Virginity seen as bad!?

[shooraijin]

So show your cards. Why is it bad to be responsible with an act with significant emotional and reproductive overtones? If you're not implying it's bad, then what's your point here?

Marriage and the like requires a certain sobriety and acknowledgment that not all the bits of your relationship are sunshine and roses. If you truly want someone, be ready to bleed and sacrifice on their behalf.

Many folk engage more responsibility than they can handle, and in biting more than they can properly chew, only make life miserable for themselves and others. It's a sad, ugly truth.

I admire folk who can commit as good as their word.

I agree with that as far as it goes, but I'm with Nate: I can't tell exactly what you're arguing here relative to the topic.

[Radical Dreamer]

um... boy, there sure is a caustic feeling in the horizon, isn't there?
. . .
Sorry, my DA compadres... I'm just starting to see this kind of thread as all too predictable and frustrating.

Actually, I wasn't getting that from this thread at all, and I think it's progressed very well thus far. If any "caustic feeling" is on the horizon, I'd prefer it stay civil and not be egged on by this sort of post. Moreover, if you find these threads predictable or frustrating, you are welcome to find another, less predictable thread to post in.

So while it's not my place to say if Jesus really meant staring at a woman lustfully was really adultery, I don't think that's the only possible interpretation of that verse. I mean, if I say "I hate you" to someone the police don't rush in and say "You're under arrest for murder!" But Jesus said that hating someone was the same as murder. But "hating a person" is not the real definition of murder, now is it?

For what it's worth, I've always understood those verses to be explaining how thoroughly everyone is a sinner. That is, where someone may think, "I'm a good person because I've kept most of the commandments]actions[/i], we are still sinners because it's in our nature. But yeah, that's just what I've understood it to mean. XD

[Cognitive Gear]

um... boy, there sure is a caustic feeling in the horizon, isn't there?
Careful! We might have the same darn situation when topazraven made a similar thread, and this is how it went.

(Christian who advocates waiting for marriage, who happens to say fornication is a sin)]Soft-Christian who has a mixed opinion[/I]);
"Well, I don't think it's necessarily a sin, but there sure is a lot of sin in doing that kind of thing too much. I'm personally saving myself for marriage - unless that one loving someone shows up."

(Person who probably hates Christianity, but never comes out and says it);
"I oppose everything you all are saying. All of these notions are incredibly uneducated and ignorant. Strict and moralistic people are stupid. I'm not going to voice anything but a contrarian opinion, and use fallacious reasoning to defend what I am likely practicing, but never confess outright. Prepare to get angry and feel small."

Now see, personally, whenever I hear Jesus say that looking at a woman with lust for her is adultery in my heart, then it must mean that adultery is a LOT MORE BROAD of a sin than just sleeping with someone other than your spouse. In fact, that means that all sexual sin is really a form of adultery; Christ gave the true definition of the term.
And if looking at a woman lustfully is a sin.... then sleeping with her outside of marriage is definitely a sin. So I'll keep my virginity until I'm married, thank you very much.

Sorry, my DA compadres... I'm just starting to see this kind of thread as all too predictable and frustrating.

Now... as for the ridicule and expectancy of those who are not virgins towards those who are, it's easy. People will be people. Many feel bad about what they are doing, but it's not so bad if others are doing it. Others simply want you to quit "acting like a kid." Some really just want you to not have any purity or innocence. It all depends - pick your poison.

What is DA?

[ShiroiHikari]

But the things Jesus said weren't meant to be taken at face value most of the time. Take, for example, these verses:

If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Now, we all know that our foot doesn't cause us to sin. Our eye doesn't either. Nor does our hand. Sin comes from the heart. It doesn't come from other body parts. So why would Jesus say to cut off our feet and hands and gouge out our eyes if sin doesn't come from those places?

Simple. Because He wasn't to be taken at face value. The message Jesus was saying here is "Sin is so bad that you should be willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to flee from it or get rid of it. Sin is so bad you should be willing to lose body parts rather than do it." He wasn't really saying to maim or mutilate ourselves.

