BS: Sex and morality

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 02:22 PM

If people are not going to act responsibly, then they must be compelled to do so.

Lets get rid of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, cars, motorcycles, parachutes, hang gliders, microlights, paragliders, ocean going motorboats, guns, and so ad infinitum. They all kill and mame.

But then I guess people would just revert to even more the oldest passtime known to man... and woman.

We have still not overcome our own evolution and sex - plus the pleasure associated with it - is just as much a drug to many as some of the above things I mentioned. I would argue it can be even more addictive when mixed with love. Love is a great catalyst for sex. Seldom is just sex a catalyst for Love.

In pure animal terms sex is survival. Everything we do has some survival or sexual connotation on an evolutionary level. Some people are celibate. Some loving people are still celibate. Generally though, sex is the norm for most human beings. We can live without it. Like we can live without love. But we tend not to do so well without either.

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: bobad
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 02:15 PM

"......the epidemic continues unabated."

Not true. The annual global rate of newly acquired infection has dropped by close to a million cases since 1996.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 02:04 PM

People are afraid of love because you cannot experience it without also suffering pain and taking on responsibility. Also, it's a longterm proposition. Sex is a very brief experience which you can walk away from. The reason sex is being marketed so vigorously is because it gets people's attention and sells product. You can't market love. It's far too subtle and it cannot be controlled, marketed, or managed by any marketing outfit, therefore they don't bother much with it except to dance around it a bit by selling Valentines' cards and trivial stuff like that.

Ebbie - I think the Bible (and all other great religious texts) were written for 2 levels of comprehension. The ordinary people would read it literally, and end up believing all kinds of strange stuff. The spiritual adepts in the Mystery Schools and other adept orders would read it metaphorically and understand what it really meant. I think the idea of the immaculate conception would have been understood by an adept to refer to Mary's consciousness...in that she was in a disciplined and pure state of consciousness, moreso than your average person is. This would be very significant, indeed it is the primary objective of spiritual discipline...to refine and purify consciousness. The common people would, however, interpret it literally to mean she hadn't had sex with Joseph, and the Church doesn't care, because they are quite content to have the common people believe fables while the inner circle of adepts know something very different from those fables.

I don't know if anyone's born "without sin". ;-) It might be that we are all born without sin...or it might not. In any case, the way you get a pure consciousness is not by being born that way, but by developing it through a lot of hard work and self-discipline and love.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: akenaton
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 01:56 PM

Knowledge/education does not stop or even improve HIV transmission.

There is more information out there on safe sex etc, than there ever has been, but the epidemic continues unabated.

If people are not going to act responsibly, then they must be compelled to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: GUEST,999
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 01:56 PM

The Mary story is pre-dated in the literature. The idea of virgin birth I think first appeared in what is now Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 01:39 PM

"All conception is immaculate!" ;-) Little Hawk

LH, I echo Penny S's correction. The 'immaculate conception' of Mary does not refer to how she got pregnant. The Roman Catholic church teaches that Mary herself was born without sin. (Which means that, historically, at least TWO people were sinless)

Frankly, I think the whole thing's a bit of a stretch.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 01:29 PM

'Having Sex'

'Making Love'

But very rarely is the latter now used, and that strikes me as so odd. WHY would a society choose to go away from Love and into nothing more than a physical act?

And why would that same society want younger and younger people to partake in that physical act?

And if young people experience nothing BUT physical acts, what are they going to be like as older people?   What will they teach their children?

Why have we become so afraid of Love?

Perhaps this is why the world is now so filled with Hate?


How about 'Love and Morality' as a title?


I guess if you have a world filled with Love then you cannot 'sell' 'sex' and all that goes along with it..

I worry that so many children never even get to hear the expression 'making love' any longer. They are seemingly simply reared on 'Sex' at every corner, at every opportunity.

We have done our children a grave injustice...

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 01:10 PM

I remember when Sex was Love. I miss those times.

I think we've desensitised Love to our own peril.

Sex is physical and shallow.

Love is spiritual and deep.

Your preference depends on which kind of person you choose to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Penny S.
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 01:01 PM

The immaculate conception was the normal one of Mary, which was "protected" so that she did not receive the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. Not the Virgin Birth, which, as you say, has precursors in many myths.

Penny (fed up with religious inventors producing peculiar ideas and unsuitable terminology for them.)

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:54 PM

I think that sex is a health issue, not a moral issue. I don't give a tiddly what some "religion" has to say about it, because I'm interested in spirituality rather than religion, and spirituality does not bow to religious rules or dictates.

One cogent reason for delaying sex is that you may have more time to engender real love for a person if you delay sex a bit. Love arises out of deep respect for another person. Sex arises out of mere physical attraction. There's a difference, wouldn't you agree? I'd rather take some time to actually get to know someone well and appreciate them as a whole person, rather than leap in bed with them at five minute's acquaintance because they have happen to have lovely breasts or a lovely face! ;-) You follow?

