Author Topic: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?  (Read 79695 times)

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Offline m52nickerson

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #15 on: November 02, 2012, 08:16:46 pm »
http://christianity.about.com/od/Bible-Verses/a/Adultery-And-Fornication.htm

"Ephesians 5:3–5
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. ~Macbeth

Offline Cataclysm

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #16 on: November 02, 2012, 09:00:25 pm »
The way it was explained to me (which Wikipedia tells me is in line with Catholic doctrine), was that adultery was having sex with anyone who was not your spouse. That meant that if you had sex with someone and you weren't married yet, well, they still aren't your spouse, so it's technically adultery anyway. Same with masturbation, because you aren't married to yourself.

Huh.  Yeah I guess if someone looked at it that way you could technically make any sex not between a married couple adultery.

Welcome to Catholicism. Leave your sexual freedoms at the door and pick up a lifetime of sexual dysfunction on your way out.

Catholicism is not representative of all Christianity.

On a lot of topics, you're right.  But on this one, from my experience growing up in a Protestant home and (Methodist) church, sex outside of marriage is always considered a sin.  I was going to respond to Smurfette's comment that you quoted and say that it isn't just Catholics that think this way.  I also think her explanation of why it is considered adultery is correct.  At least, that's what I had always been taught.  If your sexual partner is not your spouse, it's adultery.

If Smurphy's reasoning that premarital sex = adultery stems from catholic dogma, then even if other sects believe it, then it still stands that the Bible isn't against it. Although the Bible doesn't mention it. Probably because kids being married at age 12 meant pre-maritial sex was very rare in these times.
I'd be more sympathetic if people here didn't act like they knew what they were saying when they were saying something very much wrong.

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Offline Star Cluster

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #17 on: November 02, 2012, 11:45:07 pm »
If Smurphy's reasoning that premarital sex = adultery stems from catholic dogma, then even if other sects believe it, then it still stands that the Bible isn't against it. Although the Bible doesn't mention it. Probably because kids being married at age 12 meant pre-maritial sex was very rare in these times.

It is covered in the Bible.  As m52nickerson's post just before your last one pointed out, it's also called fornication, which specifically does include sex outside of marriage and is called a sin.  Don't know how it could be any clearer that the Bible is against it.
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Offline TheL

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #18 on: November 05, 2012, 12:22:10 pm »
From what I can tell, the original reason for making non-marital sex taboo was the following:

1. Before birth control, and in societies where property was handed down from father to son, you needed a way to be certain that your wife's kids were, in fact, your own.  If she'd never slept with anybody else, then you knew your stuff was in fact going to your kids.

2. If you were a pregnant woman, and the father of your child left you, you were screwed in both the literal and figurative sense, as women in many early cultures weren't allowed to own property and only had access to one profession--the world's oldest.  (This is also why Jewish prophets are recorded as saying a LOT about giving to widows--if you were a woman and didn't have a husband, you had NOTHING.)  If you were married to the father of your children, then he was automatically guaranteed to take responsibility, as they were now legally part of his family in addition to being blood offspring.

3. In the days when marriage was a financial transaction, a deflowered woman was considered less valuable than a virgin, partly for the reasons above, and partly because the system of inheritance in place at the time was so strongly dependent on controlling women.  If you could discourage premarital sex, and marry your daughters off young, then all the males in the arrangement benefited, and your daughters weren't left on the streets.

Naturally, the modern combination of readily-available birth control and higher ages at first marriage have made the need for a premarital sex taboo obsolete, which explains why our culture's attitudes toward premarital sex have changed so dramatically over the past 50 years or so.
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Offline TheReasonator

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #19 on: November 05, 2012, 12:59:38 pm »
Why didn't these societies just handle inheritance the way we do it i.e. by allowing you to dispose of it however you like? What was the function of mandating that it must pass from father to oldest son regardless of the father's wishes?

And what would've happened to a society that did choose to do inheritance by choice back then?

Offline Paradox

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #20 on: November 05, 2012, 01:34:01 pm »
I don't think that premarital sex is a sin.  Maybe staying a virgin until marriage was a practical option back when most people married in their teens, but nowdays the average age of marriage is around thirty, at least in America.  It's just not reasonable to tell people to completely deny their sexual urges until mid adulthood.

I do think that infidelity is wrong though.  Some people have open marriage and whatnot, but I try my best not to have an opinion on that sort of thing.  Lord only knows how that works out.
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Offline Material Defender

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #21 on: November 05, 2012, 02:11:00 pm »
From what I can tell, the original reason for making non-marital sex taboo was the following:

1. Before birth control, and in societies where property was handed down from father to son, you needed a way to be certain that your wife's kids were, in fact, your own.  If she'd never slept with anybody else, then you knew your stuff was in fact going to your kids.

Sheep(Or Goat, me thinks) intestine condoms have existed for quite a long time. You can find mention of them, to my knowledge, in Pompeii! Just they were pretty terrible compared to modern birth control.
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #22 on: November 05, 2012, 07:46:47 pm »
Why didn't these societies just handle inheritance the way we do it i.e. by allowing you to dispose of it however you like? What was the function of mandating that it must pass from father to oldest son regardless of the father's wishes?

