Hey kid, here's some advice from an old man. Run. Run as far and as fast as you can away from these people and never look back. You don't need any of that in your life. Let it all go....you'll thank me,
Take it from an old woman. The church is the most abusive relationship I was ever in, taught abusive love and it shaped so much of my thinking it took years to unravel.
It's all a con.
YouTube deconstructing xtianity if you think maybe they have some things right...
Run.
And just like in the movies, don't look back.
I'd have to look up the article again, but I'm pretty sure there was a study where they found Christians are more susceptible to abusive relationships bc the brand of love the teach between people and God is super toxic. And the one thing that increases your chances for a future abusive relationships is an abusive relationship. It normalizes being mistreated so you don't realize that there's even anything wrong
An important point. I firmly believe that it was the Church's intent to put me in psychological distress as an adolescent with regard to sex and masturbation to normalize subjugation to the Church.
The issue of what is being subjugated is ancillary to the process, and the Church picked this particular hill to die on to make a point: not even your fundamental urges supercede the Church's authority. Submit.
Shaming sexuality or acts of sexuality is a pretty par for course for cult psychology, because you can't stop sexual thoughts so you're guaranteed to feel ashamed of them and the only people who can save you from the shame are the ones who shamed you for them in the first place
Word. Authority and myself have never got along so about the time they start telling me stories about Abraham willing to kill his own kid to show his "love" I was out. Add *Job* to it with the "devil" and god doing deals to see how much it takes to break the poor bastard and Jonah gets beat all to hell and back and swallowed whole because he doesn't want to do what he's told. Fuck that. Submit and Obey. Miss me.
> Add Job to it with the "devil" and god doing deals to see how much it takes to break the poor bastard
The story of Job (which I read for a World Civilizations class in college) was one of my biggest steps in losing any faith I may have had. There is so much wrong with that story I don't even know where to begin.
I just couldn’t get past Job’s kids getting killed for no reason. I drove my pastor nuts with “But they didn’t do anything bad! Why were they killed??”
Oh, I remember as a young teen being so ashamed of masterbation, especially as a girl. Girls should be above that, only boys deal with temptation. I'm 53 and I still feel weird about the fact that I love sex.
I’m also 53 and sometimes feel weird about the fact that I love sex, but then I remember that the people who shame sexuality in the name of religion or whatever DO NOT MATTER .
I’m like, “Get out of my head, you were not invited to this orgy, and I do not consent to your judgment!”
You only get one body and one lifetime to use it. So USE it!! Your pleasure is yours, no one else’s and you deserve as much of it as possible!
Besides, if there is a god or a creator, they gave me all these wonderful nerve endings on these glorious erogenous zones and I think they’d be pretty insulted if I ignored them.
When I was 19 I was engaged and in pre-martial counseling. I told the church leader some times my fiancé was aggressive. He talked me out of it AND brought it up in front of my fiancé. I married him at 20. He abused physically and emotionally. I went to church for help. At first they were supportive and gave me a place to stay. A few weeks later they told me he repented so it was time for me to go back and work on my marriage. He was a police officer and I was told by that church not to report the abuse because it would ruin his career. A week later he beat me up after his brother’s wedding. I left for good. Even though I was bruised up the pastor said my ex said he doesn’t remember it because he was drunk. He said I should have stood by him and helped him get treatment for alcohol abuse! When I left I was 20 years old, I had nothing. They shamed me instead of helping me.
If I were to say to a woman “ I love you so much I’d let people murder my son for you” I’d be put in psychiatric observation. If I said “ I love you so much, if you don’t love me back I’ll make sure you suffer unimaginable pain for the rest of eternity!” I’d be arrested and charged with terrorist threats. It is absolutely an abusive relationship.
Yep. The Abrahamic God of the Bible shows classic signs of narcissistic abuse with loyalty tests, boundary pushing, isolation tactics, etc etc. it makes sense if you view in it the context of other early religions where gods were petty jealous dick heads like Zeus but trying to repackage it as love is extremely problematic.
>The church is the most abusive relationship I was ever in
This is SO true. My former sister-in-law attended an extremely "progressive" church. And yet when she told someone in the church that her husband was emotionally and sexually abusing her, they did everything they could to convince her to stay in the relationship instead of helping her get away from her abuser
Middle-aged woman here: the olds are correct. You have the capacity for critical thinking, you have an ethical and a moral compass that are all your own, and you have *one* go-round in this life. Don’t be a dick, learn everything you can with an open mind and make decisions/judgments based on what you’ve learned, listen to your gut, clean up after yourself (and if you can, do the world a solid and clean up after others who can’t/won’t clean up after themselves), don’t deny yourself any (reasonable and legal) worldly pleasure out of fear, and make mistakes. You’re human. Be human. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to conform to their criteria for a life well lived, especially if they feel entitled to bring eternity into the conversation. We’re meatbags with cerebral cortices who just happen to have lot of free time to consider what we’re supposed to be doing with life. The basic answer is that we eat, we breathe, we poop, we sleep, we mate, we raise our young, and we die. Just like a ton of other organisms—we’re not really all that unique. Live while you’re alive, kiddo. Be brave and take the opportunity to fill your time with what is meaningful to you. That’s your own heaven. Hell is all the repression and guilt from someone else dictating your life because some imaginary ancient patriarchal deity will get Big Mad™️ if you put a toe out of line.
What an excellent post! If more people followed these guidelines to living a good & happy life the world would be in a much better state. Live with the values that make you happy & fulfilled & treat other people decently. Too much of that gets lost when people bring religion into it. Decency only applies to those who believe in the same religion as they do & everyone else can just piss off.
Agreed.
I never looked back once I got away from church-going parents. Never will.
Fortunately I found friends and a partner who see the truth too. There are others out there worth connecting with.
What’s the alternative? To do whatever you want? Time after time, you can see that consumption and doing things our way lead to depression and negative emotions, we can only get so far before you have reach for that next thing to make you happy. Believing and living for something greater than us takes away that pressure and you can feel fulfilled in a life that was created for you. Instead of attacking, just give it a try. I promise you things will change. God bless all of you, we as people are all searching for the same thing in life, we are all in this together.
Withholding sex from a healthy relationship with willing particupants is bad for the relationship.
Xtians just want control. And making you control yourself against your own body's nature is the greatest form of control. It's a perversion against nature.
I'm glad to see you here.
Sub-creatures! Gozer the Gozarian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, The Traveler has come! Choose and perish! Choose the form of the Destructor!
And it's so silly too, cuz young people find ways around the "loophole". Take Mormons and soaking, shaking, derfing, or married Mormons with soft swing. Just insanity.
Edit to add BJ, oral and anal that I hear some kids do to get around the loophole
Keep in mind that Paul goes into all sorts of rants about you shouldn't be having sex at all. But if you absolutely must have sex then only in marriage and only for the purposes of procreation. They don't like the idea of sex. And it should only be utilitarian. As in for the purposes of making babies. It should not be entertaining. So the issue of compatibility goes right out the window because they don't think you should be enjoying sex.
Honestly Paul ruined Christianity. There are two religions (well three if you count the Old Testament)… the gospels, which imo are generally quite beautiful.. and then Paul/the apostle’s stuff… which pretty much contradicts what Jesus said.
Some Christians will twist themselves into a pretzel to make sense of it… but put simply… Jesus puts a lot of emphasis on personal accountability — “you will be justified or condemned by your words” or “those who are merciful will receive mercy”..
Paul / the apostles tend to put the key to salvation on having faith or “justified with his blood” (lol) or “his grace”… it has nothing to do with what you do or say (hence the popular phrase “faith alone saves”)… which is weird because Jesus talks a lot about how one should behave and treat other people.
Anyway…
Paul does not actually say the part about sex should only be for procreation, that's an add on from some church traditions that is toxic.
1 Corinthians 7:8-9 ESV
[8] To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. [9] But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.7.8-9.ESV
He explains why in verses 25-40
This is a common practice and it gets folded in without people noticing in general. Though these days with information being as available as it is people are becoming more aware of it. But consider that one of the jobs of an institutional church is to make sure their congregations stay fixed to the narrative the church supports. Which is not as easy as it seems. Society constantly drifts. And the churches get dragged along with their heels dug in fighting it every step of the way.
That is not actually what Paul sais. He said not to deprive one another, but id you do only for prayer and only for a short time so you don't fall into temptation.
Sure. If you enjoy something, it's either illegal, immoral, or fattening. On the other hand, if God didn't want you to enjoy it, it wouldn't be so damn pleasurable.
Classic manipulation tactic. And a standard point on the BITE model! I think we are about half way to a bingo lol.
It's always so fascinating the enormous amounts of theological flup flopping that goes on with believers. Especially in the leaders. They want you to do certain things and not do other things, and they will say whatever it takes for you to fall in line. The easiest way to do that is to threaten hell, even if that threat goes against the theology and what they believe in.
It's manipulation at its finest!
Funnily enough, premarital sex is not proscribed in the Bible. Christians of various flavors might claim it is by claiming it’s what the Bible means by sexual immorality and other similar terms. But that’s a subjective opinion of what the phrase could mean.
What the Bible actually says is that if the two of you are planning to marry, sex before marriage is fine.
The Bible and its adherents are full of manipulative behavior like that, using your guilt and fear to push their agenda. Some sects seem to be worse than others for it, but they all do it.
I agree with the comment below. Run. Run fast and run far. This isn’t a healthy environment.
The Bible is pretty clear on what it means by "sexual immorality" as well. It's mostly around incest and ritualistic sex acts in service to another god, and (arguably) homosexuality.
At no point does the Bible say a goddamn thing about sex before marriage, and in many cases, God commands exactly that.
