Quote: (02-16-2016 04:07 PM)Aurini Wrote:  

In defense of the Catholic Church (as a direct response to Samseau's comments), the reason they have so many Orders and Regulations regarding sex, is because most people are extremely stupid. As an example look at birth control. You hand it to high-IQ college students, and they fuck like bunnies until they settle down. You hand it to retards, and you wind up with single mothers collecting welfare, and degenerate men competing for attention by being gangsta.

There's some statistical corroboration to that. One of the big arguments in favour of the contraceptive pill was the argument that it would stop unwanted pregnancies and would keep women from the indignity (if not sin) of abortion. The reality was quite the opposite. The Pill was first made available in 1960. Abortion rates skyrocketed in all the decades following, and it's only now, fifty years later, that they've slowed down at all -- and they certainly have never dropped to rates below those existing before the Pill was made available.

Didn't read the whole thread in it's absolute entirety & in this particular case, I'd err on the side of caution.
Yet has anyone mentioned the difference between marriage before Christ compared to the trivial Disneyesque fantasy of modern day marriage?
Also, has anyone discussed the idea of spiritual union via sexual intercourse? Which admittedly, the idea of polygamy & harems makes a bit of a grey area.

Samseau is correct that Porneia has a wide range of semantic meaning, including, as he puts it in his list of sexual sins for men, "1. Using whores (this includes internet porn!)".

His mistake is that the word "whores" has a broader semantic meaning. There are whores who charge, and whores that don't. That money or a gift is exchanged isn't central to what makes the act immoral. To illustrate the point, I will provide a lengthy quotation from Phyllis Bird's article “Prostitution in the Social World and the Religious Rhetoric of Ancient Israel,” found in Faraone and McClure's "Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World.":

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Priestly legislation specifies in Leviticus 21:7 that a priest may not marry a prostitute (literally, "a woman [who is a] zonah and defiled" [ishshah zonah wachalalah], ie, "a woman defiled by prostitution/fornication") or "a woman divorced from her husband" [ishshah gerushah me'ishah]. This text makes it clear by the association with the divorcée and by the interpretive addition of "defiled" that the prostitute is excluded as a marriage partner primarily on the basis of having had sexual relations with other men, but secondarily because her promiscuous relations are seen as "defiling" and thus a threat to the priest's sanctity. The same idea is found in two other texts relating to female members of a priest's family, both of which use verbal forms to describe the defiling activity. In Amos 7:17, the prophet proclaims the fate of the priest of the royal sanctuary at Bethel by decreeing loss of land and offspring, but also loss of sanctity: "Your wife shall <i>fornicate/be a prostitute [tizneh] in the city...and you yourself shall die in an unclean land." Here the simple verb, "to fornicate/engage in promiscuous sex" is used, but the specification of the city as the place of the activity suggests that it is the prostitute's trade that is more narrowly intended. Nevertheless, the emphasis is not on the profession or the figure of the prostitute, but just on the idea of engaging in promiscuous and defiling sexual activity. In Leviticus 21:9 it is the priest's daughter that presents the threat of defilement. The connection with the father is explicit: "when the daughter of a priest defiles herself by fornicating [techel liznot], it is her father that she defiles" (et abiha hi me-challelet"). The punishment: "she shall be burned with fire."

The use of common language to describe both casual and professional sexual activity outside marriage is illustrated dramatically by the response of Simeon and Levi to the rape of their sister Dinah in Genesis 34. In answer to their father's reprimand for their violent revenge against the city of the offender who had "defiled" ["tame"] their sister (vv. 13,27), they reply: "Should he treat [literally, "make"] our sister as a zonah?" ("hakezonah ya'seh et achotenu" [v.31]). Even though she was raped, the unmarried daughter is put into the category of the prostitute, the woman who offers sex to other men. Consent plays no role; the only relevant point is that an unmarried woman is involved in a sexual act.

Note that these are also without cultic associations. A prostitute is someone who is habitually, essentially unchaste. Sex with a prostitute is the same as sex with a fornicator: sexual use of a dishonored woman (ie not a virgin). The central defilement is in the sex outside of marriage -- for both the man and the woman. Do you honestly think that the NT-era man giving his whore an old loaf of bread after a bang is what makes it wrong according to the Scriptures? If so, why wouldn't God simply advise women not to charge for it and provide men and women with an alternative sexual outlet?

Answer: Because he has already provided an alternative (marriage!). See 1 Corinthians 7:2 ("But since [porneia] is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.") and 1 Corinthians 7:9 (But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion) to be more than enough to demonstrate that sex within marriage is God's will for Christian men and women. Paul presents marriage here as the alternative solution to the temptations of easy sex with dishonored women.

Quote: (02-13-2016 12:35 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

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The background to the story is that the girl Tobit is to marry has been betrothed on seven previous occasions but each of her husbands was killed by a demon on the wedding night before they could consumate the marriage. But Tobit, who is her rightful husband is given the tools to defeat the demon. The implication is clear: if you sleep with an unmarried woman, you are cheating on her future husband.

Yeah, the conclusion here does not follow from the premises. The implication is that this woman was being guarded by a demon for some reason. Demons do not obey the will of God but Satan. Had it been an Angel killing those men, then we could assume God was protecting her virginity. Instead it was a demon preventing her from becoming a good and loyal wife, and God had set apart Tobit as the one to save this damsel in distress.

You nearly got it right there. Of course Demons don't obey God. But Tobit, because he was in God's eyes the rightful husband of the girl, and because he had faith in God's plan for him was given the tools to defeat the Demon.

Quote: (02-15-2016 03:51 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

Quote: (02-15-2016 01:13 PM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

Or, we're all sinners because sin is in our nature, but as long as we genuinely repent and strive to improve in the future God will forgive us.
I thought that was the whole point of the Bible instead of the typical atheist (mine-included) reaction "why did God make the world so that we would suffer - God must be pointless or evil".

95% of Christ's teachings had nothing to do with sex. And yet whenever someone talks about Christianity today, it's "You won't have sex outside of marriage? THEN UR NOT A CHRISTIAN!!1"

Trust me, the sins Christ talks about are way more serious than sexual sins, and the average person today commits them on the regular.
Some off the top of my head:

- Have you insulted your brother or family members?
- Do you judge people by standards you wouldn't apply for yourself?
- Do you give your t
ime and energy to people or causes that aren't worth it?
- Do neglect regular prayer to God?
- Do you defend Jesus when others talk trash about him?
- Do you give money to the poor who have been unjustly robbed in this life (such as homeless vets)?

All of the above are 10x more serious than sex. Yet do you ever hear people talking about them?

The facts of the matter are most of what people believe about sexual teachings come from the Catholic church, a notoriously corrupt Church that has made plenty of mistakes in it's history. I've yet to see any of my detractors in this thread actually show text to contradict me.

You need to stop gratuitously insulting Catholics. If you wonder why the Catholic Church and some more orthodox Protestant churches seem to talk a lot about sex it is because we in the West live in a culture that is sex-obsessed and obsessed with pushing a vision of sexuality that is contrary to what Christ taught. To paraphrase Anne Shirley, every age has a besetting sin and in our age it is lust.

The problem with the Orthodox Church is the same as with the state Lutheran churches in Scandinavia, the Anglican Church in England and Wales, and even the Catholic Church in those places where it became to intertwined with the state (Quebec, Ireland). It's a state Church and it tends to assume that anything Caesar wants is rightfully Caesar's and should be rendered up to Caesar. Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in the world but do you see the Orthodox Church taking the same roll that the Catholic Church has on that issue in Western Europe and the Americas (and let's be clear - the underlying sin in abortion isn't sex but murder, and most particularly the murder of innocent children on which Jesus had some very strong things to say). Russia has one of the highest divorce rates in the world but the Orthodox Church seems pretty relaxed about that too.

There's a reason why the train of events that led to the collapse of the Soviet bloc in Eastern Europe started in Catholic Poland and not Orthodox Bulgaria, Romania or Russia. Likewise the abolitionist movement within the British Empire was driven by the non-conformist sects and not the Anglican Church. In both cases I can imagine Samseaus of the day carping on about how the Catholic Church has corrupted Christs message by holding Caesar to certain standards of behaviour, or that the Bible doesn't explicitly condemn slavery so those stupid Methodists and Quakers are perverting Jesus' teachings because they should be focusing on interior matters of the heart and sins particular to each of us that can't be legislated.

The liberal Protestant Churches and Orthodox Church are the opposite sides of the same coin. When faced with a government or society that celebrates and promotes beliefs contrary to Christ's teachings, they both accommodate themselves to the way of the world. The former do it by adopting the viewpoints of secular society as their own - "Jesus said judge not so that means we have to support Gay Marriage." The latter do it by pretending it's none of their business - "Sure abortion and divorce are a sin but we're just here to comfort and minister to poor sinners."


As for your above list of "very" important sins that outweigh sexual misconduct, well when secular culture begins encouraging and celebrating insulting your family and kicking sand in homeless vets eyes, people will be complaining about how Christianity has lost its way by demanding that we be nice to people and that really Christians should be focusing on sexual sins 'cause they're much more important.

I'm guessing that your list of "important" sins just conveniently happen to be areas of your life where you don't feel any temptation to sin. But you want to bang the sluts and not feel any guilt about it and rather than trying to overcome the temptation, you're trying to justify your behaviour. I'm not going to go to heaven because I refrain from insulting my relatives for the simple fact that I have absolutely no inclination to do so, and therefore I'm not exhibiting any saintlike quality in not doing so. Totting up all the good things you do just means you're looking in the wrong direction.

Quote: (02-26-2016 01:51 AM)Prophet Wrote:  

Samseau is correct that Porneia has a wide range of semantic meaning, including, as he puts it in his list of sexual sins for men, "1. Using whores (this includes internet porn!)".

