would not be binding I don't believe the woman would be under any obligation even had she agreed.
Furthermore, if breach of promise is wrong as such regardless of whether it causes identifiable harm, then there is at least one thing that's wrong despite not causing identifiable harm.
[ 28. November 2012, 21:27: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
The other thing I wanted to say is that I think one of the historic problems with extra-marital sex was not so much adultery as adulteration - in our contemporary understanding of those words.
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 says that it is wrong to remarry a previous wife after she has been married to someone else. It sounds rather sweet to me that a couple should want to get back together again, but not to the God of Deuteronomy who apparently finds it abhorrent. There's no mention of a problem if the man has had an intervening marriage, but there is if the woman has.
This makes sense according to the old belief that something of the male principle remained in the female's blood from prior matings. Even Darwin seems to have believed this. It makes sense of levirate marriage where a man married his brother's widow to 'raise up children for him' - because they will still be slightly his - and it makes sense of Deuteronomy 24. A woman who has been married to someone else will introduce something of their bloodline into yours - mixing, the great horror of the Pentateuch.
So the concern of Deuteronomy and much of the OT is not with relationships and fidelity in that sense, it's with inheritance, purity of pedigree - it's a sort of property issue, adulteration not adultery - and it's based on faulty genetics.
Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The other thing I wanted to say is that I think one of the historic problems with extra-marital sex was not so much adultery as adulteration - in our contemporary understanding of those words....So the concern of Deuteronomy and much of the OT is not with relationships and fidelity in that sense, it's with inheritance, purity of pedigree - it's a sort of property issue, adulteration not adultery - and it's based on faulty genetics.
Although to be fair, in addition to the long-term male-principle-staying-in-the-blood issue, there's also the fact that in the age before paternity tests, a one-off instance of adultery could "adulterate" the bloodline if it led to conception. So it's not only based on faulty genetics, although the bits that you discuss certainly are.
Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by hatless:
[qb] Although to be fair, in addition to the long-term male-principle-staying-in-the-blood issue, there's also the fact that in the age before paternity tests, a one-off instance of adultery could "adulterate" the bloodline if it led to conception. So it's not only based on faulty genetics, although the bits that you discuss certainly are.
It "adulterates" the male bloodline. It does nothing at all to the female bloodline, since her children are still her children. An argument for matrelinial inheritance. Matrilinial societies often have much more permissive views on premarital sexual activity in females. This, I think lends support to the idea that the objection to premarital sex has more to do with inheritance than with sex per se.
Posted by Tubifex Maximus (# 4874) on
:
I suspect God is concerned with what we do in the bedroom, but not quite in the way suggested in the OP. For one thing I suspect that sex before marriage didn't much happen in a world where everyone belongs to someone else and where children are given in marriage pretty much as soon as they are sexually mature.
There is no rationale in the 10 commandments as to why adultery is forbidden, but there are also another 9 commandments that are not about adultery.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubifex Maximus:
If you're going to support your beliefs successfully, you'll need to come on straight.
You did that on purpose. Fess up.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And you were banging on about 'the gay issue',
Does "banging" mean there what it means here?
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Some anthropologists explain this by pointing to the very harsh conditions under which people lived, so that it was essential to produce many children, men had to be fairly tough, in order to protect the tribe, and so on.
No wonder the conservatives want to destroy the middle class and take us back to those days! To create incentive for their pet sexual ethics!
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
God harmed? Fragile, is He? So much for that all-powerful bullshit then?
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Sin is against God's nature, therefore by definition it is going to upset him a tad.
Not sure that argument works. Being physical is against God's nature, but he took to it like a duck.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Of the Ten Commandments (depending on which list one uses) roughly half are concerned with our relationship with God and the other our relationships with other people. Of those, only one relates to sex. That seems a fairly good rule of thumb to me...
It could be easily argued that even the adultery commandment is about property, not sex.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Sooo....what about keeping the Sabbath holy? Why's that in the Decalogue? Surely breaking it does no harm...?
The Sabbath is the mark of Israel. It (among other things) set them apart from the nations. If they had not been set apart and kept themselves set apart, they would have been absorbed and would have disappeared as a nation. But God wanted them to remain a nation, so that through them he could bless the earth with the Incarnation. Thus if they hadn't kept the Sabbath, it would have harmed all of humanity. Now that Christ has come, its importance wanes. "Some treat every day the same," St. Paul says, as if it were no big deal.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
This assumes that the promise in question is one that it is moral for one person to ask another to make. If a man asked a woman to promise not to leave the house except in his company the promise would not be binding I don't believe the woman would be under any obligation even had she agreed.
And if two people want to pledge sexual fidelity to each other, as is not uncommon in our society, who are you to say it is not a reasonable promise for them to make to each other? Who defines "reasonable"? What a bizarre comment.
[ 29. November 2012, 00:11: Message edited by: mousethief ]
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And you were banging on about 'the gay issue',
Does "banging" mean there what it means here?
It has a couple of different meanings, and after thinking of the more UK-like one ("banging on"), I spotted the more US-like one and enjoyed the ambiguity.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
As to living together etc. before an intended marriage, I'd like to see some evidence from cultural historians before concluding that our society is particularly lax. We may find that
weddings with the bride already pregnant were not unusual even in communities full of upstanding churchgoers.
We even have Luke 2:4-5.
quote:
4 So Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David, 5 to be registered together with Mary, who was legally promised in marriage to him and[c] was pregnant.
That is, Joseph fully intended to marry Mary, and had been told by God that he should, but had not gotten around to doing so before they went on this journey whose purpose was a census and during which she, "great with child", would be seen by numerous people in public and register for lodgings in inns. Maybe the situation was not quite as embarrassing for her as it would probably be even in our society?
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
One contemporary theologian has said that the problem with casual sex is that it robs us of the ability to tell someone how much we love them by pledging that we will only ever have sex with them. 'I love you so much that you will be my life's only sexual partner' is a very powerful thing to be able to say to someone. Casual sex diminishes our vocabulary, because we can no longer say that.
It's not so terrible, though. You can express love in many other ways. The widowed and divorced manage to express love to subsequent partners.
I like the way it sees faithfulness not as a deprivation or restriction, but a power you can take to yourself, the power to express your commitment more fully. [/QB]
There are many many ways to tell someone that you love them. Having sex with just one person for your entire life is only one way that some people tell people how much they love them. We have fairly large vocabularies.
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
The post topic is "How concerned is God with what we do in the bedroom?"
Given that God seems indifferent to the 30,000 of so who will die of unclean water, the 60,000 or so who will die from starvation (your numbers may vary), etc etc. These things seem to have a lot more impact on our bodies than mere sex. Thus I doubt very much if God is very much concerned at all about who bonks who. And those who think God is preoccupied with such trivia are avoiding the obvious, real concerns of the people of the world.
Thus, the answer to the OP is: not very much, and given that it is one of the few joys for many people in the world, I suspect God wishes us all satisfying orgasms. Is there a prayer for good orgasms? An orgasmic patron saint? Maybe there is a St. Orgasm? (Valentine seeming preoccupied with love and greeting cards, and not with good satisfying humping.)
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
It was also a way of Jesus upping the ante - as he often did in quite hyperbolic ways in order to challenges the prevailing status quo - 'You have heard that it was said ... but I say ...'
So what he was effectively doing was suggesting that the intention to sin was a no-no as well as the actual committing of it - adultery in this case.
[/QB]
How about this interpretation? You can't stop yourself from thinking thoughts. At least it's extremely hard and near impossible when you are talking about an inherent trait of humans. Maybe the point was to try and point out the nature of man. Inherently fallen. In need of saving. Following rules isn't going to work. We are nasty nasty creatures.
