posted
by the way -- who is Stargate? I'm glad to see someone else posting on the defense of Christianity on this forum -- sometimes I feel so out-numbered, and flamed for trying to uphold my own beliefs. Welcome Stargate!
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Yes, Kat, that's exactly what I mean. I'd be the last to say that the Christian world is merely composed of Jack Chick and Fred Phelps, but there is an awful lot of fuss made over sexual sin, and an ubelieveable amount of effort put into preventing it.
Now sex, like fire, guns, power drills or any other useful tool, has the potential to cause great damage and using it properly is very important...
But, like the other tools above, the issue is a matter of safety for people's hearts and bodies. A lot of people receive the message that these acts are inherently evil the same way as murdering someone or stealing their property is... and I think that is an overstatement. I certainly did personally receive that message, and, while this is anecdotal, I would call that particular lesson the root of nearly every serious problem I have ever had... including a tremendous difficulty receiving and accepting God's forgiveness for the sins (sexual and otherwise)I committed personally...
And, I'm sure you can see how having the evil of something being overstated gets in the way of receiving forgiveness here? How many homosexuals avoid religion entirely because the proponents of religion vilify them mercilessly and give them no hope of acceptance? Is being a praticing homosexual an unforgivable sin? NO! not by any Christian text...
Yet it is treated as such on a regular basis by conservative Christians. And I think that shameful.
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Annie, I think it's more than that. Sexual sin isn't just a problem because of the possibility of life, because that would mean it isn't a problem when there is no possibility of a new life coming from it.
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quote:a matter of safety for people's hearts and bodies
Don't you think that teaching unmarried adolescents to avoid sexual relations is trying to accomplish this very thing?
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posted
1 Corinthians is not a work of systematic theology, it’s a letter written to a specific community to address specific issues raised by the members of that community. In this case, the question was whether or not, in light of the expected imminent return of Jesus, it was permissible to marry or better to remain unmarried.
Yes, from the fact that Paul assumes the choices are to marry or remain celibate one can infer that he was against premarital sex. But to quote half of verse 38 as if it were a statement that marrying a non-virgin is wrong is clearly twisting things.
Edit: Wow this is moving fast. This is in response to Richard's last post on p. 2.
quote:Is being a praticing homosexual an unforgivable sin? NO! not by any Christian text...
This isn't completely true. In some Christian denominations being a practicing homosexual is forgivable, and I don't know of any Christian denomination in which having practiced homosexuality isn't forgivable. However, forgivness requires reptance and if you're currently practicing homosexual behavior then you haven't fully repented and thus aren't able to recieve Christ's forgivness. Not all denominations hold this view, but some do (including mine ).
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Jim, what you're saying is that it wouldn't be as big of a deal if people weren't made to feel guilty about it - that the harm from the sin comes from the shame and not the sin itself.
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I'd agree with you Kat - it's not just the possiblility of pregnancy that makes it something to avoid. But the underlying principle of the sin has to do with the life-giving mechanism. Any errance from its intended purpose - and this includes, according to many a prophet, sex within marriage with the use of birth control - is an affront to Heavenly Father's intent.
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*squints* Annie, I don't have that same understanding. I'm going to look some things up, to figure out where my understanding comes from.
To clarify for Hatrack, I don't think we disagree as to whether it's a sin or not, just as for the reasons why. Ultimately, the reasons why are nice to know, but it doesn't change whether or not it is one.
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FG, I think the answer to his question is simply that there isn't any univerally-accepted complete description of Jesus' teachings (whether due to forgetting, misinterpretation, both recent and ancient, and just plain politics). The consequence of this is that there has been a blossoming on interpretations of what Jesus meant, and whether he meant it literally all the time, some of the time, of was just being strictly allegorical.
All of which means there is a fair amount of wiggle-room in the grand umbrella of Christianity. Not that some people don't think that other's views are false, but that enough has been said and remembered that odds are someone who proclaims themselves to be a Christian will accept you as one also.
I'm saying that when the shame becomes more harmful than the sin, then the sin is being persecuted too much.
