Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: fornication and Christianity (lengthy uplifting digression) Message-ID: <536@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 22:00:31 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.536 Posted: Wed Feb 13 22:00:31 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 03:19:32 EST References: <488@pyuxd.UUCP> <1825@pucc-h> Organization: Huxley College Lines: 89 >>This is the biggest single problem I see with dogmatic rule-oriented religion. >>A very good point is made here: some things are right for some people, and >>not right for others. Other things may be right for those other people, but >>not necessarily for (still) others. A whole lot of things were right (and >>wrong) for Paul. Does the fact that his book sold millions of copies make >>them right for everyone? Why is poor Jeff Sargent trying to squeeze certain >>things into his life that may be hopelessly inappropriate for him, just >>because it says so in a book? [Rosen] > Apparently either you have not read either my postings or my letters to > you, or else you have filtered them through your negative preconceptions -- > contrary to your claimed intention to see all things objectively. You will > note that my recent writings talk a lot about FREEDOM in Christ; perhaps you > are slow to adjust to the fact that Christ can change people quickly if they > let Him. I am finding, for instance, that I actually would prefer *not* to > fornicate, that I actually would *prefer* to keep sex in a context of full > trust and commitment -- not because of anything the Bible says, but because > that's what I really want. (I admit that I'm not sure what I would do if a > woman with whom I had a really trusting relationship short of marriage wanted > to add a sexual dimension to it; this depends on so many factors that it's > useless to speculate.) [SRAGNET] What's been filtered by my "negative preconceptions" is how little what you claim has changed you has in fact really changed you. Are your preferences formed before or after presumption, etc. are important avoided questions. It's fine to want or not to want to "fornicate" (what a disgusting word for simply "sexual enjoyment"!) But don't do so on the basis of what you're told that you SHOULD or SHOULDN'T do, especially when you can't see a clear valid reason for the SHOULD/SHOULDN'T restriction. Obviously I don't consider "it's in a certain book" to be a "clear valid reason". But neither is peer pressure, or media brainwashing that you're "supposed" to do something. It works both ways. That's all I'm saying, and I'd venture that a lot of real Christians would agree. >>Uniform monolithic rules for everyone not only stagnate the human race by >>making everyone the same (or close to it), but they also deteriorate the >>quality of each individual life. Desiring a world in which everyone obeys >>such rules of behavior (beyond simple non-interference laws) is the same as >>desiring to see the world force-fit into your mold, and desiring to lay down >>what others can and cannot do. > It is true that many people who claim to be presenting Christianity actually > present various flavors of religion with strict rules (or at least a generally > legalistic attitude). However, I have finally begun recently to understand > and experience for myself the truth that I have encountered here and there in > Christian writings: that freedom means being free to do what you were > designed to do = what God wants you to do = what you, in your heart of > hearts, really want to do. That's fine if you already believe the premise of god, which you obviously do. But the notion that YOU, Jeff Sragnet, were designed to do certain things and be a certain way and that a book holds all the answers to what those certain things and certain ways are is both self-destructive and erroneous. The best way to find out how to live is not to read a book (any book) to "tell you how", to tell you what you were "designed to do", but rather through the process of life itself. I'm sure that's one more things many Christians would agree with. > God made you and loves you, and "His commands are > not burdensome"; and it would be illogical on His part, as well as unloving, > for Him to make you so that your truest desire was at variance with what He > wanted for you, since then you would be always in a suboptimal state -- you > would either be doing His will, which was not what you really wanted, or you > would be doing what you really wanted, but uncomfortable because it was not > His best for you. All this is based on an a priori assumption that there IS a god and that THAT is how he/it is going to behave (a point I've been trying to make to Jeff and to others for some time). But it's irrelevant to this particular discussion. > If the Bible is (mis)used as a book of laws -- especially > if it is used to support the control of most people by a few "religious" > leaders who have taken the power onto themselves -- then it will indeed > lead either to a society of people who are all alike, or to a society of > very discontented and rebellious people (actually, probably a mixture). I.e., the world today. > But if individuals freely choose to use the Bible, intimacy with God, and > the counsel of others in the faith (including those older and wiser who > are leaders, but not theocrats), to help them mold their own lives, there > will be certain similarities among all of them, but they will be most free > to be fully the glorious and beautiful individuals they were created to be. If individuals freely choose to use their own reasoning and figure out what's best for them as individual human beings, then and only then will they be "most free". -- "Pardon me for breathing which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bothered to mention it--Oh, God, I'm so depressed." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr