Casual Sex - An Honest Conversation
As a woman, I have been involved in my share of heartbreaking conversations. Here are some points for discussion on the debate about casual sex:
1. Mortal sin represents a total absence of charity in one's heart.
2. Capital sin is a serious sin that leads to greater sin. Date Rape is a good example of a mortal sin that results from the capital sin of lust. The nature of Satan (the source of all temptation) is such that when unsuccessful in tempting a man to rape a woman, Satan will try to convince the man that what he’s doing isn’t rape.
3. When someone engages in premarital sex or extra-marital sex he/she experiences at least one moment in time when there is an absolute absence of love for h/her spouse, current or future.
4. Far too many people lie and deceive others, pretending to love and care about them, in order to obtain sex. I have even heard people joke about such things with no remorse. If we wish to remain truthful, we can’t say casual attitudes about sex play no part in allowing this deception to occur.
5. Sometimes people convince themselves that they are in love with someone to avoid the guilt of deceiving that person in order to enjoy sex.
6. A great number of people are used and abused, both emotionally and physically, so that someone can “get sex.â€
7. A great number of lies are told about people with regard to sex. These lies can destroy a person’s reputation and encourage others to commit mortal sin against an innocent victim. Anyone who knowingly or unknowingly spreads lies and gossip is also guilty of sin. This is why it is so important not to give in to scandal. You’ll never know the full story.
8. People who experience post-traumatic stress (PTS) may not be able to fend off a person’s advances. They may appear lifeless or drunk. Their behavior may become erratic, out of character, or they may just become silent. Just because you are not aware that a person suffers from PTS doesn’t mean it’s not rape. If all of my other pleas for abstinence fail, please be very careful. You don’t want to wake up one morning and find out you raped someone.
10. If you are involved with someone, who is pressuring you to have sex, see if he/she will go with you for spiritual or behavioral counseling. If not, go by yourself.
11. If a person is pressuring you to have sex or they’ll break up with you, “set them free. If they come back to you they are yours; if not they never were.â€
There are people who successfully avert any heart ache or tragedy related to casual sex. There are also many people who do not avert heart ache and tragedy. The problem with trying to justify casual sex as an acceptable societal norm is that you’ll never know how many people will suffer as a result of your actions.
When it comes to helping people understand the dangers inherent in casual attitudes about sex, we have at least two things on our side. The first is that we can hold on to the love in our hearts, while having honest conversations that help build understanding. We need to do this for ourselves and for those who cannot speak for themselves. The second thing we can do is commit ourselves to do a much better job of teaching the next generation about how to avoid painful mistakes.
Please see my latest posts located on Sin, Judging Others and the Sex Revolution.
Hey 7up! How's it going? God
Hey 7up! How's it going? God Bless You, friend.
You Worte:
"get rid of the 'garden of Eden' stuff. It's a myth."
I heard about this site a year or two ago. And I think it is possible that like so much other stuff in the bible that has been scientifically and historically verified in recent years, it might be possible that there is some truth regarding the "Garden of Eden" story. The good thing about science is that it can dispel some of the distortions and discrepancies that obscure the truth over time. Fortunately Spiritual Truths seem retain their power to renew themselves in our minds and knowledge over the centuries. The Physical evidence seems to be buried a little deeper. Anyway here's that site. I missed the History Channel Presentation last year.
Discovery of Atlantis
http://www.discoveryofatlantis.com/
The "Digging for the Truth" documentary for the History Channel
"There is no doubt in the minds of those involved in the project that Atlantis/Eden has indeed been discovered. It is there, between Cyprus and Syria, of this we are sure. The dozens upon dozens of perfect matches with the ancient world's detailed descriptions cannot be ignored, nor can they be coincidental. There is no other Atlantis theory which even remotely comes close to matching these descriptions, much less matching practically every one of them. It is unprecedented.
There is now, given our current technological means, only one way to inexpensively prove or disprove the theory. A "core sample" of the seabed from the rectangular valley could be analyzed to see when the area was last above water. To this date, not a single core sample of the deep-sea area between Cyprus and Syria has ever been taken or analyzed. When we hear scientists say that the Mediterranean was dry last about five million years ago, it should be kept in mind that these numbers come from core samples taken from completely unrelated areas, far away from the northeastern tip of the Mediterranean Sea where Atlantis/Eden was once above water. In other words, these numbers are based on guess work, not data. Until and unless the data itself comes in, the numbers are not based on scientific proof."
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will
Hello 7up, The Garden of
Hello 7up,
The Garden of Eden is "mythic" in its profoundity and depth. It is not "a myth" in the sense that it is not fiction. The story of the Garden communicates the eternal truth of God, for those with ears to hear - and so we would be wise to listen carefully, attentively, humbly, prayerfully. Alternatively, it would be very foolish to discount or reject it in favor of the shifting winds of the politically correct and fashionable.
"The way some animals are" is certainly not to be a moral guide for human persons created in the image of God. That is the first and crucial point to put on the table! Also, however, we must remember that the whole of creation (nature, and the animal kingdom included) was thrown into "futility" by the original sin of Adam and Eve. A fatal flaw was inserted into God's good creation by the break with God entailed by our sin. In other words, we can only conjecture what nature itself would be like, in God's original design and intention, had man not disrupted the natural order in his break with God.
We do not need to conjecture, however, what is moral and what is immoral for mankind! God has revealed to us our moral code - His plan and intention for us.
Thomas
When Tales are told to
When Tales are told to restrain the human imagination and clench the heart of compassion they are, indeed, not myth. But either are they fiction. Rather, they are the pretext for control and shaming.
