Q:Do your religious beliefs exalt or stigmatize sex (or both)? Is religion a useful tool for helping young people navigate the treacherous world of sex, love and relationships? Does religion present an alternative view of sex and sexual relationships to the culture at large? Should it?
Worship is giving our money, body, and life to a person or thing as our highest commitment or functional god. Practically, this means that sex is a worship act and beds are really altars.
Religious belief systems have always held widely divergent views regarding sexuality. The three most prominent views are sex as god, gross, or gift.
The view that sex is god has a long history. From the days of the Old Testament, various nations had fertility cults and various religions had temples that included male and female prostitutes, such as the Temple of Aphrodite. Canaanite gods were depicted naked and were honored with erotic poetry. Asherah poles were male phallic symbols used as gathering places for orgies. Some religions even had manuals for sexuality, such as the Kama Sutra.
Those who see sex as a functional god use it for identity, pleasure, reward, and comfort. Furthermore, those who hold sex as a god tend to evangelize others, encouraging them to join in and worship their god by participating in whatever their sexual preferences and practices are. This explains why in America today there is nothing short of a religious zeal for sex of all kinds. We now spend more money every year on pornography than all professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises combined; more than the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC; and roughly the same amount as we give to foreign aid. The number one consumer of porn is twelve- to seventeen-year-old boys, who now expect their girlfriends to send them naked photos that they can keep on their phones and forward to their buddies.
In an overreaction to those who treat sex as god are those more prudishly religious people who instead see sex as gross. In the days of the early Greeks (who saw the body as an undesirable shell for the soul to be shed at death), many Stoic philosophers taught that sex was only for procreation and that celibacy was a desirable lifestyle. Sadly, many of the early church fathers in Christianity were influenced heavily by this erroneous thinking. Tertullian and Ambrose preferred the extinction of humanity to sex. Origen not only allegorized the biblical love story of the Song of Songs, but also castrated himself. Chrysostom taught that Adam and Eve did not have sex before the fall. Jerome was known to throw himself into sticker bushes when sexually tempted. Gregory of Nyssa said Adam and Eve were without sexual desire until sin entered the world, and that she became pregnant by eating a special plant from the Garden of Eden.
Some years later, the Catholic Church forbade priests to marry, regulated sexual frequency, positions, and sensations for married couples, and went so far as to ban marital intercourse for a total of roughly half of the year. Today, this kind of thinking is promulgated perhaps most emphatically in exceedingly conservative, fundamentalist churches and their youth ministries, where they teach students that sex is dirty, nasty, vile, wrong, and to be saved for the one you love, which is an inherently confusing message.
According to the Bible, sex was God's idea. The Bible starts by revealing that God made us male and female with bodies built for sexual pleasure. God also created the covenant of marriage as the hearth in which the passionate flame of sexual desire is to be contained and enjoyed.
The Bible says that sex serves many purposes, such as:
1. Pleasure (Song of Songs is an entire book on this fact)
2. Children (Genesis 1:28)
3. Oneness (Genesis 2:24)
4. Knowledge (Genesis 4:1)
5. Comfort (2 Samuel 12:24)
6. Protection from sexual sin (1 Corinthians 7:2-5)
Furthermore, the biblical book Song of Songs gives great liberty for sexual freedom in marriage, including:
1. Kissing (1:2)
2. Oral sex (fellatio), by her initiative (2:3)
3. Manual stimulation, by her invitation (2:6)
4. Petting, by his initiative (4:5)
5. Oral sex (cunnilingus), by his initiative (4:12-5:1)
6. Striptease (6:13-7:9)
7. New places, including the outdoors, and positions, by her initiative (7:11-13)
Therefore, biblical Christianity promotes free and frequent sex solely in the context of marriage. In an age of sexual abuse, sexual addiction, sexual prostitution and slavery, sexually transmitted diseases, and unwanted pregnancies, the timeless wisdom of Scripture provides timely counsel for a culture that worships sex with all the passion of a fundamentalist religion.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
The revolution will not be televised....or should it?