What I find interesting is the definition of marriage. What about the open relationships? What about a marriage that is falling apart and the couple don't know if they are going to be together anymore? The commitment is gone. There is no "I will be with you for the rest of your life" promise at that time. Is it ok for that couple to have sex? Why? Because a piece of paper says so? Is marriage even ever that kind of commitment? Marriage has an extremely well known "get out" clause. Everyone knows that divorce is relatively easy to get. (I'm not saying it's emotionally easy). I'm not sure that most people are really making that promise when they know that out clause is there for them. Even religious people get divorced all the time.
Also, there is a nearby college where I live, it's a christian college. I used to work there with an outside agency with students. So many college students were married by senior year that there is a married dorm. Even more were engaged by senior year. No other college that I know is like that near me. I think it's because they want to have sex because it's a normal thing to want. And the only way they are going to get it is by marrying. I worry that those people are marrying too young.
Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Furthermore, if breach of promise is wrong as such regardless of whether it causes identifiable harm, then there is at least one thing that's wrong despite not causing identifiable harm. [/QB]
Well, if the other party to the agreement no longer cares, then I suppose you are right, no harm is done ( or at least no obvious harm). However in MOST cases of adultery the wronged spouse very much cares, and so, clearly harm is done...or are you defining "harm" differently.
I don't give two figs who my ex husband may be banging. It's not harming me at all. The same was true when we were still legally married, but separated. On the other hand, if my current spouse were to be unfaithful...even if it never came to actual sex, I would be very deeply hurt. The same would have been true if the unfaithfulness had happened when we were a couple, but before we actually married.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
Indeed, the record among Evangelicals, and in heavily Evangelical parts of he U.S., for staying married is nothing to be proud of. Atheists do better. What went wrong?
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
See previous post. Getting married too young is part of the problem.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Indeed, the record among Evangelicals, and in heavily Evangelical parts of he U.S., for staying married is nothing to be proud of. Atheists do better. What went wrong?
There are things to do besides praying when on your knees.
Obscene images aside, the fear of corrupting children has led evangelicals and fundamentalists to be against sex education, and what is called "healthy lifestyles" education here, and to simply devolve to "don't". So you end up with ill-informed people who have never really addressed simple issues such as being preoccupied with sexuality is common human condition and how to manage that, and they have limited ideas of what might be pleasing to their lovers in the bedroom, if they don't already feel guilty enough.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
of course God is very concerned at what you do in the bedroom. If you don't take your brother's widow as your second wife he'll be very very displeased with you.
To bad it's against the law of the land. You have the choice of being a criminal or a sinner againt the bible.
Posted by Tubifex Maximus (# 4874) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief quote:
Originally posted by Tubifex Maximus:
If you're going to support your beliefs successfully, you'll need to come on straight.
You did that on purpose. Fess up.
Well, here's the thing; I didn't. I came back to it after an hour and...there it was.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
To pick up on what Leon said, I think that liberals (if indeed that is their mindset) need to include God (and their relationship with Him*) in the list of 'who might be harmed by this'.
*Well, for those who are Christians as well
God harmed? Fragile, is He? So much for that all-powerful bullshit then?
So the Crucifixion didn't do Him any harm, then?
Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Paul wasn't God, you know - he was just some bloke who managed to wangle his way to the top of what passed for the church heirarchy in those days and then wrote a few letters. Human. Fallible. Wrong.
Love it. Can I quote you? ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Nen - returning to reading and lurking.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So the Crucifixion didn't do Him any harm, then?
Only for a couple of days. Spiritual equivalent of gravel rash.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
Love it. Can I quote you?
Sure, knock yourself out
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So the Crucifixion didn't do Him any harm, then?
Only for a couple of days. Spiritual equivalent of gravel rash.
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
Oh don't look so shocked, Matt. It's in the Bible. Where, Death, is your sting?
We're talking about God's perspective here, not Man's.
[ 29. November 2012, 11:05: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
Joining this a bit late - my reviews have been mostly about whether this might become Horsey. Which it hasn't. Well, not so as you'd notice.
I don't think God is concerned with what we do in the bedroom. My kind of first-principle view is that Christianity encourages faithfulness and keeping your word.
So if you've given your word that you should "forsake all others" in favour of someone else, that's a pretty big thing.
So I reckon if you've promised to keep faithful in that way, that includes the bedroom. What consenting adults get up to in that context strikes me as pretty much a matter for them.
Outside of that kind of faithfulness, the world seems to get a bit blurry. But I've been living inside that sort of faithfulness for a very long time now. I don't point fingers at others. I just think what a lucky man I've been.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Only after the Resurrection. I find the apparent trivialising of the Crucifixion deeply disturbing.
Also in the Bible about how sin affects God, as it happens, is Eph 4:30: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." That's really my point: 'harm' is as I have already said perhaps the wrong word. But our sin does hurt God, whether that be physically on Golgotha or 'emotionally' as in grieving Him; I find Leon's 'liberal' reasoning in that regard to be no different really to that of a secularist - where's the need for God in it?
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So the Crucifixion didn't do Him any harm, then?
Only for a couple of days. Spiritual equivalent of gravel rash.
A little incomplete. We mustn't separate the spiritual from the human. The whole point is that Jesus experienced his crucifixion as a human being. If he experienced it as a non-human god-being, in the spiritual realm alone, then it has limited meaning except symbolically, and he becomes some superman character who can take his own death with equanimity. He didn't though, given what it written about how it was for him.
It did him incredible harm. It killed him. That it was turned into something else, and a non-death does not mean it was mere "gravel rash" in the human sense. I am having trouble understanding how we can separate human-spiritual.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Only after the Resurrection.
Which is when we're living, yes? And which is a far, far longer period of time than the period before it.
quote:
I find the apparent trivialising of the Crucifixion deeply disturbing.
I'm not attempting to trivialise the Crucifixion, I'm only attempting to trivialise your choice to use it in this context. The Crucifixion is of profound importance, but because of its effect on us, not its effect on God. God could have gone on being God for eternity.
[ 29. November 2012, 12:16: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
It did him incredible harm. It killed him.
You say that like he didn't recover.
EDIT: Are some of us perhaps confusing harm with suffering?
[ 29. November 2012, 12:20: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
It seems obvious to me that God is concerned about 'the bedroom'.
Sex is still the way that most babies are made, babies are still mostly raised in families (i.e. units with whom they have some biological connection), and families are still the most vital factor in how children are nurtured into or away from the life and heart of faith. Some would say that families have an impact on communities and nations too, so it's even more connected!
The point isn't that everyone has kids (I don't), but that sex is a foundational element in the construction of our outlook onto our wider world. Attitudes towards sex influence both family and society, and therefore influence the transmission and context of the Christian faith.
Sociologists often say that increased sexual liberalisation is one of the outcomes of increased secularisation. I'm sure it's possible to argue, theologically, that God is in favour of secularisation, and therefore of sexual liberalisation. But it's rare to hear Christians making such arguments....
In the past, people were often widowed early, and would remarry. But the practice of 'serial monogamy' as we know it would seem (from the research, and also from anecdotal evidence) to work against family stability. Declining family stability seemingly has a negative impact on faith transmission, and it's probably also an element in the fragmentalisation of society, which also has problematic outcomes for faith.
I'm not one of these conservatives who think the state should try to resolve these issues. That's not going to happen, and I don't really think it should. But it seems disingenuous for Christians to claim that sex has no relevance to anything other than itself, and that God is indifferent. We're certainly not indifferent - we wouldn't be takling about it if we were.
Maybe, to coin a phrase, the personal is the theological!
