"Christianity - Does it Produce Sexual Misery?"

You Want the Intruding Church

Closely tied to the notion of the Christian Church being authoritarian (cf. Christianity – Is it Authoritarian?”) is the idea that the Christian Church is intrusive.  Such is most certainly true but not as most think.

Members of the Christian Church even the most left leaning do seek to intrude into culture when it seeks to disenfranchise a group or people (e.g. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), when it seeks the demise of a people as during the days of the Roman Empire when Christians rescued babies left out to die of exposure.  To be sure the members of the Christian Church sought to intrude into the lives of those left to suffer the consequences of little or no education, those widowed, those orphaned, and those without medical care.

So you see the Christian Church in doing her duties did intrude into the lives of people and of culture.  Often with great opposition as it stood and today seeks to stand against destructive and disenfranchising societal mores on Biblical grounds.

Intrusion into Personal Lives

The criticism is that the Church intrudes into the sex lives of Christians and non-Christians and thus produces great misery.  The underlying suggesting is that such an “intrusion” is for malevolent purpose to inflict as much pain and unhappiness upon all.

Well by that standard many other things also inflict pain and create unhappiness.  For example one could argue that speed laws and those laws having to do with personal property are intrusions into one’s personal life.  If those who postulate the sexual misery argument have any sense at all they would not appreciate someone speeding through a school zone or entering their premises with dishonorable purpose.

Unintended Consequences

What then about unintended consequences.  One needs to look no further than the epidemics of HIV and AIDS to see the consequences of unrestrained sexual conduct. 

Such outcomes are not the consequences of prudishness on the part of the faith community that supposedly purposes misery but of unrestrained sexual practices.  Yet one finds the proponents of the notions strangely quiet about the STD and unintended pregnancy outcomes of such behaviors.

Do you suppose that just maybe the STD epidemic validates the stand of the Scriptures?  Does not the misery of the final stages of AIDS validate the importance of sexual purity?  

Greater Good

Although sexual purity may well be disparaged or even inconvenient, could not one argue that sexual purity is for the greater good of a culture or sub-culture?  Imagine the cost savings if culture was not saddled with the burden of research into a cure and as well the costs of the care of those who are afflicted by the disease.  

Prohibited Sexual Behavior

The question then arises as to the basis for prohibited sexual behavior.  There are several thoughts worth considering.  Before doing so consider that those who would like to rid the world of the restraint of sexual standards once again play fast and loose with the numbers.

To read the article that prompted this posting one reads words like, “…humans beings are by nature highly sexual beings…,” those who follow the Bible “…are often miserable…,” and “…many Christians are poisoned by ‘sinful’ urges, unfulfilled longings, and intense guilt….”  The problem is that once again there are quantum leap assumptions. 

Upon What Foundation

At the outset, may it be clear that the principles and practices of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures are often hard sayings.  The acceptance of or the rejection of same is never ever without consequence. 

The simple truth is that there are those who put their own “spin” upon the Scriptures to seek to accomplish their own ends and purposes.  For example, the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS.  However, most of those who follow the Scriptures do not do so for their own purposes and gain but out of obedience to those Scriptures.

Private or Public

Those things done by consenting adults in private need not be the business of anyone, church or otherwise.  However, what is at issue is the need for those involved in any kind of sexual conduct illicit or accepted to move such behavior from private to public and to do so in a militant manner.

Limitations

So then the question becomes this.  Where are the limits upon sexual expression?  If one is to believe that once one reaches puberty they are at the mercy of their sexual urges then where is the line between appropriate sexual expression and that which is not appropriate.

Again what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home is their business but again where is the line to be drawn.  Is it at one’s ability to make the choice to be involved?

Consequences and Outcomes

No one can legitimately argue that illicit sex is not fun.  The reality is not so however the outcomes and consequences of such behavior are not so exciting. 

