What is religions hang up with sex

Zombrex

Just reading BreakingNews.ie and it seems when the Pope visits Poland they are going to bann all adverstiments that mention or suggest, amoung other things, sex. This, bizzarely includes sanitary towels.

Can someone please explain the rational the Judo/Christian churches use to justify the idea that sex is a sin, something dirty and depraved, unless used to produce children (then it is wonderful seemingly)?

I understand the real reasons something like this would evolve (who doesn't have some hangups and issues with sex), but I really haven't heard enough off or understood the offical line, beyond "Because God says it is"

Anyone shed some light on this?

Talliesin

Religions tend to have some view on sex, because sex is a very big part of who and what we are.

You can hardly say they all have the same view though, they vary considerably.

Crucifix

Wicknight wrote:

"Because God says it is"

In your average monotheistic religion that's the reasoning behind the majority of stuff.
Seems mad; only doing it because the pope is swinging by, and including non-sexual stuff like sanitary towels.

Dades

Maybe Il Papa had a bad experience with sex and/or sanitary towels and the Poles don't want to provoke his wrath.

robindch

As far as I'm aware, there aren't really very many biblically-derived notions which back up the general idea that sex is dirty, outside of the male-gay-is-abomination and don't-shag-lions texts. Most of it instead seems to come from believers themselves, frequently wracked with exotic guilt-complexes about having "impure" (adulterous, lecherous, etc ) thoughts of one kind or another, and forcing themselves to the simple conclusion that anything at all related to sex is simply horrible and ikky. Another way of looking at it is to notice that many religious people are pretty conservative so they're hardly likely to have very liberated or adventurous notions on sex, particularly if it's somebody else's.

btw, here's a link to that story:

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=182453698&p=y8z4544x4

Zillah

Im a big proponent of the idea that religion's only reason for surviving so long is as a social glue. From societies point of view, sex is incredibly powerful, too much or too little and it can break the society. Religions have evolved, as has religious thinking, to accomodate this.


Many biblical, Torah, Koran etc teachings make perfect sense, even if they are repressive. No sex with siblings? No inbred children. No sex before marraige? No bastards. No sex with the same sex? I suppose it means more babies? If a gay man is forced into having a family, then as long as he doesn't go crazy then the children should be fine...

Valmont

Zillah wrote:

Im a big proponent of the idea that religion's only reason for surviving so long is as a social glue. From societies point of view, sex is incredibly powerful, too much or too little and it can break the society. Religions have evolved, as has religious thinking, to accomodate this.


Many biblical, Torah, Koran etc teachings make perfect sense, even if they are repressive. No sex with siblings? No inbred children. No sex before marraige? No bastards. No sex with the same sex? I suppose it means more babies? If a gay man is forced into having a family, then as long as he doesn't go crazy then the children should be fine...

I suppose the fundamental religious viewpoint on sex started out practical but somewhere along the way it became a little crazy! sanitary towels?

Scofflaw

In the case of Christianity, this can be laid at the doors of Paul, Jerome, and Augustine. Jesus himself is, as usual, either ambiguous or silent on the matter.


cordially,
Scofflaw

lostexpectation

hmm do we know if jesus ever shagged anyone, I don't think so maybe thats got something to do with it.

Tar.Aldarion

I imagine he would have been godly.

Beruthiel

lostexpectation wrote:

hmm do we know if jesus ever shagged anyone, I don't think so maybe thats got something to do with it.

well one rumour has it that he shagged Mary Mag and their decendants now live in france

as for the ST's - aren't women supposed to be 'unclean' during that time every month?
muppets

seamus

Some of it derives from strange interpretations of the book of creation.
Other parts of it are caused by "Lust" being one of the seven deadly sins. Since sex is a lustful act, but is also necessary to preserve the human race, it's "allowed", so long as repentance is paid afterwards. Up until recently (70's), the Catholic church saw it as necessary that women get "cleansed" (spiritually) by a priest and repent after they gave birth to a child.

You'll find that most such "not right" things, tend to be a form of control. You'll find that many churches consider most pleasures (with the exception of enjoying that religion) to be amoral or "sinful". This mainly because people tend to be drawn to perform pleasureable acts. So if you can convince them that pleasure is wrong, then they'll have to come back to you to be saved all the time.

Personally, if I was God, I wouldn't want people to feel guilty about enjoying themselves. I wouldn't give them the ability to feel pleasure if I didn't want them to use it.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Sex makes people happy and if people are made perfectly happy by such worldly acts, then they will no longer look to religion for satisfaction.