Annie, I *do* think that teaching people to reserve sex as a sacred bond between married partners is doing exactly that. I have no objection to the idea of chastity. I have every objection to making people feel horrible or worthless because they gave in to a natural desire. Perhaps what I have to say to your tiger will shed some light .
Hobbes, I object to the idea of saying that because someone continues a behavior their repentance means nothing. To take it out of the sexually charged arena, I will overeat at times (guilty of gluttony). Chances are excellent that I will do it again. Does this make my repentance moot? No... and especially not if there are mitigating circumstances which cause my overeating... such as a powerful genetic or psychological predisposition.
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Here's a collection fo statments about the Mormon's position on birth control. Bascially unless there's a reson beyond personal convience (that includes basically everything besides serious health concerns) birth control should not be used (happy is the man with a quiver-full). I can't speak for Annie but I can tell you that she tries her very best to follow Church teachings.
posted
I think there's a difference between a not-always-successful struggle to overcome a temptation and an intention of acting on that temptation and expecting forgiveness anyway.
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posted
Ohh I agree Jim, I'm not saying it means nothing, but I'm talking here more about people who see no problem with homosexuality and are "proud" or at least have no problem with their homosexual prefrences. Repenting and failing and repenting again is all part of the process, but not even acknoledging it as a sin would certainly disqualify your repentance since there wasn't any.
[EDIT: this is such a good example of how badly I spell when distracted instead of editing it I'll just let it stand here as kind of a monument to my awful spelling.]
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Actually, Hobbes, I was kind of hoping to hear what Annie felt, not what the church felt, on the assumption that the two aren't necessarily synonymous.
Since you've posted that, though, can I also assume that the Mormon church opposes fertility drugs, in-vitro fertilization, and adoption? (The first two because they ALSO meddle with the production of life, and the second because the biological process here is subverted by the legal?)
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Jim: No, I still don't agree with you. If there are concerns with forgiveness, then it isn't because the sin was made out to be more serious than it was, but because the Atonement was not seen to be as comprehensive as it is.
quote:Since you've posted that, though, can I also assume that the Mormon church opposes fertility drugs, in-vitro fertilization, and adoption? (The first two because they ALSO meddle with the production of life, and the second because the biological process here is subverted by the legal?)
I think you know what the Church's stance on this is Tom.
The link I sited gives some very good reasons why the Church opposes birth control, and tey aren't as in specific as "meddles with the production of life".
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Which of those is your favorite reason, Hobbes? I ask this because so many of those quotes given were so incredibly odious in both letter and spirit that I would have been remarkably proud to have insulted the author to his or her face. I'm afraid that lines like this one -- "My wife has borne to me fifteen children. Anything short of this would have been less than her duty and privilege." -- don't endear me to your faith or its proponents.
The central idea given in the essays -- that it is the duty of Mormons to pop out as many babies as possible so as not to delay the physical Tabernaculation of souls any longer than necessary -- is one that makes sex sound, quite frankly, remarkably unpleasant.
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And here's a quote that I'm basing my earlier statement off of, Kat. It's from the teachings of Joseph F. Smith - chapter 18 - Chastity and Purity:
quote:We desire with holy zeal to emphasize the enormity of sexual sins. Though often regarded as insignificant by those not knowing the will of God, they are, in his eyes an abomination, and if we are to remain his favored people they must be shunned as the gates of hell. The evil results of these sins are so patent in vice, crime, misery and disease that it would appear that all, young and old, must perceive and sense them. They are destroying the world. If we are to be preserved we must abhor them, shun them, not practice the least of them, for they weaken and enervate, they kill man spiritually, they make him unfit for the company of the righteous and the presence of God. 6
We hold that sexual sin is second only to the shedding of innocent blood in the category of personal crimes. … We proclaim as the word of the Lord: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” [Exodus 20:14.] “He that looketh on a woman to lust after her, or if any shall commit adultery in their hearts, they shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith.” [D&C 63:16.]