His mistake is that the word "whores" has a broader semantic meaning. There are whores who charge, and whores that don't. That money or a gift is exchanged isn't central to what makes the act immoral.

The contention you raise has been central to the entire debate of this thread, and it was first raised Scorpion on page 1. It does not seem the quotes you have provided prove your contention.

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To illustrate the point, I will provide a lengthy quotation from Phyllis Bird's article “Prostitution in the Social World and the Religious Rhetoric of Ancient Israel,” found in Faraone and McClure's "Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World.":

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Priestly legislation specifies in Leviticus 21:7 that a priest may not marry a prostitute (literally, "a woman [who is a] zonah and defiled" [ishshah zonah wachalalah], ie, "a woman defiled by prostitution/fornication") or "a woman divorced from her husband" [ishshah gerushah me'ishah]. This text makes it clear by the association with the divorcée and by the interpretive addition of "defiled" that the prostitute is excluded as a marriage partner primarily on the basis of having had sexual relations with other men, but secondarily because her promiscuous relations are seen as "defiling" and thus a threat to the priest's sanctity.

The part you quote is basically saying, "You can't turn a 'ho into a housewife." But these are rules for marriage, not for sex in general. Keep in mind this same OT sees nothing wrong with married men having concubines either.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/concubine/

The OT is often downplayed because of the Apostle Paul's teachings, but I do not think that is correctly understanding Paul. The OT should be taken deadly seriously but we should understand the NT is there to clarify and show that the intent is what counts in the OT, not the letter of the laws. We should try to understand why the laws were written and apply those same intentions to our everyday life, and not worry about following it pedantically like the Pharisee.

The first quote from Leviticus are rules concerning marriage. It does not talk about the rules concerning men via consensual sex outside marriage.

You are correct in that Leviticus provides evidence of sex outside of marriage being sinful for women, but I have never denied this. Here is Lev 21:7 with the YLT:

"A woman, a harlot, or polluted, they do not take, and a woman cast out from her husband they do not take, for he [is] holy to his God;"

You see three classes of sinful women here; whores (harlot), sluts (polluted), and divorced. It is not stated to what degree they are sinful or unlawful of the 10 commandments.

Notice, it does not list widows which could presumably be lawful for a Levitical priest to marry. This would mean sex in itself is not polluting if it is lawfully done within marriage for a woman.

This does not support the conclusion of the book you quoted :

"primarily on the basis of having had sexual relations with other men, but secondarily because her promiscuous relations are seen as 'defiling'"

It cannot be the case that having had sexual relations is the primary basis for defilement, because that Leviticus passage did not include widows as defiled, who presumably have had sex with their husbands.

Therefore, the secondary reason it lists, of promiscuity, is the only thing that makes sense as the primary reason for defilement, not merely sex in itself.

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A prostitute is someone who is habitually, essentially unchaste.

Does not follow. A prostitute defiles herself twice as a promiscuous woman, and as a whore. It is not merely unchastity, as seen with your own Leviticus passages provided; there is a distinction between the polluted and the whore, even if both classes have similarities.

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The same idea is found in two other texts relating to female members of a priest's family, both of which use verbal forms to describe the defiling activity. In Amos 7:17, the prophet proclaims the fate of the priest of the royal sanctuary at Bethel by decreeing loss of land and offspring, but also loss of sanctity: "Your wife shall <i>fornicate/be a prostitute [tizneh] in the city...and you yourself shall die in an unclean land." Here the simple verb, "to fornicate/engage in promiscuous sex" is used, but the specification of the city as the place of the activity suggests that it is the prostitute's trade that is more narrowly intended. Nevertheless, the emphasis is not on the profession or the figure of the prostitute, but just on the idea of engaging in promiscuous and defiling sexual activity.

Does not follow. It clearly says the wife will become a whore, not merely a slut. If it wanted to refer to a mere slut it would have called her an adulterer.

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In Leviticus 21:9 it is the priest's daughter that presents the threat of defilement. The connection with the father is explicit: "when the daughter of a priest defiles herself by fornicating [techel liznot], it is her father that she defiles" (et abiha hi me-challelet"). The punishment: "she shall be burned with fire."

The word fornicating means whoring. Made clear by the literal translation, Lev 21:9 in the YLT:

"9 `And a daughter of any priest when she polluteth herself by going a-whoring -- her father she is polluting; with fire she is burnt."

It's whoring.

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The use of common language to describe both casual and professional sexual activity outside marriage is illustrated dramatically by the response of Simeon and Levi to the rape of their sister Dinah in Genesis 34. In answer to their father's reprimand for their violent revenge against the city of the offender who had "defiled" ["tame"] their sister (vv. 13,27), they reply: "Should he treat [literally, "make"] our sister as a zonah?" ("hakezonah ya'seh et achotenu" [v.31]). Even though she was raped, the unmarried daughter is put into the category of the prostitute, the woman who offers sex to other men. Consent plays no role; the only relevant point is that an unmarried woman is involved in a sexual act.

Note that these are also without cultic associations.

Just because the sons are saying the sister was reduced to the same thing as a whore because of her rape, it does not follow that a woman who has sex outside of marriage is the same thing as a whore, nor would it follow that a man who has sex with a promiscuous woman is raping her. She was raped and therefore lost her dignity, just as a whore has no dignity and no man would ever care if a whore was raped. That is why her brothers wanted to restore her honor by killing her rapists.

The author you quote tries to commit a false equivocation by claiming that a woman who is raped is as low as a whore, merely on the basis of having had sex outside of marriage while completely ignoring the lack of consent issue that being raped presents.

How can the author jump to conclusions like this? How can he say it was merely sex outside of marriage that reduced the woman's status, and not having sex without consent, i.e. rape? He needs to show the lack of consent wasn't the reason for her having been reduced to a whore if he wants to prove that it was merely sex outside of marriage.

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Sex with a prostitute is the same as sex with a fornicator: sexual use of a dishonored woman (ie not a virgin).

You're not using the word fornication correctly, nor does the conclusion follow that a prostitute is any woman who is merely a polluted woman. None of the quotes above prove this point.

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The central defilement is in the sex outside of marriage -- for both the man and the woman.

Sorry, does not follow from the passages above. It only supports women who are defiled, not men. And it gives different levels of defilement, with a whore being as low as a woman who is raped. A mere slut is not described in such a manner.

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Do you honestly think that the NT-era man giving his whore an old loaf of bread after a bang is what makes it wrong according to the Scriptures? If so, why wouldn't God simply advise women not to charge for it and provide men and women with an alternative sexual outlet?

By NT logic, the man should give the woman her bread without having her give up sex for it (charity), and find himself a nice virgin to marry (who were plentiful in those days). Meanwhile, women who are non-virgins are basically doomed anyways (since few man wanted a non-virgin back then) so for them to find a relationship with any man as a concubine or even a lover would seem to be better than merely begging all day.

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Answer: Because he has already provided an alternative (marriage!).

Do you not see your own contradiction? Why would anyone want to marry a non-virgin? You just quoted Leviticus which clearly states not to marry polluted women (i.e. non-virgin). However, Leviticus was for Jewish priests, so perhaps for the random Jewish layman he could still find value in marrying a non-virginal woman off the streets. And for a woman who was a whore, she would almost certainly never find a man to marry her, which meant a lifetime of poverty and begging if she stopped her whoring. Many whores simply became beggars at Christian churches who begged for mercy as Christ provided mercy to the whores in the Gospel.

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See 1 Corinthians 7:2 ("But since [porneia] is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.") and 1 Corinthians 7:9 (But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion) to be more than enough to demonstrate that sex within marriage is God's will for Christian men and women. Paul presents marriage here as the alternative solution to the temptations of easy sex with dishonored women.

Marriage is the ideal, and whores are listed as sinful, but again you haven't shown that polluted women are off-limits for men. Which was the original contention of this thread in the first place.

Thanks for your time and effort to try and show my errors though. I appreciate it and by no means am I completely decided on this issue. But it is clear there is way more nuance on this subject within the Bible than most people realize. Furthermore, it is shocking that no one can easily show premarital sex with non-virginal non-whores is anymore sinful for men than to indulge in food, and I have brought up this issue to priests and Orthodox canon lawyers. More on that next.

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The contention you raise has been central to the entire debate of this thread, and it was first raised Scorpion on page 1. It does not seem the quotes you have provided prove your contention.

I agree it is the central issue. And while I also agree that "prostitute" was what many of the ancient authors had in mind (as it seems to be more common than consensual, non transactional sex), the term is much more fluid and broad than one might think. Here is some more contextual support for the idea that whore can also mean promiscuous woman (as well as concubine, courtesan, etc.)

From the introduction to "Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World" edited by Christopher A. Faraone, Laura K. McClure:

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As the sociologist Iwan Bloch observed in 1912, any study of prostitution must contend with the difficulty of defining the practice; clear boundaries between nonmarital sexual relations, such as concubinage and adultery and sex for pay, are often elusive. The promiscuous woman often has the same social meaning whether an adulteress or prostitute: in ancient Rome, for example, both the prostitute and the woman disgraced by adultery donned the male toga (McGinn 1998c, 240; see also Olsonin this volume). As observed by several contributors to this volume, terms for prostitutes are much contested in nearly every ancient language, not only in Greek, where the exact relation of hetaira (courtesan) and porné (brothel worker) has long been debated, but also in the languages of ancient Mesoptamia and in biblical Hebrew. In the Greco-Roman tradition, the preponderance of euphemisms and metaphorical terms that refer to sexual activities and practitioners generates further confusion. The problem of terminology reflects in part our inadequate access to the social practices depicted by literary accounts, even as it reveals the ambiguous status of such socially outcast and marginal figures in the ancient world.

Among Hellenists, there has been a long and vigorous debate about ancient Greek terminology for prostitution, particularly the words porné and hetaira. Both James Davidson (1997) and Leslie Kurke (1999) have argued that these terms express a binary opposition between two types of prostitutes that in turn reflect competing social and political ideologies. The term "hetaira," the feminine form of "hetaira" (male friend), denoted a woman, usually celebrated, who was maintained by one man in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her; typically she did not reside in his home. She participated in and embodied an economy of gift exchange that maintained, rather than severed, the connection between individuals. Alternately seductive and persuasive, providing her services in exchange for gifts, the hetaira perpetually left open the possibility that she might refuse her favors; indeed, "the very name hetaira--'companion,' 'friend'--is ambiguous, a euphemism" (Davidson 1997, 135).

She continues:

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The porné, in contrast, belonged to the streets, she as the hetaira's nameless, faceless brothel counterpart and participated in a type of commodity exchange that continually depersonalized and reified, exemplified by crass transactional names such as "didrachmon" and "Obole," both terms for Attic currency (Davidson 1997, 118-19). And yet, as reasonable as these distinctions might sound, the two terms are frequently applied to the same woman in all periods of the Greek literary tradition (McClure 2003, 9-24; see also Cohen in this volume).

Adding to this in another of her works "Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus", Laura McClure writes:

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Already in the classical period, there is significant slippage between the terms hetaera and porne, as Kurke as observe (Kurke 1999: 178). Clearly, porne is what a speaker resorts to when he wants to insult a woman, or her male relatives, while hetaera is a more euphemistic term. And yet, as comfortable as that distinction sounds, the two terms are frequently applied to the same woman, even in the classical period...The term hetaera, the feminine form of hetairos (male friend), denoted a woman who was maintained by one man, or occasionally two, in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her; typically she did not reside in his home, at least not when respectable women were present. Only in a couple of contexts does hetairos refer to a woman's male lover...there is no clear dividing line between a courtesan who is installed as one man's mistress, perhaps for quite a long period, and any other woman who happens to live with a man without being married to him (Brown 1990:249)...To describe Timarchus' long-term affair with Misoglas, with whom he lived, Aeschines uses a form of hetairein but switches to porneuein when speaking of his promiscuous liaisons with a series of other lovers as he moved indiscriminately from house to house (Aeschin. 1. 5152). By plying his trade in the house of citizens, Timarchus in effect turned them all into brothels.

Another interesting source is Philo, who advocates for male virginity prior to marriage. In his De Iosepho, the patriarch speaks for the author and on Jewish sexual morality. When Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph, he resists “like a free man, worthy of his race” (Ios. 40–42). He tells her:
We descendants of the Hebrews live according to a special set of customs and norms. Among other peoples, it is permitted for young men after their fourteenth year to use without shame whores, brothel-girls, and other women who make a profit with their body. Among us it is not even permitted for a professional woman to live, but it is ordained that she will be sentenced to death. Indeed, before legitimate marriage, we know no sexual intercourse with other women, but we enter marriage as pure men with pure virgins. (Ios. 43)

And one of the Church Father's Gregory of Nyssa:

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For some who are more exacting, it is held that the sin pertaining to porneia is also adultery, since there is only one legitimate union for both the wife with her husband and the husband with his wife. Everything, therefore, which is not legitimate is completely illegitimate, and he who has what is not his own clearly has what is another’s....

He's saying here that porneia, or prostitution, is adultery, even though the woman in that case wouldn't even be another man's -- the point is -- it's not his.

Now, to answer your response.

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The first quote from Leviticus are rules concerning marriage. It does not talk about the rules concerning men via consensual sex outside marriage.

Yes, but the category to which you refer would be a foreign one. In the OT, most everybody was either married, a virgin, or a whore. We wouldn't expect rules concerning something that no man would want (sex with a non-virgin outside of marriage)?

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Therefore, the secondary reason it lists, of promiscuity, is the only thing that makes sense as the primary reason for defilement, not merely sex in itself.

We are in agreement, and I think that's what the author meant too. Let me fill in the blanks: "primarily on the basis of having had sexual relations with other men [not her husband]." Hence, a woman who has been divorced (because she had sex with someone not her husband and he divorced her), or was a whore or polluted. Widows wouldn't qualify there.

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There is a distinction between the polluted and the whore, even if both classes have similarities.

I agree there is a distinction, but as I have shown, they can be applied to the same woman (even if the woman was not actually a whore).

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How can he say it was merely sex outside of marriage that reduced the woman's status, and not having sex without consent, i.e. rape?

I believe the point is that the term "whore" is being euphemistically applied to someone who is clearly not a whore. The rape was non-consensual and non-transactional and violated the father's property rights, while sex with a whore is consensual, transactional, and violates no man's rights (hence, why it was not illicit in their society). The only similarity is that sex has occurred outside of marriage.

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Sorry, does not follow from the passages above. It only supports women who are defiled, not men.

The priest is defiled, or contaminated by sexual contact with a defiled woman. Now that was just for the priests, and not the congregation. But I think the New Testament follows a similar logic. Allow me to also quote the Apostle Paul again: "Whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body," and "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." Would not he who unites himself with a polluted woman likewise become one with her in body?

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Why would anyone want to marry a non-virgin?

Not me, but with the rarity of virgin women nowadays, there are a lot of Christian men who would be ok with it, if the woman was repentant. Hot, godly, virgin Christian women do exist though, I am about to propose to one.

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I have brought up this issue to priests and Orthodox canon lawyers.

I am interested to hear what they say. And thank you for your response.

Samseau, your entire theory appears to rest on which words did or did not appear in the Bible and a supposed "error" in translation by St. Thomas Aquinas. The problem with this approach is that you are falling into error yourself in adopting the Protestant innovation of Sola Scriptura - that is relying upon the Bible alone in coming to your conclusion that pre-marital sex. Both the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church rely upon what is written in the Bible and informed by Apostolic Tradition. In other words, they believe things that may not explicitly be stated in the Bible, because knowledge of these things was handed down from Jesus times by word of mouth. An example of this which doesn't explicitly appear in the Bible, but which is held as doctrine by both Catholics and Orthodox is the Assumption/Dormition of Mary.

Therefore, when reading Aquinas, you need to take into account that whether or not the word he used for fornication had a narrower meaning in Koine Greek (and we cannot be certain that it did based on a few surviving ancient texts) his writing was informed by tradition and therefore the meaning of the word he used was coloured by what was handed down over the generations from what the Jesus and his Apostles taught on this matter.

The other weakness in your argument is that you seem to think that is sinful for a woman to have sexual relations outside of marriage but not a man and that if she isn't married then you aren't committing adultery and thus are doing nothing wrong. Except that of course by having sex outside of marriage a woman commits sin which means that you are aiding her in committing that sin and there is plenty of scripture to back this up.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/causin...to_stumble

Even if we grant your tortured interpretion of the Bible and your Protestant-like refusal to consider Sacred Tradition, the fact remains that by causing a woman to sin by having sex outside of marriage you're committing a sin.

And having gone back and reread your original post, it appears that the alleged error on Aquinas' part doesn't exist, even allowing for your reliance on the Protestant innovation of Sola Scriptura to argue your case.

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And now we reach the conclusion of the puzzle. Thomas Aquinas, the most influential, intelligent, and greatest of philosophers and theologians of the middle ages, is at the bottom of this telephone game, who wrote his major works in 1260-1275. Notice he quotes from the Book of Tobit (or Tobias): "keep thyself... from all fornication," but what does fornication mean?

Let us check an etymological dictionary (screencap):

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c. 1300, from Old French fornicacion "fornication, lewdness; prostitution; idolatry" (12c.), from Late Latin fornicationem (nominative fornicatio), noun of action from past participle stem of fornicari "to fornicate," from Latin fornix (genitive fornicis) "brothel" (Juvenal, Horace), originally "arch, vaulted chamber, a vaulted opening, a covered way," probably an extension, based on appearance, from a source akin to fornus "brick oven of arched or domed shape" (see furnace). Strictly, "voluntary sex between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman;" extended in the Bible to adultery. The sense extension in Latin is perhaps because Roman prostitutes commonly solicited from under the arches of certain buildings.

We discover the word fornication did not take on its present meaning until 1300 AD, several decades after Thomas Aquinas wrote his authoritative works! Fornicators originally referred to men who went to the place "under the arch" (the fornix) which is where the street whores hung out at night in Roman towns. The word fornication, in the few places it does appear within the Bible, it still just talking about prostitution and not premarital sex!

You appear to have completely misread the paragraph on the entymology of the English word "fornication". What the paragraph is saying is that the word came into the English language circa 1300. Circa means "around" so that could mean anything from 1275 onwards. It goes on to say that the word is derived from the Old French word "fornicacion" which dates from the 12th Century. The 12th Century is the 100 year period beginning in 1101 and ending in 1200! In turn the Old French word is derived from the Late Latin "fornicationem". Late Latin was the written form of Latin in use between the 3rd Century and the 6th or 7th Century AD (depending on location) in Western Europe.

Now onto the rest of your argument.

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And of course you're forgetting that Thomas Aquinas didn't use the word "fornication" because he wasn't writing in English. He may have used "fornicacion" in discussions with other scholars as he lived much of his life in France (he himself was Italian). However he wrote in Latin. So your intricately constructed argument fails.

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The Eastern Orthodox, tragically, ceased to be an influence in 1200 AD because of the Fourth Crusade. The darkest event in all of Christian history, when Christians betrayed Christians, came about as Catholic Crusaders sacked, pillaged, and raped the richest city in the world, Constantinople, also the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Most of the booty taken from Constantinople was then brought to the Vatican, who then ruled over Europe with an Iron Fist for the next 500 years because they had so much of the wealth of the old Roman empire.

It always amuses me how the Orthodox can wax indignant about the Sack of Constantinople but forget that collapse in relations between the Latins and Greeks was largely precipitated by the Massacre of the Latins in which around 60,000 Latin civilians resident in Constantinople and supposedly under the protection of the Empire were butchered in cold blood by Orthodox Christians.

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When Thomas Aquinas wrote his works in 1260 AD, there was no serious challengers to the Catholic school of thought as the Eastern Orthodox Church was mortally wounded and still bleeding out (200 years later they would be fully conquered by the Turkish Muslims). Aquinas, being the intellectual champion of the Catholics, was taken to be an authority and no one seriously noticed or cared about his use of the word fornication and the word fornication entered the common lexicon as meaning "sex in general" instead of "using prostitutes." Combining all of the above with the fact that 95% of Europe was illiterate at the time Aquinas wrote his works, and it makes sense word fornication was changed without anyone's notice.

Aquinas may have been Catholic, but this does not mean that his writings were not read or respected amongst Orthodox Christians. You seem to be so steeped in the anti-Catholic bile that emanates from Russian Orthodoxy that you don't realise that it is only recently that some Orthodox Theologians have criticised him and that the criticism comes from a particular part of the Orthodox Church that studiously ignores a lot of Orthodox Theology including Orthodox contributions to Scholasticism.

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Thus even when the Protestants rebelled against the Catholic church, they still assumed the word fornication meant "sex in general" instead of it's original use as just "buying a whore." And this is how the telephone game of Christ's teachings were perverted over time, by various political forces and human error.

A Classical Latin word similar to the English word "fornication" may may have had the very narrow meaning 1500 years before the Protestant Reformation, but by the time of Luther and Calvin the Latin "fornicatio" had come to have a much broader meaning in light of over a millenium of Christian tradition as to the teaching of the Apostles.

[quote]I must comment that this error in teaching has been a tremendous burden on my own life, as even I was raised believing sex before marriage to be a grave sin I would need to repent for. But now that the internet has arrived, men can enter a new age of knowledge where the combined research of millions of men can be put together to form a complete picture of what happened in the past and where we must go in the future. So, unless I have made an error in the work above, I hereby state all Christian men to be the masculine man they were always meant to be, and fulfill their sexual desires without any restrictions other than the following:[/unquote]

But now that the internet has arrived, men can cherry pick quotes to support the half-baked assumptions they make to get to the conclusion they want.

Many of those who are disagreeing with Samseau seem to be under the impression that he's suggesting "Why don't we throw out a millenium worth of tradition because of this one error?" I don't believe that's what he's doing (and for what it's worth, I am a Catholic, and I don't find any of his criticisms insulting; the two lungs of the Church need to work together to keep one another on track).

What he is arguing is more akin to this:

Imagine a world where traffic enforcement was different from what we see today; one where failing to signal a lane change was vehemently prosecuted, while speeding was ignored. It is good that people in that world signal their intentions - nobody's suggesting that we stop signalling. But the fact that people are doing 180 mph in the fast lane is simply ridiculous. Instead of focussing so much intention on the former, perhaps we should do something about the latter.

With the Church, the issues are chastity, and effeminacy.

There has been a sickness in the Western Man stretching back centuries; a celebration and pedestalization of women, which has been driving men from the Church, and resulting in an assumed doctrine of "Women can do no wrong." No other religion has this problem - in other places, you find that religious adherence is 50/50 between the sexes - but in the West, very few men go to Church, and far too often those that do aren't particularly masculine.

Effeminacy is far more dangerous that youthful dalliances - and for that matter, feminism (pride) is far more damaging to a woman than youthful lust. In both cases, it's like having an idiot who speeds with no regard to other's safety, who justifies it by saying "Well, I always use my turn signal!"

He's not saying we need to throw chastity out, but that it should be put in perspective. It is more important for us, as men, to be masculine, and for women to be feminine. Focussing primarily on chastity winds up damaging masculinity through repression, and femininity through excuse-making.

It blows my mind people think an all-powerful deity created the universe so he could see if we'd control our desire to fuck tight young women. really.

I created trillions of stars in an expansive cosmos but my primary concern is if you're getting play with that tight 19yr old you aren't married to.

They even say 'sin is in the intention'. Meaning lustful thoughts in and of themselves are sins.


How can I repent for something I'm not sorry for? It would be insincere, a way of covering my bets in case Christianity is correct.

Why would I ever apologize for lusting after 18 yr olds? It would be a lie.

Quote: (03-02-2016 10:19 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

It blows my mind people think an all-powerful deity created the universe so he could see if we'd control our desire to fuck tight young women. really.

I created trillions of stars in an expansive cosmos but my primary concern is if you're getting play with that tight 19yr old you aren't married to.

They even say 'sin is in the intention'. Meaning lustful thoughts in and of themselves are sins.

I think that rests on a false premise, similar to the old Internet joke of showing a picture of the Earth, then the Solar System, then the Galaxy, then a portion of the Universe, then a picture of God standing over it all saying "Stop masturbating". Why would you say it's God's primary concern whether you're masturbating or not?

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How can I repent for something I'm not sorry for? It would be insincere, a way of covering my bets in case Christianity is correct.

Why would I ever apologize for lusting after 18 yr olds? It would be a lie.

Couple of things: one, if you're not sorry for what you're done, by definition you are not repenting.

Second, the idea of sin being in human nature is easier to comprehend from the analogy of a parent to a child. Contrary to romantic idealism, kids are not all-wise in their innocence. Small children invariably have temper tantrums, crying jags, don't listen, don't obey, say "No" a lot for no reason, and are out to test boundaries. Smart parents don't hold these behaviours against them as such because it's part of their kids' nature.

But conversely I don't think you'll find those smart parents endorse or encourage those behaviours -- or that smart parents fail to correct those behaviours in their children. They do that because behavioural correction is part of the process of maturation, part of the process of turning you into an adult.

As I said, it is a metaphysical analogy, and an analogy only, but sin as a part of human nature can be viewed similarly. This is particularly so if you accept -- as Christianity of all stripes does -- that existence is not merely physical and continues beyond the physical. Acknowledging our own nature as imperfect and acknowledging we need God's help is part of the process of turning our souls into something worthy of heaven.

Are we aware of exactly why or exactly what it is about sin that keeps us out of heaven? No more than a two-year-old kid is aware of how his behaviour is unacceptable when he's in the middle of a temper tantrum -- he is a victim of his own developing brain. And because we are given free will, all God can really do is lay down the principles for life to the full and intervene when we ask him through prayer.

Quote: (03-02-2016 11:08 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

Why would you say it's God's primary concern whether you're masturbating or not?

Because it's a mortal sin (the monk who writes ROK articles said so himself). Dying without confessing (genuinely being sorry) sends you to hell. So as far as we are concerned, it is of primary importance along with the myriad of other mortal sins.

Quote: (03-02-2016 11:18 PM)Disco_Volante Wrote:  

Quote: (03-02-2016 11:08 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  

Why would you say it's God's primary concern whether you're masturbating or not?

Because it's a mortal sin (the monk who writes ROK articles said so himself). Dying without confessing (genuinely being sorry) sends you to hell. So as far as we are concerned, it is of primary importance along with the myriad of other mortal sins.

Then it's not, indeed, God's primary concern. Just yours. Similarly as it's the primary concern of a screaming two year old that their parent took away the cookie, when the parent's primary concern is something other than that.

EDIT: the cookie in question may differ for varying interpretations of this post.

Quote: (02-26-2016 08:51 PM)Prophet Wrote:  

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The contention you raise has been central to the entire debate of this thread, and it was first raised Scorpion on page 1. It does not seem the quotes you have provided prove your contention.

I agree it is the central issue. And while I also agree that "prostitute" was what many of the ancient authors had in mind (as it seems to be more common than consensual, non transactional sex), the term is much more fluid and broad than one might think. Here is some more contextual support for the idea that whore can also mean promiscuous woman (as well as concubine, courtesan, etc.)

From the introduction to "Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World" edited by Christopher A. Faraone, Laura K. McClure:

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As the sociologist Iwan Bloch observed in 1912, any study of prostitution must contend with the difficulty of defining the practice; clear boundaries between nonmarital sexual relations, such as concubinage and adultery and sex for pay, are often elusive. The promiscuous woman often has the same social meaning whether an adulteress or prostitute: in ancient Rome, for example, both the prostitute and the woman disgraced by adultery donned the male toga (McGinn 1998c, 240; see also Olsonin this volume). As observed by several contributors to this volume, terms for prostitutes are much contested in nearly every ancient language, not only in Greek, where the exact relation of hetaira (courtesan) and porné (brothel worker) has long been debated, but also in the languages of ancient Mesoptamia and in biblical Hebrew. In the Greco-Roman tradition, the preponderance of euphemisms and metaphorical terms that refer to sexual activities and practitioners generates further confusion. The problem of terminology reflects in part our inadequate access to the social practices depicted by literary accounts, even as it reveals the ambiguous status of such socially outcast and marginal figures in the ancient world.

Among Hellenists, there has been a long and vigorous debate about ancient Greek terminology for prostitution, particularly the words porné and hetaira. Both James Davidson (1997) and Leslie Kurke (1999) have argued that these terms express a binary opposition between two types of prostitutes that in turn reflect competing social and political ideologies. The term "hetaira," the feminine form of "hetaira" (male friend), denoted a woman, usually celebrated, who was maintained by one man in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her; typically she did not reside in his home. She participated in and embodied an economy of gift exchange that maintained, rather than severed, the connection between individuals. Alternately seductive and persuasive, providing her services in exchange for gifts, the hetaira perpetually left open the possibility that she might refuse her favors; indeed, "the very name hetaira--'companion,' 'friend'--is ambiguous, a euphemism" (Davidson 1997, 135).