It's religion covering its own ass

jtsuited

two words: population control.
Functionalism states that all cultural/religious values serves a function to the survival of that culture.
From this perspective, we see that religious constructs of sex are really an incentive against overpopulation and the problems it brings

But then you have some religions weirdness about artificial contraception?

stakey

Religion is probably the biggest mass control system apart from governance that humanity has created. It wasn't created a social glue but as a top down system by which humanity and all components of humanity can be controlled. It's no wonder then that when it comes to religion alot of time is spent defining the role of sexuality in its followers lives.

Sexuality is perhaps one of the most defining characteristic we carry. To control this is to control humanity which is the ultimate goal of ALL religions.

Crucifix

jtsuited wrote:

But then you have some religions weirdness about artificial contraception?

I would say that while the stuff with sex may have began with the 'officials' knowing it was about population control, they taught it to be immoral and so nowadays the higher-ups don't think of it as population control, just morals. Thus they have seemingly odd views on contraception.

seamus

Anti-contraception comes generally from a particular story in the Old Testament. The names of the protagonists escape me, but basically they have sex, he withdraws and "spills his seed upon the ground". At that point, God brings his wrath upon the two hapless lovers.

It all stems from the long-time belief that the woman was just a vessel for the child - that is, that is that the entire child was in the man's ejaculation, the woman purely kept it safe. This is one of the many cases where the Catholic church clings onto a misinforming parable in the bible, rather than to side with overwhelming, unrefutable scientific evidence. It's also been a tool in the oppression of women for centuries - women who failed to get pregnant or who spawned handicapped children were outcast and even killed because it was believed that they were the ones who were "damaging" the unborn child that was given to them.
A man in "possession" of such a woman had right to divorce her and marry another, leaving her childless, penniless and with no chances in life - no-one would marry her and her family wouldn't accept her back.

Scofflaw

seamus wrote:

Anti-contraception comes generally from a particular story in the Old Testament. The names of the protagonists escape me, but basically they have sex, he withdraws and "spills his seed upon the ground". At that point, God brings his wrath upon the two hapless lovers.

Onan, and his brother's widow, Tamar. The story as told by the Brick Testament.

It's actually quite open as to exactly what Onan did that offended God.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Onan, and his brother's widow, Tamar. The story as told by the Brick Testament.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/er_and_onan/gn38_02c.html

LOL ... lego sex

Also it kinda implies that if God doesn't kill you where you stand then you didn't offend God ... i'm still here, so I imagine I've never displeased God .. woohoo

Húrin

Wicknight wrote:

Can someone please explain the rational the Judo/Christian churches use to justify the idea that sex is a sin, something dirty and depraved, unless used to produce children (then it is wonderful seemingly)?

Don't forget Islam. Yes i think it usually is just because "God" says so. I imagine that God's orders have more credibility when you have faith in his existence.

Zillah wrote:

Im a big proponent of the idea that religion's only reason for surviving so long is as a social glue.

Are you a Neitzsche reader? Because that is one of his central ideas, that religion serves the purpose of being a noble myth that holds society together. Marx also praised religion for giving hope to poeple and societies through bad times.

Dirk Gently

H&#250 wrote: »

. Marx also praised religion for giving hope to poeple and societies through bad times.

I agree Marx made that observation but I don’t think he was praising religion. In fact was the opposite not true. Was he not actually critical of religion because of the fact that religion gave false hope to people and acted as a barrier to people seeking to change the social makeup of society. Hence, the quote "religion is the opium of the people".

In other words, why seek to change a bad system when we can just put our head in the sand, except the status quo and everything will be alright because after our sacrifice in this world we be rewarded in the afterlife. Marx argued for a change in the real world and saw religion as a way of distracting people from the realities of their situation, giving them a fantasy life as a way of coping through troubled times. He seen religion as having the same uses as a drug addiction, an un-real form of escapism and a not very practical way of changing the reality of oppressive social orders such as existed at his time with very little protection for workers and a very harsh environment for people generally.

Zillah

H&#250 wrote: »

Are you a Neitzsche reader?

I should be a Neitzsche reader...

robindch

Cross-posted from the christianity forum...:

It's probably a bit late to say it, but there's a documentary on this evening on Channel 4 at 2250h about that guy Warren Jeffs, the self-styled top prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A cautionary tale about how easy it is to corrupt yourself and others by publicly practicing your own particular interpretation of your own particular holybook:

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/index.html?hpos=LST

It's on in ten minutes...