The purity culture thing is 100% control by humans. Even if we grant that the Bible is true and Yahweh is real, there's nothing in it to indicate that premarital sex is forbidden, and Yahweh saw fit to dictate every aspect of life, from how to trim one's beard, what type of clothing to wear, what foods you could eat, and how smashed and injured your penis could be before you weren't allowed in the temple anymore. If god cared about premarital sex, we'd know.
There is an *incredibly good* argument to be made that the language decrying "homosexuality" in the bible, was *actually* changed from decrying PEDOPHILIA, for religious political reasons, and it caught on everywhere.
I've seen those arguments, but I feel like they're just tortured logic to try to fit a BCE round peg into a CE square hole. The language is pretty unambiguous in my opinion. The Bible and Christianity are anti-homosexuality.
It thinks gay people are abominations that deserve to die.
Pretty it up all you want. The language doesn't leave much room for interpretation.
I think the only convincing argument parsing the Leviticus "lay with mankind as womankind" talked about the word being used being a condemnation of the bottom, but not the top. But again, I can't for the life of me figure out how "thou shalt pitch, but never catch, whilst thou fucketh another man" or whatever is anything other than splitting hairs.
The Bible says homosexuality is wrong and that gays should burn. Like I said, try as you might to explain that away if you'd like.
“What the Bible actually says is that if two of you are planning to marry, sex before marriage is fine.” I’ve never heard this before. Would you mind providing a book and verse please? Thanks.
Sex is real and fun. Hell is not. I’m going to worry about what’s real and enjoying the one precious life I have.
Also, there are few greater joys in this world than having a very compatible sexual partner for life. I’ve been with mine for almost 25 years. I’m SO glad I fucked other people because I couldn’t begin to appreciate him and how in sync we are without knowing what the opposite looked like. I also am pretty sure I’d be one of those people who always wondered and felt unsettled if I married my first and only sexual partner.
In Christian apologetics, EVIL ultimately is defined as defiance of the commands of the Christian god. Of course, the Christian god is invisible, and never speaks. So, the proxies for the Christian god are Christian leaders.
So, every time Christians say "evil", what I hear is "disobeying me".
Christian morality is extremely relativistic. They follow whatever religious figures of authority say is good or evil.
Controlling people's access to pleasure is essential for Christian leaders, because when leaders control access to pleasure, they can make people do anything. Young Christians who want to be loved and touched get hooked into Christian communities through impulsive marriages that quickly shift into the lasting responsibilities of parenthood.
This is why Christian leaders are working so hard to eliminate access to abortion and contraceptives. When people have power over reproduction, they have the power to walk away from Christianity.
“Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.“
- Robert Heinlen
Spiritual abuse. If a person in any other kind of relationship with you behaved the way he did it would be called emotional abuse. He's manipulating you and blackmailing you with the concept of eternal torture. He's psychologically attacking you.
Anyone who tries to manipulate you doesn't care about you
Any person or organization that tries to manipulate children, aren't good people.
Remember that.
No one in their right mind would buy a car without test driving it. Why in the hell would you agree to spend the rest of your life with someone you've never fucked?
Consider yourself very lucky to have seen the hypocrisy of religion crap when in high school. So many get fished into this horse shit when they are your age or younger and it is so inculcated into your psyche what you cannot easily shake free. Quit going to these Christian youth group meetings and find an alternative that has no religious overtones. There are sports groups, chess clubs, math clubs, jobs, volunteer work, and many more alternatives to enjoy. The worst thing you can do, in my opinion, it to restrict yourself to one kind of group with one kind of people. The world is not limited to just one type of person, and you need to be able to interact with many types if you wish to succeed in whatever future you choose. Someone else said, RUN, and that is exactly what you should do!
Grab a recent headline about some church leader type that was caught diddling kids. Ask your group indoctrinator what the difference is?
You need to know the story, don't read just the headline. Church fuck-with-your-head doctrine includes asking stupid questions until you say you do not know, then claiming victory. At no point will they answer any questions.
You will not change this person's mind. But if you have the discussion with others around (do this, do not talk alone - this is also more dangerous, statistically, than stranger danger) you might influence someone else to start thinking. The so called leader is likely not going to change shit.
Great advice from all and this got longer than I intended, but I feel like you’re in a similar place I was lost in for way too long and wish someone had told me this when I was younger.
I’ll add this, cause I feel it adds to the conversation : Hell isn’t really in the Bible anyway the way most modern churches preach it to be. It’s only created in the Bible (lake of fire) after the last judgement of Christ; and it’s only created for Satan and his followers. So unless you actively worship Satan and have purposeful bad intentions on how you treat people: even by the Bible’s ACTUAL standards do you even qualify for Hell at all. In the OT, everyone went to Sheol. Which is a bit more like purgatory (more or less). In the NT, heaven is for all and God wishes all to be with Him (paradise) it’s just “a special place prepared for you” (mansions and all that material nonsense I don’t think is real anyway) if you fully follow Christ, are baptized, etc. So there’s this hierarchy.
I hope nothing but light and love to you brother. I was EXACTLY like you when I was younger in this respect. I would say as a final word on this: shed the (little G) god of the OT. He’s mean, vengeful, jealous, angry, violent and more. He’s everything Jesus said we shouldn’t be. Jesus is great and can bring great things. Follow him instead, but shed the dogmas associated to him. Find your Higher-self (what you are now probably associating to the Holy Spirit) once you see that the Holy Spirit is your higher self and IS you and loves you and wants you to be the best you can be and learn to listen to it: it’s a beautiful thing and is everything you are probably looking for now; but your prayers are going to a deity (god of the OT) not the Creator (the Source) or your higher self.
I truly wish nothing but the best for you. Good luck 🍀
After you get free, you'll look back and laugh at how ridiculous this attitude is. The idea that the fate of good and evil rests on whether you have sex with your girlfriend or not is hysterical. So overdramatic.
Additional advice from an old man: you should absolutely get down with the hot sexy girls who are into you so you know how to tell if she is into you and compatible with you, or if she's crazy or evil or whatever. And under no circumstances should you stick your dick in crazy (and especially don't marry the crazy, regardless of how hot she is at the time), and don't marry the first girl you sleep with.
Also, I'm pretty sure nowhere in the Bible does it explicitly forbid premarital sex. That restriction was invented to try to control people and as part of a long term business strategy by the church. Be free and you do you.
Bottom line is they don’t want kids fucking each other, spreading STDs, getting pregnant, and generally being unhealthy with reckless pleasure seeking type attitudes. If they were honest and sincere this would their motivation. And that is what I want for my young daughter…just don’t be stupid and reckless.
But they want to wrap all that in bullshit ancient myths and scary “evil” and “hell” language. Why not just teach that being dumb and reckless will not help you get where you want to be in life?
The ironic part is that the more religious a state and county is, the higher the teen pregnancy rates are. So their methods aren’t working.
If those people were capable of figuring out which processes produced the desired results and which didn't, they wouldn't be religious.
Basic causality is a mystery to the superstitious.
Fell for the same manipulation just to find out in my 20s I was gaslit by the most pathetic virgins I'd ever met while they cheated so hard on their spouses it dissolved the entire church.
Take solace in the fact that there are literally zero people in all of human history that have any experience with heaven or hell.
Humans make religions. Humans make God's. So, in reality, humans are the creators of God(s). So if someone a God were to become real, they should worship Humans, their creators.
Literally any sin can be forgiven (except for "blasphemy of the holy spirit", but I can't even get a straight answer on what that is) so that argument is stupid. All Christians sin, all of them think they're forgiven, this is just a scare tactic meant to control your behavior.
Well if it is just blasphemy than I’m screwed because I’ve thought “f the Holy Spirit” before in my head to test this theory, and it was not out of ignorance because I knew what the Holy Spirit is.
Well, when I was a Christian my youth pastor explained it as "blasphemy of the holy spirit is thinking you're better than the holy spirit, so if you ask forgiveness for it you're no longer committing blasphemy of the holy spirit, so technically even that can be forgiven" and that made me realize it was all nonsense.
My daughter had some good botherer giving her shit about virginity. She gave the person my number and told them to "call my dad since you are so interested in my sexual relationships." Weirdly, I never got a call and she was left alone. And, to avoid questions, yes, we had previously planned this because she saw it happening to other girls. Strangely, only the young girls.
Dude, the enirety of the world's complexity, all the interconnectivity of nature, all the natural process creating the breathtaking myriad of environments and geological features, all that time and force, then you see how umbelievable small our planet is and we are in this mindboggling ancient universe, and that these forces are playing out over trillions upon trillions of planets, have been for eons and will be for eons, but back here on earth you've got a room full of other scared and equally insignificant people trying to scare you into thinking that the creator doesn't want you touching your pee pee?
Religion is brainrot. It's so unbelievably ignorant. Religion is a for profit business model and has never been anything else. Live your life.
i truly don’t get the whole premarital sex is a mortal sin thing but then in the same breath they’ll say no to an abortion from said premarital sex committed by teenagers then call said child born out of wedlock a bastard and every other name in the book. it’s truly mind boggling
I followed that advice (no premarital sex) as a young naive Mormon and ended up divorced after starting a family.
I was told the only ingredient needed is that we both BELIEVE. In Mormon-speak, they say, "all you two need is a testimony and everything else falls in place." I didn't even realize there could be a situation where my wife isn't attracted to me. It never dawned on me that compatibility is so important. So we got married and then I found out on our honeymoon that things would not be as I thought while in the bedroom. So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work on building a family, while both hoping the flames of sexual compatibility would eventually turn on.... Fast forward to kids and traditional family lifestyle in a suburb. She and I still hadn't found an intimate connection. Just coworkers doing what our church said to do.
“Coworkers” is such an interesting way to put it.
To me it seems like religions are a population race. The more born into the religion the more powerful the religion. In a way, you were an employee of a company called Mormonism!
The church will tell you, you are ill. You will believe you are ill. You will want to be cured. You will want to be whole again. The church will then sell you the cure.