Nothing quoted here suggests that prostitute can also mean promiscuous woman. All that is mentioned is that there is the hetaira, which is a whore in an arrangement, (think seeking arrangement.com) and the common street whore who does a trick per night.

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She continues:

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The porné, in contrast, belonged to the streets, she as the hetaira's nameless, faceless brothel counterpart and participated in a type of commodity exchange that continually depersonalized and reified, exemplified by crass transactional names such as "didrachmon" and "Obole," both terms for Attic currency (Davidson 1997, 118-19). And yet, as reasonable as these distinctions might sound, the two terms are frequently applied to the same woman in all periods of the Greek literary tradition (McClure 2003, 9-24; see also Cohen in this volume).

Adding to this in another of her works "Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus", Laura McClure writes:

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Already in the classical period, there is significant slippage between the terms hetaera and porne, as Kurke as observe (Kurke 1999: 178). Clearly, porne is what a speaker resorts to when he wants to insult a woman, or her male relatives, while hetaera is a more euphemistic term. And yet, as comfortable as that distinction sounds, the two terms are frequently applied to the same woman, even in the classical period...The term hetaera, the feminine form of hetairos (male friend), denoted a woman who was maintained by one man, or occasionally two, in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her; typically she did not reside in his home, at least not when respectable women were present. Only in a couple of contexts does hetairos refer to a woman's male lover...there is no clear dividing line between a courtesan who is installed as one man's mistress, perhaps for quite a long period, and any other woman who happens to live with a man without being married to him (Brown 1990:249)...To describe Timarchus' long-term affair with Misoglas, with whom he lived, Aeschines uses a form of hetairein but switches to porneuein when speaking of his promiscuous liaisons with a series of other lovers as he moved indiscriminately from house to house (Aeschin. 1. 5152). By plying his trade in the house of citizens, Timarchus in effect turned them all into brothels.

Sorry, but none of the above is relevant to our discussion. Different words for whores, such as hetairos, porne, etc, are irrelevant because they are all still whores.

No where does it mention a woman who has sex outside of marriage, for say, purposes of love.

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Another interesting source is Philo, who advocates for male virginity prior to marriage. In his De Iosepho, the patriarch speaks for the author and on Jewish sexual morality. When Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph, he resists “like a free man, worthy of his race” (Ios. 40–42). He tells her:
We descendants of the Hebrews live according to a special set of customs and norms. Among other peoples, it is permitted for young men after their fourteenth year to use without shame whores, brothel-girls, and other women who make a profit with their body. Among us it is not even permitted for a professional woman to live, but it is ordained that she will be sentenced to death. Indeed, before legitimate marriage, we know no sexual intercourse with other women, but we enter marriage as pure men with pure virgins. (Ios. 43)

Again, never considered is the possibility of having sex without marriage simply for reasons of love alone. It barely existed back then and therefore this isn't practical advice for today.

Moreover, you're quoting OT Mosiac law (not 10 commandment law) which was ultimately dismissed by the Apostle Paul as not needed to be followed perfectly.

Furthermore, if you were to take that passage you quoted seriously then you would be pro-death penalty for whores.

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And one of the Church Father's Gregory of Nyssa:

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For some who are more exacting, it is held that the sin pertaining to porneia is also adultery, since there is only one legitimate union for both the wife with her husband and the husband with his wife. Everything, therefore, which is not legitimate is completely illegitimate, and he who has what is not his own clearly has what is another’s....

He's saying here that porneia, or prostitution, is adultery, even though the woman in that case wouldn't even be another man's -- the point is -- it's not his.

This is proof by assertion. The first premise - that porneia = adultery - is never proven, merely assumed to be true.

Furthermore, in Deuteronomy there is the clear passage of how if a man takes a girl's virginity he must marry her or pay a hefty fine. The girl was not killed as a whore, nor was the man killed as an adulterer. Therefore from this passage we know that merely having sex prior to marriage is not whoredom nor is it adultery. The original assertion claimed by Gregory here is therefore false.

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Now, to answer your response.

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The first quote from Leviticus are rules concerning marriage. It does not talk about the rules concerning men via consensual sex outside marriage.

Yes, but the category to which you refer would be a foreign one. In the OT, most everybody was either married, a virgin, or a whore. We wouldn't expect rules concerning something that no man would want (sex with a non-virgin outside of marriage)?

Men didn't want it because they had better alternatives. Had those men been alive in today's world, where fewer than 10% of women remain virgins before marriage (it is probably much lower), those men would be forced to take what they could get.

Furthermore, you're quoting Leviticus which were rules for Priests, not laymen. Priests were expected to get purer wives than laymen so they could serve as an example for their people. It is unknown if there were any laymen who wived up non-virgins in those days. It could have happened, it might not. There is no evidence either way, but there is nothing in the Bible which explicitly forbids such a thing except for Levitical priests.

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Therefore, the secondary reason it lists, of promiscuity, is the only thing that makes sense as the primary reason for defilement, not merely sex in itself.

We are in agreement, and I think that's what the author meant too. Let me fill in the blanks: "primarily on the basis of having had sexual relations with other men [not her husband]." Hence, a woman who has been divorced (because she had sex with someone not her husband and he divorced her), or was a whore or polluted. Widows wouldn't qualify there.

That's not what the author you quoted said. Go back and re-read it, you'll see it clearly. We are in agreement though, in that the author you quoted was wrong.

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There is a distinction between the polluted and the whore, even if both classes have similarities.

I agree there is a distinction, but as I have shown, they can be applied to the same woman (even if the woman was not actually a whore).

You have not. The passages you quoted above refer to different words for whores, it does not make any distinction between the polluted (non-virgin) and whores.

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How can he say it was merely sex outside of marriage that reduced the woman's status, and not having sex without consent, i.e. rape?

I believe the point is that the term "whore" is being euphemistically applied to someone who is clearly not a whore. The rape was non-consensual and non-transactional and violated the father's property rights, while sex with a whore is consensual, transactional, and violates no man's rights (hence, why it was not illicit in their society). The only similarity is that sex has occurred outside of marriage.

Not true. A whore violated the father's rights in ancient Jewish law, which is why if a girl was caught whoring she was stoned to death. So the rape of the sister clearly violated the father's rights just as if the girl were to whore herself out.

Moreover, you still did not answer my objection of the girl being taken outside of her will, which is an obvious dissimilarity to a girl who is merely a slut.

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Sorry, does not follow from the passages above. It only supports women who are defiled, not men.

The priest is defiled, or contaminated by sexual contact with a defiled woman. Now that was just for the priests, and not the congregation. But I think the New Testament follows a similar logic. Allow me to also quote the Apostle Paul again: "Whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body," and "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." Would not he who unites himself with a polluted woman likewise become one with her in body?

Nice try, but you're applying NT logic to OT rules. Doesn't work that way. The Apostle Paul was clearly against Mosaic Law (any law outside of the 10 commandments, such as Deuteronomy) being necessary for salvation, which is why he did not believe the Greeks needed to be circumcised in order to convert to Christ.

Therefore, although it is true that sex unites two into one body, it does not follow that both become polluted - in fact the polluted could become purified, as strange as that sounds.

We know this because Jesus said that it is nothing that comes from without which pollutes the body, but that what comes from within the heart - evil desires.

Matthew 15 (YLT):

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17 do ye not understand that all that is going into the mouth doth pass into the belly, and into the drain is cast forth?
18 but the things coming forth from the mouth from the heart do come forth, and these defile the man;
19 for out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, whoredoms, thefts, false witnessings, evil speakings:
20 these are the things defiling the man; but to eat with unwashen hands doth not defile the man.'

We know from this passage that it is the intentions from the heart which God judges us by, not merely the consequences nor merely how our bodies are treated.

And continuing with Jesus's logic, it is the desire to merely have sex which leads a man to whoredom, but a man who desires love and sexes a woman because he knows she will not love him in return unless he takes her is not defiling (aka polluting) himself.

Therefore, a man who is pure with intentions and bangs some polluted skank is not necessarily polluting himself, even though the two are becoming one flesh.

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Why would anyone want to marry a non-virgin?

Not me, but with the rarity of virgin women nowadays, there are a lot of Christian men who would be ok with it, if the woman was repentant. Hot, godly, virgin Christian women do exist though, I am about to propose to one.

Good for you. Happy to hear it, may you have a big and beautiful family and may you raise your children well.

However, keep in mind if we were to apply the logic of never marrying non-virignal women or having families with them, it would quite literally be the end of Christianity is just about every part of the world because there simply aren't enough virigins to go around.

I seriously doubt God, whom we know to be merciful, intended for his people to die out following archaic laws, don't you think? It is good that the OT shows the value of female virginity, but until the patriarchy is restored within civilization it is madness to throw away every woman who isn't a virgin.

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I have brought up this issue to priests and Orthodox canon lawyers.

I am interested to hear what they say. And thank you for your response.

No problem. More info forthcoming. Appreciate your well-thought out responses and challenges. It took me a few days to think your arguments through and decide if they were consistent with the Bible or not. I hope I have represented the Word correctly, I do it as best and honestly as I can.

Quote: (02-27-2016 08:07 AM)da_zeb Wrote:  

Samseau, your entire theory appears to rest on which words did or did not appear in the Bible and a supposed "error" in translation by St. Thomas Aquinas. The problem with this approach is that you are falling into error yourself in adopting the Protestant innovation of Sola Scriptura - that is relying upon the Bible alone in coming to your conclusion that pre-marital sex.

False. A tremendous portion of this thread has been dedicated to understand word usage as it was in the past. I am also going to present my research on Orthodox Cannon law soon. Tradition is not being ignored.

