Discussing non-monogamy with religious people..

[dragonblade 27]

Ok, so maybe that's a wrong title, but I don't know how else to put it. :surrender

 

Here's the deal. At work, a guy that sits near me is a Jehovah's Witness. In and of itself totally not a bad thing, I'm a firm believer in "to each their own". The conversation started with " Have you ever heard of the Roman Saturnalia?" I looked it up, realized it was the Roman feast for the god Saturn back in the day that happens to correspond with Christmas. I was basically like "whoopdedoo, I know already that the Christian holidays are based (timewise) on the pagan holidays, that all came about with Constantine. Besides I'm not your 'typical Christian' and hold some very different beliefs from the norm." We delved further into that conversation.

 

I told him that I believed that Jesus' message was love and that to me cheating and adultery were the same thing, involving lies and deceit. That responsible non-monogamy with full knowledge and consent of BOTH spouses was not a bad thing, and if God wanted everyone to be only monogamous, why did Solomon have over 700 wives and concubines, and why did God say to David after the Bathsheba incident (paraphrasing) " If you wanted any other woman, all you had to do was ask." Not "you're married!! That's WRONG!! " etc etc.

 

Well, he brought up Matthew 5:27, 28. That Jesus spoke against adultery and lust etc. I hadn't done much research and I know that a lot of you have. I am currently trying to do so, but he wants to talk tomorrow lol. I know that several people here have delved far into these things (further than myself anyway) and that Spoo (if I remember correctly) actually has degrees in Christian Theology. Or things along those lines.. so anyone that has delved into this (particularly these verses, but in general) please help me out! I don't want to "prove him wrong" per se, just be clear on my stance and that I believe that Jesus would be cool with this and have some back up. (If that makes sense )

 

Oh and I know about libchrist.com, and I'm looking into stuff there, but that's only one site...

 

Soooooooo any help out there for me?

[Spoomonkey 420]

dragonblade said:

I know that several people here have delved far into these things (further than myself anyway) and that Spoo (if I remember correctly) actually has degrees in Christian Theology.

 

Just one actually - and I am sure that if my college knew, they'd disassociate themselves

 

Being a liberal, agnostic, swinger friend of the gay and lesbian community - I have sort of lost my perspective. My answer now would be - "who cares?" I mean, really. If Jesus was the Son of the Old Testament God (and the two were in fact one), then everything that the Old Testament God did was done through and agreed with by Jesus...

 

You can't really separate the two.

 

But - as far as your answer goes - you already have it in your definition of adultery. Jesus said that the two greatest commandments - and the two on which the entire law hangs - is to love God with all your heart and mind and to love others as yourself. That's it.

 

Not "be faithful, clean-mouthed, well-dressed, in church every Sunday, right about everything, a non-smoker, a listener to Kirk Franklin, chaste, a watcher of only "G" rated movies (except those made by Disney since they support queers), etc." The church has made too many damn rules...

 

Jesus didn't.

 

Sure - he took issue with a few things - mostly self-righteousness - but he never, ever said swinging was wrong. Yes - he was against lust and adultery - which in context was a form of thievery. He was not against love, happiness, laughter - and all the good things that life has to offer.

 

Jesus was saying the Matthew 5, a portion of the Sermon on the Mount, that if a person looks at a woman to lust after her, he needs to pluck his eye out and throw if from him. He was pretty extreme with his prescriptions here - and if we want to take him literally, then there would be a lot of blind men walking around - your friend included.

 

He also prescribed cutting out the tongue and cutting off hands...

 

Strong language...

 

But yet - his disciples were not self-mutilated...

 

Nor has any mainstream religious group taken his teaching literally. Sure - literally enough to tie people up with guilt, but not nearly enough to start lopping off parts.

 

Complete piety would be, quite literally, lame!

 

Actually - if we take the Sermon on the mount and filter it through the "greatest commandments" we have some awesome advice for swinging couples! What sort of place would the lifestyle be if people respected one another? If men looked at women as art - as treasures - as friends; and women returned respect for respect.

 

Friendships would be more common, jealousies would be far less, hurt feelings and bed notchers would be rare.

 

Was he saying don't look at a woman as a sexual being? What sort of crazy, fucked up god makes men visual and then punishes them for looking? It is insane that anyone would think that this makes sense. No - Jesus was telling us to look at each other with respect. To not turn women into objects to be possessed, lessened.

 

Sex is a part of our nature - the sliminess we learn

 

Now - will this argument convince your J-Dub friend? I am sure that it will not. However, swinger or not, it is the position that makes the most sense given the over all context of the Biblical story.