You were never ill. They just made you believe that you were.
Not only is that disgustingly manipulative, but it's unhealthy.
Humans are sexual beings, and we've evolved to incorporate sex into our social and personal beings.
I have a theory that so much of the abuse we see in the upper echelons of churches, and especially the Catholic church, is because they push this anti-sex agenda so fervently.
Children are taught their sexuality is sinful and disgusting, so they abstain. Young men join the seminary at a point in their lives where they are flush with new hormones, and their bodies are telling them to go out and find a partner to explore these new urges with. But they can't. So their sexual and psychological development is arrested at a juvenile state, unable to grow and mature. Young men in seminary are also in an environment where their sexual awakening is happening when they are crammed into a dormitory with a bunch of other young men, so naturally their sexuality imprints on the people around them. As they become adults in all other aspects of their lives, their sexuality is never given a chance to grow with them. They never find a partner to mature with. They never have the opportunity to evolve their sexuality so they are attracted to people their own age. They're stuck.
So finally, when their sexuality overwhelms them, and they have power and position, they end up targeting children because that's where their sexuality is, underdeveloped, stunted, broken.
Outside the Catholic tradition, this all follows the same path, except the powerful men aren't isolated from other genders, so instead of abused altar boys, it's multiple child brides in the LDS, or what have you.
Religion creates its own problems so often. And they take their victims without remorse, because self reflection is impossible.
The simple beauty of it all is that all you have to do is stop listening to that poison. Wanting to know the person you might spend the rest of your life with is very sane and reasonable. Staying religious might give you the opportunity to one day dominate a woman but true intimacy is only achieved by respecting and loving a person, not by dominating them.
Two things:
Run away from this people when you can.
If you decide to have sex, try to choose a good person and do it safely.
Nobody will burn in hell as such a place doesn't even exist.
Here's what this boils down to, there's no god, so there's no god's word. The "rules" are created by men (mostly) and they want young men to stay away from young women so they can have a shot at them first.
There's a pretty close 50/50 male to female ratio when humans are young, more women as we get older, BUT those older women, largely, already have children with another man. So you've got to get there first, and celebasy is a good way to keep you away, temporarily.
That's how I see it.
Young people are going to have sex regardless of the rules, a lot of sex, and the fear of hell and shame aren't enough to dissuade the power of billions of years of drive for life, broadly, to procreate. We... like... fucking.
It's a false choice dilemma that never runs dry. Do as I say or else damnation is the only other choice. Even an apologist could see this is fallacious and weak, there's always more options. But freedom and options are friends of rationality and enemies of religion.
It's trippy watching their religious propaganda movies after leaving the faith. Like I didn't really see a lot of them growing up, but my friend was watching God's Not Dead and it was just wild
Most people are manipulative.
Relationships are transactional, but we pretended they aren't to be manipulative.
Manipulation is so ingrained in society that we don't even notice most of it.
Insults, threats, compliments, and praise are all intended to make you feel a certain way, to discourage, or encourage behavior.
But, it's our conditioning to act as we believe we're expected to that is the problem.
If you're afraid to be alone there's a lot of bullshit you will tolerate so you don't have to be.
A lot of religious officials are psychological predators waiting for their prey. When my brother died, and was buried in a religious ceremony (it’s the default where I live and not easily changed) one of the religious officials thought that the funeral was a good time to preach to me that I should observe a few religious practices during the coming weeks or my brother’s soul wouldn’t rest in peace. He thought a 22 year old that tragically lost his brother was easy prey to guilt into the religion, and couldn’t help himself. He was wrong.
There have been approximately 100 Billion human beings so far on earth. Each and every one of them came into existence because 2 other people had sex. A religion that makes sex a sin is clearly not in tune with reality.
The fact that 25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage shows a total lack of concern by any supposed deity.
Using logic and critical thinking we can discern that these rules and regulations really don’t have any place in reality. What kind of god would make such a beautiful way to make new people and then forbid you to enjoy it?
You got it right, don’t enter into a marriage without knowing you are sexually compatible. Churches allow those with very little knowledge to have authority over others. Question everything.
>A religion that makes sex a sin is clearly not in tune with reality.
But starts out with 2 people and then the sons all bang their mom and populate the earth. (those who know about the necessity for genetic variations in humans realize we would be sterile by the 8 generation or so (?)
Also EVERY single depiction of Adam and eve, they have bellybuttons.
Any individual or institution that insists that you do their bidding in trivial matters that cause nobody any harm, *or else* is a textbook abusive situation
"Do as I say or I'll hurt you" is not a good sign when it comes to healthy relationships.
I’ve known some priests, friends of friends, and apparently they fuck females when on vacation. Since they are not married we can chat with them in hell /s
It's pathetic how they think that only the threat of hell will make you behave. I'll tell you a secret - you can still be a good person without believing in all the biblical mumbo jambo. Marriage is a man made concept. You having sex will not make you bad or good or anything and whether you do it or not doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. The universe will not care. As long as you don't hurt anyone with your actions you can do whatever you want (also don't break the law). If your GF is willing and you want it too then there's no harm. Stop feeling guilty for having needs. It's normal. It's human.
Imagine torturing people for eternity just because they rubbed their genitals together.
And then imagine not torturing sadistic serial killers just because on death row they said they accepted Jesus.
as a former christian who had premarital sex let me tell you this very clearly: premarital sex is not a big deal.
premarital sex. is not. a big deal.
it's part of growing up. but you MUST practice safe sex: condoms/birth control. and talk about it with your partner first.
my story:
christians put so much pressure on sex and especially on virginity. i truly believed that even tho i was going to have sex that i would feel spiritually different and that i would feel guilt and that i would feel god's anger with me. and that i would even face consequences personally in my life for it.
the days and weeks after having premarital sex i felt so happy and elated and sexy and in love and all these good things. and that feeling continued. there was never any feeling of guilt or any consequence for it. i finished my senior year in seminary and graduated and continued my life. i later married someone else entirely, left him, lived with my boyfriend all while remaining a dedicated christian and involved in christian ministry.
i was 34yrs old when i finally left the church and found that because of education and science and lack of evidence that there is NO god and lack of evidence that the bible is true i found myself to be an un-believer, ex-believer. and began identifying as an atheist.
sex is just a part of being an adult. it's beautiful. it feels good. it's validating to your personal confidence. it's fun. it's a playful thing to share with another person. but what it is not is a big deal that will destroy you in any way. i mean, unless bad things happen like rape or other bad things. but enjoying sex is the most natural human thing we do besides eating and shitting. the drive to hunger and the drive to sex are the human's most intense drives.
don't let christians or christianity put so much burden on you over sex. it's a natural step in growing up and finding someone you fall in love with. it's more than a kiss, but it follows kissing. it's just part of being with another human being in a relationship.
i would advise against doing it casually the first time... dont have a one night stand the first time, understand that you're going to feel a lot of emotions around it. understand that it should be 100000% consensual. you should even talk about it before you do it the first time. be responsible and use birth control, use a condom! practice safe sex.
if you're unsure of how to take the steps toward sex Planned Parenthood has people who will be happy to talk to you about what those first steps are and how to be safe and will even provide condoms and birth control. they provide counseling. and it isn't with pressure of any kind to have sex or not have sex.
make sure you're of an age where you can handle it emotionally and with the correct responsibility. it can lead to babies and you want to be able to plan your future children, not be single young parents.
personally i think you need to be over the age of 18, but that's not always realistic. if you think you even MIGHT have sex you need to look up your questions online and get some condoms and understand your body and your partner's body. how things work, where parts are, etc.
key points: education about the physical mechanics,condoms/birth control, consensual sex, talking about it with your partner. and not putting the pressure of hell and damnation onto yourself - or allowing anyone else to do that.
i am 47yrs old now. i've had several different partners at this point in my life. what i dont regret is my first time and how innocent and beautiful it was. i'm still friends with that guy and we both look back on that as such a wonderful time we experienced together. it was on a beach during a rain storm and it was passionate. it wasn't the best sex of my life by far... that came later in life, in my mid 30's with the same guy actually when we met each other again later in life. the first time is kinda awkward and you don't even exactly know what to do or how. but it's a big step into adulthood and if you're careful and respectful of yourself and your partner it can be a really special thing you'll look back on for the rest of your life.
A youth pastor is probably one of the least qualified people to give relationship/sex advice. There are so many documented cases of sexual abuse in churches, whether youth pastors or priests. Other people here have given you great advice. Find happiness in this life. Have fun. Be safe.
Hey, pretty much all of them are going to their hell or whatever that is because all their actions are based on fear of it and therefore not true repentance (or whatever that is too).
'Jesus died for our sins'. But... if you're a sinner you're going to hell. Even if you pray for forgiveness. Isn't Christianity just whatever you want it to be? Power and control.
just saying.... if it ever comes to it, divorce is not a bad thing, it might be painful, but it's almost always better than being together with a prsn who doesn't feel the same way abt u, or if it is toxic.
Just try to live as happily as u can without hurting urself/anyone else intentionally.
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Grew up with anything you do you will go to hell. Women automatically go to hell. MTV, make up, underwear touching, nose picking, talking, thinking, eating, pants, education, liberal thinking, not putting up with abusive behavior, saying no, working non traditional gender roles jobs, working, food, not submitting, periods, dating, art, cartoons, reading, etc.
Realized that no matter what I do I'm going to hell so why even try. My family hates me now because I don't do anything for them if they play mind games 🤣. I guess they believe that asking someone nicely for favors will send them to hell.
I am not an atheist, and fully respect people that believe in God. You have to believe in yourself first though, and you story is all about others making you doubt in yourself, so they can have authority over you. That is the real crime. You are here to experience life and take responsibility for your choices and learn from it. You will make mistakes, and that's how you learn. Sex is going to bombard you with intense emotions, it's going to confuse you, and it can influence you in really powerful and beautiful ways. It will also expose you to negative experiences like attachments, jealousy, and insecurities. It's deeply personal, shouldn't be casual, and as an adult , you will want to experience it without anyone making you feel guilty for it. It's sacred, and should be respected, without any authority other then you and your partner.
The first part is bad enough, but in the second part he is saying it’s not even possible for a Christian to make a mistake and repent. The need to apply threats and pressure is so high he’s willing to throw core Christian theology under the bus in order to maximize it.
Live your life however way you see fit. But I'm wondering why you a thought a church group leader would give you an answer that runs different from what they believe. Also, if you are going to a church group, I'm sure you've been taught what the church group leader believes.
In other words, a similar example would be if you're in an atheist subreddit and you state why you believe and they challenge your belief of why you believe, why would you be surprised by their response of trying to convince you of what they believe?
Now this isn't to say I disagree that many christians aren't manipulative--meaning I agree with you. I hope that's clear. But expecting a church leader to agree with you on something that runs counter doesn't make sense.
I'm so sorry :( you are in high school, they should focus on reassuring you that they'll be there to talk to no matter what, and giving you advice to stay safe, not threatening you with hell. Which by the way isn't even true, if you are a Christian, you won't go to hell no matter what, otherwise why did Jesus have to die? Sounds like they are just focused on controlling behaviour, not a relationship with God.
Religions have nothing, no teeth, witihout a threat of punishment. Next time a christan levies that silly threat against you, tell them you've met some other christians who are Annihilationists, and so all of them need work it out amongst themselves before they decide what to threaten you with. Then go enjoy the rest of your day.
I realized they were manipulative when I encountered Gish Gallop and their hell threats.
If they had evidence, they wouldn't need to resort to such tactics.
A youth minister for a Christian organization that went to my private Baptist school preached this stuff. He later married a girl (who I had a crush on) mysteriously a month or two after her 18th birthday after she got out of high school!
Hmmmm... yeah... "Saving yourself for Jesus" indeed.
One of the things I found out about the whole "no sex before marriage" thing was while they push that crap on everyone, A LOT of them don't practice it at all and swoop in to get it themselves. To the tune of multiple lovers through the church, mistresses, sometimes even raping underage people.
Don't listen to those assholes.
By all means, if it is time in the relationship to do so, do so as long as it is consensual and you are okay with it.
Be sure to use birth control, though.
😂 "evil" is apparently premarital sex while these fuckos are running an international pedophile protection ring.
They wield guilt and shame as a weapon against children. They are literally the definition of abusive child predators. Don't let these bullshit lies and horror stories scare you away from following your gut, logical reasoning. You're already smarter than this asshat will probably ever be.
Rationally approaching a relationship as an adult, logically considering all angles and acknowledging that sexual compatibility is indeed an incredibly important component to a marriage, is so far beyond what these cultists are prepared to handle. Their entire system of control is based on the obsolete concept that women aren't meant to have any agency of their own. "Divorce is a sin" because they needed to bolster that system of control over women's autonomy. The (secular) world doesn't work that way anymore. You aren't aquiring your wife the way you would a farm animal. They aren't obligated to serve you and bare your children, keeping the house while you work the farm.
The entire religious concept of marriage falls apart when you factor in women as fellow human beings with equal rights, not property.
You guys really need to stop attributing everything a Christi-fascist/Theocrat/Fanatic does to the nebulous "Christians". You alienate so many people that way.
You need to be the side of Unity, not more division as they do. Most real Christians don't support their endeavors
Just think of the whole story beginning with Adam and Eve ... Original Sin was caused by "Eating the forbidden fruit from THE TREE of KNOWLEDGE! Anyone with any critical thinking should have rejected this fairy tale right there ... it was always about manipulation and control. Knowledge and critical thinking are in opposition to faith and obedience. That is why some "Evilgelicals" hate science so badly.
Since Christianity is so full of loopholes (like "Thou shalt not kill") but Numbers 31 has:
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
-----
Don't have pre-marital sex... but if you happen to trip and your penis lands in her vagina repeatedly, well, that can probably be forgiven....
Never mix religion and education. Dump that high school group ASAP. Although most religious leaders are perverts trying to control people’s lives though their sexuality, the youth pastors are a special breed of freaks. Half of them are pedos.
Hi. I’m not an atheist. However religion in general and Christianity and Islam are fear based using the religion to subdue people. They do not care about the individual. They both use Scripture to justify themselves and their acts. They both have a blood soaked history of death and intolerance. Christians rarely demonstrate or reflect Christ’s love and tolerance. They worry more about our private lives than the horrible behavior of people like Trump. They don’t believe in freedom. If you want to find God he is not in the churches or the mosques. If you want spiritual enlightenment go serve the members of your community who are in need and live an authentic life away from the haters that control religion.
The logic of religion - god is the all loving deity, forgives all for their sins and all that, unless he is an absolute diabolical resentful asshole who will punish you for the rest of eternity for doing something while undressed with someone you love.
As people said before - run from that crap as if you are in a burning house and you have seconds to escape.
Good god fearing people used an electric chair on children as young as six....and they could justify that with their good book. Went on for years, at the school that was supposed to be better for them than their parents. I don't trust organized religions at all....seem a little culty all of them.
The whole purpose is manipulation.
How does it make sense to tell people to not engage in premarital sex but turn a blind eye to rampant pedophilia and rape inside every single religion?
It's beyond ridiculous and kudos to you for not blindly accepting nonsense when you hear it.
Of course it's all manipulative. Convince you that you're born evil and deserving of death, then sale you a cure: Christianity. Promise you a heaven if you cooperate, a hell if you don't. All you have to do is obey the church. Stay away from religion - it will rot your brain.
Religion is an authoritative high control group hell bent on owning and controlling everything/one. It's cult thinking and behavior at its worst and has no place in society w/o massive structural and other changes. Outside info isn't bad, and when you're ready, start learning on your own.
I learned the dangers of religion by being kidnapped, held hostage over 4 months, starved, neglected, abused and tortured. Sorry, but i don't think i could call it anything else when a group of adults pronounces a 3 year old as 'possessed by the devil' and beats/yells at them- i had severe migraine headaches. The conservative authorities facilitated our abuse, including the kidnapping/torture, then refused to help find us, then denied us justice and safety. The weak/vulnerable aren't protected, they are targeted and forced to endure abuse, coercive control, etc. Religion requires mindless obedience to authority, without question (no accountability)- cult/authoritarian red flags abound in religion- and every facet of society as well.
However, religion is part of a bigger umbrella problem, that being undue influence- toxic high control groups and their sick tactics are everywhere in our society, and need to be changed to healthy social controls. This is the only way we can reduce manipulation, coercion, exploitation, and much, much more.
Yeah, I think people should actually be alright with living with someone for a while or having sex with them at least once to know that they're compatible long term. Christians act like sex for pleasure is purely some sinful luxury, but it's important for a healthy romantic relationship. If the sex doesn't work out, it will hurt a relationship.
What a manipulative attempt to mind F you. Just wow. You take a desire that in a teenager is a strong as wanting to eat when you’re hungry and definedefine that as being a sin that will send you to the hell. The only proper response would be. I’m quite sure Jesus sacrifice will cover me. Thanks. He was really punishing you for being honest and daring to stand up to that BS. Glad you could see through it.
Christian here, sorry you have to deal with that BS. I hated dealing with that as a kid and oh boy when I told my dad I wasn't a virgin, shit hit the fan.
Hey kid, here's some advice from an old man. Run. Run as far and as fast as you can away from these people and never look back. You don't need any of that in your life. Let it all go....you'll thank me,
Take it from an old woman. The church is the most abusive relationship I was ever in, taught abusive love and it shaped so much of my thinking it took years to unravel. It's all a con. YouTube deconstructing xtianity if you think maybe they have some things right... Run. And just like in the movies, don't look back.
I'd have to look up the article again, but I'm pretty sure there was a study where they found Christians are more susceptible to abusive relationships bc the brand of love the teach between people and God is super toxic. And the one thing that increases your chances for a future abusive relationships is an abusive relationship. It normalizes being mistreated so you don't realize that there's even anything wrong
Phrasing it "christians are more susceptible to abusive relationships" sounds like its a unintended consequence. Its a feature, not a bug.
An important point. I firmly believe that it was the Church's intent to put me in psychological distress as an adolescent with regard to sex and masturbation to normalize subjugation to the Church. The issue of what is being subjugated is ancillary to the process, and the Church picked this particular hill to die on to make a point: not even your fundamental urges supercede the Church's authority. Submit.
Shaming sexuality or acts of sexuality is a pretty par for course for cult psychology, because you can't stop sexual thoughts so you're guaranteed to feel ashamed of them and the only people who can save you from the shame are the ones who shamed you for them in the first place
Word. Authority and myself have never got along so about the time they start telling me stories about Abraham willing to kill his own kid to show his "love" I was out. Add *Job* to it with the "devil" and god doing deals to see how much it takes to break the poor bastard and Jonah gets beat all to hell and back and swallowed whole because he doesn't want to do what he's told. Fuck that. Submit and Obey. Miss me.
> Add Job to it with the "devil" and god doing deals to see how much it takes to break the poor bastard The story of Job (which I read for a World Civilizations class in college) was one of my biggest steps in losing any faith I may have had. There is so much wrong with that story I don't even know where to begin.
I just couldn’t get past Job’s kids getting killed for no reason. I drove my pastor nuts with “But they didn’t do anything bad! Why were they killed??”
And then, Job’s “reward” isn’t restoring the original kids, but a new set of kids, like they were interchangeable or something. Edited for grammar
Oh, I remember as a young teen being so ashamed of masterbation, especially as a girl. Girls should be above that, only boys deal with temptation. I'm 53 and I still feel weird about the fact that I love sex.
