Posted on 10/22/2018 9:54:09 PM PDT by DeweyCA
Over at the Institute for Family Studies, Nicholas Wolfinger, a sociologist at the University of Utah, has found that Americans who have only ever slept with their spouses are most likely to report being in a “very happy” marriage. Meanwhile, the lowest odds of marital happiness—about 13 percentage points lower than the one-partner women—belong to women who have had six to 10 sexual partners in their lives. For men, there’s still a dip in marital satisfaction after one partner, but it’s never as low as it gets for women,...
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In an earlier analysis, Wolfinger found that women with zero or one previous sex partners before marriage were also least likely to divorce, while those with 10 or more were most likely. These divorce-proof brides are an exclusive crew: By the 2010s, he writes, just 5 percent of new brides were virgins. And just 6 percent of their marriages dissolved within five years, compared with 20 percent for most people.
Other studies’ findings have also supported the surprising durability of marriages between people who have only ever had sex with one another.
In this latest study, women who have had one partner instead of two are about 5 percentage points happier in their marriages, about on a par, Wolfinger says, with the boost that possessing a four-year degree, attending religious services, or having an income over $78,000 a year has for a happy marriage. (In his analysis, he controlled for education, income, and age at marriage.)
This analysis merely suggests that sleeping with fewer people is correlated with marital happiness; it doesn’t say one thing predicts the other.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I recently tried to make sense of hinduism. i tried to read the upanishads but it was too difficult for me, at least on my first attempt.
I do favor simplicity, if only because of my own limitations. christianity has the bible, which i have already been exposed to in 8 years of parochial school. buddhism has the 4 noble truths and the 8 fold path.
i am mostly just wandering through this stuff and trying to make simple-minded sense of it all. it may seem like i am aggressive here but i am a lot more demanding of myself than of anyone else. i seek answers. being assertive seems ok under the circumstances. i have corrected myself already many times along this path. i might be wrong here or there, and although my manner may seem strange to some, i am always looking for better answers than those i currently have.
There is also the conjecture that Jesus spent some time in India. I do not have any more proof of that than anyone else (that is, i have no proof at all), but i did not want to rule it out altogether. If we knew for a fact that Jesus did spend some time in the East, then i would imagine that Eastern philosophies and religions (eg Buddhism, Hinduism) would imaginably become more relevant to biblical scholars than they currently are. And then a topic of interest might be a comparison.
Weren’t a lot of the patriarchs polygamous?
Well, nothing wrong with trying to find out what truth is. Hope you find it.
thanks
The problem with “scholars”, and I have read a lot of them in popular writings. I don’t have the training to make much sense of their academic work, is that basically, they bring a secular viewpoint to their efforts. AT least a lot of them do.
The whole question, in my mind, is whether Jesus is God or Jesus is not God, a secondarily, if He is God, then what are His teachings.
I could take you through my journey on this point, but why bother? The answer is, IMO, that He is God. Most scholars, especially Jewish New Testament scholars, reject that. So they can explain everything only in natural terms.
I can see their point, but I do not accept it. Can I prove that I am right? No. Nevertheless, I believe, and think, that I am.
Frankly though, if Jesus is just a man, nothing that He has to say is of anymore interest to me that the droolings of Marx or Mao, two others I read, if with considerable disgust, in my youth.
Since they are part of the words of God and so canonized, they do constitute the law. God does nothing in vain.
Marriage was defined by God as one man one woman in the Gardennif Eden.
God consistently upheld that definition through scripture.
References to husbands and wives in all the laws referred to one husband and one wife. Analogies to Christ and His bride, not brides, etc. An extra wife was an anamoly.
He does recognize that men took extra wives and makes some protections for them and their children.
But he never commands or endorses multiple wives and actually shows multiple wives in a negative light in re Solomon and in showing the grief is the result of such marriages. Concubines as well.
And of course in the New Testament we are told a man with more than one wife can not hold church office.
Marriage is defined by God. Man sets about ruining and redefining it, but God’s will is clear in the matter.
True that. But Michal seems to have dropped out of the baby-making project.