Dades

robindch wrote:

It's on in ten minutes...

I missed that - to be fair it did clash with "Peter Benchley's - The Beast" on the sci-fi channel.

But I did see Phil Collins on "Room 101" earlier with Paul Merton giving out about TV Evangelists...

Funsterdelux

I still only have the 4 local channels, damn I miss BBC 2 and Channel 4

stevejazzx

Actually religon (christianity) and sex started out quite logically.
The human being was to repect his body and other peoples bodies as gifts.
Procreation brings us a child who are the most prescious gifts we recieve from life, therefore the act of sex which brings about such things should be respected.
From the 10 commandents of course we have 'thou shall covet thy neighbours wife' (neighbours here meaning all other people and wife meaning woman in most circumstances at least).
So the catholic church decided that any no man shall ever covet any woman else it be declared a sin.
So over the course of time(in particular before the 20th century) with religous dominance in some areas and the ever growing fear of gods retribution in the hearts of believers, a massive social repression of all thing s sexual began.
Then we have all the variant interpretation s from mainstream religous breakways and cults and what not until we've reached a situation where noone knows what right and whats wrong and a blanket ban on all things sexual as a result from the church, banning things like condoms and sanitary towels etc.
So essentially in the 20th century sex is turned into the largest merchandisable product ever and church freaks out and horribly overstates the evilness of sex and ends up by forcing more and more people away from religon.
Tragically such ugly repressive dogma operates inside the church especially impacting on preists etc. and we have sadly seen some of the consequences of this practice with sexually inept and defunct men living in fear of their own bodies and shameful of their feeling s and seeking secret gratification with the most vulnerable and innocent of society.
Finally we have an antiquated leader of the catholic church in such fear and disbelief at modern society and it's sexual apetite that he starts banning things like advertisements for sanitary towels......

HelterSkelter

H&#250 wrote: »

Don't forget Islam....

Islam doesn't teach that "sex is a sin, something dirty and depraved, unless used to produce children". In fact Islam is quite the opposite and encourages sex once it is between a married couple. Oral sex is also allowed (it does forbid anal sex though).

pH

stevejazzx wrote:

Tragically such ugly repressive dogma operates inside the church especially impacting on preists etc. and we have sadly seen some of the consequences of this practice with sexually inept and defunct men living in fear of their own bodies and shameful of their feeling s and seeking secret gratification with the most vulnerable and innocent of society.

You mentioned something which I've thought was true for a while, that the incidence of paedophilia among Catholic priests was too high.

What dawned on me was that maybe they weren't particulary attracted to children (any more than any man), but they needed some outlet for their sexual desires. Having sexual contact with adults was far riskier, and possibly children being available, easier to force their will on, and easier to make be quiet - made them targets, rather than any inate desire to have sex with children.

So in effect celibacy caused the child abuse, and the origins of celibacy it has long been claimed lie in the protection of church property rather than spiritual reasons.
http://www.libchrist.com/bible/catholiccelibacy.html

Dades

stevejazzx wrote:

Finally we have an antiquated leader of the catholic church in such fear and disbelief at modern society and it's sexual apetite that he starts banning things like advertisements for sanitary towels......

As far as I could gather it was the Polish authorities, under pressure from the Polish RC church that insisted ads for these and other items be pulled for the duration of the visit. (Not that I'm defending the Il Papa's own policies).

I'd have to agree that a lifetime of celebacy is not natural for any man - and has to take some blamed for some of the attrocities that have come to light.

Asiaprod

jtsuited wrote:

two words: population control.

We could probably edit that down to a single word, control. Short and simple, sex is a way to totally control any group. Tell them its sinful and and will lead to damnation, then tell them they can indulge safely only if they keep the faith and get married. Looks a lot more to me like the ultimate case of survival of the species, in other words, a self-sustaining mechanisim.

stevejazzx

pH wrote:

You mentioned something which I've thought was true for a while, that the incidence of paedophilia among Catholic priests was too high.
..... having sexual contact with adults was far riskier, and possibly children being available, easier to force their will on, and easier to make be quiet - made them targets, rather than any inate desire to have sex with children.