Same as when Jesus said, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Jesus wasn't saying to be cannibals and eat Him. Taking that sentence at face value would be severely misinterpreting it. He meant something different than what He was actually saying.

So while it's not my place to say if Jesus really meant staring at a woman lustfully was really adultery, I don't think that's the only possible interpretation of that verse. I mean, if I say "I hate you" to someone the police don't rush in and say "You're under arrest for murder!" But Jesus said that hating someone was the same as murder. But "hating a person" is not the real definition of murder, now is it?

To use a phrase I've become intimately familiar with, "It's more complicated than that."

Quoting this for emphasis.

Also:

In relation to anime, though, there is one example of getting laid being bad for the main character: Gundam Seed.
[spoiler]Kira has sex with Flay, but mostly because she used him completely for her own ends in her twisted way. He was already broken down, and she seduced him in his moment of total weakness. And after she was dead, due to what they did, he can't forget her.
but on the bright side, he ended up with the Princess of Purity, Lacus, who loves him for all the right reasons, and doesnt force the physical part of the relationship.[/spoiler]

I-- I-- I don't know what to say to this.

[bkilbour]

Nate, see, the way the government sees murder and the way God sees murder are two totally different things.
Also, if Jesus said it's a sin.... then it is.
And yes, I am sure He did not tell people to pluck out their eyes literally... but adultery is still a sin, and He still said that looking at a woman with lust in one's eyes is adultery.
There is NOTHING to suggest that He didn't really mean what He said.
Otherwise, we might as well put everything He said into question, including salvation and love - I mean, gosh, did He really mean that I should love my enemies and give to the poor? Surely, He was just using a figure of speech, right?

If sin comes from the heart, then acting on one's heart's sinful desires is... a sin. An then, acting further than just having something in your heart is... you guessed it, a sin.

Please read the top section of the post you were quoting.
I absolutely hate it when threads like these descend into petty ranting and arguments, where one group seems to defend sin (or claim that it isn't a sin), and the other is trying to keep away from it (or give a please-everyone pseudo answer).

[ShiroiHikari]

I absolutely hate it when threads like these descend into petty ranting and arguments

You started it.

[bkilbour]

heh....
I suppose I did voice my concern a little agressively.
I'll own that.

[Okami]

It's very interesting to me that this thread came about a few days ago, and today my pastor at my homechurch began a to-be month long sermon series on "Pure Sex." He made a box where people can request topics to be discussed and questions to be answered Biblically. So we'll see where it leads. I asked my mom to get me the sermon cds since I begin the new semester tomorrow (today?) and won't be around on the weekends to catch the series. And since online sermon videos and podcasts haven't been updated since October and April, respectively, I'm out of luck, there.

[Radical Dreamer]

I absolutely hate it when threads like these descend into petty ranting and arguments, where one group seems to defend sin (or claim that it isn't a sin), and the other is trying to keep away from it (or give a please-everyone pseudo answer).

Please re-read my post. This thread doesn't have to "descend into petty ranting," in fact, as I mentioned, it was doing relatively fine, and is actually now off the original topic. If you don't want the thread to turn into a petty rant, you're partially in control of that.

[Cognitive Gear]

Nate, see, the way the government sees murder and the way God sees murder are two totally different things.
Also, if Jesus said it's a sin.... then it is.
And yes, I am sure He did not tell people to pluck out their eyes literally... but adultery is still a sin, and He still said that looking at a woman with lust in one's eyes is adultery.
There is NOTHING to suggest that He didn't really mean what He said.
Otherwise, we might as well put everything He said into question, including salvation and love - I mean, gosh, did He really mean that I should love my enemies and give to the poor? Surely, He was just using a figure of speech, right?

If sin comes from the heart, then acting on one's heart's sinful desires is... a sin. An then, acting further than just having something in your heart is... you guessed it, a sin.

Please read the top section of the post you were quoting.
I absolutely hate it when threads like these descend into petty ranting and arguments, where one group seems to defend sin (or claim that it isn't a sin), and the other is trying to keep away from it (or give a please-everyone pseudo answer).