 

In my opinion, anyway

 

PS - To be fair to myself, I wrote this right before bed and I am pretty tired. So the "outline" is sloppy. If it makes no sense - let me know and I'll explain my points better.

[BradAndJanet 70]

Spoo, you can be my preacherman any time. That was one fine sermon.

[avid 134]

::::standing up and applauding Spoomonkey::::

 

Thank you so much for that. You rock.

 

Signed,

 

a former bible-thumping, hand-waving, card-carrying Baptist.

[dayhiker 83]

Hi dragon,

Here's a thought you might ask your neighbor at work.

 

Ask him if God redeems things and people?

I assume he will say yes.

So then ask him if God can redeem pagans. Can God then redeem pagan holidays. That's what I believe, God can redeem anything.

 

As for Mt.5:28 and lusting. The Greek word is often translates covet. So Jesus is saying don't commit adultery or desire to commit adultery. IE covet your neighbor's wife.

 

hope this helps a little more.

[dragonblade 27]

Thanks Spoo. Even tired you make sense to me I don't think either one of us ( my friend and myself) went into this conversation with the intention to change each other's minds. I think it's just about understanding each other. Because of living so far from my family and whatnot, I'm very open about my beliefs in all aspects (though when Mom and I peripherally discussed it she told me she would pray for me ) but he was just interested in how and why I believe as I do. And I know why I do, but it's hard to put verse to verse when I haven't read the whole bible and I haven't tried to pinpoint verse for verse to be able to prove my life, my thoughts etc beyond a shadow of a doubt...I'm the kind of person that will share with you and discuss with you and respect everything you're saying (not agree necessarily but at least respect) as long as you respect me...no, that's not even quite true, I still will respect your ideals if you don't respect me, I just won't talk to you anymore Anyway, being able to talk about those verses as being against a lack of respect for a woman, seeing them as "fresh meat" (for lack of a better term at the moment) instead of the wonderful, beautiful person they are. That's what I gathered you were saying anyway.

 

Thanks again! Any other opinions are more than welcome!

[intuition897 2,179]

Well I had just taken a deep breath and was about to formulate a big long speech...but I think I'll just save my breath and say "big Dito to Spoomonkey."

 

Was he saying don't look at a woman as a sexual being? What sort of crazy, fucked up god makes men visual and then punishes them for looking? It is insane that anyone would think that this makes sense. No - Jesus was telling us to look at each other with respect. To not turn women into objects to be possessed, lessened.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. This is what led me to start questioning my beliefs. I simply can't follow a god that I can be better than in any respect. And when I start to think that perhaps God is making poor decisions or is petty or unfair, I have to wonder...am I just misunderstanding what God is saying, or is He actually really abusing his power the way I think He is?? I just can't follow a god that doesn't make sense, and as Spoo said, to make men and women such robustly sexual creatures and then tell them that they must deny the nature He created in them is just illogical. That is not to say that we cannot control ourselves...indeed we can...but I also can't follow a God who wants his children to be miserable; like any father, I would expect that He would take pleasure in watching his kids play on the swingset in the back yard. When it's nothing but good, clean, harmless fun and no one is being drawn away from God in the process (no one feels morally conflicted), then I just can't see why a celebration of the life He gave us is a bad thing??

 

I've given up on the idea of convincing anyone. I'd love to be completely open with everyone I meet, but I realize that this is just not reality. My mother would be mortally wounded if I even brought up this conversation. Therefore, I won't. I respect their need for distance from such things, and I won't argue with them about my beliefs if I feel it will cause them any grief. My need for vindication will just have to wait.

[JustAskJulie 2,595]

First off Spoo - Well done! I can't wait to see what you come back and post tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

 

I've given up on the idea of convincing anyone. I'd love to be completely open with everyone I meet, but I realize that this is just not reality. My mother would be mortally wounded if I even brought up this conversation. Therefore, I won't. I respect their need for distance from such things, and I won't argue with them about my beliefs if I feel it will cause them any grief. My need for vindication will just have to wait.

 

One of my major beliefs is that everyone has a right to their own beliefs, and just as I want others to respect my beliefs it is important for me to respect theirs, and that more often that not means keeping my mouth closed about my own (just the way I wish they'd do about theirs).

[Chicup 41]

Nice thing about being an atheist is I don't have to mince words with someone over text that has been re-translated a dozen times, to decide where its a good place and where its not a good place to stick my penis.

