outhouse

the pauline epistles do make one case that with the end coming soon, one should devote his time to jesus and convert, while one has time and that should be the priority in your life over marriage.

but ya, it doesnt say "dont" just places priority.

stephan huller

I am not so sure about that. Sodomy, yes. Men sitting around lusting after one another or a particular 'heavenly' youth - that's Platonic. It would have been impossible for Justin, Clement, Origen and Methodius to have been 'Platonic Christians' and rejected the Phaedrus.

stephan huller

But sex is controlled by the power of the female. The early Christians were all Platonists who essentially acknowledged that the gay way is better. Christianity added a prohibition on sodomy. But women are still viewed as next to evil.

Just the other day I was talking with my Cypriot friend's dad and out of nowhere (i.e. in a conversation that had nothing to do with theories about religion) said women are inferior, wicked etc citing Adam and Eve, St Paul etc. Misogyny is fundamental to the religion. I only care what the ancient traditions say. Please don't cite anything after Luther. Not interested.

sotto voce

What do those poltroons matter?

Merely lusting after a woman was enough to condemn a man, even though it would have resulted in a natural act. So lusting after a man was certainly enough to condemn a man. And not without reason.

stephan huller

I just don't see a confirmation that a man SHOULD HAVE sex with a woman, that it is a blessing, that it is something divinely sanctioned. It is one thing to argue that God sent a message down to Jesus and the apostles, but this message attaches itself to Moses and the prophets too. While the modern Jewish apologists develop a false claim about the Jewish love of sex, a careful analysis reveals that Christianity also picked up on various misogynist examples in Judaism (Moses and the Israelites not touching women before seeing God, Daniel as a eunuch etc.). Still, Christianity is essentially about something other than heterosexuality. It is not the stuff of angels. That much is clear. The Jews have a myth about God and his female helper Wisdom. Also it is worth taking note of the plight of a Catholic priest and the holy man (monk) generally = without woman.

andrewcriddle

Clement of Alexandria Instructor Book 2 chapter 10 may be relevant. (This was left in Latin in the old translation.)

Andrew Criddle

sotto voce

Rarely, dear reader, will you read a more concentrated dollop of nonsense. Presumably it is intended humorously.

Oh, don't worry, they make their own arrangements!

stephan huller

Very useful again Andrew. Clement continues:

Clearly then in antiquity it was seen that married couples could only have sex if they were intending to make babies. This is important. But again it should be noted that marriage is tolerated but not divinely sanctioned. I wonder what 'law' Clement is referencing when he says that 'promiscuous scattering of semen' is contrary to.

stephan huller

On second thought, isn't sex for making babies the same thing as saying 'no sex.' No one wants to have sex for babies other than women. The guys who go along with this are just desperate or old for the most part. Desire is irrational. A man can't get an erection according to some sort of 'plan.' A woman's role here is entirely passive. I don't even understand Clement's point other than he is saying there has to be an intention to make children. It's a strange argument to make. How does someone know what someone else's intentions are before sex?

sotto voce

That's why they tried to make condoms. In antiquity, stephan, people had the same notions about sexual matters as we do. Long before that inconsequential cretin Clement was even born.

What you seem to be doing, stephan, is mistaking an idiot ruling of an idiot papacy, that even Catholics think is idiotic, for what normal human beings actually do, and always did. Anachronistic; and not of the real world, anyway. If married people of any age want to have sexual intercourse, they will, without permission from you or anyone else. Sorry if that buggers up your theory.

The thicko did not understand the significance of Onan's evil, which was nothing to do with sexuality. This is the level of doolally brainlessness of papism that you seem to think has some intellectual validity!

If one decides to investigate beyond the Bible, one really must start after Luther, not finish with him, to make any significant contribution. It was after Luther that there existed reasonably free thought. Otherwise, one is doomed to obscurity, to the outer darkness, because it is thought that one cannot even face the light. Truly. One might better be thought a desperate propagandist.