Some thoughts should never be thought.......
Posted on 05/06/2011 12:25:57 PM PDT by Colofornian
In my ward yesterday, there was an over-the-pulpit announcement plugging an anti-pornography gathering by...UCAP, or the Utah Coalition Against Pornography. Also mentioned was...the LDS Church’s top media guy, will be speaking. I was also reading...that Sen. Orrin Hatch has co-signed a letter demanding that U.S. AG Eric Holder prosecute adult pornography crimes.
My church has been on a huge anti-pornography campaign lately via its media outlets, including the Deseret News. It’s no coincidence to me that it started soon after an academic study noted that Utah had the highest ratio of online pornography subscribers, read. It’s not an outlandish stretch to assume that a healthy number of LDS men are online pornography subscribers...
This...crusade against porn reminds me of the fuss a couple of years ago over whether watching porn is adultery. A “sex expert” on Fox News said it was. The idea gained a bit more steam from...The Atlantic, who argued that paying to be sexually aroused by watching a person other than your spouse engage in sex is closer than most think to adultery Read An opposing viewpoint came from...Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute, ...who wrote, “for most people whose minds have not been addled by religious dogma, the distinction between touching yourself and touching someone not your spouse or committed monogamous partner is well nigh categorical. One’s just wrong, one’s just not.”
...it’s perfectly appropriate for any church to discourage pornography if it clashes with said organization’s belief system...
As for myself, I find porn tempting but it’s been at least 20-plus years since I’ve watched a hard-core film ...My concerns with porn is that it can harm intimacy with the one you love by presenting an objectified facade of lust, and I wouldn’t want to treat my spouse that way.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.standard.net ...
A "healthy" number of LDS men as fueling the porn industry?...Or would that better read, an "unhealthy" number of LDS men as tithing toward the porn industry?
From the column: the distinction between touching yourself and touching someone not your spouse or committed monogamous partner is well nigh categorical. One’s just wrong, one’s just not.”
Well, of course, the Mormon author knows it goes beyond mere "touch". It was Jesus Himself who said if you lust after a woman, the "wrong" that has been done was done in the eyes of an omniscient God. Not sure why this Mormon columnist, therefore, "felt the burning bosom urge" to quote a Cato Institute nobody vs. Jesus Christ...but that's another Mormon for you!
How many Marriott Hotels are there in Utah?
beat me to it.
But, hey, that's "different," doncha you know?
'Cause there at least the $ the CEO of Marriott takes in from the porn industry could be tithed into the Mormon church!
That about sums it up.
Additionally, I always thought that the idea that having a fleeting lustful thought is the exact same thing as committing adultery was ridiculous.
Unfortunately Jesus saw it differently.
And, He is the Lord of the earth soooo.
Well, Jesus also said if you hate in your heart -- equating it to murder.
Yes, that might initially sound "ridiculous" too...we might think any 2 yo knows the difference between hating somebody & killing somebody.
But to God, sin is sin. Self-centeredness is self-centeredness. Both expressions of sin (hate/murder & mind adultery/flesh adultery) results in...
...potential separation from God & our relationship with Him...
...becoming a potential slave to sin...["Jesus replied, 'Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins (plural) is a slave to sin (singular).'" - John 8:34]
Too often we look only at sin from the prospective of an NBA referee -- "no harm, no foul."
Christ also looks at sin from many other angles:
How does it affect our relationship with Him? Isn't that being unfaithful to Him? Doesn't the guilt involved tend to drive us away from Him? Bottom line here: Sin is a personal offense...not just a boundary broken.
Secondly He looks at not simply how our "fouls" harm others -- but what it inwardly does to us. The legalistic Pharisee measured only the obvious outward impact...Christ sees how certain thoughts are self-eroding.
Therefore, questions about how hate and mental adultery are relevant to an omniscient being.
Questions like...
...how does sin stunt our spiritual growth?
...how do individual sins serve the master of sin -- singular... both Jesus and the apostle Paul described sin (singular) in stark rulership language (for Paul, see Romans 6).
Certain thoughts fuel spiritual enslavery.
What is an “adult pornography crime”?
Some thoughts should never be thought.......
We must have his key board tested to verify this claim.....
And Mr. Sanctimonious Gibson repented that day. He only looks at Playboy now for the stories. Typical of many. So why did you even bring it up Gibson?
Yeh. What about child porn?
That's already clearly illegal.
I'm wondering what constitutes "illegal adult porn".
I didn't know such a thing existed. From what I can tell it's like...anything goes.
Not sure (these days)
But pre-internet & porno days (circa 1973-1992) -- when conservatives ran the US Attorneys various offices 'round the country...
...and in those states that had more conservative state supreme court justices...
...There was a Supreme Court standard that was the standard...a 1973 case that yielded the Miller Standard
Adult obscenity was prosecutable
Of course, the Internet came along & destroyed that...along with lack of enforcement
As for me, I would have liked to see them all along go after the porn industry -- not the market.
You see, we still have enforceable laws vs. prostitution.
And all porn is -- is corporate prostitution where the voyeurs join in the "party" by simply being one step removed.
‘Unfortunately’ for you if that’s what you believe he meant. Ask your wife if she thinks it’s the same thing.
It still sounds ridiculous, for both cases. Thinking and doing are two different things.
She does.
Good luck with that.
If I believed as you do, I'd be a mass murderer every time I got into traffic.
I wish more states had limits on exploiting damaged women the way the porn industry does.
Good observation/discernment on both counts.
I would still say, though, even though these two variables alone could help explain why Utah would easily crack the "Top 10" list among states, you would expect that two factors would help to offset what you mentioned to pre-empt Utah from claiming #1 state porn subscription status:
#1: What is cited here is porn subscriptions. Subscription-porn is even a more formal commitment ($) to supporting the porn industry than viewing free porn. That's what especially surprises me about Utah. Not only would you expect the 60% state Mormon stats to pre-empt such a #1 rating, you'd expect two-timing porn Mormons to be more covert vs. open tithing to the porn industry.
#2 And that's especially true given that Utah boasts the most number of married-family homes…a % that actually even rose 2% in the past few years. This means Utah culture is marriage-focused in deterring divorce as couples go through their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
Under the surface, it shows a lot more is going on vs. clean-cut image portrayed.
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