That said, unlike Catholics who take tradition over scripture, I do not believe the Bible can be ignored and the Bible takes precedence over tradition if the two come into conflict.

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Both the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church rely upon what is written in the Bible and informed by Apostolic Tradition. In other words, they believe things that may not explicitly be stated in the Bible, because knowledge of these things was handed down from Jesus times by word of mouth. An example of this which doesn't explicitly appear in the Bible, but which is held as doctrine by both Catholics and Orthodox is the Assumption/Dormition of Mary.

Therefore, when reading Aquinas, you need to take into account that whether or not the word he used for fornication had a narrower meaning in Koine Greek (and we cannot be certain that it did based on a few surviving ancient texts) his writing was informed by tradition and therefore the meaning of the word he used was coloured by what was handed down over the generations from what the Jesus and his Apostles taught on this matter.

Actually, I will present information shortly that contradicts this. I can show that fornication had a narrow meaning with the story of Mary of Egypt.

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The other weakness in your argument is that you seem to think that is sinful for a woman to have sexual relations outside of marriage but not a man and that if she isn't married then you aren't committing adultery and thus are doing nothing wrong.

Although the title of this thread indicates such a position, it was not exactly what I meant. I simply couldn't convey the full meaning in the thread's title nor was I sure what the proper conclusion was either.

Saying, "There's nothing in the Bible that prohibits pre-marital sex for men," is true. Saying, "It's okay for men to have as much sex as they want with sluts as they want," is false and does not follow from the first, but it is easy to see how my first conclusion could be abused to lead to the second conclusion.

Also, it's not adultery if the people aren't married either. In Deuteronomy there is the clear passage of how if a man takes a girl's virginity he must marry her or pay a hefty fine. The girl was not killed as a whore, nor was the man killed as an adulterer. Therefore from this passage we know that merely having sex prior to marriage is not whoredom nor is it adultery.

My current exegesis reveals that a man who has sex outside of marriage with pure intentions is not sinning. I am about 80% certain on this exegesis. I could be wrong the evidence so far supports what I have concluded.

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Except that of course by having sex outside of marriage a woman commits sin which means that you are aiding her in committing that sin and there is plenty of scripture to back this up.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/causin...to_stumble

Even if we grant your tortured interpretion of the Bible and your Protestant-like refusal to consider Sacred Tradition, the fact remains that by causing a woman to sin by having sex outside of marriage you're committing a sin.

Depends on the intention of the man, once again.

If she's not a virgin, first of all, then further sex outside of marriage really isn't more sinful for the woman. She is already fallen.

Second, if the man is merely gaming her to get an easy bang and never talk to her again - then yes it is sinful for the man. But if the man is banging her because he likes her and wants to see if he can make a relationship work with her, I would not say he is sinning. His intentions are good.

This is not against tradition in anyway as far as I can tell, which is the whole point of this thread. Everything is being done by me with the utmost care and respect to understand the words as they were historically used and to be consistent with every teaching within the Bible.

Quote: (02-27-2016 10:10 AM)da_zeb Wrote:  

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And now we reach the conclusion of the puzzle. Thomas Aquinas, the most influential, intelligent, and greatest of philosophers and theologians of the middle ages, is at the bottom of this telephone game, who wrote his major works in 1260-1275. Notice he quotes from the Book of Tobit (or Tobias): "keep thyself... from all fornication," but what does fornication mean?

Let us check an etymological dictionary (screencap):

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c. 1300, from Old French fornicacion "fornication, lewdness; prostitution; idolatry" (12c.), from Late Latin fornicationem (nominative fornicatio), noun of action from past participle stem of fornicari "to fornicate," from Latin fornix (genitive fornicis) "brothel" (Juvenal, Horace), originally "arch, vaulted chamber, a vaulted opening, a covered way," probably an extension, based on appearance, from a source akin to fornus "brick oven of arched or domed shape" (see furnace). Strictly, "voluntary sex between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman;" extended in the Bible to adultery. The sense extension in Latin is perhaps because Roman prostitutes commonly solicited from under the arches of certain buildings.

We discover the word fornication did not take on its present meaning until 1300 AD, several decades after Thomas Aquinas wrote his authoritative works! Fornicators originally referred to men who went to the place "under the arch" (the fornix) which is where the street whores hung out at night in Roman towns. The word fornication, in the few places it does appear within the Bible, it still just talking about prostitution and not premarital sex!

You appear to have completely misread the paragraph on the entymology of the English word "fornication". What the paragraph is saying is that the word came into the English language circa 1300. Circa means "around" so that could mean anything from 1275 onwards. It goes on to say that the word is derived from the Old French word "fornicacion" which dates from the 12th Century. The 12th Century is the 100 year period beginning in 1101 and ending in 1200! In turn the Old French word is derived from the Late Latin "fornicationem". Late Latin was the written form of Latin in use between the 3rd Century and the 6th or 7th Century AD (depending on location) in Western Europe.

Uh... okay? How does this contradict my assertion that fornication original referred to whoredom, and just whoredom?

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Now onto the rest of your argument.

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And of course you're forgetting that Thomas Aquinas didn't use the word "fornication" because he wasn't writing in English. He may have used "fornicacion" in discussions with other scholars as he lived much of his life in France (he himself was Italian). However he wrote in Latin. So your intricately constructed argument fails.

It's still the same word, just in a different language. How does my argument fail? Again the original meaning of the word was fornication = prostitution, and until you show otherwise my argument stands.

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The Eastern Orthodox, tragically, ceased to be an influence in 1200 AD because of the Fourth Crusade. The darkest event in all of Christian history, when Christians betrayed Christians, came about as Catholic Crusaders sacked, pillaged, and raped the richest city in the world, Constantinople, also the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Most of the booty taken from Constantinople was then brought to the Vatican, who then ruled over Europe with an Iron Fist for the next 500 years because they had so much of the wealth of the old Roman empire.

It always amuses me how the Orthodox can wax indignant about the Sack of Constantinople but forget that collapse in relations between the Latins and Greeks was largely precipitated by the Massacre of the Latins in which around 60,000 Latin civilians resident in Constantinople and supposedly under the protection of the Empire were butchered in cold blood by Orthodox Christians.

When did I state that the Orthodox were innocent? And by the way, the Massacre of the Latins was not as horrific as the Fourth Crusade. The punishment did not fit the crime.

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When Thomas Aquinas wrote his works in 1260 AD, there was no serious challengers to the Catholic school of thought as the Eastern Orthodox Church was mortally wounded and still bleeding out (200 years later they would be fully conquered by the Turkish Muslims). Aquinas, being the intellectual champion of the Catholics, was taken to be an authority and no one seriously noticed or cared about his use of the word fornication and the word fornication entered the common lexicon as meaning "sex in general" instead of "using prostitutes." Combining all of the above with the fact that 95% of Europe was illiterate at the time Aquinas wrote his works, and it makes sense word fornication was changed without anyone's notice.

Aquinas may have been Catholic, but this does not mean that his writings were not read or respected amongst Orthodox Christians. You seem to be so steeped in the anti-Catholic bile that emanates from Russian Orthodoxy that you don't realise that it is only recently that some Orthodox Theologians have criticised him and that the criticism comes from a particular part of the Orthodox Church that studiously ignores a lot of Orthodox Theology including Orthodox contributions to Scholasticism.

Nope, never read Russian orthodoxy just regular history. I don't know Russian. That said, how much of Aquinas was known by the Orthodox is very debatable given just how much the Orthodox were being destroyed during this time. Maybe a few privileged priests and other clergy did. 99% did not.

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Thus even when the Protestants rebelled against the Catholic church, they still assumed the word fornication meant "sex in general" instead of it's original use as just "buying a whore." And this is how the telephone game of Christ's teachings were perverted over time, by various political forces and human error.

A Classical Latin word similar to the English word "fornication" may may have had the very narrow meaning 1500 years before the Protestant Reformation, but by the time of Luther and Calvin the Latin "fornicatio" had come to have a much broader meaning in light of over a millenium of Christian tradition as to the teaching of the Apostles.

Really? Because there's tons of evidence to contradict that as the story of Mary of Egypt shows, as well as many parts of Orthodox Cannon law (both posts forthcoming shortly).

I suspect there was a giant telephone game over the centuries that corrupted this teaching, and because sex outside of marriage could easily be prohibited it was not a big deal if this teaching became corrupt. But nowadays, this teaching is harmful to men.

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[quote]I must comment that this error in teaching has been a tremendous burden on my own life, as even I was raised believing sex before marriage to be a grave sin I would need to repent for. But now that the internet has arrived, men can enter a new age of knowledge where the combined research of millions of men can be put together to form a complete picture of what happened in the past and where we must go in the future. So, unless I have made an error in the work above, I hereby state all Christian men to be the masculine man they were always meant to be, and fulfill their sexual desires without any restrictions other than the following:[/unquote]

But now that the internet has arrived, men can cherry pick quotes to support the half-baked assumptions they make to get to the conclusion they want.

The amount of butthurt this thread has created with "Christian" men is absolutely hilarious, I must admit.

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If she's not a virgin, first of all, then further sex outside of marriage really isn't more sinful for the woman. She is already fallen.

You seem to be willfully blind to the fact that it is sex outside of marriage that is the sin, not the act of losing one's virginity. A woman who loses her virginity in the wedding bed is not "fallen" as you so quaintly put it.

If a woman who has sinned in this way goes to confession and receives absolution the sleight is wiped clean so to speak. She may no longer be a virgin but she is again without mortal sin. Therefore if she again has sex outside of marriage she sins afresh and so do you for helping to sin.

