Posted on 01/15/2007 8:04:12 AM PST by shrinkermd
LOL
I'm happy this woman has found a more fulfilling path also. I do not believe therapy "works" where religion fails.
There are not so great churches, and not so great religious leaders, but prayer never fails.
******In the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament there is a description of a couple who have great desire for each other, which differs greatly from your description of marriage merely as an "economic relationship".****
Romantic love is old, but as the SOLE REASON FOR MARRIAGE - it is fairly new.
Apparently you're not aware that God disapproved of the behavior documented.
He disapproved but being forgiving and forebearing and indeed, negotiable (i.e., actually discussed things with people rather than just "this is it!"), allowed even then such sinners to carry on. David was a major sinner, but God still loved him.
Looking at a major aspect of the Bible, God did not approve of kingships. He had institutad judge-oriented governance. But people wanted single kings to fawn over, and He gave in and let them have it.
Your (as well as others') pointing out bad stuff in the Bible is as pointless as the Moslem-defenders pointing out violence such as mass killings and so on. Its existence doesn't CONDONE the action, merely records it. The basic rules were laid out and they simply weren't always followed.
There are all sorts of biological discriminators around. For example, men have at least two kinds of sperm: one that swims directly to the ovum, and the other that "blocks" other men's sperm. This means our biology *assumes* female infidelity.
Females also have biological mechanisms to both aid desirable sperm and inhibit undesirable sperm. Complicated stuff from changing internal pH, to having the ends of the fallopian tubes 'dip' into the sperm pool to shorten the distance it has to travel.
Females use hormonal fluctuations to attract and repel males. Girls who live around their fathers sexually mature slower, possibly as an anti-incest mechanism. Women who are pregnant get flush with hormones that initially make them more pretty (Playboy magazine used to encourage their models to be a little bit pregnant for their photo shoot--not questioning very hard what they did with the pregnancy afterwards.)
Sexual attractiveness itself is remarkably subjective, so people have evolved social mechanisms so that once somebody is seen as attractive by someone else, others will suddenly also find them attractive. That is why high school prom kings and queens usually win by a landslide. All the other kids will think of them as attractive, whether they really are or not.
>>It's really up to women to hold men to higher standards<<
I do not agree. It's up to BOTH women and men. Men are not slaves to their sex drive. To act as if men's behavior is women's responsibility is Neanderthal.
There are moral reasons to describe things as evil, without being told what they are by the head of some church. I'll let you do your own Googling on objective morality, even though it may not reasonate with you.
If you want "to separate sexual behavior from baby-making," what do you propose to do in those cases where contraception fails?
I propose, as I always have my whole life, that the people involved take responsibility for it, and either raise the child, or put him/her up for adoption. Unless one uses guaranteed conception control (and these days, that pretty much means only sterilization, or having one of the partners irreversably infertile for some other reason), then one always accepts the possibility that a pregnancy can result.
I do expect that at some point, the unreliability of conception control will improve. Most failures are due to human error, and as we improve methods and the ways that people use them, we will achieve 100% success rates without the permanency of sterilization. Consider what will happen when we have chemical means of male contraception. Sperm take 72 days to mature, and monthly tests of a man's ejaculate might be performed easily and cheaply, and detect any budding method failure, before the sperm count gets high enough to threaten a pregnancy.
If abortion is evil, fornication is evil. One leads to the other as surely as dawn leads to noon.
I reject that premise. It's about as sensical as saying that all drunk driving deaths result from drinking alcohol, so all drinking of alcoholic beverages is evil. Besides, "fornication" is the label that people put on the sexual behaviors that they don't do. It's a little old fashioned to be using in a discussion taking place on the Internet in the 21st Century. It more befits a fire and brimstone preacher of a century ago.
ping
I deliberately used skydiving as my example, because it is a thing that not everybody does, but very, very many people have done it. And when it's paratroopers jumping to defend my country from an enemy, it's always a good thing.
Fear without experience of a common activity that normally does NOT lead to negative consequences is just prejudice, which is based on ignorance. I'll admit that when it comes to jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, can I get you to admit that about drinking a beer?
Yep. www.howmanyofme.com
Science has assumptions, theories, and even 'constants',
Can you explain to me a little more by what you mean when you use the term "constants"?
Effective birth control???
Heavy drinking is bad. Period. A little won't hurt you.
So is heavy sex with all kinds. It leads to innocent children being born into a bad situation they had no say in getting into. Sex inside marriage safeguards primarily, the children born of it (as that IS what it is for, regardless of your postulating).
I can say all that without experience.
I celebrate your right to have that feeling. As an American, I believe that all my fellow citizens have the right to choose their own belief systems, whether we're talking about philosophical or political. I roll my eyes over many of the moonbat liberals who want to destroy freedom, but I'm glad that no one is forcing them into a one-party election.
One of the things that makes America great is the tolerance of others maintenance of their belief systems, as long as those beliefs do not impinge on the freedom of others.
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I believe that human progress is made from approaching the world in a scientific way, using reason.
Also, would you care to provide additional explanation of your use of the term reason? In addition, what constitutes "human progress"? What is progress in your opinion?
I think it was well put. It's always been a double standard.
"Sexual attractiveness itself is remarkably subjective, so people have evolved social mechanisms so that once somebody is seen as attractive by someone else, others will suddenly also find them attractive. That is why high school prom kings and queens usually win by a landslide. All the other kids will think of them as attractive, whether they really are or not."
I guess this is also why it's "good" to have ANYone on your arm, so that you seem more attractive, since SOMEone deigned to be with you!
"Are there women who marry for the sole purpose of procreating, then ultimately divorce to enjoy the single life again?"
I seriously doubt that this happens often; but, I do think that many young-ish women find themselves in empty marriages (usually because they were too immature to be married in the first place) and they figure out that having a baby will mean child support for 18 years, so they deliberately have a child with a man they despise solely for the money, then dump him. There's a place for women like this, and it's called Hell.
After all, women were commonly seen to be the more pure and moral part of humanity (and I mean, by men)! So why not use the applicable phraseology? ;-)
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