[Alura 2,773]

Beautiful post, Spoo! Thank you!

[dinkydow4us 15]

Well said Mr. Spoo. You hit the nail square on the head. If you were our minister, I'd think about going back to church.

[hotblueyes 15]

Quote

One of my major beliefs is that everyone has a right to their own beliefs, and just as I want others to respect my beliefs it is important for me to respect theirs, and that more often that not means keeping my mouth closed about my own (just the way I wish they'd do about theirs).

 

As an avowed and outspoken atheist, I do accept the rights of others to believe what ever they want. I do not however have to respect their silly beliefs.

 

Have any of you read Sam Harris (The End Of Faith) or his latest (Letter To A Christian Nation) ?

 

They are both great reading and I highly recommend them.

 

Thanks

[intuition897 2,179]

hotblueyes said:

As an avowed and outspoken atheist, I do accept the rights of others to believe what ever they want. I do not however have to respect their silly beliefs.

 

At the risk of having this thread dissolve into an argument, I just thought I'd comment on this.

 

There are a great many "avowed and outspoken" Christians out there who make it their business to single-handedly save every soul they meet by saying "Praise Jesus" and quoting John 3:16 in every other sentence. Most people don't like these people, and they just are pissed off by them. Why? Because they're obnoxious and don't know when to shut up. I don't have a problem with what they believe - being a believer in Jesus myself - but I do have a problem with their delivery of The Good News and the way they shove their take on Christianity down the throats of those who never asked for their opinion. I will offer up my un-asked-for opinion on occasion if I can do so unobtrusively and if it's relevant to the conversation, but to do it in such a pointed fashion is, I must say, counterproductive.

 

There are few things in this life that we HAVE to do. Breathing is one of them. Respecting one another is not. Neither is being kind or helpful. Neither is loving others. These are not things that we HAVE to do. But we do these things because it makes sense to do them. It is good for us and those that we have to live with (and who have to live with us) here on Earth.

 

hotblueyes, you may not believe the same things that I believe, but it would be appreciated if you can respect that your beliefs are not the only ones worth believing, and that others' beliefs, while "silly" to you, are anything but silly or misguided or foolish to them. A belief in a divine Creator does not satisfy the criteria for defining a person as having a lack of intelligence. Neither does atheism. It's just a difference in what you believe. Why we believe what we believe is what defines our intelligence.

[hotblueyes 15]

Quote

you may not believe the same things that I believe, but it would be appreciated if you can respect that your beliefs are not the only ones worth believing, and that others' beliefs, while "silly" to you, are anything but silly or misguided or foolish to them.

 

First off, I will not resort to an argument that was not and is not my intent.

 

The post was about monogamy and a belief in a god of some kind who might be angry because we swing.

 

I was just trying to expand on spoo's statement "My answer now would be - "who cares?"

 

And I do respect your right to believe what ever you want as long as it does not infringe on me. And that is the rub.

 

You keep referring to my lack of religion as a belief, well it's no such thing.

 

My lack of religion is based on a knowledgeable and reasonable assessment of the historical and scientific facts, it has nothing to do with belief.

 

So my answer is much like the one spoo gave,,,,,,,Who Cares what they think ....

 

thanks

[dragonblade 27]

Thanks to all that have responded thus far. Hotblueeyes makes me think I perhaps didn't word things correctly so let me clarify (to them at least) my intention. I do believe in God and Jesus etc. However, I also believe that the bottom line he taught was love. Love others, love yourself, and above that love him. I also believe there were several gospels left out of the bible and it has been translated (wrongly) SO many times that it more likely than not is far from original intention. The way Constantine decided to put the Bible together is a matter of popularity and politics, but I digress. Regardless, I see the Bible as a good general guidebook to live by.

 

I do NOT believe that He was against swinging, or polyamory, or anything of a nature that is loving and consenting and not hurting others. Do I believe He was against adultery? Of course. Do I believe he was against lying and deceit? Well duh. Yeah. But those things have nothing to do with swinging.

 

My questions were/are about how do I back these things up? I'm not trying to convince him, I know he won't convince me, but I do enjoy intellectual conversation and trying to defend my positions. I just need some help from people that have done more study than myself.

 

For instance, I know that Saul/Paul is known to have severe mental problems, but I can't find where I read that or "prove" it. That's the newest thing that we've moved on to discuss.

 

Also, fornication. as far as I know the only definition for that is "sex before marriage and/or adultery". Is the use of the word fornication in the bible mistranslated from something else?