[ 29. November 2012, 12:22: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
But it seems disingenuous for Christians to claim that sex has no relevance to anything other than itself, and that God is indifferent. We're certainly not indifferent - we wouldn't be takling about it if we were.
Who is saying that here? I'm certainly not, my first words on the thread were "Of course it matters!" My point is that we don't have to look back to 1st century to decide where we stand on sexual morals, we can decide for ourselves. We can also decide on the basis that if we act justly, love mercy and care deeply for our fellow wo/men we won't go far wrong. In this area as in any other.
Posted by Polly (# 1107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
See previous post. Getting married too young is part of the problem.
I'm not sure age is as big a deal as you make out.
My best friends were married at 22/23.
My parents generations and my grandparents generation people were getting married very young and many remained married until 'death do us part'.
The problem is rather the fact that we treat our relationships as a commodity to own rather one to nurture and work at.
We live more by how we feel rather than making an every day choice to say I will love this person.
It's not a 100% solution but so many couples just get married without proper preparation even those who have been together for years.
Marriage prep if done well should get couples to think about the questions that perhaps they have been assuming the answers to but without properly discussing them.
Posted by jbohn (# 8753) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
It did him incredible harm. It killed him.
You say that like he didn't recover.
Cue Monty Python- "Not dead yet!"
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Only after the Resurrection. I find the apparent trivialising of the Crucifixion deeply disturbing.
On the other hand, if he were wholly God and wholly Man he knew all along that for him death would only be a temporary state. And there is an interpretation which reads "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me" as evidence that God never actually shared in the death on the cross.
I find the moral carte-blanche that some Christians give God for going through a small part of the system God set up to be disturbing.
quote:
I find Leon's 'liberal' reasoning in that regard to be no different really to that of a secularist - where's the need for God in it?
I'd assume that without God were not all things made which were made?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
There just isn't any mention of God in it. It points towards cutting God and our relationship with Him as Christians out of the equation altogether in a way which I find unacceptable.
@Orfeo: I think it's perfectly legit to mention the Crucifixion as it gives the lie to the assertion that our sin doesn't hurt God. I still find the trivialisation of such a central feature of the Christian faith disturbing.
[ 29. November 2012, 14:05: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
It did him incredible harm. It killed him.
You say that like he didn't recover.
EDIT: Are some of us perhaps confusing harm with suffering?
That's a good question. I am not separating the two things. Should I be? This might approach becoming a tangent. I have probably been focussed on the human side, suffering, and as you put it, harm, for an extended period for various personal reasons. To my understanding, the actual experience of death is not a "good", it is a harmful thing. Suffering is part of the human condition, and real suffering is what Jesus experienced. He bled while he suffered, his lungs filled with fluid, it ran out when speared in the side etc. So I see the harm and suffering as conjoint experiences. That the harm was rectified according to the story as we have received it does transform it later, but if it was a human experience, loss of his life (although regained) it is still harm. The bible writings about it suggest to me that it was certainly experienced as harmful by his friends also. I am learning over time the curious fact that death and life are actually the same thing. And I get it for a while and have to revisit it.
Perhaps I could impose on you to expand your thoughts on harm-suffering, particularly if my understanding is far from your's, astray, and under-developed.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
This.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And if two people want to pledge sexual fidelity to each other, as is not uncommon in our society, who are you to say it is not a reasonable promise for them to make to each other? Who defines "reasonable"? What a bizarre comment.
I think sexual fidelity is a value worth promising. But I don't think that the value of sexual fidelity can be reached starting from the position that the only relevant values are to cause no harm and always obtain consent. What I'm saying is that I don't think you can get to, 'sexual fidelity is a reasonable thing to ask,' merely from the claim that things are only wrong if they do harm or aren't consented to.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Either way, I don't think one can claim that a prohibition exists merely because for arbitrary reasons it upsets God. Firstly, God is not upset for arbitrary reasons. Secondly, because that's of no help in understanding the prohibition, so as to know what does and doesn't fall under the prohibition.
What he said.
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
...I have to say that most men I know have had many partners and casual sex...
Really? Most? Many, yes, but I doubt if its most. Especially bearing in mind that some of those who say they have will be exagerrating to make themselves look good. Maybe most of them. And there are plenty of men who never or hardly ever have any sex at all (and not all of them are married!)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
Well, if the other party to the agreement no longer cares, then I suppose you are right, no harm is done ( or at least no obvious harm). However in MOST cases of adultery the wronged spouse very much cares, and so, clearly harm is done...or are you defining "harm" differently.
I think that's the wrong way round.
Suppose two people, Alice and Bill, are married, Bill has an affair, and they divorce. Alice washes Bill out of her hair and has a new happy relationship with Charles. Bill is now extremely jealous.
Bill cares very much about Alice having sex with Charles. But is he harmed? No, he's not harmed. Bill no longer has any right to care what Alice does with Charles. (Technically, he has a right to care in that nobody can stop him. But he no longer has any right that anybody should take any notice.)
Lots of people care about people having premarital sex or same-sex sex or any other kind of sex. That doesn't mean they're harmed, or that they have any rights in the matter.
So if adultery is a harm to the other spouse it can't be simply because the other spouse cares. The other spouse must have a right to care. And you can't establish that right on the basis of the harm principle.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Sociologists often say that increased sexual liberalisation is one of the outcomes of increased secularisation. I'm sure it's possible to argue, theologically, that God is in favour of secularisation, and therefore of sexual liberalisation. But it's rare to hear Christians making such arguments....
In the past, people were often widowed early, and would remarry. But the practice of 'serial monogamy' as we know it would seem (from the research, and also from anecdotal evidence) to work against family stability. Declining family stability seemingly has a negative impact on faith transmission, and it's probably also an element in the fragmentalisation of society, which also has problematic outcomes for faith.
Nicely put Svitlana.
"Declining family stability" is a nice way to say "increasing sexual immorality" and it is no surprise that it would be associated with religious decline.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think sexual fidelity is a value worth promising. But I don't think that the value of sexual fidelity can be reached starting from the position that the only relevant values are to cause no harm and always obtain consent. What I'm saying is that I don't think you can get to, 'sexual fidelity is a reasonable thing to ask,' merely from the claim that things are only wrong if they do harm or aren't consented to.
On the other hand the value of conditional consent is a necessity if consent has any meaning. You don't either consent to everything or nothing. And "What is reasonable to ask" isn't a relevant question as long as it is asked and accepted by both in the full knowledge of the consequences and without coercion. Sexual fidelity isn't necessarily good within the bounds of consent and harm but there is a definite place for it.
Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on
:
I think it is reasonable to expect something mutually agreed upon. I think that there is harm done when you reneg on that agreement, regardless of what it is.
I think that in your example, the agreement has been nullified by the divorce.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that being unfaithful, whether i marriage, in business or in any other relationship (by whatever definition of "unfaithful")causes harm, that the person being harmed has every right to feel harmed, and that the harm is what determines whether the act is "good" or "bad". it's not limited to sexual fidelity within a legal contract of marriage. any relationship between two people, where there is an agreement (explicit or implicit) on something, which has not been clearly nullified in some way. I'm sure you could come up with some scenario which tests the boundaries of this definition.. fine. it's not precise. but I think that it is a better explanation than simply "God said it's wrong, for no reason other than that He said so". because in that case we have to answer many other questions, such as "how do we KNOW He said so, what constituted infidelity, what constitutes marriage...
I do think God does not approve of infidelity. I think He does so because of the harm caused, not for any other reason. (but I think harm may be caused in many ways, some of them not initially obvious).
