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"Marriage" in the Bible is often used to represent the worship of God. The union between man and God. The relationship with God and the worship of God. The Song of Solomon is a good example.
So all sexual sins described in Bible (adultery, bestiality, etc) are other ways of describing idolatry.
"Marriage" in the Bible is often used to represent the worship of God. The union between man and God. The relationship with God and the worship of God. The Song of Solomon is a good example.
So all sexual sins described in Bible (adultery, bestiality, etc) are other ways of describing idolatry.
What do you think?
I don't deny the appeal of this idealistic view. I bought into it hook, line and sinker as a believer and I still think it is the highest expression of human love. Realistically though, all sexuality is, is an evolved method of procreation. It only "cares" about transmitting genes to the next generation, which in the case of humans means it also has to "care" about facilitating the nurturing of highly dependent young long enough to mature and repeat the whole process. Hence pair-bonding, biologically speaking, serves only to feed and protect the young long enough to become adults. It has nothing to "say" about strict sexual fidelity (other than providing a bias for men to have many partners, thus increasing their likelihood of passing on genes).
As with many other aspects of what evolution has bestowed on us, we seek to override or augment that in ways that go beyond the "concerns" of natural selection and address our human needs for connection, stability, comfort, and relationship. Explicit and implicit rules of engagement between life partners are necessary and good. I object less to the rule set of the church in this area than I do to their framing in terms of sin and right and wrong. Complex human relationships are far more nuanced than that.
I started out idealizing myself as a one-woman man. But my theistic upbringing was largely responsible for the erroneous belief that all I had to concern myself with was marrying a "good Christian girl". Alas my good Christian girl went bad on me, descended into mental illness, and I had to take myself and our children and leave. This presented a conundrum. With my wife in the looney bin, and no longer my wife, and my children without a mother figure in their life, was I supposed to cling to my ideal like, say, a woman whose husband died in battle and never remarries or quits mourning? Pragmatically I had to Move On, as they say, so I went on to the next CF in my life where wife #2 simply died. Now I'm on #3.
This is NOT the story arc I planned for myself, but guess what? Along the way I discovered the truth that love is not a finite commodity, that I always have more to give, that every love is different and rich in it own right. And yet in some parts of Christendom I would be obliged under divorce and remarriage taboos to either abstain from these benefits, or to feel guilt or even experience the loss of fellowship for carrying on with my life.
It is largely the same with areas on the fringe of sexual experience and everything in between. There is nothing inherently bad about sexual desire or sexual expression, but the unbridled indulgence of these things without regard for others causes harm to others and often to ourselves. Adding barnacles on top of this like relating it to idolatry through some contrived symbolism isn't ultimately helpful to the actual problem. It is better to admit to and own your sexuality and to find actual pragmatic reasons to regulate it, rather than theological reasons.
"Marriage" in the Bible is often used to represent the worship of God. The union between man and God. The relationship with God and the worship of God. The Song of Solomon is a good example.
So all sexual sins described in Bible (adultery, bestiality, etc) are other ways of describing idolatry.
What do you think?
I think sexual sins are sexual sins and idolatry (worship of carved images) is idolatry - worshipping statues, totems, etc. Since "golden calf" worship is no longer a relevant problem today, some need to expand the meaning to keep the antique law relevant.
"Marriage" in the Bible is often used to represent the worship of God. The union between man and God. The relationship with God and the worship of God. The Song of Solomon is a good example.
So all sexual sins described in Bible (adultery, bestiality, etc) are other ways of describing idolatry.
What do you think?
Probably more to do with sex being used to worship pagan fertility gods and trying to differentiate themselves from other tribes at that time.
We don't have the Asherah poles of that day. But we do have TV, movies, books, music, etc. People spend more of their time on those things than in fellowship and worship.
We also have those who follow the teachings of other men:
The Greek philosophers
Buddah
etc.
The vast majority of these sexual laws existed only to help ensure the continued existence of the Tribe of Israel. They were pragmatic laws at the time and were designed to protect the Hebrews from infighting over the inheritance rights of illegitimate children, for outsiders to sieze control of the leadership through marriage, to make sure enough children were born and nurtured to keep the tribe growing, etc.
But today? No ... most of those old laws are obsolete and have no relevance in modern society. People are still free to practice those ancient customs if they so desire, but the issue I have always had about the Abrahamic religions was their almost obsessive emphasis on sex at the expense of other, far more important sins.
I said this in one of my other posts; I crticized Christianity by saying that the religion has no qualms about allowing a man who murdered 58* of his previous wives marry his 59th victim, but they go positively ape over homosexual marriage. This kind of twisted priority should be an eye-opening experience for the religion as a whole, but it doesn't seem to be.
And so we have a de facto genocide taking place in Africa due to the Catholic Church's obsession with banning contraception; you have Christians in our schools leaving our kids ignorant and vulnerable about the realities of sex in exchange for Abstinence-Only campaigns that always fail.
(To suggest that giving teens access to birth control will encourage them to have sex is like saying a teen driving a car with seat belts will encourage them to drive recklessly).
You have this massive campaign against homosexuality even to the point where the Council of Bishops back in the Vatican chastized American nuns for "spending too much time focusing on the poor and sick and spending too little time condemning homosexuality."
How can I possibly respect a religion, belief, or paradigm that allows hucksters like Benny Hinn brag about how he convinced an old lady to donate her last twenty bucks while Christianity does nothing - but throws a fit over homosexuality? Even though theft actually made it onto the 10 Commandments whilst homosexuality did not. Why does Christianity allow rapists, murderers, child molesters, and domestic violence convicts marry but not gays? Murder made the ten commandments too. Even caring for the sick and poor must take a back seat to enforcing sexual morality ... No, I can't respect any of this.
Sexual sin is not idolatry. Even the most nymphmaniacal person I've ever met didn't have an altar to sex set up in his house; I've never met anyone who worships sex in such a way that one might worship idols. But none of that is even relevant to anyone besides Christians; marriage is not dependent upon religious belief.
We don't have the Asherah poles of that day. But we do have TV, movies, books, music, etc. People spend more of their time on those things than in fellowship and worship.
We also have those who follow the teachings of other men:
The Greek philosophers
Buddah
etc.
But don't the people who follow the Abrahamic religions follow the 'teachings of men' as well?
You don't think think sexual relationships have any importance to people, aside from hedonistic pleasure? That's all that it's about?
Wow.
How on earth did you get THAT out of his remark??
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