I don't think anyone here besides you is butthurt. If anything I'm mildly amused by your obsessive need to prove 2000 years of church teachings to be wrong just so that you can bang sluts with a clear conscience.

Since you're so insistent that premarital sex wasn't a sin until Aquinas got his Latin translation wrong, how do you explain the teachings of the Assyrian Church of the East which which is the product of the first major schism of 381, nearly 850 years before his birth?

http://news.assyrianchurch.org/2015/07/0...ents/12332

And how come the Orthodox Church believes the same thing if as you have claimed earlier in this thread,it lacks familiarity with Aquinas' teachings?

http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/controversialissues

And you do realise that Latin was only the language of the Western Church. The Assyrian Church uses Syriac and Aramaic, and the original language of the Orthodox Church was Greek. So how did the same teaching arise independently of Aquinas?

Samsaeu, I will pray that the spirit will help you understand its message in relation to the confines of our fleshy prison.

Quote: (03-04-2016 04:58 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

Samsaeu, I will pray that the spirit will help you understand its message in relation to the confines of our fleshy prison.

I pray everyday, and it's lead me to the creation of this thread. Now what say you? Too much slavish obedience to the Church with little critical thinking going on here. The Church is not God, the Church is a place for God's people.

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Since you're so insistent that premarital sex wasn't a sin until Aquinas got his Latin translation wrong, how do you explain the teachings of the Assyrian Church of the East which which is the product of the first major schism of 381, nearly 850 years before his birth?

http://news.assyrianchurch.org/2015/07/0...ents/12332

And how come the Orthodox Church believes the same thing if as you have claimed earlier in this thread,it lacks familiarity with Aquinas' teachings?

http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/controversialissues

And you do realise that Latin was only the language of the Western Church. The Assyrian Church uses Syriac and Aramaic, and the original language of the Orthodox Church was Greek. So how did the same teaching arise independently of Aquinas?

Again, your butthurt is hilarious and it's preventing you from reading me correctly.

First, there is the translation error present regarding use of the word fornication. People think fornication means sex in general when in fact it did not mean that back in the 1st-6th centuries.

Second, IN NO WAY do I advocate men should prefer sluts over virgins, or men should try to defraud virgins, or men should just go for a high notch-count.

My point is that, in a world absent of virgins, sex outside of marriage for men is a logical must for those who want to start families and find wives. This is because the nature of women demands it - marrying a non-virginal woman carries insane risks, even without the current marriage laws, because there is very little guarantee she will remain loyal. Modern churches today do not understand this, because the clergy and priests usually marry virgins cultivated within the Church, or remain celibate. They are essentially gameless men who are clueless about the nature of females. It is shameful when they display any lack of empathy for men outside of their privileged situation. A fallen woman must be tamed before she is marriage worthy, and that means sex before marriage. This is the truth confirmed by literally thousands of men within the manosphere, and the truth is the light of God, so therefore anyone opposes this truth must either prove it is not true or they are in direct confrontation with God.

Here is more on the story of Saint Mary of Egypt.

http://www.stmaryofegypt.org/files/library/life.htm

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This Life of Our Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt was written down in the seventh century by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, some hundred years after the repose of the holy Mary, who fell asleep in the Lord April 1, 522. It is one of the most beautiful and edifying lives of a saint. Its obvious and stated purpose is to glorify God and to feed the souls of its readers. St. Sophronius lifts up the life of blessed Mary as a most wondrous example of repentance for all the faithful. Indeed, the Church has lifted up this life before all the faithful on the Fifth Sunday of the Great Fast, the Sunday before Palm Sunday. It is both a challenge and an inspiration to us. It shows us what a human being is capable of when she works with the all-powerful saving and forgiving grace of our all-loving God.

Therefore, according to this prologue these events took place back in the early 5th century.

It's a long story, but the short of it is that Mary was a rebellious child who ran away from home to fuck tons of random men, for free, lived as a beggar, and always carried an insatiable sexual appetite. She eventually gets the inclination to travel to the Holy Sepulchre of Christ, where she is converted before the image of Jesus's mother, Mary, and then hears a voice to find salvation by living in the desert as redemption.

She is eventually discovered by a Monk, Zosima, who was living in the desert, and when she is describing her early life we can see there is indeed a distinction between whoring and being a slut, which she makes forcefully:

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My native land, holy father, was Egypt. Already during the lifetime of my parents, when I was twelve years old, I renounced their love and went to Alexandria. I am ashamed to recall how there I at first ruined my maidenhood and then unrestrainedly and insatiably gave myself up to sensuality It is more becoming to speak of this briefly, so that you may just know my passion and my lechery. for about seventeen years, forgive me, I lived like that. I was like a fire of public debauch. And it was not for the sake of gain -- here I speak the pure truth. Often when they wished to pay me, I refused the money. I acted in this way so as to make as many men as possible to try to obtain me, doing free of charge what gave me pleasure. do not think that I was rich and that was the reason why I did not take money. I lived by begging, often by spinning flax, but I had an insatiable desire and an irrepressible passion for lying in filth. This was life to me. Every kind of abuse of nature I regarded as life. That is how I lived.

We can glimpse out of the past a few things from this story.

1. First, notice just how uncommon sex outside of marriage was. Most men would give her money after she sexed them, because people simply assumed she was a whore. In today's world, by contrast, having sex without paying for it by contrast is extremely common and if you tried to give a woman money after sex she would very insulted.

2. Mary has to point out she was not whoring to Zosima. She points out that she turned down money so she could make the point that she was not whoring.

3. This rampant abuse of her body, of course, was still extremely degrading and defiling.

She continues with her story of getting to Jerusalem:

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Then one summer I saw a large crowd of Lybians and Egyptians running towards the sea. I asked one of them, `Where are these men hurrying to?' He replied, `They are all going to Jerusalem for the Exaltation of the Precious and Lifegiving Cross, which takes place in a few days.' I said to him, `Will they take me with them if I wish to go?' `No one will hinder you if you have money to pay for the journey and for food.' And I said to him, `To tell you truth, I have no money, neither have I food. But I shall go with them and shall go aboard. And they shall feed me, whether they want to or not. I have a body -- they shall take it instead of pay for the journey.'

She whores herself out to get there. But what happens next, again, shows the complexity of assigning sexual sins:

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"That youth, on hearing my shameless words, laughed and went off. While I, throwing away my spinning wheel, ran off towards the sea in the direction which everyone seemed to be taking. and, seeing some young men standing on the shore, about ten or more of them, full of vigour and alert in their movements, I decided that they would do for my purpose (it seemed that some of them were waiting for more travellers whilst others had gone ashore). Shamelessly, as usual, I mixed with the crowd, saying, `Take me with you to the place you are going to; you will not find me superfluous.' I also added a few more words calling forth general laughter. Seeing my readiness to be shameless, they readily took me aboard the boat. Those who were expected came also, and we set sail at once. How shall I relate to you what happened after this? Whose tongue can tell, whose ears can take in all that took place on the boat during that voyage! And to all this I frequently forced those miserable youths even against their own will. There is no mentionable or unmentionable depravity of which I was not their teacher. I am amazed, Abba, how the sea stood our licentiousness, how the earth did not open its jaws, and how it was that hell did not swallow me alive, when I had entangled in my net so many souls. But I think God was seeking my repentance. For He does not desire the death of a sinner but magnanimously awaits his return to Him.

Here, we see that some of the men accepting her whoring, but she makes special note of the young men who did not accept her whoring, upon whom she forcibly seduced anyways (not hard to do with horny young men, after all). So again, we can see that these young men, despite having sex outside of marriage, are not blameworthy here by the sinner's own words, who is today revered as a Saint. She describes herself as corrupting them, but only in the passive sense - these men were not sinning themselves.

Unless I have erred, this story pretty much supports everything I have researched thus far in this thread. Up next: Orthodox Canon Law, of which I am going through about 1000 years of law. I'm about 50% done with it but I should have more time to focus on it soon.

Samseau, I'd like to understand how you deal with St. Augustine (of Hippo)'s views on sexuality. He predates Aquinas by a good 800 years or so -- thus living in the 1st to 6th centuries, the period under consideration -- and it's well-recognised he influenced Aquinas's writings if not the beliefs of the entire church, Orthodox or Catholic.

Augustine, at least, certainly regards sex outside marriage as a sin full stop, because he regarded sex as for the procreation of children:

Quote:The Good of Marriage, St. Augustine Wrote:

Marriages also have the benefit that sensual or youthful incontinence, even though it is wrong, is redirected to the honorable purpose of having children, and so out of the evil of lust sexual union in marriage achieves something good. Furthermore, parental feeling brings about a moderation in sexual desire, since it is held back and in a certain way burns more modestly. For a kind of dignity attaches to the ardor of the pleasure, when in the act whereby man and woman come together with each other, they have the thought of being father and mother.

Quote:On Marriage and Concupiscence, St. Augustine, Book I, Chapter 16 Wrote:

But in the married, as these things are desirable and praiseworthy, so the others are to be tolerated, that no lapse occur into damnable sins; that is, into fornications and adulteries. To escape this evil, even such embraces of husband and wife as have not procreation for their object, but serve an overbearing concupiscence, are permitted, so far as to be within range of forgiveness, though not prescribed by way of commandment: and the married pair are enjoined not to defraud one the other, lest Satan should tempt them by reason of their incontinence. For thus says the Scripture: "Let the husband render unto the wife her due: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other; except it be with consent for a time, that ye may have leisure for prayer; and then come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment." Now in a case where permission must be given, it cannot by any means be contended that there is not some amount of sin. Since, however, the cohabitation for the purpose of procreating children, which must be admitted to be the proper end of marriage, is not sinful, what is it which the apostle allows to be permissible, but that married persons, when they have not the gift of continence, may require one from the other the due of the flesh - and that not from a wish for procreation, but for the pleasure of concupiscence? This gratification incurs not the imputation of guilt on account of marriage, but receives permission on account of marriage. This, therefore, must be reckoned among the praises of matrimony; that, on its own account, it makes pardonable that which does not essentially appertain to itself. For the nuptial embrace, which subserves the demands of concupiscence, is so effected as not to impede the child-bearing, which is the end and aim of marriage.