Will the revolution be televised? Will the movements that cause a fundamental change in the things that shape our thoughts, words and actions receive widespread media coverage? Will the real forces behind the changes that we will see get the airtime their efforts deserve or will we have to wait and settle for the faces of the foot soldiers
A revolution, simply put, is a movement that causes fundamental change. History records many gallant men and women who have disregarded their lives in pursuit of a change that they believed will steer the ship of their people’s destiny in a better direction. But in this day and age where mainstream coverage is the offspring of a diluted version of whatever you believe, carefully trimmed down and remodelled to fit into the bigger picture of the big media corporation along with a huge dose of political correctness, does the mainstream coverage constitute too much of a sacrifice? Or is it a necessary evil for the sake of a greater good.
Careful consideration should also be given to the word mainstream. What exactly is mainstream and what is not? Is Youtube, with claims of over 30 million people worldwide viewing at least 60 seconds of video on its website everyday a mainstream outlet or still very much the opium of the underground revolutionary?
Also, when virtually every household has a tv set, the reach of the mainstream media can, in some cases, be the tonic some revolutions need to get them started or get enough “va va voom” for people to take it serious
Another thought we have to consider is whether a lack of mainstream appeal makes a revolution more valid and/or more radical? Does it mean the struggles of that revolution with the powers-that-be (the mainstream) in its quest for coverage is akin to the fight of good against evil?
I am fairly certain that when whoever coined the statement in question did he/she did not envisage the growth of the online world and its ability to connect people, thus creating a “power in numbers” situation. That a movement doesn’t get a great deal of mainstream coverage doesn’t mean it will not reach a good amount of people. The online world has afforded us the privilege of making things happen without having to solicit the backing of the mainstream. All you need is the right outlets and a good number of committed followers. In that, you have your underbelly and it will be a case of seizing opportunity after that. Mainstream or not, a good understanding of the web and the ability to communicate your views clearly to the ever curious world will be of great benefit to a revolution.
Revolutions in the past were few and far between. But in today’s world, with things changing at a pace that defies human logic, I believe the success or failure of a revolution should be based on the long term reaction/reception of the people and what difference it makes to their live. As long as the general public are the winners, and not a microscopic few, I believe the route to the public eye is of very little importance
A revolution, simply put, is a movement that causes fundamental change. History records many gallant men and women who have disregarded their lives in pursuit of a change that they believed will steer the ship of their people’s destiny in a better direction. But in this day and age where mainstream coverage is the offspring of a diluted version of whatever you believe, carefully trimmed down and remodelled to fit into the bigger picture of the big media corporation along with a huge dose of political correctness, does the mainstream coverage constitute too much of a sacrifice? Or is it a necessary evil for the sake of a greater good.
Careful consideration should also be given to the word mainstream. What exactly is mainstream and what is not? Is Youtube, with claims of over 30 million people worldwide viewing at least 60 seconds of video on its website everyday a mainstream outlet or still very much the opium of the underground revolutionary?
Also, when virtually every household has a tv set, the reach of the mainstream media can, in some cases, be the tonic some revolutions need to get them started or get enough “va va voom” for people to take it serious
Another thought we have to consider is whether a lack of mainstream appeal makes a revolution more valid and/or more radical? Does it mean the struggles of that revolution with the powers-that-be (the mainstream) in its quest for coverage is akin to the fight of good against evil?
I am fairly certain that when whoever coined the statement in question did he/she did not envisage the growth of the online world and its ability to connect people, thus creating a “power in numbers” situation. That a movement doesn’t get a great deal of mainstream coverage doesn’t mean it will not reach a good amount of people. The online world has afforded us the privilege of making things happen without having to solicit the backing of the mainstream. All you need is the right outlets and a good number of committed followers. In that, you have your underbelly and it will be a case of seizing opportunity after that. Mainstream or not, a good understanding of the web and the ability to communicate your views clearly to the ever curious world will be of great benefit to a revolution.
Revolutions in the past were few and far between. But in today’s world, with things changing at a pace that defies human logic, I believe the success or failure of a revolution should be based on the long term reaction/reception of the people and what difference it makes to their live. As long as the general public are the winners, and not a microscopic few, I believe the route to the public eye is of very little importance
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Is There Conflict Between Christianity and Science? by Mark Driscoll
Before turning to the opening pages of Genesis where creation commences, a few prefatory comments are in order.