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I'm trying to argue that most of the reasons given in those essays are empty blather, if not despicable outright. As Hobbes is a reasonable person, I imagine that -- since he apparently agrees with the concept -- there are reasonable reasons that he's found which have helped him understand this policy. I'd much rather hear from him which reasons HE has for opposing birth control than try to sort through looking for ones that don't seem ridiculous to ME.
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quote:I'm afraid that lines like this one -- "My wife has borne to me fifteen children. Anything short of this would have been less than her duty and privilege." -- don't endear me to your faith or its proponents.
Then I think you missed the point of that argument Tom. It wasn't her duty and privlege to bear him 15 children because she was a women, it was her duty and privledge because they could have 15 children and every child they denied entrance into this world is a missed privledge of raising (I certainly believe children are a blessing) and one who would have to wait to enter the world, and could not do so inside that family. It was her privledge because a child is a privilige (something special, a gift or a blessing) and her duty because it is comannded of God to have children, since the whole point of this Earth is to have people here living and experiencing life and we are the vessles through which these people arrive clearly it's our duty to keep the work up.
quote:The central idea given in the essays -- that it is the duty of Mormons to pop out as many babies as possible so as not to delay the physical Tabernaculation of souls any longer than necessary -- is one that makes sex sound, quite frankly, remarkably unpleasant.
Then you're assuming it's the only purpose of sex, to "pop out babies", which seems a little naive Tom, and is not the position that the Church takes either.
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Annie, I complete agree with Joseph F. Smith's statement.
quote:for they weaken and enervate, they kill man spiritually, they make him unfit for the company of the righteous and the presence of God.
That's not just using the power of procreation for something than what it's meant, though.
I was looking for the talk that made everything clear to me, and was completely distracted. I'm going back to looking. (Anyone know what I'm talking about? General Conference, around 1999, Elder Eyring maybe, something about souls?)
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And here is a second quote that I base my position off of - it's not in the canon of scripture, it's an address given by Bruce C. Hafen of the seventy, reproduced in the Feb. 2002 New Era.
quote:Sometimes we give as reasons for the law of chastity the risk of pregnancy or abortion, the possibility of an unwanted or embarrassing marriage, or the chance of a terrible venereal disease. With adultery, we talk about the damage of destroying an existing marriage or family. As serious as these things are, I’m not sure they are the fundamental reason for the Lord’s having placed this commandment ahead of armed robbery and fraud in the seriousness of sins.
Think of it—unchastity is second only to murder. Perhaps there is a common element in those two things—unchastity and murder. Both have to do with life, which touches upon the highest of divine powers. Murder involves the wrongful taking of life; sexual transgression may involve the wrongful giving of life, or the wrongful tampering with the sacred fountains of life-giving power.
I have been around enough to know that this is not the first time you have ever heard this subject mentioned. But I have also been around enough to know that no matter what you have heard and no matter how often, today we live in a world so completely soaked through with tragically wrong and evil ideas about sex that you must be warned—in love and kindness, but warned—lest the moral sleeping sickness that is overcoming the whole world calm you into deadly slumber.
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You know, Hobbes, I'm going to have serious trouble getting this mental image out of my head of all these baby factories in white button-up shirts and black slacks, solemnly going about their "joyful" duty on behalf of the impatient disembodied souls of the world....
*shudder*
Seriously, man, you don't think that's more than a little messed up, as a philosophy AND as an approach to sex?
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Kat, since you and Annie have some apparent disagreement on this issue I'm highly interested in what you have to say.
I genuinely hope that that lightplanet site that has been linked to is only "unofficial" LDS teaching and not "official" teaching particularly because of the section on interacial marriage.
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I'm trying to tell you Tom, you keep assuming that the only point of sex is procreation, and this isn't the case. However, I think it's the most important reason for sex. Don't you agree that the most powerful effect sex can have is the birth of a child?
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I do apologize again for bringing this up in a context that doesn't really give us the time nor background to explain the LDS church's position on the law of chastity. I've managed by my first statements to entirely derail the very interesting (though unrelated) question that Prometheus posed originally.