And what would've happened to a society that did choose to do inheritance by choice back then?

*smashes two stone tablets over Reasonator's head*

Because that was in the days before women were considered individuals.  Or are you not getting it?

Really I gotta go with Old Viking's reasoning.  It was fun.  Early Christianity considered anything fun a sin.

Ironbite-it's really that simple.

Offline erictheblue

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #23 on: November 06, 2012, 10:05:24 am »
Why didn't these societies just handle inheritance the way we do it i.e. by allowing you to dispose of it however you like? What was the function of mandating that it must pass from father to oldest son regardless of the father's wishes?

And what would've happened to a society that did choose to do inheritance by choice back then?

*smashes two stone tablets over Reasonator's head*

Because that was in the days before women were considered individuals.  Or are you not getting it?

That doesn't actually address Reasonator's comment. What if the father hated his eldest son and wanted his second son to get everything? What if he wanted all his sons to share equally?
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Offline Smurfette Principle

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #24 on: November 06, 2012, 02:34:32 pm »
Why didn't these societies just handle inheritance the way we do it i.e. by allowing you to dispose of it however you like? What was the function of mandating that it must pass from father to oldest son regardless of the father's wishes?

And what would've happened to a society that did choose to do inheritance by choice back then?

*smashes two stone tablets over Reasonator's head*

Because that was in the days before women were considered individuals.  Or are you not getting it?

That doesn't actually address Reasonator's comment. What if the father hated his eldest son and wanted his second son to get everything? What if he wanted all his sons to share equally?

To answer the second question, if not the first: breaking up inheritances is messy. There's deciding what goes to whom, but more than that: let's say you have ninety acres of land and you have three sons. You love your sons equally, so they each get thirty acres. Then each of them has three sons and breaks it up evenly, and so each of your grandsons get ten acres. It doesn't take that many generations to not having enough land to pass on. Better to keep everything in the family and giving away everything as one big chunk instead of giving it all away.

Offline TheReasonator

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #25 on: November 07, 2012, 02:37:21 am »
Why didn't these societies just handle inheritance the way we do it i.e. by allowing you to dispose of it however you like? What was the function of mandating that it must pass from father to oldest son regardless of the father's wishes?

And what would've happened to a society that did choose to do inheritance by choice back then?

*smashes two stone tablets over Reasonator's head*

Because that was in the days before women were considered individuals.  Or are you not getting it?

Really I gotta go with Old Viking's reasoning.  It was fun.  Early Christianity considered anything fun a sin.

Ironbite-it's really that simple.

Why did they do that?
Why not have the first child, regardless of gender inherit? What was the impetus to limit it exclusively to males?

Offline Sour Grapes

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #26 on: November 07, 2012, 03:15:39 am »
Because, back then, giving an inheritance to a female was like leaving your farm to one of the cows.

Offline starseeker

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #27 on: November 07, 2012, 08:24:02 am »
Because a woman's property would belong to her husband when she married (this was the case in UK law until 1870). This is why the rules about a woman inheriting tend to involve her marrying a male relative to keep the property in the family.

Offline TheReasonator

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #28 on: November 07, 2012, 11:53:01 am »
Because a woman's property would belong to her husband when she married (this was the case in UK law until 1870). This is why the rules about a woman inheriting tend to involve her marrying a male relative to keep the property in the family.

So then why didn't they just allow joint ownership?
Or even separate places owned and then meeting at regular scheduled intervals for relations. I've read that at the latter part(meeting at regularly scheduled intervals) was/is still? a custom in some parts of India.

Offline Material Defender

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Re: Why Is Sex Outside of Marriage A Sin?
« Reply #29 on: November 07, 2012, 01:35:33 pm »
I Think a rousing game of Crusader Kings 2 played entirely on Gravelkind could give you a very good idea why equal inheritance is terrible.

There's also a shift through later ages from Agnatic Inheritance to Agnatic-Cognate to eventually what we have today, absolute Cognate. Or male Only to females if there's no males (Elizabeth, Katherine as examples) to females and males inherit equally. Provided, of course, there's no will. I think the main issue why until recently why wills and the like usually didn't work that easily because if you could make a good argument that somebody 'coerced' the late individual into the will, you could start a succession struggle. Having clear rules regardless of who's king or duke or land owner, prevents such things. Either in personal violence or civil war.  As writing and witnesship became clearer, such claims could not be made without a great deal of doubt.

I mean, Charlemange's Holy Roman Empire originally was really Roman and an Empire, and was anointed by the pope (Therefore holy), but his son's got it split between the German/Italian portion and the French portion. Why splitting up inheritances results in awful things. Though it doesn't help that Feudalism is a terrible way to run a large country like France-Germany-Italy Empire. Why joint ownership also doesn't work (Originally the Sons were supposed to Joint Rule, but they just couldn't having an equal).
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