So in effect celibacy caused the child abuse, and the origins of celibacy it has long been claimed lie in the protection of church property rather than spiritual reasons.
http://www.libchrist.com/bible/catholiccelibacy.html

What's essential here in your post is there was no special attraction toward childern in particular, they were essentially victims of the disease of the celibacy.

robindch

> We could probably edit that down to a single word, control.

Seconded.

Actually, when you look at the whole list of things that religion tries to control -- alcohol, drugs, sex as well as occasionally unapproved music, dancing, and even occasionally laughter -- you notice pretty quickly that religion is trying to suppress non-mundane "experiences" in the most general sense. Religions do provide their own explicitly-sanctions substitutes, like prayer, religious music, group activities, etc. But it's still all about religion controlling what humans think and do.

pH

stevejazzx wrote:

What's essential here in your post is there was no special attraction toward childern in particular, they were essentially victims of the disease of the celibacy.

Certainly a small percentage of men are sexually attracted to children and instigate sexual contact. I suppose based on statistics that some number of priests were paedophiles in that sense, but my guess is that the rest were just normal males looking for a sexual outlet.

It's well documented that many normally 'straight' men will have homosexual relations within a prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_sexuality
Again this to me is merely looking for any sexual outlet, and "a sexual encounter even with someone you're not attracted to is better than none".

I wonder how many men who if marooned on a desert island with children would eventualy have sexual relations with them. Not all certainly, but I'd say far more than those who could be considered paedophiles in normal life. Then again I could be totally wrong on all this!

robindch

> in effect celibacy caused the child abuse

I believe at least indirectly, and arguably directly. The only unknown in this is whether or not priests were disproportionately drawn from the ranks of paedophiles, and it's unlikely we'll ever be able to pin that down.

Interestingly, there's a marked split between abuse of males and females, with males being the victims around four times more regularly than girls -- not sure about anybody else, but I would have expected that girls would have been abused more than boys.

Anyhow, there are a few reports on this issued by the US catholic bishops:

http://www.nccbuscc.org/ocyp/webstudy.shtml

This does assume that boys and girls are equally likely to report abuse, which is unlikely to be the case.

stevejazzx

pH wrote:

Certainly a small percentage of men are sexually attracted to children and instigate sexual contact. I suppose based on statistics that some number of priests were paedophiles in that sense, but my guess is that the rest were just normal males looking for a sexual outlet.

Well what you've got to understand is that disese of paepohilia is essentially a sexual misinterpretation, not a direct sexual inclination for the childern but rather the percieved notion of such from the mind of association with rare exceptions of course from those utterly depraved.
Most sexual inclination is an interpretation of shape, smell and touch. Confusing these senses and crossing them through the barriers of age and sex is what leads most commonly to sexual misinterpetation; that's not to say that abuser isn't genuinely aroused but that he has associated criteria with normal sexual activity and fixated it upon vulnerable subjects convincing himself/herself of attraction. People do this because of the usual reasons of inadequacy and self degradation.

The celibate priests position is different and is essentailly as you put it, an outlet. With a child sitting upon his lap he becomes aroused(or assumes such) and sees it not as a physical reaction to the movement but rather his own wickedness and inferiority.

pH wrote:

It's well documented that many normally 'straight' men will have homosexual relations within a prison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_sexuality
Again this to me is merely looking for any sexual outlet, and "a sexual encounter even with someone you're not attracted to is better than none".

All forms of sexuality are interpretation s and being inducted into one of them forcibly can give the victim a sense of shame for the enjoyment of such and may ultimately lead them into believing they are of that persuasion becasue of society s need to classify sexual barriers.

robindch

> With a child sitting upon his lap he becomes aroused and sees it not as
> a physical reaction to the movement but rather his own wickedness and
> inferiority.

Er, could you back up this view with some evidence? Can't speak for you, but I've certainly never heard of anybody believing their own sexuality is some kind of reaction to their own "wickedness and inferiority".

> All forms of sexuality are interpretation

Have you ever been to Bangkok?

stevejazzx

robindch wrote:

> With a child sitting upon his lap he becomes aroused and sees it not as
> a physical reaction to the movement but rather his own wickedness and
> inferiority.

Er, could you back up this view with some evidence? Can't speak for you, but I've certainly never heard of anybody believing their own sexuality is some kind of reaction to their own "wickedness and inferiority".