There is a lot to be said on the topic of chastity in LDS doctrine - typing in "Law of Chastity" in the gospel libray section of lds.org brings up over 500 articles.
However, those that we've already linked to do in fact represent the official doctrinal standpoint of the church. Those on the birth control page that are listed as statements by prophets or apostles are considered modern revelation to church members.
I don't apologize for the unorthodox beliefs I've studied out and decided to subscribe to, I only intended to state the LDS belief on the subject as a comparative point to the other Christian doctrines that were being discussed.
very inportant edit: my use of the word "unorthodox" was meant to imply different from the accepted American school of thought. These are not unorthodox beliefs from the LDS point of view.
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"However, I think it's the most important reason for sex. Don't you agree that the most powerful effect sex can have is the birth of a child?"
Sure. But I think you then leap to the conclusion that this is the exclusive purpose of all sex acts; the suggestion, for example, that sex SHOULD result in childbirth implies that it does not in fact have any other purpose.
(Note the many quotes in the document to which you linked pointing out that women who are incapable of bearing children -- in all cases, the women are assumed to be the sterile ones -- should not be concerned, because the really faithful ones will be blessed with miracles and be cured of their sterility.)
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Lightplanet.com is most certainly not official LDS Church teaching (though he does quote lots of stuff from Church leaders). I haven't read everything on that page, but most of the quotes don't seem to be saying that birth control is always bad. Most of them seem to be saying that birth control is bad if you're using it for selfish reasons.
The most current teachings that I know of:
quote:Church Handbook of Instructions January 1999
It is the privilege of married couples who are able to bear children to provide mortal bodies for the spirit children of God, whom they are then responsible to nurture and rear. The decision as to how many children to have and when to have them is extremely intimate and private and should be left between the couple and the Lord. Church members should not judge one another in this matter.
Married couples also should understand that sexual relations within marriage are divinely approved not only for the purpose of procreation, but also as a means of expressing love and strengthening emotional and spiritual bonds between husband and wife.
quote:In approaching this subject I do not document a host of social ills for which the statistics are as grim as the examples are offensive. Nor will I present here a checklist of do’s and don’ts about dating and boy-girl relationships. What I wish to do is more personal—I wish to try to answer questions some of you may have been asking: Why should we be morally clean? Why is it such an important issue to God? Does the Church have to be so strict about it when others don’t seem to be? How could anything society exploits and glamorizes so openly be very sacred or serious?
...
First is the revealed, restored doctrine of the human soul.
One of the “plain and precious” truths restored in this dispensation is that “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” 5 and that when the spirit and body are separated, men and women “cannot receive a fulness of joy.” 6 That is the reason why obtaining a body is so fundamentally important in the first place,why sin of any kind is such a serious matter (namely because it is sin that ultimately brings both physical and spiritual death), and why the resurrection of the body is so central to the great triumph of Christ’s Atonement.
The body is an essential part of the soul. This distinctive and very important Latter-day Saint doctrine underscores why sexual sin is so serious. We declare that one who uses the God-given body of another without divine sanction abuses the very soul of that individual, abuses the central purpose and processes of life, “the very key” 7 to life, as President Boyd K. Packer once called it. In exploiting the body of another—which means exploiting his or her soul—one desecrates the Atonement of Christ, which saved that soul and which makes possible the gift of eternal life. And when one mocks the Son of Righteousness, one steps into a realm of heat hotter and holier than the noonday sun. You cannot do so and not be burned.
....
Secondly, may I stress that human intimacy is reserved for a married couple because it is the ultimate symbol of total union, a totality and a union ordained and defined by God. From the Garden of Eden onward, marriage was intended to mean the complete merger of a man and a woman—their hearts, hopes, lives, love, family, future, everything. Adam said of Eve that she was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and that they were to be “one flesh” in their life together. 13 This is a union of such completeness that we use the word seal to convey its eternal promise. The Prophet Joseph Smith once said we perhaps could render such a sacred bond as being “welded” 14 one to another.
...