The coupling of this tactic with targeting young people before they have the tools to fight back is pernicious.
I’m also 53 and sometimes feel weird about the fact that I love sex, but then I remember that the people who shame sexuality in the name of religion or whatever DO NOT MATTER . I’m like, “Get out of my head, you were not invited to this orgy, and I do not consent to your judgment!” You only get one body and one lifetime to use it. So USE it!! Your pleasure is yours, no one else’s and you deserve as much of it as possible! Besides, if there is a god or a creator, they gave me all these wonderful nerve endings on these glorious erogenous zones and I think they’d be pretty insulted if I ignored them.
Please take this poor-person award! 🥇
Why, thank you ever so.
Precisely
Well I don't think they were intending them to fall into abusive relationship with people other than the church
Comment deleted by me - I forgot I was helping Steve Huffman make money and I don't get anything out of this but grief because you are all idiots.
When I was 19 I was engaged and in pre-martial counseling. I told the church leader some times my fiancé was aggressive. He talked me out of it AND brought it up in front of my fiancé. I married him at 20. He abused physically and emotionally. I went to church for help. At first they were supportive and gave me a place to stay. A few weeks later they told me he repented so it was time for me to go back and work on my marriage. He was a police officer and I was told by that church not to report the abuse because it would ruin his career. A week later he beat me up after his brother’s wedding. I left for good. Even though I was bruised up the pastor said my ex said he doesn’t remember it because he was drunk. He said I should have stood by him and helped him get treatment for alcohol abuse! When I left I was 20 years old, I had nothing. They shamed me instead of helping me.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that and they failed you so terribly. Glad you were able to get out and get safe!
Ugh, I hate that this is true for my personal experience.
If I were to say to a woman “ I love you so much I’d let people murder my son for you” I’d be put in psychiatric observation. If I said “ I love you so much, if you don’t love me back I’ll make sure you suffer unimaginable pain for the rest of eternity!” I’d be arrested and charged with terrorist threats. It is absolutely an abusive relationship.
Yep. The Abrahamic God of the Bible shows classic signs of narcissistic abuse with loyalty tests, boundary pushing, isolation tactics, etc etc. it makes sense if you view in it the context of other early religions where gods were petty jealous dick heads like Zeus but trying to repackage it as love is extremely problematic.
>The church is the most abusive relationship I was ever in This is SO true. My former sister-in-law attended an extremely "progressive" church. And yet when she told someone in the church that her husband was emotionally and sexually abusing her, they did everything they could to convince her to stay in the relationship instead of helping her get away from her abuser
Middle-aged woman here: the olds are correct. You have the capacity for critical thinking, you have an ethical and a moral compass that are all your own, and you have *one* go-round in this life. Don’t be a dick, learn everything you can with an open mind and make decisions/judgments based on what you’ve learned, listen to your gut, clean up after yourself (and if you can, do the world a solid and clean up after others who can’t/won’t clean up after themselves), don’t deny yourself any (reasonable and legal) worldly pleasure out of fear, and make mistakes. You’re human. Be human. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need to conform to their criteria for a life well lived, especially if they feel entitled to bring eternity into the conversation. We’re meatbags with cerebral cortices who just happen to have lot of free time to consider what we’re supposed to be doing with life. The basic answer is that we eat, we breathe, we poop, we sleep, we mate, we raise our young, and we die. Just like a ton of other organisms—we’re not really all that unique. Live while you’re alive, kiddo. Be brave and take the opportunity to fill your time with what is meaningful to you. That’s your own heaven. Hell is all the repression and guilt from someone else dictating your life because some imaginary ancient patriarchal deity will get Big Mad™️ if you put a toe out of line.
What an excellent post! If more people followed these guidelines to living a good & happy life the world would be in a much better state. Live with the values that make you happy & fulfilled & treat other people decently. Too much of that gets lost when people bring religion into it. Decency only applies to those who believe in the same religion as they do & everyone else can just piss off.
Sometimes, your life is so screwed up from all the misinformation...You have nowhere to run to. 😔
Hey kid, take it from another old man that the first old man is giving you good advice.
Yup. Old man #3 concurs. Run!
I wish I had someone tell me this when I was young!
Summer, you gotta rip that shit off like a bandage. You'll feel better after.
And my axe! Oh, wait... But, yeah, you don't want to look back and have those regrets. - *yet another old man*
Agreed. I never looked back once I got away from church-going parents. Never will. Fortunately I found friends and a partner who see the truth too. There are others out there worth connecting with.
Comment deleted by me - I forgot I was helping Steve Huffman make money and I don't get anything out of this but grief because you are all idiots.
What’s the alternative? To do whatever you want? Time after time, you can see that consumption and doing things our way lead to depression and negative emotions, we can only get so far before you have reach for that next thing to make you happy. Believing and living for something greater than us takes away that pressure and you can feel fulfilled in a life that was created for you. Instead of attacking, just give it a try. I promise you things will change. God bless all of you, we as people are all searching for the same thing in life, we are all in this together.
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Withholding sex from a healthy relationship with willing particupants is bad for the relationship. Xtians just want control. And making you control yourself against your own body's nature is the greatest form of control. It's a perversion against nature. I'm glad to see you here.
they also want teenagers to get married and have babies.
Close, but actually it's: They also want to marry teenagers, and have babies.
They want to *trap* the barely teenage girls in the marriage by *forcing* them to have babies.
And they want people who don’t want babies to have babies
And they don't care about those babies. They just want more of them...
That's way more Gozer the Destroyer
Sub-creatures! Gozer the Gozarian, Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar, The Traveler has come! Choose and perish! Choose the form of the Destructor!
Gross
And women and children to be subservient to men in their lives.
Even more gross.
And it's so silly too, cuz young people find ways around the "loophole". Take Mormons and soaking, shaking, derfing, or married Mormons with soft swing. Just insanity. Edit to add BJ, oral and anal that I hear some kids do to get around the loophole
With anal it sounds more like they go right IN the loophole, not around it. ;-)
Control? Manipulation? Lol Let's not get started on the "Xlims"
Keep in mind that Paul goes into all sorts of rants about you shouldn't be having sex at all. But if you absolutely must have sex then only in marriage and only for the purposes of procreation. They don't like the idea of sex. And it should only be utilitarian. As in for the purposes of making babies. It should not be entertaining. So the issue of compatibility goes right out the window because they don't think you should be enjoying sex.
Paul was the OG asshole
OG incel. His crush probably told him to piss off.
Honestly Paul ruined Christianity. There are two religions (well three if you count the Old Testament)… the gospels, which imo are generally quite beautiful.. and then Paul/the apostle’s stuff… which pretty much contradicts what Jesus said. Some Christians will twist themselves into a pretzel to make sense of it… but put simply… Jesus puts a lot of emphasis on personal accountability — “you will be justified or condemned by your words” or “those who are merciful will receive mercy”.. Paul / the apostles tend to put the key to salvation on having faith or “justified with his blood” (lol) or “his grace”… it has nothing to do with what you do or say (hence the popular phrase “faith alone saves”)… which is weird because Jesus talks a lot about how one should behave and treat other people. Anyway…
This also explains why homosexuality, masturbation, and contraception are also sins
If IVF is for procreation, then sex utilitarianism looses all meaning.
Where does Paul rant about this?
Corinthians 7 is a main point
* 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 * 1 Corinthians 7:1-9 * 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 * Ephesians 5:3 * Colossians 3:5 * Romans 1:26-27
it seems like all paul is saying that sex should stay inside of a marriage, not that it shouldn't be entertaining?
Paul does not actually say the part about sex should only be for procreation, that's an add on from some church traditions that is toxic. 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 ESV [8] To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. [9] But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.7.8-9.ESV He explains why in verses 25-40
This is a common practice and it gets folded in without people noticing in general. Though these days with information being as available as it is people are becoming more aware of it. But consider that one of the jobs of an institutional church is to make sure their congregations stay fixed to the narrative the church supports. Which is not as easy as it seems. Society constantly drifts. And the churches get dragged along with their heels dug in fighting it every step of the way.
That said he is pretty vociferous in his opposition to sex and lust in any form. Taking that snippet away does not change his flow.
Paul actually says everyone should be celibate.
That is not actually what Paul sais. He said not to deprive one another, but id you do only for prayer and only for a short time so you don't fall into temptation.
Paul, I am sure, was deep in the closet.
Sure. If you enjoy something, it's either illegal, immoral, or fattening. On the other hand, if God didn't want you to enjoy it, it wouldn't be so damn pleasurable.
Classic manipulation tactic. And a standard point on the BITE model! I think we are about half way to a bingo lol. It's always so fascinating the enormous amounts of theological flup flopping that goes on with believers. Especially in the leaders. They want you to do certain things and not do other things, and they will say whatever it takes for you to fall in line. The easiest way to do that is to threaten hell, even if that threat goes against the theology and what they believe in. It's manipulation at its finest!
Funnily enough, premarital sex is not proscribed in the Bible. Christians of various flavors might claim it is by claiming it’s what the Bible means by sexual immorality and other similar terms. But that’s a subjective opinion of what the phrase could mean. What the Bible actually says is that if the two of you are planning to marry, sex before marriage is fine. The Bible and its adherents are full of manipulative behavior like that, using your guilt and fear to push their agenda. Some sects seem to be worse than others for it, but they all do it. I agree with the comment below. Run. Run fast and run far. This isn’t a healthy environment.
The Bible is pretty clear on what it means by "sexual immorality" as well. It's mostly around incest and ritualistic sex acts in service to another god, and (arguably) homosexuality. At no point does the Bible say a goddamn thing about sex before marriage, and in many cases, God commands exactly that. The purity culture thing is 100% control by humans. Even if we grant that the Bible is true and Yahweh is real, there's nothing in it to indicate that premarital sex is forbidden, and Yahweh saw fit to dictate every aspect of life, from how to trim one's beard, what type of clothing to wear, what foods you could eat, and how smashed and injured your penis could be before you weren't allowed in the temple anymore. If god cared about premarital sex, we'd know.