Without getting into a big thing on this what I meant was that every gesture of the repressed priests sexuality that awakens he see's as his own wickedness unable to decipher them as anything else, the example I gave was from a channel 4 documentary about a priest in South America who killed himself because of his shame of his sexual impulses in particular when childern were sitting on his lap. The possibility not of arousal but of a physical reaction occuring in such circumstance i find plausible as unthinkable as it is.

robindch wrote:

> All forms of sexuality are interpretation

Have you ever been to Bangkok?

No, but from what i hear that sentence seems apt.

robindch

> what I meant was that every gesture of the repressed priests sexuality
> that awakens he see's as his own wickedness

Well, yes, he can view it this way, though it would be a bit more constructive simply not to put himself in a situation where this can occur, or to excuse himself when it does. The priest does have a responsibility to society in this, outside of whatever he might feel himself.

stevejazzx

robindch wrote:

> what I meant was that every gesture of the repressed priests sexuality
> that awakens he see's as his own wickedness

Well, yes, he can view it this way, though it would be a bit more constructive simply not to put himself in a situation where this can occur, or to excuse himself when it does. The priest does have a responsibility to society in this, outside of whatever he might feel himself.

Yes your right but your mind is clear ot such things, a priest may struggle with this kind of thing especially given that modern society pushes sexuality in our faces at every drop of the preverbial hat, heavily repressed individuals are steeped in guilt even for the most honest indescretion such as that described above.

aidan24326

robindch wrote:

> in effect celibacy caused the child abuse

I believe at least indirectly, and arguably directly. The only unknown in this is whether or not priests were disproportionately drawn from the ranks of paedophiles, and it's unlikely we'll ever be able to pin that down.

As for priests being drawn disproportionately from the ranks of 'paedophiles' I would go a step further and suggest that priests were drawn disproportionately from all of those sexual preferences that deviated from the norm at the time i.e be attracted to women get married have kids etc.

Interestingly, there's a marked split between abuse of males and females, with males being the victims around four times more regularly than girls -- not sure about anybody else, but I would have expected that girls would have been abused more than boys.

Again what this quite possibly tells us is that there were alot of gay men in the priesthood also. Now obviously I'm not suggesting that there's any correlation between being gay and being a paedophile, but the fact that they seemed to be more attracted to the boys does suggest that the priesthood at one time may have been seen as something of a safe haven for gay men in a country where being openly gay was just not allowed for the most part. This might at least partly explain the seeming disparity between abuse of boys and of girls.

This does assume that boys and girls are equally likely to report abuse, which is unlikely to be the case.

I can't see any reason why girls would be that much less likely to report it. Especially as they got older.

Considering the church's disgraceful attitudes towards sex, it's hardly too surprising that they ended up with so many sexually deviant people in their ranks (I know being gay in 2006 is seen by all reasonable people as normal sexual behaviour but 50 years ago in Ireland it was considered totally unacceptable).
I don't think paedophiles were 'made that way' by joining the priesthood, I think the priesthood at that time was an obvious attraction to someone with any generally unaccepted sexual taste. Paedophiles especially, since they had access to kids almost as much as they wanted and given their god-like status in the community were unlikely to ever be questioned.

Add in the fact that the church at the time had created an extremely repressive attitude towards all things sexual, that alot of fellas joining the prisethood had already had all of these repressive and downright damaging ideas ingrained in their minds, and it's not hard to see how you had a pretty fcuked up sexual cocktail in the mixing jar. I say well done to all the brave people who came forward and exposed the catholic church as the sham that they are.

Asiaprod

aidan24326 wrote:

Add in the fact that the church at the time had created an extremely repressive attitude towards all things sexual, that alot of fellas joining the prisethood had already had all of these repressive and downright damaging ideas ingrained in their minds, and it's not hard to see how you had a pretty fcuked up sexual cocktail in the mixing jar.

An interesting post, and possibly a lot of hidden truths here.

I say well done to all the brave people who came forward and exposed the catholic church as the sham that they are.

However, this bit is just a tad one-sided. Although I am no lover of the church, and have seen this stuff first-hand with the Christian Brothers, for every bad priest there is a good priest who is really dedicated to his vocation and really believes in what he is doing. I owe many things to good Priests that were connected to my family. When my Da dumped my Ma and 4 kids to follow a more interesting life these Priests were there to support our family. That is a debt I will always remember and do my best to repay. I just wish the Church would cop on and treat these bad apples as they deserve rather than through protectionism end up casting all Priests in a bad light. Defending or hiding the bad apples can only lead to the Church`s eventual downfall.