Can you see the moral schizophrenia that comes from pretending you are one, pretending you have made solemn promises before God, sharing the physical symbols and the physical intimacy of your counterfeit union but then fleeing, retreating, severing all such other aspects of what was meant to be a total obligation?
In matters of human intimacy, you must wait! You must wait until you can give everything, and you cannot give everything until you are legally and lawfully married. To give illicitly that which is not yours to give (remember, “you are not your own”) and to give only part of that which cannot be followed with the gift of your whole self is emotional Russian roulette. If you persist in pursuing physical satisfaction without the sanction of heaven, you run the terrible risk of such spiritual, psychic damage that you may undermine both your longing for physical intimacy and your ability to give wholehearted devotion to a later, truer love.
...
Thirdly, may I say that physical intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a husband and a wife—the very uniting of their souls—but it is also symbolic of a shared relationship between them and their Father in Heaven. He is immortal and perfect. We are mortal and imperfect. Nevertheless we seek ways even in mortality whereby we can unite with Him spiritually. In so doing we gain some access to both the grace and the majesty of His power. Those special moments include kneeling at a marriage altar in the house of the Lord, blessing a newborn baby, baptizing and confirming a new member of the Church, partaking of the emblems of the Lord’s Supper, and so forth.
These are moments when we quite literally unite our will with God’s will, our spirit with His spirit, where communion through the veil becomes very real. At such moments we not only acknowledge His divinity but we quite literally take something of that divinity to ourselves. One aspect of that divinity given to virtually all men and women is the use of His power to create a human body, that wonder of all wonders, a genetically and spiritually unique being never before seen in the history of the world and never to be duplicated again in all the ages of eternity. A child, your child—with eyes and ears and fingers and toes and a future of unspeakable grandeur.
(Emphasis original to text.)
He does mention the possibility of life coming from it as a reason, but not as the only reason. The one that I remebered, that made sense in my head, was the part about the body being part of the soul, and the bit about being honest.
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Tom, you can try and think of it this way. A car serves a specific function, it moves the care around and the things inside. Only for some reson only really want to move the back seat of the car so you figure you'll do that, you turn on the car, start dirving... and crash through your grage door causing damage to the car and the house you live in because it's all one package, you can't just move the back seat, the whole car's going to come along with it. I assume you beleive you can seperate them, but I fankly, don't. So maybe that's our impass and we wont get over it, I don't know but that's how I see it.
quote:But I think you then leap to the conclusion that this is the exclusive purpose of all sex acts; the suggestion, for example, that sex SHOULD result in childbirth implies that it does not in fact have any other purpose.
But I've already explicitly told you twice Tom that I don't think it's the only purpose.
I'm not sure if you were serious when you ask for my favorite reason, and I don't really have a "favorite reason" but I did like this quote:
quote:by President Ezra Taft Benson
Conference Report, April 1969, Pg.12
The world teaches birth control. Tragically, many of our sisters subscribe to its pills and practices when they could easily provide earthly tabernacles for more of our Father's children. We know that every spirit assigned to this earth will come, whether through us or someone else There are couples in the Church who think they are getting along just fine with their limited families but who will someday suffer the pains of remorse when they meet the spirits that might have been part of their posterity. The first commandment given to man was to multiply and replenish the earth with children. That commandment has never been altered, modified, or canceled. The Lord did not say to multiply and replenish the earth if it is convenient, or if you are wealthy, or after you have gotten your schooling, or when there is peace on earth, or until you have four children. The Bible says, "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: ". . . Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. . ." (Ps. 127:3, 5.) We believe God is glorified by having numerous children and a program of perfection for them. So also will God glorify that husband and wife who have a large posterity and who have tried to raise them up in righteousness.
posted
Oh, on birth control? Between you, your husband, and the Lord, and the goal is a family. The details are not prescribed.
Hobbes and Annie, look at the date on most of those quotes. The vast majority come from 1916, and the others from 1969. Not that that means they are invalid, but that does matter. What is the most recent statement?
posted
I think a careful reading of those notes on sterility, Tom, will show that that is not what they imply.
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