True that. but Michal seems to have dropped out of the baby-making project,
Nobody ever said David’s multi-marital marathon was particularly God-pleasing.
Speculative? Not sure what you mean. Wasn’t Jesus descended from Abraham and Sarah? Or am I mistaken?
the bible consists of many parts including psalms, parables, and prophecies. to insist that all of it constitutes law is ridiculous.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/law
a binding custom or practice of a community : a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority
one can’t really claim that a prayer or prophecy defines a binding custom or practice of a community.
also, the bible is not a single text but a collection of texts which have been modified over time by humans. One cannot therefore point to a single text as authoritative— at least without getting into an argument with one faction or another.
The field of biblical interpretation is called hermeneutics and it is very broad, with no single consensus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_hermeneutics
I would point to a best practice but it would be instantly vulnerable to attack since different factions promote different hermeneutic methodologies.
Do a web search on biblical contradictions and you will find some problems. You can’t have g*d’s law contradicting itself, at least without some assumptions.
My personal opinion is that anyone who comes at me out of the gate claiming that the bible is g*d’s uncontested and internally consistent law, and that i must always agree with his or her interpretation, is safely presumed to be a illogical wacko.
“if jesus is just a man, ...”
i respectfully disagree. for example, thomas jefferson is just a man, but does that make what he wrote not worthy of consideration by us? and how about buddha?
beyond that, i have no formal training in theology beyond catechism. so, i can probably do a fairly good job of dispensing catholic dogma. but that would rile fundamentalist christians (and others). if i took the conventional POV of fundamentalist christians, then i would risk riling catholics (and variants of catholics, and others).
everyone is claiming to know the one true meaning of the one true bible, and yet everyone is to some degree like the blind man trying to describe an elephant.
I prefer a more agnostic approach. Such an approach is by necessity non-denominational. To be a real purist, I would probably have to go back to the 4th century for the NT, and learn old greek. It would be a lot of work. Instead I am skimming here and there to try and pick up what wisdom I can. I am also doing lookaside comparisons with buddhism as well as possibly other philosophies in the future. I tend to turn off if confronted with a demand to take this or that on pure faith alone.
IOW a rational approach, or at least as rational as I can manage.
If I finish all that I may re-examine the faith aspects, but I don’t think I have that much time left.
“Marriage was defined by God as one man one woman in the Gardennif Eden.”
No, because the Jews themselves did not adhere to that definition in their beliefs until Rabbenu Gershom in the 11th century.
Your beliefs are simply inaccurate and unfounded.
Re-consider your assumptions, and then read what i have written here.
The Jews don’t define marriage. God defines marriage.
My easily checked biblical views are not unfounded.
The Jews did all sorts of things they weren’t supposed to do.
Well then, you do not understand this forum in spite of your duration here, and blithely call God a liar.
Deuteronomy/Devarim is certainly in the part of the Bible referred to as the Law; chapter 8 and verse 3 is the first time it’s mentioned that man must live by every word of God.
Ha ha, so true!
I think it’s a mistake to combine male and female experiences in this study. Over the years, I’ve learned that multiple female sexual encounters result in many unsatisfactory experiences for them. Many guys are just not good in bed. Many women have told me this many times.
But for the man who really wants to learn how to please a woman and rates his own sexual prowess on these terms - though sadly these men are the minority of men - multiple sexual encounters amount to a life-long learning experience, and quickly lead to a man who IS good in bed.
Watch out when a woman finally finds that type of man! They’ll want a monogamous relationship immediately! Lol!
You don't even need to appeal to Scripture, you can just appeal to nature. 108 boy babies are still born for every 100 girl babies, pretty much all over the world, unless people kill the girl babies in the womb.
If God meant for men to be polygamous, why does he only produce enough baby girls for a small percentage of men to be polygamous? What do polygamists propose to do with all the "extra" boys who can't find wives?
“Nobody ever said David’s multi-marital marathon was particularly God-pleasing.”
And yet Jesus is descended from David, via an action that y’all claim violates g*d’s law. That is a contradiction.
Regarding Michal, I’m losing your train of thought.
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