What is DA?

[Peanut]

Edit: Everyone else has said pretty much what I wanted to say...so disregard this post...curse my slow response time...

[Nate]

Nate, see, the way the government sees murder and the way God sees murder are two totally different things.

If that's true why didn't God jump all over Cain for hating his brother before he actually killed him? If hatred = murder then God should have punished Cain before the whole killing part.

Not that I'm defending hating people. Hating people is definitely bad, but I really don't believe it's equivalent to murder. And otherwise God would be a hypocrite anyway. "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." If hating someone is equivalent to murder, wouldn't God be guilty of murder for hating Esau?

Also, if Jesus said it's a sin.... then it is.

Why just Jesus and not God? Especially since God was so much more detailed about sins. Like, if you shave your beard, that's a sin. Wear clothing made of two different fabrics? That's a sin. And so on.

There is NOTHING to suggest that He didn't really mean what He said.

There's nothing to suggest He didn't really mean what He said about the whole eating His flesh thing, either. Should the crowd have killed Him and consumed His body? No, that'd be stupid. But Jesus never said that He didn't really mean it.

In fact, then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?â€

[airichan623]

I-- I-- I don't know what to say to this.

oops....sorry shiroi. dont read spoilers if you dont want a series spoiled!!! (i got that part ruined for me like 3 episodes in)

What is DA?

Deviantart.

[bkilbour]

What is DA?

Sorry, had a temporary lapse due to being on a few sites at once.
Shoulda said CAA.

Should have kept my mouth shut, too.
My apologies for bringing my bad day into your thread, Sapphire.

[Midori]

I propose we take here the same attitude as we took in the other thread.

"Although I think you're wrong, and I wish you agreed with me, I respect you despite our disagreements."

Can we have more of that please? Even if you mean to have that attitude, it may not appear that way to others, so please be extra-sure to let people know you respect them. Just remember: people are not psychic.

This kind of overt, obvious respect is the only thing that will let theological discussions continue taking place on this board. Note the emphasis. It ought to be obvious to everyone reading your post. Even if you don't literally say "I respect you" your tone should be friendly and not be judging or condemnatory.

Wow, sorry to sidetrack this thread with a lecture. I estimate about 50% to 80% of online fights are due to communication errors, rather than actual lack of goodwill.

Also, it's amazing how much damage a real apology can fix, at least among mature Christians. I commend bkilbour for giving us a good example of Christianly conduct.

[Cardiche007]

I agree with that as far as it goes, but I'm with Nate: I can't tell exactly what you're arguing here relative to the topic.

Just that sex and money are joined at the hip, and for better or worse, this has been the case since ancient times. We've inherited this evolutionary baggage. Christian and non-Christian each have at least some notion, subconscious or otherwise, that instinctively equates sex and money with success.

Thus the fallacy: When society or members thereof encounter virgins, there is at least a tendency, on a gut level at least, to make all kinds of assumptions about the lives of virgins that may or not be true. Or at least the assumptions may not be as accurate as they were 2,000 years ago or earlier. At that time and for long thereafter, folks tilled the land and needed larger families wherewith to do that--thus the importance of marriage (i.e sex & children) as a means to grow food, which was also had the same value as cash in some places.

I don't know if that helps at all. But I'm darn sick of re-hashing and bludgeoning all this to the ground and further. Take it or leave it folks.
It's not made of iron. I won't be butt-hurt if folk take this argument out to pasture and out of their minds.

[Doubleshadow]

I kind of want to debate your points but I'm not sure what your points are.

No worries, I've known him for years and had a tough time following. XD

(Note to self, do not read threads backwards)

[FllMtl Novelist]

Replying to what I think was the original topic, it looks to me that looking down on someone because the person is still a virgin is like looking down on someone because he/she has never had a girlfriend/boyfriend. Just carried one step further, if that makes sense.