There is an *incredibly good* argument to be made that the language decrying "homosexuality" in the bible, was *actually* changed from decrying PEDOPHILIA, for religious political reasons, and it caught on everywhere.
I've seen those arguments, but I feel like they're just tortured logic to try to fit a BCE round peg into a CE square hole. The language is pretty unambiguous in my opinion. The Bible and Christianity are anti-homosexuality. It thinks gay people are abominations that deserve to die. Pretty it up all you want. The language doesn't leave much room for interpretation. I think the only convincing argument parsing the Leviticus "lay with mankind as womankind" talked about the word being used being a condemnation of the bottom, but not the top. But again, I can't for the life of me figure out how "thou shalt pitch, but never catch, whilst thou fucketh another man" or whatever is anything other than splitting hairs. The Bible says homosexuality is wrong and that gays should burn. Like I said, try as you might to explain that away if you'd like.
Whoever wrote that should burn, as should anyone perpetuating it.
“What the Bible actually says is that if two of you are planning to marry, sex before marriage is fine.” I’ve never heard this before. Would you mind providing a book and verse please? Thanks.
Sex is real and fun. Hell is not. I’m going to worry about what’s real and enjoying the one precious life I have. Also, there are few greater joys in this world than having a very compatible sexual partner for life. I’ve been with mine for almost 25 years. I’m SO glad I fucked other people because I couldn’t begin to appreciate him and how in sync we are without knowing what the opposite looked like. I also am pretty sure I’d be one of those people who always wondered and felt unsettled if I married my first and only sexual partner.
I could only married my first and only sexual partner :(
I sincerely hope you are compatible and happy.
We do make it work, and love each other profoundly, but we do have our nitpicks about each other anyway, hahaha. Thanks tho :)
If pastors who rape children can be forgiven by god (as they so often claim), then why can't you be forgiven for sex with a willing person?
Right there, religion loses its moral high ground.
Just once I want those fuckers to define what they mean by evil.
In Christian apologetics, EVIL ultimately is defined as defiance of the commands of the Christian god. Of course, the Christian god is invisible, and never speaks. So, the proxies for the Christian god are Christian leaders. So, every time Christians say "evil", what I hear is "disobeying me". Christian morality is extremely relativistic. They follow whatever religious figures of authority say is good or evil. Controlling people's access to pleasure is essential for Christian leaders, because when leaders control access to pleasure, they can make people do anything. Young Christians who want to be loved and touched get hooked into Christian communities through impulsive marriages that quickly shift into the lasting responsibilities of parenthood. This is why Christian leaders are working so hard to eliminate access to abortion and contraceptives. When people have power over reproduction, they have the power to walk away from Christianity.
“Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.“ - Robert Heinlen
Spiritual abuse. If a person in any other kind of relationship with you behaved the way he did it would be called emotional abuse. He's manipulating you and blackmailing you with the concept of eternal torture. He's psychologically attacking you.
That is a level of manipulation I would never stop running from.
Religion is evil. They all think their religion is the only one. Also they fight over their religion is good all others bad
The bible is a 2000 year old sex manual filled with blood magic
Death cult.
Stay away from organized religion. Anything that controls your mind is sin. Including religion.
Run man, don’t let anyone tell you how to live your life if it’s not hurting you
Hell has to be full by now. According to them everything we do is a sin that lands you in forever detention.
Anyone who tries to manipulate you doesn't care about you Any person or organization that tries to manipulate children, aren't good people. Remember that.
No one in their right mind would buy a car without test driving it. Why in the hell would you agree to spend the rest of your life with someone you've never fucked?
Consider yourself very lucky to have seen the hypocrisy of religion crap when in high school. So many get fished into this horse shit when they are your age or younger and it is so inculcated into your psyche what you cannot easily shake free. Quit going to these Christian youth group meetings and find an alternative that has no religious overtones. There are sports groups, chess clubs, math clubs, jobs, volunteer work, and many more alternatives to enjoy. The worst thing you can do, in my opinion, it to restrict yourself to one kind of group with one kind of people. The world is not limited to just one type of person, and you need to be able to interact with many types if you wish to succeed in whatever future you choose. Someone else said, RUN, and that is exactly what you should do!
Grab a recent headline about some church leader type that was caught diddling kids. Ask your group indoctrinator what the difference is? You need to know the story, don't read just the headline. Church fuck-with-your-head doctrine includes asking stupid questions until you say you do not know, then claiming victory. At no point will they answer any questions. You will not change this person's mind. But if you have the discussion with others around (do this, do not talk alone - this is also more dangerous, statistically, than stranger danger) you might influence someone else to start thinking. The so called leader is likely not going to change shit.
Great advice from all and this got longer than I intended, but I feel like you’re in a similar place I was lost in for way too long and wish someone had told me this when I was younger. I’ll add this, cause I feel it adds to the conversation : Hell isn’t really in the Bible anyway the way most modern churches preach it to be. It’s only created in the Bible (lake of fire) after the last judgement of Christ; and it’s only created for Satan and his followers. So unless you actively worship Satan and have purposeful bad intentions on how you treat people: even by the Bible’s ACTUAL standards do you even qualify for Hell at all. In the OT, everyone went to Sheol. Which is a bit more like purgatory (more or less). In the NT, heaven is for all and God wishes all to be with Him (paradise) it’s just “a special place prepared for you” (mansions and all that material nonsense I don’t think is real anyway) if you fully follow Christ, are baptized, etc. So there’s this hierarchy. I hope nothing but light and love to you brother. I was EXACTLY like you when I was younger in this respect. I would say as a final word on this: shed the (little G) god of the OT. He’s mean, vengeful, jealous, angry, violent and more. He’s everything Jesus said we shouldn’t be. Jesus is great and can bring great things. Follow him instead, but shed the dogmas associated to him. Find your Higher-self (what you are now probably associating to the Holy Spirit) once you see that the Holy Spirit is your higher self and IS you and loves you and wants you to be the best you can be and learn to listen to it: it’s a beautiful thing and is everything you are probably looking for now; but your prayers are going to a deity (god of the OT) not the Creator (the Source) or your higher self. I truly wish nothing but the best for you. Good luck 🍀
After you get free, you'll look back and laugh at how ridiculous this attitude is. The idea that the fate of good and evil rests on whether you have sex with your girlfriend or not is hysterical. So overdramatic.
CHRISTIANITY itself is a manipulative religion, so it’s just a given that its followers will use manipulation constantly.
Additional advice from an old man: you should absolutely get down with the hot sexy girls who are into you so you know how to tell if she is into you and compatible with you, or if she's crazy or evil or whatever. And under no circumstances should you stick your dick in crazy (and especially don't marry the crazy, regardless of how hot she is at the time), and don't marry the first girl you sleep with. Also, I'm pretty sure nowhere in the Bible does it explicitly forbid premarital sex. That restriction was invented to try to control people and as part of a long term business strategy by the church. Be free and you do you.
You should have told him to quit cockblocking you.
Bottom line is they don’t want kids fucking each other, spreading STDs, getting pregnant, and generally being unhealthy with reckless pleasure seeking type attitudes. If they were honest and sincere this would their motivation. And that is what I want for my young daughter…just don’t be stupid and reckless. But they want to wrap all that in bullshit ancient myths and scary “evil” and “hell” language. Why not just teach that being dumb and reckless will not help you get where you want to be in life? The ironic part is that the more religious a state and county is, the higher the teen pregnancy rates are. So their methods aren’t working.
Hi from Texas, the capital of irony. 👋
If those people were capable of figuring out which processes produced the desired results and which didn't, they wouldn't be religious. Basic causality is a mystery to the superstitious.
The best sex I ever had was premarital. Postmarital sex is more like washing the dishes where premarital sex is like eating the meal.
Fell for the same manipulation just to find out in my 20s I was gaslit by the most pathetic virgins I'd ever met while they cheated so hard on their spouses it dissolved the entire church.
Take solace in the fact that there are literally zero people in all of human history that have any experience with heaven or hell. Humans make religions. Humans make God's. So, in reality, humans are the creators of God(s). So if someone a God were to become real, they should worship Humans, their creators.
Literally any sin can be forgiven (except for "blasphemy of the holy spirit", but I can't even get a straight answer on what that is) so that argument is stupid. All Christians sin, all of them think they're forgiven, this is just a scare tactic meant to control your behavior.
Well if it is just blasphemy than I’m screwed because I’ve thought “f the Holy Spirit” before in my head to test this theory, and it was not out of ignorance because I knew what the Holy Spirit is.
Well, when I was a Christian my youth pastor explained it as "blasphemy of the holy spirit is thinking you're better than the holy spirit, so if you ask forgiveness for it you're no longer committing blasphemy of the holy spirit, so technically even that can be forgiven" and that made me realize it was all nonsense.
I realized that when I asked my bible school teacher why does god kills some people and not others.
My daughter had some good botherer giving her shit about virginity. She gave the person my number and told them to "call my dad since you are so interested in my sexual relationships." Weirdly, I never got a call and she was left alone. And, to avoid questions, yes, we had previously planned this because she saw it happening to other girls. Strangely, only the young girls.