Which leads me back to your example.. what is someone feel harmed in some way by an action which clearly is something another person does which is just part of them living their life (i.e. someone feel harmed because they find something offensive). Clearly this isn't a black and white thing.. and this is where societal attitudes may play a role. There are grey areas in everything. society at one time would have said that the ex husband in your example is perfectly right to feel harmed, since in that society he would still be married to her.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
God harmed? Fragile, is He? So much for that all-powerful bullshit then?
So the Crucifixion didn't do Him any harm, then?
God, in his essence, is unchanging. You do believe that, right? How can he be harmed? To say the crucifixion harmed God is patripassionism and is a heresy.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Only after the Resurrection. I find the apparent trivialising of the Crucifixion deeply disturbing.
To say the crucifixion doesn't harm God isn't trivializing it. You are playing the "you don't believe my interpretation of the Bible therefore you don't believe the Bible" game.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Sex is still the way that most babies are made, babies are still mostly raised in families (i.e. units with whom they have some biological connection),
This trivializes adoptive parents and step-families. Find a new definition.
quote:
Originally posted by Polly:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
See previous post. Getting married too young is part of the problem.
I'm not sure age is as big a deal as you make out.
My best friends were married at 22/23.
YOu do realize, I hope, that the plural of "anecdote" is not "scientific data"? A handful of exceptions do not disprove a general rule.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
There just isn't any mention of God in it.
In "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" there isn't any mention of God?
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
What I'm saying is that I don't think you can get to, 'sexual fidelity is a reasonable thing to ask,' merely from the claim that things are only wrong if they do harm or aren't consented to.
Not relevant. What I asked was, who gets to decide what's reasonable, and why should couples adhere to somebody else's definition of reasonable? I'm talking about the situation "on the ground" as they say in the newsroom.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So if adultery is a harm to the other spouse it can't be simply because the other spouse cares. The other spouse must have a right to care. And you can't establish that right on the basis of the harm principle.
Bullshit. It's not about caring, unless it's about caring that promises are broken. And caring about promises being broken is inherent in the very idea of making a promise.
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
I think it is reasonable to expect something mutually agreed upon. I think that there is harm done when you reneg on that agreement, regardless of what it is.
I think that in your example, the agreement has been nullified by the divorce.
Eggggggzackly.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I'm not advocating any kind of patripassianism - I'm not saying that God the Father died on the Cross. But God the Son clearly did for our sake. Neither am I playing interpretative games with you or anyone else: I would think that pretty much all Christians would agree that the Crucifixion is a fairly central tenet of our faith.
My reference to there being 'no mention of God' was in Leon's 'liberal definition' of sin being that which harms others, so I;m not sure what point you are trying to make here. It just struck me as being very secular, something to which anyone, not just Christians, could cheerfully subscribe. I'm not saying that makes it a Bad Thing™, just that it doesn't make it particularly Christian.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
When you put it like that, it does seem odd that some people think Christianity should not be subject to the mores of this age, but subject to the mores of an age that has long since passed.
Huh?
The sexual morality articulated in the NT was no less counter-cultural in relation to Greek and Roman mores than to ours.
Posted by Polly (# 1107) on
:
quote:
YOu do realize, I hope, that the plural of "anecdote" is not "scientific data"? A handful of exceptions do not disprove a general rule.
@Mousethief
But its not a handful of exceptions. The trend was in generations past to get married younger rather than later and people generally did stay together.
In the last 20-30 years attitudes to life, relationships and marriage has changed but that doesn't mean that getting married at X age is now wrong (as long as its over the legal age limit!).
My point is that if two people want to get married then some good marriage prep should not be underestimated as it will help those concerned build a good foundation for their relationship.
Posted by Polly (# 1107) on
:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
God harmed? Fragile, is He? So much for that all-powerful bullshit then?
So the Crucifixion didn't do Him any harm, then?
God, in his essence, is unchanging. You do believe that, right? How can he be harmed? To say the crucifixion harmed God is patripassionism and is a heresy.
It's not heresy to say that the crucifixion caused God the Father immense pain and grief. I agree that he didn't experience the physical torment of being nailed to the cross but he did experience the torment of forsaking and being separated from his only begotten son who he loved.
If we see harm as only being physical we have a very narrow understanding of it.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
It was also a way of Jesus upping the ante - as he often did in quite hyperbolic ways in order to challenges the prevailing status quo - 'You have heard that it was said ... but I say ...'
So what he was effectively doing was suggesting that the intention to sin was a no-no as well as the actual committing of it - adultery in this case.
I agree-- as long as we give Jesus the respect of taking Him at His word. If He was talking about adultery (or imagined adultery), then the problem is adultery, not horniness. The thing about adultery is that it involves breaking a promise and compromising an existing relationship. To equate the two is not upping the ante, but moral obtuseness, as if the marital status of the fantasier or the one fantasied about were irrelevant.
[ 29. November 2012, 17:00: Message edited by: Alogon ]
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Go on then, let me in on the secret of how you know whether God is going to be harmed by a sexual misdemeanor yet isn't harmed by some crazy fool running around killing people with a donkey jawbone.
How does anyone know for sure that God is/isn't giving them a pass on this particular sexual misdemeanor?
Well, Samson was fighting against the Philistines, who are portrayed in the OT as enemies of Israel and of God. So there's that.
And the Book of the Judges contains a number of stories about otherwise-righteous leaders who fell into sin--see also Jephtha & Gideon, for example. That the text doesn't condemn their behavior outright isn't evidence that their behavior wasn't wrong.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think sexual fidelity is a value worth promising. But I don't think that the value of sexual fidelity can be reached starting from the position that the only relevant values are to cause no harm and always obtain consent. What I'm saying is that I don't think you can get to, 'sexual fidelity is a reasonable thing to ask,' merely from the claim that things are only wrong if they do harm or aren't consented to.
On the other hand the value of conditional consent is a necessity if consent has any meaning. You don't either consent to everything or nothing.
I'm sorry - I don't see what this has to do with my argument. Could you expand a bit please?
(Consent isn't a value. Autonomy is a value, and acting without consent is a violation of autonomy.)
I would agree that certain kinds of consent are limited of necessity. For example, you can't consent to alienate certain of your rights. You can't sell yourself into slavery. An employer cannot make it a condition of your employment that you refrain from sexual activity outside the hours of employment. Et cetera.
Pledging permanent fidelity seems to me to look an awful lot like an alienation of your right to sexual activity. You need to be able to justify why you can't consent to such a contract with your employer but you can with another person.
quote:
And "What is reasonable to ask" isn't a relevant question as long as it is asked and accepted by both in the full knowledge of the consequences and without coercion. Sexual fidelity isn't necessarily good within the bounds of consent and harm but there is a definite place for it.
My previous example: a husband asks his wife not to leave the house ever without his company. (Suppose they're members of some conservative religious group.) Are you really saying that as long as the wife consents to that she is then morally bound?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So if adultery is a harm to the other spouse it can't be simply because the other spouse cares. The other spouse must have a right to care. And you can't establish that right on the basis of the harm principle.
Bullshit. It's not about caring, unless it's about caring that promises are broken. And caring about promises being broken is inherent in the very idea of making a promise.
I am not sure that you're responding to the argument that I think I was making.
(Anyuta brought up caring. I was trying to argue that it's not about caring.)
The simplest way to ensure that no promises are broken is not to make promises. There's no point in making a promise unless some value is gained from it.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
It was also a way of Jesus upping the ante - as he often did in quite hyperbolic ways in order to challenges the prevailing status quo - 'You have heard that it was said ... but I say ...'
So what he was effectively doing was suggesting that the intention to sin was a no-no as well as the actual committing of it - adultery in this case.
I agree-- as long as we give Jesus the respect of taking Him at His word. If He was talking about adultery (or imagined adultery), then the problem is adultery, not horniness. The thing about adultery is that it involves breaking a promise and compromising an existing relationship. To equate the two is not upping the ante, but moral obtuseness, as if the marital status of the fantasier or the one fantasied about were irrelevant.
