In All Honesty

[lauralh]

I don't understand people I know who claim to be Christians and yet have pre-marital sex. Is religion just like a buffet now, where you get to pick and chose which parts to follow?

Comments

[mcsnee.livejournal.com]

Eh... I don't understand people who claim to be Christians period.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

I don't understand any idealogy where you have to sacrifice your own identity for the sake of belonging.

[fierceflawless.livejournal.com]

"...when a system of confining scripture tears families apart, subjugates one life to another, breeds hypocrisy despite itself -- when the dogma ends up breeding only dogs -- that's when I sign off and look for a better story, one that doesn't declare my entire gender to be unclean and the root of the world's woes."

-- Heather McGee

[jjsaysblah.livejournal.com]

mmmmmm... buffet *drools like homer*

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a buffet. After all, few people in the U.S. are stoning witches nowadays.

What bugs me is how they pick and choose. Eating pork is okay, but sodomy is not? Why one law and not the other?

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's kind of my point.

[verybadlady.livejournal.com]

I definately have not sacrificed my own sense of identity in being Christian.

I think, if all Christians were perfect, none would have pre-marital sex. Some people (like me) just can't deny the temptation.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

But you actually think it's a sin?

[verybadlady.livejournal.com]

I think sex means a lot more in the context of a REAL permanent relationship and the idea behind no premarital-sex is for our own good.

[verybadlady.livejournal.com]

I think my answer was direct. Sex isn't sin, sex outside of marriage is.

[drownedinink.livejournal.com]

I dunno, but I remember I enjoyed seeing one of my high school Christian friends twist his brain into a knot trying to convince himself that God was okay with him getting oral sex from his girlfriend.

His conclusion was that the Bible doesn't specifically define sex as 'oral sex' (this was before the Clinton scandal, mind) and that it was okay because he was planning to marry her anyway (and they didn't).

It was only after they broke up that I found out that they did more than just have oral sex.

[almosttruth.livejournal.com]

The best part of it, is that they're expected to sin and can be redeemed in the eyes of doG!!

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, if you ask me...

[geah.livejournal.com]

Right. You've seen the bumperstickers: Christians Aren't Perfect, Just Forgiven

[geah.livejournal.com]

Do not complain about this!!!

If they follow everything in the Bible, they'll start stoning harlots and adulterers!

We want them to be hypocritical.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

Can't they be a little more hypocritical, dammit?

[crumblingchaos.livejournal.com]

Religion has to be adaptable to the people. People need stuff spoon fed from them. It needs to have a level of acceptability. People who pick and choose what parts to follow are generally following this rule. Thats its gods word, but distorted to be believeable by the people of the time in which the bible was written.

At least thats the only way I can come up with when I try to figure out why there are christian girls. When I say that I don't mean the obidient subservant housewives.

Personally I'm not going to follow something where I don't agree with the foundation, because what would be the point of that?

[ex-motel666812.livejournal.com]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/31/wvat31.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/31/ixnewstop.html

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoox

[chris.livejournal.com]

I think everyone should pick and choose their own religion.

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I love your usericon.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

I think everyone should be taught logic and critical thinking skills.

[quent.livejournal.com]

My response is kind of like Heather's.

Premarital sex is something questionable to me. Because even as god made us so we could enjoy each other, I've had a lot of unenjoyable sex. So in that, I've got to reason with myself that if I were to marry someone, I'd want to be compatible in that way, because DAMN, that's the rest of my life. There's a lot of datedness in any theology, especially christianity, since it survived 2 millenniums, so sometimes, i feel i have to apply the morals the best i can to my life. I've always struggled with what's bending God's word to my will, and what's having common sense. Will never be sure if it's a sin or a guideline until God actually comes down to earth and tells me. I feel like it's a set moral not to spread your love/lust around too much. I.E. don't be a slut.

I don't feel like I'm being the best christian i can be, so my actions may prove otherwise sometimes. But I'm trying.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

I feel like it's a set moral not to spread your love/lust around too much. I.E. don't be a slut.

why do you get that rather than "no sex with people you don't think you could marry" though? that might be an actual reasonable doctrine, I mean.

(to me religion makes a bigger deal about sex than is necessary, creating a whole big mystery/taboo around it. So it seems a lot more interesting than it actually is.)

[quent.livejournal.com]

That sentence you referred to was kind of an abrupt shrug statement. Didn't really put a lot of thought in that.

But really, I'm not sure. I mean, it could be very well what you said.
As for me though, I don't want to be the Infidelity Partner™, because i'm not satisfied with my wife. That sounds bad, but I think that married couples should enjoy each other and not have the slightest iota that they want something they can't get from their partner but from someone else.

Again though, I'm not sure if that's me applying it to my life, or bending that philosophy around my comfortable one.

Sometimes, I think it's good to not be comfortable.

Regardless: What's all this talk about marriage? Are you and Reg being all hardcore now?

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

Sex is the thing which triggered my conversion from mormon to hardcore atheist.

[cynica.livejournal.com]

Is religion just like a buffet now..

