Original Sin and Deviant Behavior

Remaining "outmoded" State laws invalidating deviant sexual behavior and premarital sex continue to be overturned by state and federal courts. Just recently a Southern State Supreme Court overturned a law prohibiting premarital sex, and a Texas law barring deviant sex will come before the US Supreme Court.

Modern society assumes that the elmination of these laws is the path to a free and fair society, but is it?

With the new morals has come a wealth of terminated pregnancies, children confused into believing they were born into the wrong sex body, an epidemic of deadly sexually transmitted diseases, rampant pornography, and an increase in violent crime against women to the degree that it is unsafe to walk the streets at night.

Ancient religions could not prohibit a child from being a valid participant in the birth process. To do so is ungodly and absurd. Therefore, any form of birth control is anti-religious, and it is equally wrong to terminate an unborn child or bring an unwanted child into the world. The only things left are the principles of religion: Self control, respect for others and for the body, and a shunning of short-lived physical pleasures for high spiritual values such as the adoring (as opposed to cursing) of a newborn child.

Saint Augustine of Hippo, an important early Christian Church figure, wrote that thought of child must be first and foremost in the mind of the couple or it is sin. It is, in fact original sin, and the explanation for how every child is born in sin and imperfect, short of a family unity that should have been his by birthright.

This simple religious principle isn't winning any popularity tests these days, even among Christians. One may think the Catholic Church has not lost the ancient truth, but it has, at least somewhat, and has to an extent institutionalized a reverse policy with the condoning of the rhythm system, embraced as a workaround, so that Augustine's ancient teachings would remain valid and the modern flock appeased. However, the baby was literally thrown out with the bathwater, for the new Catholic requirement to be "open to life" simply places the child second fiddle to the desiring of physical pleasures and entirely loses Augustines message and warning.

Once the concept of "thought of child" is understood, then all of the ills and rationales of a deviant society fall apart. Homosexuality is illogical and stupid, for no child can come of it. Masturbation will cause (spiritual) blindness. Premarital sex can no longer be justifiable. Children will plan their child's future by making a lifetime contract in advance, because they've been taught to respect the to-be-born life, and nothing less. Adultry will become an absurdity, because no child will be desired.

A continuation down the present path accomplishes exactly the opposite. Of course two men can "love" each other, and why should not a man "love" his younger female employees and share this joy with them. What purpose can there be for two kids in love to wait until marriage?

A society may be able to withstand the legalizing of such activities but will have real problems when the moral voice of the ancient Church caves into it, problems that are very self-evidenct. They won't get any better until we do.

This idea must hold that any sexual relations of any kind are wrong when no child is desired.

What if the relations are held when no child is POSSIBLE--e.g., while the wife is pregnant, or the couple is infertile for other reasons?

You still haven't answered that question.

Further, it strikes me that after you read the Jansenist goodies, you will realize that you ARE a Jansenist if you continue to hold that "desire for a child" MUST be a pre-condition of sexual relations.

In other words, you are a heretic.

Don't preach this stuff in the name of the Roman Catholic Church, please.

I believe you have a valid point, that one does not want to put unnecessary constrictions on his life, and that the joys of life should be fully realized. However, by stepping over the line of intercourse for the purpose of having children, you essentially condone all the evils associated with recreational sex, justifying or condemning the the same "joys" by wheter the proper papers have been signed and submitted. You essentially say that physical lusts and passions are godly if legally documented and observed by church and state, but are sinful and wrong when not officially recorded by the government, and this is an absurdity on it's face.

Can there be a middle ground, and I think the answer is "no", and I think present conditions in America prove that. When spiritual ideals are compromised, society will naturally begin tearing them down entirely. Either sexual exploitation, whether by two private persons having proper documentation or by kids experimenting in the alley, is a freedom or it is a mental illness.

When a woman is pregnant, please don't find this offensive, but I would suggest that relations will ahow a great disrespect for the child, and in fact will illustrate the parents true desires, to please themselves rather than acknowledge and honor their new child.

Regarding infertility, the couple could wish for a miracle but should not take it to extremes: if they truely believe they may indeed have a child, even if entirely remote. However, to use this as an excuse for experiencing pleasures would be entirely wrong and counter to their desired wish; no miracle will come.

I would beg to differ that I am a Jansenist. The Moonies hold a similar doctrine. I am not a Moonie. Why? Because I did not receive this instruction from either. I am who I am, if you don't mind the reference; I came to this conclusion on my own accord, but at that time I was aware that the idea had been embraced by the very early Popes.

I'm not Catholic, but I do note that my suggestion is the same as taught by St Augustine, the "moral conscience" of the Catholic Church.