I'd also like to take my time eating a delicious meal rather than wolf it down like a starving dog. Sort of similar, I think.

However, that's just me. If it makes you happy to have casual sex with a whole lot of people just on the immediate impulse, fine...go to it. ;-) It doesn't hurt me if you do, and I don't care one way or the other, because that's your life, Mrzzy, not mine.

****

Regarding Mary...I can't say for sure how old she was when she married, and that could depend upon the customs of her time and place, but I am quite sure that she got pregnant in an entirely normal manner. As for the immaculate conception...that was an old religious idea that was being recycled by the Christians to help win converts. It is found previously in Egyptian religious tales that long preceded Christianity.

Anway, as an old friend of mine once said, "All conception is immaculate!" ;-) Meaning simply this: you achieve it through physical sex...but it is immaculate, because it involves a transmission of pure energy by way of the physical processes involved between 2 persons.

I agree with that. All conception is immaculate, and you do it by having sex with someone.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:49 PM

Morality has to do with how we treat each other. When sex becomes "objectified" and partners become "objects" then sex loses its meaning as a lovely expression.

When it comes to this issue, I am a romantic. Sex without a loving relationship is meaningless to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Penny S.
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:48 PM

Further, I think that much of the reason for religious constraints on sex lies in the way that religion seeks to control the sort of feelings that are associated with it and make them purely religious. See the statue of St Teresa of Avila in mystic ecstacy. If the only access to endorphins is through the religion...

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Penny S.
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:41 PM

The female body is not ready to bear children as early as it may be ready to conceive - see the medical comments on the Roma child of 10 bearing a son last week. Bone structure, and other physical features simply aren't really up to carrying well and feeding the foetus and delivering it healthily. Leaving aside the emotional readiness. Or the readiness of the father, if also young, to offer care to the infant. Or suitability, if not young.

It is very odd that, given the religious argument for delaying sex given above, that many people to whom it is important that Mary was a virgin find it necessary to believe she was only 14, too young for a healthy pregnancy.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:37 PM

The knowledge is not the problem. Pity there was actully not more knowledge out there then maybe things could improve for teenage girls having babies and the high rate of sexually transmitted disease. I do not see religion having a part to play if it leaves people at more risk of all sorts of things.

As Human Beings there should be a Moral and Ethical imperative to protect our children from being used and abused sexually. For far too long ignorance has left women wide open to STI's - some of which are deadly - needless abortions, infertility, etc., etc.. Early sexual encounters and multi-partnered relationships laeve women especially vulnerable to a great many diseases, cervical cancer being the most deadly. Even though now some countries carry out routine innoculation for HPV in women, there is growing evidence that men may also be at risk, along with women, of later esophageal cancers.

Knowledge and proper education, coupled with openess and honesty, has the be th way forward if we are to have young men and women respecting themselves and others, being safe and yet still being able to have fun in other ways. I see no religious blame needing to be attached to this. Take religion out of it and we still have a need to teach (not preach) to our children so they can make fully informed choices about their sex lives. For many it could mean their parents being educated also, as many adults are not fully aware of risks and choices, it all being mixed up in a bag with myths, fear, bigotry, religion, guilt, true ignorance, etc..

Bonobo babies get raped. Bonobo children get killed. Sex is currency and language to Bonobo society. No religion there and I think it far too easy to blame religion for the ills surrounding sex. If religion did not exists at all, I still think we would and do have a moral and ethical duty to protect our children as they grow, both for while they are growing, through puberty and into adult life.

JMHO

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:29 PM

Told you so.

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:20 PM

diseases for one thing. Economic responsibility of the community for the resulting offspring, which is a burden to those with fewer resources. The fact that people get emotionally involved very easily even if they planned not to. Jealousy. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Sex and morality
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:20 PM

I am pro-sex. However some will argue that there is a link between early exposure of women to sperm and cervical cancer. IMHO there has to be a different explanation but I don't know what.

Others will argue that because of the need to raise children sex is intrinsically less an instant matter for women.

Yet others will say that sex encourages emotions that persons below 21 are not mentally equipped to handle.

Others again will say that some types of sex are acceptable (or acceptable when and if sex is acceptable) but that other types of sex are not.

I suspect that most or the religious teachings about sex are a cynical construct. People are going to have sex (which is useful for the preservation of the human race) so if that is a matter condemned by the religion then the religion has a handle on its believers, can press them to confess, make them feel guilty, and leverage them into donating money or doing the religion's bidding.

Subject: BS: Sex and morality
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Nov 10 - 12:10 PM

Most religions teach to delay sex. Are there any non-religious reasons consider sex, or sexual knowledge, bad for you?

Why not treat sex like bonobos do, and have it at the drop of any hat at all?

After all, the only reason not to learn where babies come from is that many religions teach that the knowledge itself is evil...

-Curious George