Religion as it has become? Yes. There are many/most who say that all denominations and branches of Christianity are secular to the point of no longer having any validity in accordance with the Word, so it's just as well you do what you want.

[strukcher.livejournal.com]

religion is not like a buffet, but buffets are a lot like religion.

to fat people.

man, i love those guys.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

ahahahahah yes.

[cometzero.livejournal.com]

I don't understand so-called "Christians" who don't give you their coat too when you beat them up and take their cloak, or who fight back when you smite them on the cheek, or who don't sleep in a tent at the edge of town while they're menstruating. Clearly this country is in desperate need of better religious education.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

Religion - Christianity in particular - has always been a buffet. Why do you think it's lasted so long?

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

Christians always pick and choose.
That is half the fun. We justify everything we do.

Catholics take it to a whole new level of course.
I have met many a Catholic girl who will say, "oh it doesn't count if it wasn't good."

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

well, i guess that beats feeling guilty for having bad sex!

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

Exactly.
Why feel guilty. Blame it on the other person and then dismiss the existance of the sex.
Then you move on to the next Jewish guy.

[emily-swank.livejournal.com]

Well, look at Ken Jennings. The self-professed Mormon admitted yesterday to seeing all the movies in the movie category that he ran, many of which were R. The "Prophet" has made it known that R movies are not to be seen by members of the church. I have no doubt that the church will be happily accepting all that tithing, despite the hypocrasy. Just another reason I hate that guy. And his RAT TEETH.

[thingstouchme.livejournal.com]

I was raised in a very strict Independent-Fundamentalist Southern Baptist home. So sex was very much frowned upon pre-maritally, and I felt guilty even thinking about it or reading sex scenes in books/watching people kiss. It was weird.
The way I made myself get over it was remembering a sermon I heard when I was still going to church (I still thought sex before marriage was wrong even 2-3 years after I left my strict father/stepmom's household). The sermon said something like, God made all these laws in the old testament days because he needed to keep his people healthy. So laws written in Leviticus (ie, Leviticus 11) about promiscuity as well as eating certain foods or planting crops a certain way, were all for the good of the peoples' health.
In the new testament, people were told that these laws were being updated. We can eat pork now, ie, Matthew 15. "That which enters into the mouth doesn't defile the man; but that which proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." etc.
So to me, this meant that with evolving technology and medical advancements throughout history, God's laws could change but there were still going to be some in place to protect the people he made. It's still wrong to kill, but to me having sex which now is less of a medical risk if you do it right, isn't wrong. If we can eat more foods because they aren't as dangerous to us these days as they were in the past, then by the same logic I believed that we can now have sex with more than one person because we have contraceptives/condoms/etc. I don't know if this is perfect logic because I just wanted to get it on, but it was enough to get me to finally not feel guilty about losing my virginity.
It seems kind of mean to invent something with a sex drive and then not let them explore it. Especially if it's hurting no one.
anyway, that is all.

[verybadlady.livejournal.com]

whoa I was raised in a very strict fundamentalist southern baptist home too. Yay us!

[kevinsketch.livejournal.com]

Christian means, it's denotation anyway, is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ which, like Buddhism, are ones of selflessness.

It's not about losing identity at all, but it is all about selflessness. Does the distinction make any sense?

I think the modern evangelical fundamentalist movement has misrepresented the core tenets of the faith the way the hijackers misrepresented us Arabs.

I know you disagree and I respect that, but a belief system of ethics in itself is not a bad thing. Prue Christianity as with any pure philosophy or religion is part of human nature, history and culture.

I know people who need identity, they identify themselves by fandom (Harry Potter) or by music (go indy rock), sub culture (goth kids) or their jobs (MS lackeys). I think there is something intrinsic in the human brain that needs identity and a form of tribal grouping.

I chose the one that I feel is based on love and selflessness. Rather than spend my time, money and energy on Star Wars, I put it into helping other (or try to).

One of my best friends left the states to go on a missionary trip to Romania with his wife. He ended up staying upon learning that the kids were going to be put out in to the street because no one else would take over the orphanage. He's been there for almost ten years now.

You know, we have a world full of squeeky wheels trying to get attention and exploit any group that doesn't know any better no matter what the group is. That's where you get your Pat Robertsons, the Bush-ites, Jack Thomson... whoever. You don't see the people on ether side who bust their backsides to make a difference, you see the media whores.

The reason that people profess to be to be Christians have different values and opinions is very natural. Jesus's teachings were un-teachings. It wasn't about following rules, it was about love, and what that means to you and not everybody else. He unwrote the rules of his day.

And that's why he was killed, because he was a rable rouser messing with the status quo.

If you really want to talk abot Christianity, a real exchange of idea then let me know.

[herbaliser.livejournal.com]

yeah, I've already done it, not interested.

[kevinsketch.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to recruit anyone by the way. You just seem to have a lot of questions.

Like trying to force music or a movie on someone, if it's not for them, it's not for them. Which, I think, is sort of the point.

ummm...? there was something else I was going to say, trying to figure out what it was...

I don't remember. Next time I guess.