...Which I think is just me rephrasing what some other people have said already. Sorry about that. XD

[TGJesusfreak]

Nate, see, the way the government sees murder and the way God sees murder are two totally different things.
Also, if Jesus said it's a sin.... then it is.
And yes, I am sure He did not tell people to pluck out their eyes literally... but adultery is still a sin, and He still said that looking at a woman with lust in one's eyes is adultery.
There is NOTHING to suggest that He didn't really mean what He said.
Otherwise, we might as well put everything He said into question, including salvation and love - I mean, gosh, did He really mean that I should love my enemies and give to the poor? Surely, He was just using a figure of speech, right?

If sin comes from the heart, then acting on one's heart's sinful desires is... a sin. An then, acting further than just having something in your heart is... you guessed it, a sin.

Please read the top section of the post you were quoting.
I absolutely hate it when threads like these descend into petty ranting and arguments, where one group seems to defend sin (or claim that it isn't a sin), and the other is trying to keep away from it (or give a please-everyone pseudo answer).

I agree totally with you dude. But for the sake of people in this thread. I would recomend taking it to PM. cause this might get a bit ugly if youre not careful. Just a recomendation. >.>](Note to self, do not read threads backwards)[/QUOTE] lolwut? XD

[Nate]

Just that sex and money are joined at the hip, and for better or worse, this has been the case since ancient times.

I agree, but it's the opposite of what you're thinking. If I was in ancient Israel and I saw a woman I liked, I would have to pay her father x amount of money to get her hand in marriage (or x amount goats, camels, whatever). This wouldn't necessarily mean I was well off though, so I don't think what you're saying (that marriage = success) is a valid one.

On top of that, again, the stigma isn't against a person being unmarried. It's against a person never having sex. A person could be a bachelor their entire life and be seen as a "stud" and successful if he got enough girls in the sack. In fact, he'd probably be seen as MORE successful than a married man because he doesn't have "the old ball and chain holding him back."

[Yamamaya]

Indeed, I've seen t-shirts before that have a picture of a guy getting married with text below that says, "Game Over." The ideal, "stud" in our society is a guy who doesn't get married but has a lot of sex. He is able to convince any woman to sleep with him.

[Cardiche007]

Picture olde McDonald on his farm with the tractor he bought. Probably put a holocaust in his wallet to buy that tractor. He didn't have any choice if he wanted enough crops to turn a profit come harvest time. Nonetheless just because the man has the right equipment there's really no guarantee his harvest will be a good one. The farmer only assumes his harvest will be profitable, otherwise he wouldn't buy the tractor at an obvious lose, and we too allow him this assumption. We assume the tractor is instrumental to his success. Now that said, perhaps it was a little like that for the agricultural jew in the old world? Although may or may not be successful at anything he will still make the same kinds of investments successful people own. In that context, the Jew's wife could be like Olde McDonald's tractor. A machine for bringing goods to market.
Whatever commercial successes our old Jew has, he begins conflating all these different notions of money, marriage, sex=success. And the more money he makes at market every year, the more he believes it himself and we can all see the results too. We begin to find this old Jew a believable paradigm. We begin making assumptions of our own.

Of course it isn't anything like that today. Today you can have all the sex you want and be successful. When/how did marriage get elided out of our notions of sex <success>? As mentioned, a man who beds many females is success nowadays. I would never claim society claims otherwise.

As a side note, I can say that most Mediterranean cultures other than Semite adopted the opposite notion. Among them the father-in-law paid his son-in-law a dowry (see also Gentiles=Greeks+Romans).

[Nate]

...comparing a woman to a tractor? Really?

And your analogy...doesn't work. The tractor is a tool for helping to harvest crops. If selling crops is your primary source of income, you can logically follow how being able to harvest crops faster (and harvest more of it) can lead to more money. Like, the faster you can harvest them, the more you can plant, and the less that goes to waste.