Previous attention was given to the proliferation of STDs but there are others.  For example more is coming to light about the emotional toll of abortion--most often an outcome of promiscuity.   

Disrespect

Then there is the out and out disrespect that one has for another who is simply a partner in a sex act.  At times there is little relationship beyond that necessary for one to have his/her way.  Much wisdom is contained in the question, “If the milk is free why buy the cow?”

The critics of monogamous sex refer to sex within marriage as not all that was anticipated.  The question that follows is where is the data to suggest such is so.  As well, no one is arguing that forbidden fruit is not exciting.

The Regret and Recrimination Factors

Then too, how many young men and women when they awaken the morning after realize that they have given away the highest form of physical intimacy that they can give?  Even in a culture that suggests sex should be easy and available there is something special about intercourse.  How many young women end up in deep regret for having given away that which may only given away once?  How many young men the same?

Looking for the Absent Thrill

The sexual act activates powerful reactions in the chemistry of the brain.  Just like the dope addict who requires more and more to achieve the high so too with sexual activity.  Thus dabbling in promiscuous sexual activity leads to more and different kinds of sex.  More and extreme forms of sexual involvement become necessary as one looks for that now absent thrill.   

Observation

Once again and for sure not the last, those who take issue with Christianity take great liberties in two areas that it turns out are beyond illogical and assumptive.   First, they set up their view of Christianity as the norm and as such want the reader to believe that their view has integrity.  They go on to ascribe all sorts of accesses to their view.

Second, as in this posting, they do not give fair play to the “rest of the story” and in particular the outcomes of promiscuity.  There is no mention of the emotional toll that promiscuity brings upon those who live such lives, the increasing incidents of STDs, and such.

It seems that if they are seeking the “truth” in some of these matters, they should follow the “truth” trail wherever it goes.  Of course to do so causes one to run smack dab into genuine reality as opposed to making it conform to unfair and even illogical agendas.   

Background

To see the list of subjects to be discussed in this series see my blog (Christianity – Is it a Faith Driven by Fear?).  Contained within that blog is a reference, 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity and in that reference is a list which is the springboard from which this subject has been discussed.

"That Which Confuses the Evolutionist"

There are many, many things that evolutionary theory cannot explain.  Yes, I know that I used a general term for the theory and that there are different schools of thought and different strata within those schools of thought.

Of course the old adage, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."*  So now we have among many the notion that it is no longer a theory but proven fact.  Actually science cannot prove it and any read of the history of Darwinian evolutionary theory will show that as true and genuine science has discovered more and more the theory has had to be flexed, adjusted, and changed to meet the inclusion of new information.


Leaving alone for the moment the question of ultimate beginnings, there are other questions that should cast a deep and dark shadow on this theory.  These questions begin with something that is very familiar to us--ourselves and how we interact with and deal with life.

There is within each of us the spiritual-emotional-volitional elements of man's makeup that when expressed in some way or another mitigate against or at least call into question evolutionary theory.  These are things that the evolutionist cannot explain. 

We will get to these in a moment but for those who point out in Intelligent Design there are questions that are unanswered, that would be true.  However those questions are indeed gaps in understanding and not inconsistency or that which mitigates against the notion of Intelligent Design.

For example the whole notion of love and attachment does not fit with the survival of the fittest.

Then in the rational area, there is another problem for the evolutionist.  It is the capacity for delayed gratification which again is a challenge to the notion of survival.

Then there is in the social arena, the inclination of mankind to decide for the greater good.  This was discussed in another posting, "What Does Man's Sense of Right Mean?".

Then from the Rev/Dr. Richard Johnson of First united Methodist Church and Mt Beulah United Methodist Church, Munfordville, KY,** the following thoughts. 

"Humans are not created to be godless.  If we don’t know the true God, we will make our own deities – and that is exactly what the Israelites did.  It’s a sign of our finitude, and a subconscious awareness that we need direction, purpose, and relationship with something, someone bigger than ourselves.  God created us for relationship.  God created us to be in relationship with Himself and with one another.  Tragically, we broke that relationship but we have not lost our genetic makeup which needs and must have that relationship with the Almighty."