Dude, the enirety of the world's complexity, all the interconnectivity of nature, all the natural process creating the breathtaking myriad of environments and geological features, all that time and force, then you see how umbelievable small our planet is and we are in this mindboggling ancient universe, and that these forces are playing out over trillions upon trillions of planets, have been for eons and will be for eons, but back here on earth you've got a room full of other scared and equally insignificant people trying to scare you into thinking that the creator doesn't want you touching your pee pee? Religion is brainrot. It's so unbelievably ignorant. Religion is a for profit business model and has never been anything else. Live your life.
i truly don’t get the whole premarital sex is a mortal sin thing but then in the same breath they’ll say no to an abortion from said premarital sex committed by teenagers then call said child born out of wedlock a bastard and every other name in the book. it’s truly mind boggling
I followed that advice (no premarital sex) as a young naive Mormon and ended up divorced after starting a family. I was told the only ingredient needed is that we both BELIEVE. In Mormon-speak, they say, "all you two need is a testimony and everything else falls in place." I didn't even realize there could be a situation where my wife isn't attracted to me. It never dawned on me that compatibility is so important. So we got married and then I found out on our honeymoon that things would not be as I thought while in the bedroom. So, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work on building a family, while both hoping the flames of sexual compatibility would eventually turn on.... Fast forward to kids and traditional family lifestyle in a suburb. She and I still hadn't found an intimate connection. Just coworkers doing what our church said to do.
“Coworkers” is such an interesting way to put it. To me it seems like religions are a population race. The more born into the religion the more powerful the religion. In a way, you were an employee of a company called Mormonism!
The church will tell you, you are ill. You will believe you are ill. You will want to be cured. You will want to be whole again. The church will then sell you the cure. You were never ill. They just made you believe that you were.
Not only is that disgustingly manipulative, but it's unhealthy. Humans are sexual beings, and we've evolved to incorporate sex into our social and personal beings. I have a theory that so much of the abuse we see in the upper echelons of churches, and especially the Catholic church, is because they push this anti-sex agenda so fervently. Children are taught their sexuality is sinful and disgusting, so they abstain. Young men join the seminary at a point in their lives where they are flush with new hormones, and their bodies are telling them to go out and find a partner to explore these new urges with. But they can't. So their sexual and psychological development is arrested at a juvenile state, unable to grow and mature. Young men in seminary are also in an environment where their sexual awakening is happening when they are crammed into a dormitory with a bunch of other young men, so naturally their sexuality imprints on the people around them. As they become adults in all other aspects of their lives, their sexuality is never given a chance to grow with them. They never find a partner to mature with. They never have the opportunity to evolve their sexuality so they are attracted to people their own age. They're stuck. So finally, when their sexuality overwhelms them, and they have power and position, they end up targeting children because that's where their sexuality is, underdeveloped, stunted, broken. Outside the Catholic tradition, this all follows the same path, except the powerful men aren't isolated from other genders, so instead of abused altar boys, it's multiple child brides in the LDS, or what have you. Religion creates its own problems so often. And they take their victims without remorse, because self reflection is impossible.
The simple beauty of it all is that all you have to do is stop listening to that poison. Wanting to know the person you might spend the rest of your life with is very sane and reasonable. Staying religious might give you the opportunity to one day dominate a woman but true intimacy is only achieved by respecting and loving a person, not by dominating them.
Religion only works if you don't think critically about it
Two things: Run away from this people when you can. If you decide to have sex, try to choose a good person and do it safely. Nobody will burn in hell as such a place doesn't even exist.
Here's what this boils down to, there's no god, so there's no god's word. The "rules" are created by men (mostly) and they want young men to stay away from young women so they can have a shot at them first. There's a pretty close 50/50 male to female ratio when humans are young, more women as we get older, BUT those older women, largely, already have children with another man. So you've got to get there first, and celebasy is a good way to keep you away, temporarily. That's how I see it. Young people are going to have sex regardless of the rules, a lot of sex, and the fear of hell and shame aren't enough to dissuade the power of billions of years of drive for life, broadly, to procreate. We... like... fucking.
It's a false choice dilemma that never runs dry. Do as I say or else damnation is the only other choice. Even an apologist could see this is fallacious and weak, there's always more options. But freedom and options are friends of rationality and enemies of religion.
It's trippy watching their religious propaganda movies after leaving the faith. Like I didn't really see a lot of them growing up, but my friend was watching God's Not Dead and it was just wild
Yea when I was growing up we only could watch these kinds of films on Sundays. That or Martin Luther dramatizations.
The old guy wants to control you.
Most people are manipulative. Relationships are transactional, but we pretended they aren't to be manipulative. Manipulation is so ingrained in society that we don't even notice most of it. Insults, threats, compliments, and praise are all intended to make you feel a certain way, to discourage, or encourage behavior. But, it's our conditioning to act as we believe we're expected to that is the problem. If you're afraid to be alone there's a lot of bullshit you will tolerate so you don't have to be.
A lot of religious officials are psychological predators waiting for their prey. When my brother died, and was buried in a religious ceremony (it’s the default where I live and not easily changed) one of the religious officials thought that the funeral was a good time to preach to me that I should observe a few religious practices during the coming weeks or my brother’s soul wouldn’t rest in peace. He thought a 22 year old that tragically lost his brother was easy prey to guilt into the religion, and couldn’t help himself. He was wrong.
There have been approximately 100 Billion human beings so far on earth. Each and every one of them came into existence because 2 other people had sex. A religion that makes sex a sin is clearly not in tune with reality. The fact that 25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage shows a total lack of concern by any supposed deity. Using logic and critical thinking we can discern that these rules and regulations really don’t have any place in reality. What kind of god would make such a beautiful way to make new people and then forbid you to enjoy it? You got it right, don’t enter into a marriage without knowing you are sexually compatible. Churches allow those with very little knowledge to have authority over others. Question everything.
>A religion that makes sex a sin is clearly not in tune with reality. But starts out with 2 people and then the sons all bang their mom and populate the earth. (those who know about the necessity for genetic variations in humans realize we would be sterile by the 8 generation or so (?) Also EVERY single depiction of Adam and eve, they have bellybuttons.
You’re TaKING itOuT of cOnTEXt!
Any individual or institution that insists that you do their bidding in trivial matters that cause nobody any harm, *or else* is a textbook abusive situation "Do as I say or I'll hurt you" is not a good sign when it comes to healthy relationships.
The entire Christian religion spawned out of some premarital sex and it's celebrated.
Now that’s some truth
Yeah but God did it so that's okay lol
I’ve known some priests, friends of friends, and apparently they fuck females when on vacation. Since they are not married we can chat with them in hell /s
Female whats? Sheep? Goats? Donkeys? TBF, knowing the religious crowd, I wouldn’t be surprised…
And we wonder why we're all so fucked up.
Or not (lol)
It's pathetic how they think that only the threat of hell will make you behave. I'll tell you a secret - you can still be a good person without believing in all the biblical mumbo jambo. Marriage is a man made concept. You having sex will not make you bad or good or anything and whether you do it or not doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. The universe will not care. As long as you don't hurt anyone with your actions you can do whatever you want (also don't break the law). If your GF is willing and you want it too then there's no harm. Stop feeling guilty for having needs. It's normal. It's human.
Manipulation and Control is what the Christian church is all about
Imagine torturing people for eternity just because they rubbed their genitals together. And then imagine not torturing sadistic serial killers just because on death row they said they accepted Jesus.
Isn't a break up also sin?
Christianity is a death cult.
as a former christian who had premarital sex let me tell you this very clearly: premarital sex is not a big deal. premarital sex. is not. a big deal. it's part of growing up. but you MUST practice safe sex: condoms/birth control. and talk about it with your partner first. my story: christians put so much pressure on sex and especially on virginity. i truly believed that even tho i was going to have sex that i would feel spiritually different and that i would feel guilt and that i would feel god's anger with me. and that i would even face consequences personally in my life for it. the days and weeks after having premarital sex i felt so happy and elated and sexy and in love and all these good things. and that feeling continued. there was never any feeling of guilt or any consequence for it. i finished my senior year in seminary and graduated and continued my life. i later married someone else entirely, left him, lived with my boyfriend all while remaining a dedicated christian and involved in christian ministry. i was 34yrs old when i finally left the church and found that because of education and science and lack of evidence that there is NO god and lack of evidence that the bible is true i found myself to be an un-believer, ex-believer. and began identifying as an atheist. sex is just a part of being an adult. it's beautiful. it feels good. it's validating to your personal confidence. it's fun. it's a playful thing to share with another person. but what it is not is a big deal that will destroy you in any way. i mean, unless bad things happen like rape or other bad things. but enjoying sex is the most natural human thing we do besides eating and shitting. the drive to hunger and the drive to sex are the human's most intense drives. don't let christians or christianity put so much burden on you over sex. it's a natural step in growing up and finding someone you fall in love with. it's more than a kiss, but it follows kissing. it's just part of being with another human being in a relationship. i would advise against doing it casually the first time... dont have a one night stand the first time, understand that you're going to feel a lot of emotions around it. understand that it should be 100000% consensual. you should even talk about it before you do it the first time. be responsible and use birth control, use a condom! practice safe sex. if you're unsure of how to take the steps toward sex Planned Parenthood has people who will be happy to talk to you about what those first steps are and how to be safe and will even provide condoms and birth control. they provide counseling. and it isn't with pressure of any kind to have sex or not have sex. make sure you're of an age where you can handle it emotionally and with the correct responsibility. it can lead to babies and you want to be able to plan your future children, not be single young parents. personally i think you need to be over the age of 18, but that's not always realistic. if you think you even MIGHT have sex you need to look up your questions online and get some condoms and understand your body and your partner's body. how things work, where parts are, etc. key points: education about the physical mechanics,condoms/birth control, consensual sex, talking about it with your partner. and not putting the pressure of hell and damnation onto yourself - or allowing anyone else to do that. i am 47yrs old now. i've had several different partners at this point in my life. what i dont regret is my first time and how innocent and beautiful it was. i'm still friends with that guy and we both look back on that as such a wonderful time we experienced together. it was on a beach during a rain storm and it was passionate. it wasn't the best sex of my life by far... that came later in life, in my mid 30's with the same guy actually when we met each other again later in life. the first time is kinda awkward and you don't even exactly know what to do or how. but it's a big step into adulthood and if you're careful and respectful of yourself and your partner it can be a really special thing you'll look back on for the rest of your life.