I'm old enough to remember Catholic Bishop Fulton J Sheen's television program from the mid-fifties called, The Christophers, which would open with the theme, "If all the world lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be."

Thus the power of the individual to "repair the world" (Hebrew Tikkun Olam), since that is where the process begins. Note my almost overuse of, "I believe...."

Not that I always succeed, but I do try to light that one little candle everyday.

My best advice would be to instruct children to the purpose of the birth process and importance of marriage and leave them with that.

I have a friend with a who's girlfriend's birth control method "disn't work", and he's now the proud unmarried father of a delightful son and will be marrying a woman he may not otherwise have married. The lad's just starting life and is already off balance. What really bothers me is that these kids are taught that having sex is right and that not having sex is stupid. He was pressured by the "caring" elements of the the society to perhaps ruin or at least unnecessarily complicate his and a newborn's lives, and perhaps also his girlfriend's. There's no reason for this. Kids should at least be instructed as to what is right and what is of value. A few temporary pleasures which he might have been socially pressured into were traded for a lifetime of possible problems and complications, when prior to that he no worries at all. What is the cost to a society that worships the procreative urge?

Some are also necessarily out of context, and this: "Husbands and wives should satisfy each other's sexual needs" is an interpretion, not exact quote.

True enough, but the context of the verse and the fact that virtually every commentatary I can find puts this forth as a plausible translation is good enough for me. :-)

Augustine, who lived only a few hunderd years after Christ, proceeds to lay down a law that a man desiring not a child essentially "fornicates" with his wife by reducing her to the level of a prostitute, because what he requires of her is no diferent than what he would demand from the prostitute.

I don't subscribe to Augustines teachings on the matter. Anitquital views on a subject don't mean they're right. Many contemporaries of Christ and the apostles were dismally wrong in their views.

Thus, becoming "one flesh" cannot mean lust, but must mean something much greater. Can two people give of each other while blocking a child from being born? There is an illogic to this, the giving by the withholding of a new life. It cannot be true.

It does mean something much greater...or at least represents something much greater. It's a physical union that shadows a spiritual union and is thus holy if approached in a holy manner.

He also warned that to look at a women with lust is a sin equal to adultry. Was he excluding a man's wife? It wouldn't seem so.

I would tend to agree with this. If your wife is nothing more than a sex object than there's something wrong. However I think theres a qualitative difference between lustful sexual behavior toward a spouse and opposed to loving sexual behavior toward a spouse.

At any rate, I thank you for a reasoned and polite debate on the subject. :-)

<< I don't subscribe to Augustines teachings on the matter. Anitquital views on a subject don't mean they're right. Many contemporaries of Christ and the apostles were dismally wrong in their views. >>

This would seem to negate all of your quotes, wouldn't it? None are attributed to Christ.

Also, "Husbands and wives should satisfy each other's needs", could be more encompassing than simply "having sex", such as to include the woman's maternal needs, and the man's wish for a son. Or, if the woman shouldn't have or doesn't wish for children then perhaps her needs are somewhat of a different sort.

<< It's a physical union that shadows a spiritual union and is thus holy if approached in a holy manner. >>

But there remains the obvious and nagging question: Can it be holy behavior? Is a genuine caring for spouse an intentional blocking of a child's conception and birth so that the partners may experience pleasurable feelings together? As I say, there is an illogic in that. It simpy cannot be true.

I understand your counter point and sympathize with you. The modern society, science, and values allows no reason for abstinence. But I think a cultural brick wall has been erected on citizens, snuffing out something more genuine and good, and which cannot be so easily obtained now. Consider also that others may (and will) use your same arguments and shed all other contstraints. Why should _they_ abstain from pleasurable experiences with others of same sex, unmarried, etc? Without the sound ancient foundation, there will be noo societal rules.

<< At any rate, I thank you for a reasoned and polite debate on the subject. :-) >>

Yes, this has been a pleasant experience. I made the argument on a Compuserve Catholic and Free Thought forum a year or so back. The Catholics trashed Augustine and then accused me of doing what they had done and nearly ran me off the forum. Free thought was worse, having become controlled and zealously guarded by a tiny band of atheists. I was repeatedly called a liar and was locked out of the forum for complaining that being called a liar violated forum rules. They claimed that I broke forum rules for complaining that the sysop wasn't enforcing the rules, and they'd come up with an odd rationale, arguing that "you are lying" is subject oriented and permissible, and just "you are a liar" is a personal attack. But their own written rules specifically forbade "you are lying" and that's what got me shut out, pointing that out in a public message.

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