ScumLord

It's all about having children IMO. Marriage controls who gets to have children in a human society because respected members of the community have to condon and make official the couple before their allowed to have kids. I think that's been there since the beginning of human society I don't think at any stage some people sat down and thought how can we controll everybody by impossing a set of rules on them, it's just another case of the modern religions corupting existing values to suit there own end.

It takes all the power away from the woman, who would have had power in older social groups. They do have power over men that we can see quiet crudely in modern advertising and pop music. All a woman has to do is show flesh, wiggle about and have sexual undertones and everyone stops and listens. The church took away all that power and made them cover up so there where no distractions.

It all did start off in a good way, cheating and having children willy nilly is not good for a community but sex is just another thing the church has corupted to suit it's own end.

aidan24326

Asiaprod wrote:

However, this bit is just a tad one-sided. Although I am no lover of the church, and have seen this stuff first-hand with the Christian Brothers, for every bad priest there is a good priest who is really dedicated to his vocation and really believes in what he is doing. I owe many things to good Priests that were connected to my family. When my Da dumped my Ma and 4 kids to follow a more interesting life these Priests were there to support our family. That is a debt I will always remember and do my best to repay. I just wish the Church would cop on and treat these bad apples as they deserve rather than through protectionism end up casting all Priests in a bad light. Defending or hiding the bad apples can only lead to the Church`s eventual downfall.

I agree that they way I said it was one-sided. However there is a reason I put it like that. Now firstly let me say that I agree you with you on one thing here, that there are of course some good people in the church, no doubt plenty of good hearted and well intentioned priests who would never have involved themselves in any of that stuff, and I feel sorry for them because the name of the organisation and the religion that they devoted their lives to in good faith has been forever blackened (though tbh I think they've also done an awful lot of other stuff to blacken their name but we won't get into that).
But for the good priests I do feel some sympathy.

However, the cover-ups and protectionism run right through the whole church organisation, all the way from the bottom to the bigwigs in the Vatican. Alot of hands were stained by that (pardon the pun), many more than were directly involved in the sexual abuse itself. And any priests, bishops etc. who were involved in the cover-up are no better than the fcukers who were carrying out the abuse in the first place. I mean this wasn't just somet minor crime they were covering up, in many cases it was the vilest and sickest of abuses, not only the most serious sexual crime but also a severe abuse of the trust that had been (mis)placed in the perpetrators.

In going to great lengths to cover up and protect the guilty ones, they were merely serving their own vested interests, with little thought for the countless people whose lives had been damaged and even ruined in some cases. That is why I've called them a sham, and I don't think anyone could deny that they are a sham organisation when they are guilty of such incredible hypocrisy. Acknowledging the good ones, as you've pointed out, is only fair, but that does nothing to clean the bloodied hands of the Catholic Church organisation as a whole. Not to mention the Christian Brothers.

condra

Surely back 2000 years ago when all this religious crap was being fabricated, the men in power wanted to make sure women continued to be oppressed.

Ephesians 5:22-24
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Zillah

Keeping women in their "rightful" place was just one of the thousands of reprehensible ulterior motives behind the Bible's teachings.

UU

What is religions hangup with sex? Because they are all a pack of sexually fustrated weirdos for the most part. "Oh! The Bible or Qur'an says this and that so we must take it literally!" F*ck off!

Just to let you know I'm in a bad-ass attitude today about religion so bear with me. They use sex to control people and take over their puny minds. They only want people to bang to produce lots of babies so they can poison their minds with their religious fanatical crap and take over the whole bloody world. That is why they don't like gay people because we don't produce children. Same with sterile people or disabled people who can't procreate.

Then, the f*ckin Vatican goes on about how contraception being an immortal sin. Sorry Popey but tell where the hell it says in the Bible that contraception is wrong (and some ass better not dare to cherrypick from the Bible). As if the Pope has AIDS (because he's a celebate old whiny arse) so how can he or his Opus Dei loonies rant on to dying Africans about how bad contraception is when they're not dying from HIV or some STD. Also, why should priests not be allowed to have sex? They are human males after all. So they can't get some adult female (or male) to bang so they get some poor child and mess them up for the rest of their life. (Also, I think female priests would be cool).