Concupiscence to Augustine in essence is the pleasure of lust, the need to bang in essence. He well understood it. And Augustine was even tougher on sex than Aquinas: he believed that any sex other than for procreation was at least a venial sin, if not mortal. Sex inside marriage for pleasure only was, maybe, tolerable to him.

And Augustine writes pretty frankly of his various sexual escapades prior to converting to Christianity later in life; Augustine had a bastard child, Adeotatus, before converting over. He doesn't make much mention of fucking prostitutes in particular, he seems to have been banging sluts given the content of Confessions.

Asserting concupiscence to be a natural and good thing was an element of the Pelagian Heresy. Not saying that's what you're running here, but it's a reason Augustine went into detail on the subject:

Quote:On Marriage and Concupiscence, Chapter 40: Wrote:

In respect, however, to this concupiscence of the flesh, we have striven in this lengthy discussion to distinguish it accurately from the goods of marriage. This we have done on account of our modern heretics, who cavil whenever concupiscence is censured, as if it involved a censure of marriage. Their object is to praise concupiscence as a natural good, that so they may defend their own baneful dogma, which asserts that those who are born by its means do not contract original sin. Now the blessed Ambrose, bishop of Milan, by whose priestly office I received the washing of regeneration, briefly spoke on this matter, when, expounding the prophet Isaiah, he gathered from him the nativity of Christ in the flesh: "Thus," says the bishop, "He was both tempted in all points as a man, Hebrews 4:15 and in the likeness of man He bare all things; but inasmuch as He was born of the Spirit, He kept Himself from sin. For every man is a liar; and there is none without sin but God alone. It has, therefore, been ever firmly maintained, that it is clear that no man from husband and wife, that is to say, by means of that conjunction of their persons, is free from sin. He who is free from sin is also free from conception of this kind." Well now, what is it which St. Ambrose has here condemned in the true doctrine of this deliverance?— is it the goodness of marriage, or not rather the worthless opinion of these heretics, although they had not then come upon the stage? I have thought it worth while to adduce this testimony, because Pelagius mentions Ambrose with such commendation as to say: "The blessed Bishop Ambrose, in whose writings more than anywhere else the Roman faith is clearly stated, has flourished like a beautiful flower among the Latin writers. His fidelity and extremely pure perception of the sense of Scripture no opponent even has ever ventured to impugn." I hope he may regret having entertained opinions opposed to Ambrose, but not that he has bestowed this praise on that holy man.

EDIT: I checked back through the thread to see if there was any mention of Augustine's view. I did find one -- a short reference to the suggestion that Augustine thought of sex similarly to food. Respectfully, this does not seem to at all represent how Augustine thought about sex, either in or out of marriage, on Confessions or any of his documents celebrating marriage in general. He regarded sex not as evil, but only Biblically justified in certain circumstances, so I think it does behoove you to address this issue. I think it's not Aquinas you have to contend with, it's half of Augustine's back catalogue and whether he got the translation entirely wrong -- bearing in mind he knew Latin and Greek (as we know from Confessions) and was living eight centuries closer to Christ than Aquinas was.

Quote: (03-06-2016 11:57 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

Quote: (03-04-2016 04:58 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

Samsaeu, I will pray that the spirit will help you understand its message in relation to the confines of our fleshy prison.

I pray everyday, and it's lead me to the creation of this thread. Now what say you? Too much slavish obedience to the Church with little critical thinking going on here. The Church is not God, the Church is a place for God's people.

Quote:Quote:

Since you're so insistent that premarital sex wasn't a sin until Aquinas got his Latin translation wrong, how do you explain the teachings of the Assyrian Church of the East which which is the product of the first major schism of 381, nearly 850 years before his birth?

http://news.assyrianchurch.org/2015/07/0...ents/12332

And how come the Orthodox Church believes the same thing if as you have claimed earlier in this thread,it lacks familiarity with Aquinas' teachings?

http://www.goarch.org/ourfaith/controversialissues

And you do realise that Latin was only the language of the Western Church. The Assyrian Church uses Syriac and Aramaic, and the original language of the Orthodox Church was Greek. So how did the same teaching arise independently of Aquinas?

Again, your butthurt is hilarious and it's preventing you from reading me correctly.

First, there is the translation error present regarding use of the word fornication. People think fornication means sex in general when in fact it did not mean that back in the 1st-6th centuries.

Second, IN NO WAY do I advocate men should prefer sluts over virgins, or men should try to defraud virgins, or men should just go for a high notch-count.

My point is that, in a world absent of virgins, sex outside of marriage for men is a logical must for those who want to start families and find wives. This is because the nature of women demands it - marrying a non-virginal woman carries insane risks, even without the current marriage laws, because there is very little guarantee she will remain loyal. Modern churches today do not understand this, because the clergy and priests usually marry virgins cultivated within the Church, or remain celibate. They are essentially gameless men who are clueless about the nature of females. It is shameful when they display any lack of empathy for men outside of their privileged situation. A fallen woman must be tamed before she is marriage worthy, and that means sex before marriage. This is the truth confirmed by literally thousands of men within the manosphere, and the truth is the light of God, so therefore anyone opposes this truth must either prove it is not true or they are in direct confrontation with God.

You have no evidence that there has been an error in translation. All you have shown is that two thousand years ago, the Latin root of "fornication" may have had a more limited meaning than we give the English word today. And we can't even be sure of that because in the Latin was divided between formal written Latin, and "Vulgar Latin" which was spoken in the street and of which relatively little written evidence survives. Furthermore the Roman Empire was large and encompassed people of many nationalities and ethnicities most of whom would have had Latin as a second language or descended from people who had it as a second language. We have no way of knowing to what degree the Latin spoken in Gaul was mutually intelligible with the Latin spoken in Rome, Hispania, or North Africa. We don't know what slang words were in use where, and which words, while common to all parts of the empire had different meanings in different places. Two modern examples of English words that mean different things depending where you are from are fanny and shag.

Furthermore Languages evolve over time. Words change to different words, and the meaning of a word may change.

Take a word that is popular on this forum and indeed on this thread - slut

The first recorded use of the word slut (in reality a derivative - sluttish) in the English language is by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales around 1386. It is used to describe a dirty man. About twenty years later the word slut is being used to describe a dirty woman. One hundred and fifty years after that the word has begun to take on the meaning it has today, yet it retained other meanings until into the 19th Century at least. About 630 years has passed since Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales which is about half the length of time separating Christ and Aquinas, yet you insist that the original meaning of the Classical Latin remained the exact same as it evolved into Late Latin, Medieval Latin and the modern Romance Languages until the foremost scholar of his day wrongly translated it into English decades after he died.

Your linguistic analysis is flawed and does not support your conclusions.

Your insistence on reading the Bible without understanding the context in which it was written compounds the error. The reason why there is no condemnation of premarital sex in the Old Testament and only oblique references to it from St Paul, is that there simply weren't any nubile young virgin women running around ready to be deflowered! They were all married, many of them before they hit puberty, and generally before they even lost their virginity.

You can find a thorough description of ancient Hebrew marriage here(yes I know it's probably a JW website, but it pretty accurately describes marriage in ancient Israel). A couple that was betrothed was legally married even if they hadn't consummated their marriage yet. People were often betrothed at a very young age, even as children. In a society where literally everyone is married from childhood or early teenage years, there is no concept of premarital sex unless you're into seducing toddlers. In such a society it makes sense to speak of adultery as a sin rather than pre-marital sex because it would be hard to have pre-marital sex for lack of willing partners.

The only women who in theory would be readily available for extra-marital non-adulterous sex would be widows without family to look after them and orphans. Such women would generally be in a very precarious financial situation, which brings us to the issue of prostitution. You forget that in a pre-industrial, mainly agrarian society without modern medicine and birth control, having extra-marital sex would have been risky. It would have been a very strange woman who would have given it up for free especially if she was in poor - she'd be running the risk of death in childbirth and having a child to support. Any sane woman would have held out for a marriage proposal or demanded cash up front. Just because the bible refers to prostitution but is silent about extra-marital sex without payment doesn't mean the latter wasn't seen as sinful - it simply wasn't seen at all.

It's like claiming that it's OK to covet the Ferrari that your co-worker leases because he's not your neighbour, the Ferrari isn't a donkey, and it doesn't really belong to him!

And claiming that I'm butt hurt doesn't win you the argument. I'm simply pointing out that the evidence doesn't support your thesis. Unfortunately you are so invested in trying to find away around what every orthodox church (and some unorthodox ones) holds to be doctrine that you are refusing to address the substance of my arguments.

As Jayne Cobb said "If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak."

Quote: (03-06-2016 11:57 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

Quote: (03-04-2016 04:58 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

Samsaeu, I will pray that the spirit will help you understand its message in relation to the confines of our fleshy prison.

I pray everyday, and it's lead me to the creation of this thread. Now what say you? Too much slavish obedience to the Church with little critical thinking going on here. The Church is not God, the Church is a place for God's people.

Lot of hubris here.

There has been plenty of arguments for why excessive sex is bad especially for the spirit. Yet you continue to cling to your narrow interpretation of what is written in the Bible.

Continue along your path Samsaeu, as a reader of the Bible you should be aware of this little tidbit of advice:

Pride comes before the fall.

Keep on slaying new strange my friend, hopefully the consequences won't be that bad for you.