First, there is no conflict between Christianity and science itself. This is because the Christian worldview, which believes that God created the world with natural 'laws' and orderliness, is what undergirds the entire scientific enterprise. For example, inductive reasoning and the scientific method are based on the assumption of the regularity of the laws of nature. . . . Without this kind of regularity, we could not learn from experience, including the experiences of scientific testing. This also helps to explain why in cultures where creation is said to be an illusion or disorderly chaos because it was not created by an orderly God, the sciences have not historically flourished; indeed, the scientific method depends upon the kind of underlying worldview that a creating and providentially ruling God of the Bible provides.
Second, there is total conflict between Christianity and scientific naturalism. Naturalism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained in terms of presently operating natural causes and laws. The only true knowledge is that which comes through observable experiments. When natural science is the arbiter of all truth claims, religion becomes superstition and God is omitted from discussion.
Third, the Bible in general, and the book of Genesis in particular, was not written with the intention of being a scientific textbook. Rather, it is a theological narrative written to reveal the God of creation, which means its emphasis is on God and his relationship with humanity and not on creation. Genesis is far more concerned with the questions of who made creation and why he made creation than exactly when he did. Therefore, as Galileo said, "The Holy Ghost intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."
Fourth, one's view of the date of creation should not be the litmus test for Christian faithfulness. Within Christian theology there are open- and closed-handed issues. Biblical authority is a closed-handed issue. Christians receive what the Bible actually teaches as truth from God to be believed and obeyed. Regarding creation, anyone who claims to be a Bible-believing Christian must reject such things as the atheistic evolutionists' claims that there is no God and that creation is not a gift but rather an epic purposeless accident. Nevertheless, Bible-believing Christians, as we will explore in this chapter, can and do disagree over the open-handed issues, such as exactly how God made the heavens and the earth, whether the six days of Genesis 1–2 are literal twenty-four-hour days, and the age of the earth. These sorts of issues must remain in the open hand.
From Doctrine, Chapter 3. Creation: God Makes (pgs. 80—81). Get Doctrine now.
First, there is no conflict between Christianity and science itself. This is because the Christian worldview, which believes that God created the world with natural 'laws' and orderliness, is what undergirds the entire scientific enterprise. For example, inductive reasoning and the scientific method are based on the assumption of the regularity of the laws of nature. . . . Without this kind of regularity, we could not learn from experience, including the experiences of scientific testing. This also helps to explain why in cultures where creation is said to be an illusion or disorderly chaos because it was not created by an orderly God, the sciences have not historically flourished; indeed, the scientific method depends upon the kind of underlying worldview that a creating and providentially ruling God of the Bible provides.
Second, there is total conflict between Christianity and scientific naturalism. Naturalism is the belief that all phenomena can be explained in terms of presently operating natural causes and laws. The only true knowledge is that which comes through observable experiments. When natural science is the arbiter of all truth claims, religion becomes superstition and God is omitted from discussion.
Third, the Bible in general, and the book of Genesis in particular, was not written with the intention of being a scientific textbook. Rather, it is a theological narrative written to reveal the God of creation, which means its emphasis is on God and his relationship with humanity and not on creation. Genesis is far more concerned with the questions of who made creation and why he made creation than exactly when he did. Therefore, as Galileo said, "The Holy Ghost intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."
Fourth, one's view of the date of creation should not be the litmus test for Christian faithfulness. Within Christian theology there are open- and closed-handed issues. Biblical authority is a closed-handed issue. Christians receive what the Bible actually teaches as truth from God to be believed and obeyed. Regarding creation, anyone who claims to be a Bible-believing Christian must reject such things as the atheistic evolutionists' claims that there is no God and that creation is not a gift but rather an epic purposeless accident. Nevertheless, Bible-believing Christians, as we will explore in this chapter, can and do disagree over the open-handed issues, such as exactly how God made the heavens and the earth, whether the six days of Genesis 1–2 are literal twenty-four-hour days, and the age of the earth. These sorts of issues must remain in the open hand.
From Doctrine, Chapter 3. Creation: God Makes (pgs. 80—81). Get Doctrine now.
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