They are, in the mythic image of Genesis, the forked tongue of the serpent.
"Please see my (Thomas') latest posts located on Sin, Judging Others and the Sex Revolution."
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you... (Jn13:34)
That should be: "NEITHER are
That should be: "NEITHER are they fiction."
e+
The Rev. Dr. E. McCoy
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you... (Jn13:34)
This is so interesting. Did
This is so interesting. Did animals live forever? Did they reproduce? Did they kill to eat? Were they vegetarians? Were they domesticated?
Did you ever stop to think that Adam and Eve were pets? They were naked. God fed them and took them for walks. They did not have any personal responsibility except for avoiding THE tree. They apparently had no intellectual life. The church calls adam's sin "felix culpa" because it brought us the Savior. But I'm happy about it because I'd rather be human--mortal, fragile, pained and heartbroken--than be anyone's pet, even God's.
I wish I had read this five
I wish I had read this five minutes ago and I wouldn't have wasted my time replying to this same thinking on another thread. You are too good Frannie.
On a personal note, I often look at my own pets and wonder if they would prefer a different human god. I certainly know they would prefer that their goddess gave them different food to eat, but in the interestes of protecting the dominance of my own desires, I don't leave any 'forbidden apples' out in the open for them to be tempted by. Unlike God, I get tired of cleaning up after their messes.
http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com
frannie~ Your post
frannie~ Your post demonstrates the beauty,the limitation, the poetry of myth. More, it invites us to explore myth with our own quest not just the answers we are preconditioned with. I will never think of that beautiful phrase "felix culpa" without your insight as an integral component. Thank you.
I haden't realized that
I haden't realized that animals too suffered the effects of original sin.
""The way some animals are" is certainly not to be a moral guide for human persons created in the image of God". Correct, but one must take into account the variety and normative'ness rather than absolutness of nature in the intellectualization of nature towards, so called, natural law. And what is it that is distinctly different for human persons from the rest of creation- our intellect, our god given and Christ redeemed capacity to think, to understand, to listen and reflect, to seek to better understand, to question, to free ourselves from the tyranny of determinism. All of which also translate into a God-given obligation to use them.
Dear ForeverSeeking~ There
Dear ForeverSeeking~ There is much that is valuable in your topic. It is difficult to respond to it however, because it assumes that the myths, morals and realities of sex are of equal value and of contemporary relevance. I honestly don't think that they all are.
At my age, I am no longer certain of what I learned from Sisters, from ethics, experience, the pulpit or from under my parents matteras. I do know that having been in love, having had sexual experince and been blessed with children who then grew up in a very different environment from mine I am much different than I was as a callow youth.
Older now, I am less inclined to be led by the nose (or whatever) and try to reflect on the myths, taboos, expectations, fears, enticements and prohibitions more objectively than when I was younger.
I am fundamentaly convinced that sex and love as subjects are so embroiled in myth (the lie kind that abuses reality), ignorance, stereotype, fear, bias, misogyny, power politics, guilt, avoidance and lust that a reasonable discussion is virtually impossible. For example, I recently listened to a gynocologist describe some of the active, directed phsiological roles that the female body (the woman) plays in the process of conception that I had never heard of and which, to me, blew whatever was left of the lid off the 'passive recipient' model of woman which has been built from medieval science into a theology, an ethics, poety and pseudy psychology, pseudo sociology and way of life demanded of relationships, that underlies much of our church's positions on women, sex, marriage, and rhetoric.
It must be acknowledged that while the Roman Catholic Church has led the parade in all these negatives in its sphere and time it is not the lone perpertrator, nor the worst. The human being is scared silly of sex, doesn't understand love and can't seem to handle their intertwining.
There have been a couple of other threads like yours that began honestly and then became hijacked by what I would term, absolutists. I guess they might have meant well but there was little from the heart and soul informed by 'teaching', it seemed to be all 'book' and rightiousness and took us backward into confusion and agression rather than forward. So, I'll just see how it goes.
Hello Forever Seeking, Thank
Hello Forever Seeking,
Thank you for your post, and your thoughts. This is such an important matter! Human sexuality is a potency given us by God with a particularly sacred character. To violate Truth in matters of sexuality have, then, a particular importance and relevance for us. Sexual potency - and physically speaking, human genitals - have such an importance that upon the first and original sin, these were the parts of the body that Adam and Eve wanted to cover in shame - they had broken sacred communion with God. Sexual potency makes us like God, shows us to be in His image, in a unique way: through sexual potency we participate with Him in the creation of new human persons, we enter a personal communion of love with one other in an irrevocable convenant of communion.
But in our fallen state we violate this sacred character of our sexuality - and in these modern times, we do so with increasing impunity and hubris. We desecrate this, a sacred participation with God; we make common and casual this which is to be most personal and private to the marital covenant. We claim rights that do not exist, to enjoy this gift with whomever we choose, male or female, with whatever meaning we choose to give or to withhold from the act. We reinvent and redefine, at will, that which God placed and ordered in His unique creation of the human person made in the divine image.
Ours is a culture obsessed with sex. We are impoverished of the meaning of love, we run from the commitment of marital covenant, we hide in fear of the responsibilities of parenthood, but we grasp anyway for the pleasures that God has bound to authentic marital union. And we dare to call this, "making love."
Thomas
Thomas ? Some of what you
Thomas ? Some of what you say is great and spiritual but get rid of the 'garden of Eden' stuff. It's a myth. By the way some animals are monogonous and others are not whic ones are closer to God?