Confused. I didn't say this. But I did quote it. Who are you agreeing with?
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Pledging permanent fidelity seems to me to look an awful lot like an alienation of your right to sexual activity. You need to be able to justify why you can't consent to such a contract with your employer but you can with another person.
You mean I really need to be able to justify why equals can consent to mutual things that people in an automatically unequal and coercive relationship need to be protected from?
quote:
My previous example: a husband asks his wife not to leave the house ever without his company. (Suppose they're members of some conservative religious group.) Are you really saying that as long as the wife consents to that she is then morally bound?
Yes I am. I am also saying that it's a moral factor rather than a categorical imperative. And there are much, much worse things she can do than leave.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Polly:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
See previous post. Getting married too young is part of the problem.
I'm not sure age is as big a deal as you make out.
My best friends were married at 22/23.
My parents generations and my grandparents generation people were getting married very young and many remained married until 'death do us part'.
The problem is rather the fact that we treat our relationships as a commodity to own rather one to nurture and work at.
We live more by how we feel rather than making an every day choice to say I will love this person.
It's not a 100% solution but so many couples just get married without proper preparation even those who have been together for years.
Marriage prep if done well should get couples to think about the questions that perhaps they have been assuming the answers to but without properly discussing them.
Well, we need statistics, don't we? Just because previous generations didn't get divorced doesn't mean that they were good marriages. And fidelity was certainly not a widespread practice. I love the idea of making the choice every day to love this person. This is exactly my point. So, is there a choice or not? Can a couple have a choice if divorce is not an option?
Good marriage prep needs time.
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
"Declining family stability" is a nice way to say "increasing sexual immorality" and it is no surprise that it would be associated with religious decline.
Wot?? That is an interpretation you CAN put on it, for sure, but the fact that you automatically read that between the lines says more about the mindset you bring to the table than anything else, I think. It is my understanding that the majority of relationships which fail do not do so because one of the parties is or has been cheating, or thinking about cheating.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
I think it is reasonable to expect something mutually agreed upon. I think that there is harm done when you reneg on that agreement, regardless of what it is.
As I said to mousethief, the simplest way to avoid that is to not make mutual agreements.
I think the above argument is a circular definition. That is, you're saying that breaking a mutual agreement is wrong because it causes harm. Why does it cause harm? Because it's breaking a mutual agreement.
I can think of a number of ways in which breaking a mutual agreement can cause genuine harm: the other person may have altered their behaviour because they thought they could rely on the agreement being met. But I don't think you can say that breaking a mutual agreement causes harm as such. Mutual agreements can serve good purposes. But unless a particular mutual agreement serves a particular good purpose, I'd say there's no value in that particular mutual agreement.
quote:
I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that being unfaithful, whether i marriage, in business or in any other relationship (by whatever definition of "unfaithful")causes harm, that the person being harmed has every right to feel harmed, and that the harm is what determines whether the act is "good" or "bad".
Suppose Starbucks announce that in order to buy coffee from them I must agree never to buy coffee from any other coffee company. Is that reasonable? Can they reasonably say that they are harmed if I buy coffee from another coffee company? That they then have every right to feel harmed? That this harm determines whether the act (buying coffee from another company) is good or bad? I don't see how that can be reasonable.
The harm of breaking a business contract is that the other party to a contract is now planning their future actions and expenditure on the assumption of the fulfilment of the contract. If the other party hasn't incurred any costs in time or money no harm is done.
quote:
I think that it is a better explanation than simply "God said it's wrong, for no reason other than that He said so".
I agree. But these surely aren't our only two options?
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
I didn't say this. But I did quote it. Who are you agreeing with?
My apologies, I see it was Gamaliel who originally said it. I agree with both of you as long as the concept of "adultery" isn't overextended-- which it arguably has been at times, even if not among present company.
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Polly:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool on the hill:
See previous post. Getting married too young is part of the problem.
I'm not sure age is as big a deal as you make out.
My best friends were married at 22/23.
My parents generations and my grandparents generation people were getting married very young and many remained married until 'death do us part'.
I'd like to speak to this some more. I agree with Fool on the Hill that getting married too young is a problem. But what exactly is too young? I suspect this is contextual.
Yes, people in our grandparents (or perhaps great-grandparents) generation got married at ages that seem young to us, and yes, we can look back and say that it seemed to work out okay. But, quite apart from the fact that in most cases, we wouldn't know just how 'okay' these marriages were, in a society where divorce carried stigma and jobs for women were scarce, getting married at 22 or 23 in a world where a.) this is a common and standard age for marriage, and b.) both parties* have been considered adults for some time, is a different thing to getting married at this sort of age today.
I got married at 22. My husband was 23. We were both still at university, and had spent our whole lives up to that point wrapped up in study and the end-goal of our respective degrees. We didn't have much life experience. We hadn't thought much about what we wanted to do 'after that'. And the bald fact is that we got married at that age, way before most of our friends, because we subscribed to a view that we had both been brought up with, that it was wrong to have sex before marriage. I am not saying that we got married merely because we were keen on the idea of banging one another - our relationship was and is much more and deeper than that - but if you have been taught that it would be a catastrophe if you were not a virgin at marriage, then you do take the 'marry or burn' thing into account when dealing with the timing of things.
I must say, I hope my children go about their decision-making slightly differently. If you are not properly grown-up when you get married and then the two of you 'grow up' in slightly different directions, well, that is difficult. There is a possibility of this happening regardless of the ages of the participants, I know, but I strongly suspect it is correlated with age.
*We can have an argument about whether societies in which roles and choices for women are heavily proscriptive lead to infantilisation of half the population some other time...
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
Marrying young is a problem now because it means missing out on other options, not just for different partners but different lifestyles. And people today are well aware of what they're missing, because the world is so small.
However, in the past that great range of options didn't really exist. If you married a man of the same class, background and culture as yourself, which was normal, your lifestyle and trajectory were going to be more or the less the same whether you married Bob, Tim or Fred. Ideally, you'd avoid the drunkard, the wife-beater and the spendthrift, but most couples weren't banking on living a life of unbridled romantic bliss, because for most people life was going to be hard whoever they decided to marry.
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
"Declining family stability" is a nice way to say "increasing sexual immorality" and it is no surprise that it would be associated with religious decline.
Wot?? That is an interpretation you CAN put on it, for sure, but the fact that you automatically read that between the lines says more about the mindset you bring to the table than anything else, I think.
Good point.
quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
It is my understanding that the majority of relationships which fail do not do so because one of the parties is or has been cheating, or thinking about cheating.
I wasn't thinking about cheating so much as not being married. But cheating is often a factor.
I was thinking especially about the strong statistical association between living together before marriage and future divorce. It is not only accepted, but advocated as a way to ensure compatibility - even though people know that the numbers are against it.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
My reference to there being 'no mention of God' was in Leon's 'liberal definition' of sin being that which harms others, so I;m not sure what point you are trying to make here. It just struck me as being very secular, something to which anyone, not just Christians, could cheerfully subscribe. I'm not saying that makes it a Bad Thing™, just that it doesn't make it particularly Christian.
As St. Clive points out, Christianity didn't present a new concept of sin, but of its remedy.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The simplest way to ensure that no promises are broken is not to make promises. There's no point in making a promise unless some value is gained from it.
Indeed. And the fact that so many make this promise, and feel very strongly about it, is pretty strong prima facie evidence that they must be deriving some value from it.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
My previous example: a husband asks his wife not to leave the house ever without his company. (Suppose they're members of some conservative religious group.) Are you really saying that as long as the wife consents to that she is then morally bound?