As for the "old Jew" analogy I'm not sure how the woman compares to the tractor (as she isn't going to be directly contributing to the work, whatever his job may be). Even if you compare the children to the tractor (which seems to work better on a certain level I guess), it's not as simple as "Buy tractor, receive easier work." Kids gotta grow older too. It would've been a few years before the kid could even be trained in their dad's job, and even then, the father would have to devote time to training the kid until he actually got good enough to help, which who knows how long that would take. Plus you have to factor in the costs of raising kids, which is always fairly high no matter what culture you're talking about. A tractor is a one-time payment and once in a while you put some gas in it, maybe get it tuned up. Kids constantly require food and clothing, so over time, the kids are going to be way more expensive. Of course, ancient Israel didn't think of children as a monetary burden obviously but as a blessing, my point is just that the analogy still doesn't work.

Even so, it still makes no sense as far as marriage (or sex) equals success, especially since the Dark Ages would have shattered that notion completely. To be successful in that time period required being born into the right family. It didn't matter who you married if you were a serf, you were still gonna be poor. It didn't matter if you got married if you were born into nobility, because you were rich. So again, at that point in human history any "marriage/sex = success" thoughts people might have had would have been pretty much destroyed because "class = success" would have replaced it.

[LadyRushia]

Just to lighten the mood.

[Cardiche007]

That tractor analogy is a reversal of the ancient metaphor of ''plowing one's field." Which describes the woman as a field or garden, obviously so, and what I did by comparing her to a tractor was merely illustrate the utilitarian nature of that supposition.
Considering as well the cults of Ceres, Freyja, Isis, and Ishtar (aka the Astarte the hebrews worshipped as an idol) you can see for yourself the myriad ways child fertility and the fertility of the land are conflated together. There remains some sort of connection there.
A word as well about the Dark Ages: Successful people therein, the landed nobility as you mentioned them, used marriage as a tool to foment alliance with other fief lords, as this guaranteed that their success would carry over another generation. Sometimes they even married a near or distant cousin (as Russian Czars did). Whether they married into the family or not, they definitely exploited marriage for their own gain. Whether the marriage itself was the end (as in fomenting political and military alliance) or keeping the riches in the family was. However you look at it, neither sex nor marriage and children for their own sakes was really the point. In a word, the Dark Ages lowered everyone's expectations. Including the class of the uppers.

[mechana2015]

You're using 2% of the population in the dark ages to try to conflate marriage with success. That's not a passable statistic. Nobody talking in this thread is royalty, and it isn't the Dark ages now anyhow.

[Cardiche007]

Indeed.

http://cheezburger.com/jaspatrick/lolz/View/3729824000

And yet there is still that olde patriarchal view fief lords ascribed to themselves and their more humble subjects. A view that is corollary to the client and patron relationship the Romans practiced. The word patron itself is derived from the latin word for 'father.'

Of course, in the main, that has nothing to do with sex, little to do with marriage, and far more to do with power.

[Lynna]

Indeed.

http://cheezburger.com/jaspatrick/lolz/View/3729824000

And yet there is still that olde patriarchal view fief lords ascribed to themselves and their more humble subjects. A view that is corollary to the client and patron relationship the Romans practiced. The word patron itself is derived from the latin word for 'father.'

Of course, in the main, that has nothing to do with sex, little to do with marriage, and far more to do with power.

I acctually tottally see what you're getting at now.

[Yamamaya]

This thread is making me want to wear suspenders and plant corn seeds and then complain about the lack of rain.

Either that or join some knightly order.

[Kunoichi]

Well i haven't read everyone's posts as usual (Just so much to read 0_o)

For me, I had always wanted to "save myself for marriage". It was something I felt very strong on. Well then I was raped (the first one anyways that I knew of) definitely skewed things for me. I thought that must mean I was no longer a virgin etc etc, especially since the man who was doing those things eventually psychologically convinced me i wanted it, even when I said no. (That is a long story for a different time). In any case, what I feel now at least is that (and many abusive relationships later...again long story), when I have sex with someone..you give a part of yourself to that person. Whether it was rape or consensual (and I have had consensual sex once). So my personal reason for now having abstinence is because I don't want to have to give myself to anyone else.

(If the abuse talk I entered was inappropiate or upsetting, please let me know and I will edit it and take it out)