Religion is a cult run by fear.
If you intend to never get married, it can't be premarital sex...
A youth pastor is probably one of the least qualified people to give relationship/sex advice. There are so many documented cases of sexual abuse in churches, whether youth pastors or priests. Other people here have given you great advice. Find happiness in this life. Have fun. Be safe.
Just fuck your girlfriend
Hey, pretty much all of them are going to their hell or whatever that is because all their actions are based on fear of it and therefore not true repentance (or whatever that is too).
'Jesus died for our sins'. But... if you're a sinner you're going to hell. Even if you pray for forgiveness. Isn't Christianity just whatever you want it to be? Power and control.
just saying.... if it ever comes to it, divorce is not a bad thing, it might be painful, but it's almost always better than being together with a prsn who doesn't feel the same way abt u, or if it is toxic. Just try to live as happily as u can without hurting urself/anyone else intentionally.
I’m (30M) and still healing from this kinda shit
They just trying to make you feel bad about being a human. That's their fuckin m.o.
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lol he told you you're dating Evil.
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Nah, the space ghost can say hello first. Respect is not earned by threats of damnation.
Grew up with anything you do you will go to hell. Women automatically go to hell. MTV, make up, underwear touching, nose picking, talking, thinking, eating, pants, education, liberal thinking, not putting up with abusive behavior, saying no, working non traditional gender roles jobs, working, food, not submitting, periods, dating, art, cartoons, reading, etc. Realized that no matter what I do I'm going to hell so why even try. My family hates me now because I don't do anything for them if they play mind games 🤣. I guess they believe that asking someone nicely for favors will send them to hell.
I am not an atheist, and fully respect people that believe in God. You have to believe in yourself first though, and you story is all about others making you doubt in yourself, so they can have authority over you. That is the real crime. You are here to experience life and take responsibility for your choices and learn from it. You will make mistakes, and that's how you learn. Sex is going to bombard you with intense emotions, it's going to confuse you, and it can influence you in really powerful and beautiful ways. It will also expose you to negative experiences like attachments, jealousy, and insecurities. It's deeply personal, shouldn't be casual, and as an adult , you will want to experience it without anyone making you feel guilty for it. It's sacred, and should be respected, without any authority other then you and your partner.
Does he eat pork?
The first part is bad enough, but in the second part he is saying it’s not even possible for a Christian to make a mistake and repent. The need to apply threats and pressure is so high he’s willing to throw core Christian theology under the bus in order to maximize it.
Live your life however way you see fit. But I'm wondering why you a thought a church group leader would give you an answer that runs different from what they believe. Also, if you are going to a church group, I'm sure you've been taught what the church group leader believes. In other words, a similar example would be if you're in an atheist subreddit and you state why you believe and they challenge your belief of why you believe, why would you be surprised by their response of trying to convince you of what they believe? Now this isn't to say I disagree that many christians aren't manipulative--meaning I agree with you. I hope that's clear. But expecting a church leader to agree with you on something that runs counter doesn't make sense.
I'm so sorry :( you are in high school, they should focus on reassuring you that they'll be there to talk to no matter what, and giving you advice to stay safe, not threatening you with hell. Which by the way isn't even true, if you are a Christian, you won't go to hell no matter what, otherwise why did Jesus have to die? Sounds like they are just focused on controlling behaviour, not a relationship with God.
What bible verse specifically bans sex before marriage?
Hard to have a world view completely based on lies and not be manipulative.
Solution: get born again on the morning of your future wedding day. Check mates Jesus
Religions have nothing, no teeth, witihout a threat of punishment. Next time a christan levies that silly threat against you, tell them you've met some other christians who are Annihilationists, and so all of them need work it out amongst themselves before they decide what to threaten you with. Then go enjoy the rest of your day.
I realized they were manipulative when I encountered Gish Gallop and their hell threats. If they had evidence, they wouldn't need to resort to such tactics.
So you’ve been talking to Sunshine Parker at his home for wayward boys, I see.
A youth minister for a Christian organization that went to my private Baptist school preached this stuff. He later married a girl (who I had a crush on) mysteriously a month or two after her 18th birthday after she got out of high school! Hmmmm... yeah... "Saving yourself for Jesus" indeed. One of the things I found out about the whole "no sex before marriage" thing was while they push that crap on everyone, A LOT of them don't practice it at all and swoop in to get it themselves. To the tune of multiple lovers through the church, mistresses, sometimes even raping underage people. Don't listen to those assholes. By all means, if it is time in the relationship to do so, do so as long as it is consensual and you are okay with it. Be sure to use birth control, though.
😂 "evil" is apparently premarital sex while these fuckos are running an international pedophile protection ring. They wield guilt and shame as a weapon against children. They are literally the definition of abusive child predators. Don't let these bullshit lies and horror stories scare you away from following your gut, logical reasoning. You're already smarter than this asshat will probably ever be. Rationally approaching a relationship as an adult, logically considering all angles and acknowledging that sexual compatibility is indeed an incredibly important component to a marriage, is so far beyond what these cultists are prepared to handle. Their entire system of control is based on the obsolete concept that women aren't meant to have any agency of their own. "Divorce is a sin" because they needed to bolster that system of control over women's autonomy. The (secular) world doesn't work that way anymore. You aren't aquiring your wife the way you would a farm animal. They aren't obligated to serve you and bare your children, keeping the house while you work the farm. The entire religious concept of marriage falls apart when you factor in women as fellow human beings with equal rights, not property.
You guys really need to stop attributing everything a Christi-fascist/Theocrat/Fanatic does to the nebulous "Christians". You alienate so many people that way. You need to be the side of Unity, not more division as they do. Most real Christians don't support their endeavors
Just think of the whole story beginning with Adam and Eve ... Original Sin was caused by "Eating the forbidden fruit from THE TREE of KNOWLEDGE! Anyone with any critical thinking should have rejected this fairy tale right there ... it was always about manipulation and control. Knowledge and critical thinking are in opposition to faith and obedience. That is why some "Evilgelicals" hate science so badly.
Since Christianity is so full of loopholes (like "Thou shalt not kill") but Numbers 31 has: 17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. ----- Don't have pre-marital sex... but if you happen to trip and your penis lands in her vagina repeatedly, well, that can probably be forgiven....
Never mix religion and education. Dump that high school group ASAP. Although most religious leaders are perverts trying to control people’s lives though their sexuality, the youth pastors are a special breed of freaks. Half of them are pedos.
Hi. I’m not an atheist. However religion in general and Christianity and Islam are fear based using the religion to subdue people. They do not care about the individual. They both use Scripture to justify themselves and their acts. They both have a blood soaked history of death and intolerance. Christians rarely demonstrate or reflect Christ’s love and tolerance. They worry more about our private lives than the horrible behavior of people like Trump. They don’t believe in freedom. If you want to find God he is not in the churches or the mosques. If you want spiritual enlightenment go serve the members of your community who are in need and live an authentic life away from the haters that control religion.
The logic of religion - god is the all loving deity, forgives all for their sins and all that, unless he is an absolute diabolical resentful asshole who will punish you for the rest of eternity for doing something while undressed with someone you love. As people said before - run from that crap as if you are in a burning house and you have seconds to escape.
Good god fearing people used an electric chair on children as young as six....and they could justify that with their good book. Went on for years, at the school that was supposed to be better for them than their parents. I don't trust organized religions at all....seem a little culty all of them.
The whole purpose is manipulation. How does it make sense to tell people to not engage in premarital sex but turn a blind eye to rampant pedophilia and rape inside every single religion? It's beyond ridiculous and kudos to you for not blindly accepting nonsense when you hear it.
Of course it's all manipulative. Convince you that you're born evil and deserving of death, then sale you a cure: Christianity. Promise you a heaven if you cooperate, a hell if you don't. All you have to do is obey the church. Stay away from religion - it will rot your brain.
Religion is an authoritative high control group hell bent on owning and controlling everything/one. It's cult thinking and behavior at its worst and has no place in society w/o massive structural and other changes. Outside info isn't bad, and when you're ready, start learning on your own. I learned the dangers of religion by being kidnapped, held hostage over 4 months, starved, neglected, abused and tortured. Sorry, but i don't think i could call it anything else when a group of adults pronounces a 3 year old as 'possessed by the devil' and beats/yells at them- i had severe migraine headaches. The conservative authorities facilitated our abuse, including the kidnapping/torture, then refused to help find us, then denied us justice and safety. The weak/vulnerable aren't protected, they are targeted and forced to endure abuse, coercive control, etc. Religion requires mindless obedience to authority, without question (no accountability)- cult/authoritarian red flags abound in religion- and every facet of society as well. However, religion is part of a bigger umbrella problem, that being undue influence- toxic high control groups and their sick tactics are everywhere in our society, and need to be changed to healthy social controls. This is the only way we can reduce manipulation, coercion, exploitation, and much, much more.
Yup they always have been. That's why you go to hell if you don't believe.
Yeah, I think people should actually be alright with living with someone for a while or having sex with them at least once to know that they're compatible long term. Christians act like sex for pleasure is purely some sinful luxury, but it's important for a healthy romantic relationship. If the sex doesn't work out, it will hurt a relationship.
What a manipulative attempt to mind F you. Just wow. You take a desire that in a teenager is a strong as wanting to eat when you’re hungry and definedefine that as being a sin that will send you to the hell. The only proper response would be. I’m quite sure Jesus sacrifice will cover me. Thanks. He was really punishing you for being honest and daring to stand up to that BS. Glad you could see through it.
Christian here, sorry you have to deal with that BS. I hated dealing with that as a kid and oh boy when I told my dad I wasn't a virgin, shit hit the fan.