If this is a promise she undertook willingly and without coercion, then yes. Why not? Just because you don't think it's reasonable? What makes your judgments as to reasonableness the arbiter of anything?
Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on
:
Re: the OP.
In my case not at all.
Unfortunately.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Pledging permanent fidelity seems to me to look an awful lot like an alienation of your right to sexual activity. You need to be able to justify why you can't consent to such a contract with your employer but you can with another person.
You mean I really need to be able to justify why equals can consent to mutual things that people in an automatically unequal and coercive relationship need to be protected from?
You need to show why that's applicable in this case.
If employment is automatically coercive then you owe no duties to your employer at all, and employment should be banned along with the slave trade and marital rape.
Your employer has the right to ask you to turn up to work on time. In doing so, it does not coerce you.
quote:
quote:
My previous example: a husband asks his wife not to leave the house ever without his company. (Suppose they're members of some conservative religious group.) Are you really saying that as long as the wife consents to that she is then morally bound?
Yes I am. I am also saying that it's a moral factor rather than a categorical imperative. And there are much, much worse things she can do than leave.
If, in making a distinction between 'a moral factor' and 'a categorical imperative', you are making the distinction I think you're making then that distinction makes sense within an Aristotelian or eudaimonia framework for ethics. But the consent and harm framework is a deontological framework - it makes no allowance for any concept of the good life. It can't allow for ethical considerations that aren't imperatives. It can say at most that some obligations can be overridden by other obligations.
Posted by Polly (# 1107) on
:
quote:
Fool on the Hill Posted:
Just because previous generations didn't get divorced doesn't mean that they were good marriages.
Very true but there is no way of measuring that and in the acceptance that a number of marriages were held together with something other than love and admiration this is the same difficulty in any period.
quote:
So, is there a choice or not? Can a couple have a choice if divorce is not an option?
Sometimes our choices are restricted true but I also think it depends on the reasons why people want to divorce. For some people their marriage is a commodity and when they grow tired of or no longer feel able to work at it they want to move on.
For others divorce must be a serious option because the relationship has become detrimental one or both peoples health.
quote:
Good marriage prep needs time.
This is my point. If a couple have good robust marriage prep and after this they still want to get married they surely have a better foundation to build that marriage on than if they did not have the prep.
quote:
Anoesis posted:
Yes, people in our grandparents (or perhaps great-grandparents) generation got married at ages that seem young to us, and yes, we can look back and say that it seemed to work out okay. But, quite apart from the fact that in most cases, we wouldn't know just how 'okay' these marriages were, in a society where divorce carried stigma and jobs for women were scarce, getting married at 22 or 23 in a world where a.) this is a common and standard age for marriage, and b.) both parties* have been considered adults for some time, is a different thing to getting married at this sort of age today.
What marriage is has not changed but the perception of it has and these perceptions will change continually either for good or not so good.
I don't agree that if people marry young they have to end up in divorce.
Sure it's harder because in theory you'll have longer to spend the rest of your life with someone but that can also be understood as something great as well.
It's not a foolproof way but I do believe good marriage prep will benefit and help couples who want to marry.
Every marriage will go through difficult times regardless of what age people were married. Perhaps we are not so good at helping ourselves and others work through these times.
quote:
Svitlana V2
Marrying young is a problem now because it means missing out on other options…
I understand the thinking but also think its a false perception. Behind this is the thought that one hasn't partied enough, experimented sufficiently and had slept with 'enough' people.
The questions I have is how do we measure these things and do they contribute to commitment phobias?
In addition this is a very negative way of looking at marriage. If two people are ready to marry and have gone through the preparation then the adventure together can be greater than independent adventures.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Svitlana V2
Marrying young is a problem now because it means missing out on other options…
quote:
Polly
I understand the thinking but also think its a false perception. Behind this is the thought that one hasn't partied enough, experimented sufficiently and had slept with 'enough' people.
The questions I have is how do we measure these things and do they contribute to commitment phobias?
In addition this is a very negative way of looking at marriage. If two people are ready to marry and have gone through the preparation then the adventure together can be greater than independent adventures.
I'm not saying I hold the view expressed above, but simply that the common view is that you should 'play the field' or discover your identity by trying out lots of different things before you 'settle down'. This attitude is encouraged by jokes about how marriage cramps your style and offers years of bland routine. Very little is ever said publicly about good marriages.
As for marriage prep, I wonder why we don't hear more about it. Is there simply a shortage of trained counsellors? Or is it that modern couples are so desperate to believe in the romantic fantasy of marriage (as opposed to the 'bland routine') that the idea of 'preparation' just seems too prosaic, too much like hard work? If romantic love is an uncontrollable, untamable force that acts independently of the two people concerned, as many people seem to think, then it would be unsurprising if the idea of 'prepartion' made people feel a bit uneasy.
The challenges are cultural, IMO.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Indeed. And the fact that so many make this promise, and feel very strongly about it, is pretty strong prima facie evidence that they must be deriving some value from it.
I agree. And therefore, prevention of harm cannot be the only value.
quote:
If this is a promise she undertook willingly and without coercion, then yes. Why not? Just because you don't think it's reasonable? What makes your judgments as to reasonableness the arbiter of anything?
Let's turn that around. Suppose the wife decides that she wants to go out. Why should she defer to your judgment that it would be morally wrong for her to do so?
I don't think that this 'what makes your judgement?' line of argument is constructive in the kind of debates we have on Purgatory.
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Polly:
quote:
Anoesis posted:
Yes, people in our grandparents (or perhaps great-grandparents) generation got married at ages that seem young to us, and yes, we can look back and say that it seemed to work out okay. But, quite apart from the fact that in most cases, we wouldn't know just how 'okay' these marriages were, in a society where divorce carried stigma and jobs for women were scarce, getting married at 22 or 23 in a world where a.) this is a common and standard age for marriage, and b.) both parties* have been considered adults for some time, is a different thing to getting married at this sort of age today.
What marriage is has not changed but the perception of it has and these perceptions will change continually either for good or not so good.
I don't agree that if people marry young they have to end up in divorce.
Sure it's harder because in theory you'll have longer to spend the rest of your life with someone but that can also be understood as something great as well.
It's not a foolproof way but I do believe good marriage prep will benefit and help couples who want to marry.
Just briefly:
Nowhere did I say, or even imply, that if people marry young they will have to end up in divorce.
What marriage is has most certainly changed. For the most basic examples, a wife is no longer a chattel, and rape within marriage is no longer held to be a legal and logical impossiblity. Perceptions have necessarily changed along with these actual changes, but perceptions are of course more fluid, and may change more rapidly, and be more or less reflective of an on-the-ground reality at one time than another.
I am sure you are right about good marriage prep. Do you think good marriage prep can be had from the 'marry or burn' crowd, or from the 'it was originally Eve's fault' brigade? Is marriage prep commonsense or homespun wisdom or the province of self-styled experts? My point, I guess, being that good marriage prep is likely to be incredibly valuable but bad marriage prep could be quite the opposite.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
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Originally posted by Justinian:
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Pledging permanent fidelity seems to me to look an awful lot like an alienation of your right to sexual activity. You need to be able to justify why you can't consent to such a contract with your employer but you can with another person.
You mean I really need to be able to justify why equals can consent to mutual things that people in an automatically unequal and coercive relationship need to be protected from?
You need to show why that's applicable in this case.
If employment is automatically coercive then you owe no duties to your employer at all, and employment should be banned along with the slave trade and marital rape.
Oh for crying out loud. Do you or do you not understand the concept of power relationships. If not do I need to go through feminism 101 with you and spell out every little implication?
