Thankfully Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, didn't take that tact with the woman taken in adultery.
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They're going fast!
Posted on 09/22/2005 5:48:16 PM PDT by wagglebee
We hear a lot of talk these days about the need to protect and strengthen the traditional American family. Certainly, it is true that the institution of marriage is under attack from every side. But the real threat comes from the multitudes of couples that fail to honor their marriage vows.
Adultery is one of the most terrible "facts of life" in contemporary America. If you watch the daily soap operas on TV many of which are just soft-core pornography you might get the impression that there are more people cheating on their spouses than remaining faithful. And you might be right.
How many people have affairs? That's hard to say because not everybody will answer honestly. But sex therapist Peggy Vaughan, author of The Monogamy Myth conservatively estimates that about 60 percent of married men and 40 percent of married women will have an affair at some time during their marriage. Maggie Scarf, author of Intimate Partners basically agrees.
Since these books were written more than a decade ago, and since more women are leaving the home and entering the workforce, the number of wives having affairs may also have reached the 60 percent range.
Americans have a schizophrenic attitude toward adultery.
While 90 percent admit that adultery is morally wrong, according to a Time-CNN poll, 50 percent say that President Bill Clinton's morals are "about the same as the average married man." While 35 percent think that adultery should be a crime, 61 percent think it shouldn't.
Having an affair simply doesn't carry the social stigma that it once did.
According to Playboy magazine, 2 out of 3 women and 3 out of 4 men have sexual thoughts about their coworkers, and about the same number follow through on those libidinous impulses.
Why do husbands and wives cheat on their spouses? Psychologists cite subjective issues like loss of love and feelings of alienation. Certainly the media pressure of our sex-saturated society is a significant influence.
But a major factor is the easy availability of cheap and plentiful Internet pornography.
Statistics show that 25 percent of all Internet search engine requests are related to pornography.
According to the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, "approximately 40 million people in the United States are sexually involved with the Internet." And while 76 percent of women feel that phone sex or cyber-sex is the equivalent of committing adultery, only 41 percent of men do.
Dr. Alvin Cooper and MSNBC.com conducted an online poll of 38,000 people, and 10 percent admitted that they were addicted to Internet pornography.
What's more, a lot of those Internet sex addicts eventually progress from cyber-sex to real-time sexual affairs.
Some legal professionals estimate that as many as one-third of all divorces may have their roots in Internet porn or online affairs. "If there's dissatisfaction in the existing relationship, the Internet is an easy way for people to scratch the itch," explains J. Lindsey Short, Jr., president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
The pain and suffering caused by adultery is immense, especially for children. They are more likely never to marry, or to later divorce, if they had divorced or cheating parents. After a divorce, many children are unable ever to develop strong, trusting relationships.
There is a direct correlation between the steady decline of morals and values in America and this more accepting contemporary attitude toward adultery. Part of the reason is because most people have forgotten what a marriage really is.
Marriage is more than just a legal status recognized by the state, or even a temporary social contract between two people.
True marriage is a solemn covenant relationship between a man, a woman and God. It is a hallowed institution that should be revered, cherished, and preserved.
The act of adultery is childish and selfish, and it hurts everyone involved.
It violates at least two of the Ten Commandments: the clear prohibitions against committing adultery and coveting your neighbor's spouse.
If we care about the future of our great nation, we as a people must relearn the virtue and necessity of staying committed to the spouses to whom we are married.
If this were the case, I'd have absolutely no interest of ever marrying. The very thought of adultery makes me want to vomit.
But considering the source (Time-CNN), and the readers who answered the poll, these results do not surprise me.
People are astoundingly stupid. Married men are rapists, huh? They use law enforcement officials to lure a young employee into a room, drop trow, ask for a sexual act, and then play with themselves in front of her when she doesn't comply. They use law enforcement personnel to facilitate sexual encounters with hundreds of women. They use their position in the workplace to create an atmosphere where, if someone complies, she gets top secret clearance at the Pentagon and gets to play hide the cigar. Yeah, that's your average married guy.
That's why we have parents. As a parent, I expect my children to conduct themselves according to our family's morals, not anyone elses. I don't care what Bill Clinton, or Madonna, or Brad Pitt does with their life. Our family is better than that.
Thankfully Jesus Christ, who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, didn't take that tact with the woman taken in adultery.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
I think it goes deeper to the core of all human behaviors. There was a time when a person's word was his bond. Where you kept promises, stayed loyal, remained true. Not just in marriage, but in everything you did.
If people behave badly in everything they do, then marriage will suffer likewise.
It's AL GORE's fault for inventing the Internet. But will the MSM hold him to account? What do you think?
"The way Jesus defined adultery (a matter of the heart and imagination), we are all adulterers...except for that dull few."
Ahem, even the dull--remember Jimmy Carter sinning in his heart? And is he ever the dullard.
Happy?
Lol.
I think that's really overstating the punishment. If someone has a cheating spouse, it's up to them to leave them or to stay and try and make it work (that is, if the other party wants to make it work).
Any kind of criminal punishment for that, or execution as you suggest (I hope jokingly) is more in line with our Islamic friends way of handling this matter. It's not a good way to go.
Not necessarily. I was widowed a few years ago, and I met lady who had been widowed about the same time. We eventually married. We both had children and assets. In order to insure that our children received their just inheritances, we had a prenup that delineated which children got what assets.
Call me old fashioned, but when I stand up before God and a church full of witnesses and give my sacred word of honor, I keep it.
To do anything else would be dishonorable.
Yeah, I've had my chances- temptation comes wrapped in the prettiest packages- but even such a prize won't buy my honor.
It is soooo easy to cross that line. Every natural instinct says it's right, natural and a matter of life and death (or maybe more important than that.)
If I were weak willed and without honor, I don't think I could have resisted.
I think you missed the point. We live in a sex-addicted culture. Sure, men and women had affairs before Internet porn and chat rooms, but the Internet has made illicit fantasy so much easier. The Internet has taken porn out of the seedy sex shops and brought it directly into the home. Affairs begin in the mind. I'm no expert but I could understand how after a while the fantasy would get boring and men and women would want to start looking for the real thing.
Not the ones I am involved with. Bill Clinton, moraly average? Ha.
It's selective and self reflexive, I think. The stigma is there, but it's not uniform. A lot of women, for example, would rip into a cheating husband of their friend, or a cheating male friend of their husband.
At the same time, they might be more sympathetic to one of their female friends who is banging a hunky guy on the side.
On an even kookier quirk, a single woman might find the type of man who cheats as agressive and sexy.
A man might rip into a cheating wife of one of his buddies, but not be nearly as judgmental to one of his male friends having a fling with a sexy girl.
People are no more or no less virtuous today as then.
We've always had liars, cheats, thieves, drunkards, murderers, adulterers, etc. and always will. We just tend to idealize times past.
"Having an affair simply doesn't carry the social stigma that it once did."
"Therein lies the problem. The left works hard to end the shame associated with any number of issues for that very reason. I say we should embrace disgrace!"
Agree. Recall: Only a generation or two ago, it was OUTRAGEOUS for a woman to have a child out of wedlock--she was shamed, her child was a bastard. Barely 25 years later... being a "single mom" is now a lifestyle choice. All because the Left has relentlessly defined morality down.
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