As for Islam, they need to get their heads screwed on tight or something tbh. The really freaky weird Muslim men treat women as bleeding slaves and make them walk around with that veil thing on them with their eyes peaking out. What the f*ck! It's no wonder most of them are all sexually retarded because sexual lust is immortal, according to them. Then why didn't Allah not just make the pack of them asexual?

My view, have sex if you wish (as long as it is a human - sorry I do have an issue with bestiality), wear protection to save yourself from nasty STDs, love whoever you want, and don't walk around looking like a ninja or something because it is just plain creepy.

Asiaprod

UU wrote:

Just to let you know I'm in a bad-ass attitude today about religion so bear with me.

Oooo, you are ar'nt you.:)

Beruthiel

He's not wrong though

MeditationMom

Does sex make people happy?

I think it goes both ways. I know plenty of people who are not that thrilled with their sex-lives but quite happy nonetheless.

The same on the other side. As much as there are truely unhappy and even perverted monks and clergy, there are also plenty of them quite happy and serene with their chosen celibacy.

The Dalai Lama, for instance said that, there is nothing right or wrong, good or bad about sex. Celibacy just keeps his life simpler and therefore he prefers it that way. He makes jokes about for how long he was not so celibate in his dreams and that dreams gave him much trouble in his youth. How lucky he didn't have the typical christian hang-ups of sin, wickedness, etc.

Sex is a huge issue as far as religion in concerned - aside from all the dogma and politics around it. There is a whole system of teachings that actually uses sexual energy to make spiritual progress. It is said to be the fastest, most challenging and most dangerous path to Enlightenment. Most dangerous, because if misunderstood - as the majority of religious teachings by the majority of students or desciples - it takes you down, way down, as any drug like heroin, would, and most times there is no point of return.

The basic premise in those teachings, tanric and buddhist, is that you have to unite the inner male and inner female energies of your body, in order to transcend your body, and with that your mind.

Another way to describe it is, that ogasm is taken into higher chakras or energy centers of which there are five to seven, depending which teachings you follow. Instead of your energy being built up and going down, and out of your body, you practice to build and hold your sexual energy, (as much as you can handle - not easy;) ), and learn to have it go up in your body, until you learn to have it exit out of the top of your head. That can then result in Enlightenment. In Buddhism it is sometimes illustrated with a thousand petaled lotus on the top of the Buddhas head. Endless bliss, unfolding, unfolding, unfolding. The lotus is chosen because it is such a beautiful flower, but its roots are in the mucky muck of the bottom of the lake.

All the love that is associated with the lowest chakras is considered like coal. That coal (muck), with enough time, pressure and hardship, gets turned into diamond(lotus). (Coal and diamond being of the very same chemical composition, but with the molecules arranged differently).

SimpleSam06

The religious fascination with sex is similar to many of the techniques used by modern day cults to indoctrinate their members. Its a very powerful method, combining the starvation of the body sexually to induce altered mental states, with the redirection of sexual energies to other areas, such as evangelising the faith. It also serves the useful purpose of inducing a seperation between a follower and his or her loved ones, and putting the church as the primary allegiance for the follower.

There is a lot more information here.

With the progression through each phase, the degree of conversion becomes more effective and complete. The way to achieve conversion are many and varied, but the usual first step in religious or political brainwashing is to work on the emotions of an individual or group until they reach an abnormal level of anger, fear, exitement, or nervous tension.

The progressive result of this mental condition is to impair judgement and increase suggestibility. The more this condition can be maintained or intensified, the more it compounds. Once catharsis, or the first brain phase, is reached, the complete mental takeover becomes easier. Existing mental programming can be replaced with new patterns of thinking and behavior.

Other often-used physiological weapons to modify normal brain functions are fasting, radical or high sugar diets, physical discomforts, regulation of breathing, mantra chanting in meditation, the disclosure of awesome mysteries, special lighting and sound effects, programmed response to incense, or intoxicating drugs.

The same results can be obtained in contemporary psychiatric treatment by electric shock treatments and even by purposely lowering a person's blood sugar level with insulin injections.

Similar techniques were used in ancient Greece to bring their armies to a higher level of battle-skill. That is why they actively encouraged homosexual relations in the ranks. The bonds of fellowship were made stronger, and the vast amount of energy that heterosexual relationships draw is redirected to warfare.

MeditationMom

SimpleSam06, thank you for that link. I have always been attracted to these spiritual groups and have participated on the sidelines. Always something telling me not to get too involved. I used to defend them, though, comparing them to the military, the church and the state. Female intuition. Everything is a cult.