Employment is an inherently unequal relationship that is wide open to coercion. Therefore there need to be restraints on how far the unequal relationship may be taken. I called the relationship coercive because the possibility is always there.
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If, in making a distinction between 'a moral factor' and 'a categorical imperative', you are making the distinction I think you're making then that distinction makes sense within an Aristotelian or eudaimonia framework for ethics. But the consent and harm framework is a deontological framework - it makes no allowance for any concept of the good life. It can't allow for ethical considerations that aren't imperatives. It can say at most that some obligations can be overridden by other obligations.
And here I'm sighing in exasperation again. Anyone who is using a purely deontological framework has no understanding of anything outside that framework. There is a map and there is the territory. Deontology can only ever be a guide to the map - the world itself is outside the framework of the map.
As for a harm framework in a eudomaonaic system, that merely depends on where you set the baseline. Is preventing people from living up to their positive potential harming them? (Welcome to the progressive/liberal arguement - and see Josephene's sig).
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Let's turn that around. Suppose the wife decides that she wants to go out. Why should she defer to your judgment that it would be morally wrong for her to do so?
She doesn't. By definition, i.e. by the way you set up the story, she thinks it is wrong.
Posted by Fool on the hill (# 9428) on
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Originally posted by Polly:
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Fool on the Hill Posted:
Just because previous generations didn't get divorced doesn't mean that they were good marriages.
Very true but there is no way of measuring that and in the acceptance that a number of marriages were held together with something other than love and admiration this is the same difficulty in any period.
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So, is there a choice or not? Can a couple have a choice if divorce is not an option?
Sometimes our choices are restricted true but I also think it depends on the reasons why people want to divorce. For some people their marriage is a commodity and when they grow tired of or no longer feel able to work at it they want to move on.
For others divorce must be a serious option because the relationship has become detrimental one or both peoples health.
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Good marriage prep needs time.
This is my point. If a couple have good robust marriage prep and after this they still want to get married they surely have a better foundation to build that marriage on than if they did not have the prep.
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Anoesis posted:
Yes, people in our grandparents (or perhaps great-grandparents) generation got married at ages that seem young to us, and yes, we can look back and say that it seemed to work out okay. But, quite apart from the fact that in most cases, we wouldn't know just how 'okay' these marriages were, in a society where divorce carried stigma and jobs for women were scarce, getting married at 22 or 23 in a world where a.) this is a common and standard age for marriage, and b.) both parties* have been considered adults for some time, is a different thing to getting married at this sort of age today.
What marriage is has not changed but the perception of it has and these perceptions will change continually either for good or not so good.
I don't agree that if people marry young they have to end up in divorce.
Sure it's harder because in theory you'll have longer to spend the rest of your life with someone but that can also be understood as something great as well.
It's not a foolproof way but I do believe good marriage prep will benefit and help couples who want to marry.
Every marriage will go through difficult times regardless of what age people were married. Perhaps we are not so good at helping ourselves and others work through these times.
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Svitlana V2
Marrying young is a problem now because it means missing out on other options…
I understand the thinking but also think its a false perception. Behind this is the thought that one hasn't partied enough, experimented sufficiently and had slept with 'enough' people.
The questions I have is how do we measure these things and do they contribute to commitment phobias?
In addition this is a very negative way of looking at marriage. If two people are ready to marry and have gone through the preparation then the adventure together can be greater than independent adventures.
As pointed out, marriage has changed and the reason some marriages lasted before the advent of women's rights is necessity. And women were unhappy. Very unhappy. That's not acceptable.
My point about marriage prep is that it takes time. And couples marrying right out of christian college is not enough time.
Although some people think that they need to "party more, sleep around more, etc" but to say that is the general rule I think is really unfair to say of the majority of people. How about travel, more education, career focus and career exploration and learning how to be independent?
A married adventure through early adulthood can be wonderful but for others, it can be a hindrance, when one wants to travel or spend their time on their careers. It depends on the people.
I personally believe very strongly that the "threat" of divorce forces some people to work on their marriage. Certainly, working on a marriage is hard work and there is no reason at all why couples back before divorce was a viable option would attempt to work on the marriage when it was clear no one was going anywhere. People 50 years ago also looked at marriage as a commodity at times.
Your point about people's health is disturbing to me. It seems that the only time a person could actively explore their options for their own happiness is when their personal safety is at risk.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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Originally posted by mousethief:
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Let's turn that around. Suppose the wife decides that she wants to go out. Why should she defer to your judgment that it would be morally wrong for her to do so?
She doesn't. By definition, i.e. by the way you set up the story, she thinks it is wrong.
She may change her mind. People do that from time to time.
If we apply your statement back to the original case, it would mean that nobody who gets married, promising to forsake all others, ever wants to sleep with anyone else.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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Originally posted by Justinian:
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
You need to show why that's applicable in this case.
Oh for crying out loud.
Ok.
Some more specific questions.
1. Feminism has not yet managed to eliminate sexism from our social structures. Women are still systematically worse off in our society than men. Cultural ideals and representations about men's roles and women's roles and marriage still systematically disadvantage women. Most of us, however well meaning, still have unconsciously internalised these, and we are especially liable to act on them when we most think we are free of them. A body of feminist and queer thought thinks that marriage is indelibly marked by patriarchal attitudes. ("do I need to go through feminism 101 with you and spell out every little implication?")
That being so is it not naive to think that marriage is a matter of "equals consenting to mutual things" and not always potentially a "inherently unequal relationship that is wide open to coercion."?
Q2. Saying that some rights cannot be alienated because we need protection from coercion gets things the wrong way round. We need protection from coercion because those they may attempt to override rights that are important enough not to be alienated. On what basis otherwise do we discriminate between things my employer can legimitately ask me to do (e.g travel), and things than my employer cannot?
Q3. The fact that a relationship is between equals does not make rights alienable. There are certain rights that we believe we do not give up upon marriage. For example, it used to be argued that there could be no such thing as marital rape because a woman consented to all acts of sex when married. We now recognise that that kind of future consent can be neither given nor received.
(I presume likewise, if we grant that the Dead Horse issue has been resolved, it would follow that a woman cannot concede the autonomy over her body to another person so that she is no longer free to have an abortion.)
I cannot cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong for me to refuse sexual activity, even to somebody who is my equal. What therefore makes it possible to cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong to engage in sexual activity?
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If, in making a distinction between 'a moral factor' and 'a categorical imperative', you are making the distinction I think you're making then that distinction makes sense within an Aristotelian or eudaimonia framework for ethics. But the consent and harm framework is a deontological framework - it makes no allowance for any concept of the good life. It can't allow for ethical considerations that aren't imperatives. It can say at most that some obligations can be overridden by other obligations.
And here I'm sighing in exasperation again. Anyone who is using a purely deontological framework has no understanding of anything outside that framework. There is a map and there is the territory. Deontology can only ever be a guide to the map - the world itself is outside the framework of the map.
I don't follow.
Is this intended to show that a harm/consent framework is not purely deontological?
Or is it intended to show that the distinction between 'a moral factor' and 'a categorical imperative' can be accommodated within a deontological framework?
Or is it intended somehow to show that there is some false premise which my question begs?
If not, then it may be true, but how is it relevant?
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As for a harm framework in a eudomaonaic system, that merely depends on where you set the baseline. Is preventing people from living up to their positive potential harming them?
I actually believe that the concept of harm depends on a prior judgement about moral goodness and badness, and therefore cannot be used to ground such judgements. (Consider sadomasochistic sex with a safe word: a couple let blood from each other. That does not count as harm in that context, but would certainly count as harm in most other contexts.)