So what is the point of this paragraph, you might wonder?  

Well, there are two worth considering.  First, evolution cannot explain man's need for God.

Within culture after culture across the world, though expressed in many, many ways there is a common element which seeks to develop some kind of a relationship with a deity.  To be sure the expressions may even be in diametrically opposed fashions but still there is the common threat of a deity which involves the worship of same.  That leads to the second observation.

Second, if you do not acknowledge the God who is, then you create a god.  Of course there are many choices.  In western materialism they may be position, power, possession, etc.  In undeveloped countries and those isolated from the West it may be more spiritual.  The point is not how, it is that there is no culture which in its privimative form did not have some kind of a superior deity.

 __________________
*"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Goebbels was not, however, an SS officer. He was Minister of Propaganda and succeeded Hitler as Chancellor, but only for a single day. The next day he and his wife poisoned their six children then took their own lives. 

from http://www.ask.com/answers/18639961/

**If you wish to get on Rev/Dr. Johnson's email list please forward a request to me and I will forward it on to him.  My email is arobbfam@yahoo.com.  Thanks.

"What Does Man's Sense of Right Mean?"

Think about it.

In every person of any age at all, there is a notion of right.  That is to say that whether the person is a narcissist, a sociopath, an eccentric, a humanitarian, a humanist, a creationist, or an atheist there is within that person a sense of something that tells that person that this is the way you should behave.

That is not to say that such is the same for the humanitarian's sense of right and that of a sociopath will be radically different.  Still in all, there is that instinctive sense of right and wrong, a standard of some sort.

Why?  Why is it that there is within each of us some sense of standard by which to measure right or wrong behavior?  Some would argue it is a product of material naturalism.  Others would argue that it is a product of divine creationism.  How would you answer the question?

There is however another attendant question.  It goes like this.  Why is there such a common threat which runs through the various cultures of mankind?  For example, there is a sense in most people of behaving for the greater good.

There is a universal though unwritten sense within people of the need to care for infants.  Only the hard hearted among mankind do not respond to the pitiful cry of an infant.  Yet, there were those Canaanites and others who sacrificed infants by placing them in the red hot hands of an idol made in the likeness of their god Moloch. 

Why would people do such a thing?  The simple answer was that they thought that by doing so their god would be appeased and thus any anger that might interfere with their having a fruitful harvest would be appeased.

There are other universal standard which are found in the preponderance of mankind.  Other examples would include but not be limited to the following.

Property – the unit of ownership, that is to say the unit that owns property may be the individual, the family, or even the village but there is some sense of owner/non owner.

Murder - how murder is defined may differ but murder is seen as being wrong

Justice – though standards may be different there is a sense of justice

Family – though the family structure may differ (polygamy) the structure of the family is present.

Love – not the self centered love that demands fulfillment but the giving of one’s best to another.

Ancestors - how it is expressed may differ but there is respect for one’s fore-bearers is present.

Children – Again how it is lived out may differ but the care for children is prevalent in culture after culture.

Self-sacrifice – the example would be the sacrifices of a parent for a child.

To be sure there are others.

Now comes the question.  How did these and other universal standards come about?  And for the material naturalist who embraces the premise of “survival of the fittest” maybe you could answer the question as to how such could be more than a questionable theory (as opposed to a law)?

 The question deserves an answer when you consider that some of the items listed above property ownership, justice, family, etc. would seem to militate against such being true.  If this notion is not true, then how many other of man’s good ideas are not to be trusted?

The writer of the Proverbs, King Solomon of Israel observed this two times in his writings.

"There is a way which seems right to a man, but its ends is the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25, NASU)

Continuing the question that deserves an answer then is this.  When you push the answer out to its logical conclusion, just where do you find yourself?