Certainly not all 'preventing another person from living up to their full potential' is harm in the sense that it is forbidden under a eudaimonia framework in the way that killing is forbidden. And a eudaimonia framework recognises a category of morally relevant considerations which have no reference to harm to other people, namely, 'am I living up to my full potential'.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
If we apply your statement back to the original case, it would mean that nobody who gets married, promising to forsake all others, ever wants to sleep with anyone else.
Huh? It does nothing of the sort. It's not about what people want. It's about what people do to break covenants they freely entered into.
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
She may change her mind. People do that from time to time.
Having a hard time seeing how this is relevant. I might enter into a business contract in which I agree to deliver 1000 widgets to Acme Widget Derivative Products. And I could change my mind. If I act on that, and refuse to deliver the goods, it becomes breach of contract.
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I cannot cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong for me to refuse sexual activity, even to somebody who is my equal. What therefore makes it possible to cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong to engage in sexual activity?
Of course, there are some who deny gay people any autonomy to engage in sexual activity in the first place. If we don't hold with them, the question of whether, when, and how this autonomy can be ceded is interesting.
Don't the facts of life usually have something do with sex? If I were a mother and my husband started sleeping around, I might reasonably fear that he'd lose interest in supporting and raising the children. If I were a husband and my wife started sleeping around, I might reasonably fear that any child she bears is not mine. Promises made and kept by both parties not to sleep around will prevent these very real and heart-breaking problems.
I used to have a long-suffering friend and colleague whose wife not only wandered but made no secret of it. She'd disappear for months and then suddenly come back for awhile. He was raising three fine boys, much of the time on his own. The oldest and the youngest resembled him and each other. The middle child looked strikingly different. But it didn't seem to matter to this good man: they were all his sons and one another's brothers. As for the woman, he'd just gently sigh with bemusement. Talk about acts of supererogation...
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That being so is it not naive to think that marriage is a matter of "equals consenting to mutual things" and not always potentially a "inherently unequal relationship that is wide open to coercion."?
Part of this is optimism. Part that consent doesn't last forever. But mostly is that marriage as we currently have it isn't inherently coercive although there can be serious coercion involved.
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Q2. Saying that some rights cannot be alienated because we need protection from coercion gets things the wrong way round. We need protection from coercion because those they may attempt to override rights that are important enough not to be alienated. On what basis otherwise do we discriminate between things my employer can legimitately ask me to do (e.g travel), and things than my employer cannot?
Why are you phrasing that as an either/or?
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Q3. The fact that a relationship is between equals does not make rights alienable.
If a person can not choose not to excercise a right for a duration then it ceases to be a right and is, in fact, an obligation. A woman can agree not to set foot outside - to not be able to do so would mean she was forced to set foot outside. However the only thing binding her to that decision is her own word.
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(I presume likewise, if we grant that the Dead Horse issue has been resolved, it would follow that a woman cannot concede the autonomy over her body to another person so that she is no longer free to have an abortion.)
Again, the only thing binding her to that decision is her own word. She could undo that decision on a second's notice.
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I cannot cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong for me to refuse sexual activity, even to somebody who is my equal.
I would strongly recommend you not do so. But there is nothing preventing you from doing so for as long as you wish to do so until you decide to stop doing so.
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What therefore makes it possible to cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong to engage in sexual activity?
It isn't. Because ultimately you aren't ceding your own autonomy. You are asserting it - albeit in a probably very unhealthy way. You can, however, not cede it beyond the point you wish to take it back. (At least you can - but you shouldn't be able to...)
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I don't follow.
Is this intended to show that a harm/consent framework is not purely deontological?
What is actually harmful is discovered empirically. Consent may be pure deontology - but harm isn't.
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I actually believe that the concept of harm depends on a prior judgement about moral goodness and badness, and therefore cannot be used to ground such judgements.
See above for my beliefs. We are in complete disagreement here. Harm is something you can measure and evaluate.
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(Consider sadomasochistic sex with a safe word: a couple let blood from each other. That does not count as harm in that context, but would certainly count as harm in most other contexts.)
S/M is one of those places where a consent and harm framework has the two in opposition to each other. In this case consent wins.
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Certainly not all 'preventing another person from living up to their full potential' is harm in the sense that it is forbidden under a eudaimonia framework in the way that killing is forbidden. And a eudaimonia framework recognises a category of morally relevant considerations which have no reference to harm to other people, namely, 'am I living up to my full potential'.
That depends on networks and what you think your poential is. Certainly killing a plant is worse than putting it in the shade.
Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on
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I just read the thread title as "How concerned is God with what we do in the bathroom?"
Just thought you might need that little bit of levity in the midst of the argument.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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There are lots of things we can do in the bathroom, Spiffy ...
Mind you, am I the only one on this side of the Pond who finds the American euphemism 'bathroom' to be faintly risible? I was in London last week and some American visitors in the building where I was working asked me the way 'to the bathroom'. It took me a second to realise what they were actually asking for ...
You can't generally take a bath or a shower in institutional public conveniences ...
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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Originally posted by Justinian:
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Q2. Saying that some rights cannot be alienated because we need protection from coercion gets things the wrong way round. We need protection from coercion because those they may attempt to override rights that are important enough not to be alienated. On what basis otherwise do we discriminate between things my employer can legimitately ask me to do (e.g travel), and things than my employer cannot?
Why are you phrasing that as an either/or?
I think we're getting to the point where you're doing what I see as biting bullets that I'm not prepared to bite.
But a couple of comments...
I don't see an either/or in the above? If you're asking why we deduce the need for protection from the right being inalienable rather than vice versa, it would be circular to deduce it in both directions. Also, I think my argument only requires that it work in the one direction, not that it not work in the other.
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quote:
Q3. The fact that a relationship is between equals does not make rights alienable.
If a person can not choose not to excercise a right for a duration then it ceases to be a right and is, in fact, an obligation. A woman can agree not to set foot outside - to not be able to do so would mean she was forced to set foot outside. However the only thing binding her to that decision is her own word.
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(I presume likewise, if we grant that the Dead Horse issue has been resolved, it would follow that a woman cannot concede the autonomy over her body to another person so that she is no longer free to have an abortion.)
Again, the only thing binding her to that decision is her own word. She could undo that decision on a second's notice.
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I cannot cede my autonomy so as to make it wrong for me to refuse sexual activity, even to somebody who is my equal.
I would strongly recommend you not do so. But there is nothing preventing you from doing so for as long as you wish to do so until you decide to stop doing so.
The above reasoning was given to justify why English law until recently didn't consider anything done within marriage to be rape. (I believe Stephen Green of Chritian Fruitcake Voice still thinks so.) I do not want to go along with that any distance at all.
A promise that ceases to be an obligation or binding as soon as I decide to stop adhering to it isn't any kind of obligation at all.
If my vows of fidelity only last until I undo a decision on a second's notice, then they're not vows of fidelity. They're merely expressions of a romantic hope.
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I don't follow.
Is this intended to show that a harm/consent framework is not purely deontological?
What is actually harmful is discovered empirically. Consent may be pure deontology - but harm isn't.
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I actually believe that the concept of harm depends on a prior judgement about moral goodness and badness, and therefore cannot be used to ground such judgements.
See above for my beliefs. We are in complete disagreement here. Harm is something you can measure and evaluate.
Whether or not harm is empirical is irrelevant to whether a command not to harm is deontological. It is wrong to harm people without their consent is about as good an example of a deontological command as one could wish for.
But measuring harm? How can burning down someone's house and breaking someone's finger even be considered commensurable?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Originally posted by Spiffy:
I just read the thread title as "How concerned is God with what we do in the bathroom?"
Just thought you might need that little bit of levity in the midst of the argument.
Now look what you did!
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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