 

Again, of course I will be attempting my own research, so as to counter points (not because I "HAVE TO BE RIGHT" but because it is stimulating and challenging to me when what I believe is questioned and challenged. Others don't need to concede to it, but I'd like to be.. firm in my stance I guess.

 

Thanks guys!!

[Cpl2share 147]

According to the Bible: Adam and Eve were the original parents. The Bible only names two sons as decendants. Who continued the race? The sons had to either reproduce with Eve or with an un-named sister. This means that God is okay with incest. This will usually cause the person to become completely flustered and re-evaluate the implications of questioning someone elses sexual "morals" based on the Bible.

[intuition897 2,179]

hotblueyes said:

And I do respect your right to believe what ever you want as long as it does not infringe on me. And that is the rub.

 

You keep referring to my lack of religion as a belief, well it's no such thing.

 

Well then I guess we're arguing about being in agreement. No rub here...unless you want one.

 

Blade, another bit of scripture I like to point people to is Romans 14. It basically just tells people that everyone is different and worships in his or her own way...so everybody just mind their own business and don't make life more difficult for one another. It's confusing enough as it is. It refers to food, but food and sex have a great many parallels so it's applicable to either. Not sure if this helped or not.

 

EDIT>> BTW, I don't know if it helps or hinders your purposes that it was written by Paul. I like to think of the Bible as being divinely inspired, but translated by imperfect humans. Like pure light being filtered through a dirty lens. When you rely on a human being to project the message he's received to others, he can't help that his collected memories and life lessons colour the message. Paul was certainly a "colourful" character.

[Alura 2,773]

I'm no fan of Saul of Tarsus. It's my opinion that he changed and confused Jesus' teachings.

 

For instance, Jesus spoke little of sexuality and a lot about love. Paul began today's Christians' negative view of sexuality. Some historians believe he was small, perhaps a dwarf, deformed, perhaps a hunchback, and paranoid. In any case, it is not likely that he was a man most women would choose to flirt with. Perhaps that was the reason for his negativity. One thing, to me, is certain. He did not develop his attitude from Jesus' teachings.

 

Why Constantine chose to include Saul's writings when he ordered the Bible to be compiled is a mystery to me unless the reason was for better control of the masses. Saul's letters did not build upon the values Jesus tried to teach.

[dragonblade 27]

Alura,

 

Where did you find this info about saul though? Any references you can link me to? I've been looking. but thus far haven't found what I am looking for..

 

Thanks.

[Alura 2,773]

What information do you mean, Blade? His attitude or his appearance?

 

For his attitude, just read his epistles in the Bible. There is no way his "hellfire and brimstone" attitude came from the Prince of Peace. Where Jesus was kind, understanding and caring, Saul was brutal and impatient. He seemed to not like women much. Women flocked around Jesus and he respected them.

 

A key, I think, to his writings is that Saul was convinced that God was furious (he failed to understand that fury was not a part of Jesus' personality) because God's only begotten son had been crucified. Therefore, God would surely destroy the world tomorrow, if not five minutes from now. Since the end of the world was at hand, surely mankind should think of nothing else, including sex.

 

His appearance is somewhat more difficult. In the early Sixties, Hugh Hefner wrote a series of articles in Playboy about Paul. I don't remember Hef's references, of course.

 

In the Seventies, I came to know an American college professor who taught at a German university. His German wife was an Egyptologist, well studied in Middle-Eastern history. She knew a lot about Saul.

 

More recently, we had a historian who posted on this board, Quin, who wrote about Saul in a thread similar to this one. She's since left the board. I have no idea how to reach her to learn her sources.

 

A university library might be a better place to conduct research on Saul of Tarsus than the internet.

 

I'm sorry I can't help more. The ugliness of Paul, both mental and physical, have been suppressed in history for two thousand years. A researcher must be determined.

[richdon03 31]

Alura said:

I'm no fan of Saul of Tarsus. It's my opinion that he changed and confused Jesus' teachings.

 

For instance, Jesus spoke little of sexuality and a lot about love. Paul began today's Christians' negative view of sexuality...

 

Others believe his views on sexuality were as they were because he was a homosexual who hated that part of himself. In either case, I find his views in direct contrast to Christs teachings as well. Unfortunately, much of Christendom has taken to following Paul's teachings as though they came from Christ.

 

Most would be well-served to revisit Romans 14 as pointed out by Intuition897 (My forum heroine! ). That is little-known and too rarely emphasized in this day and time. In addition, it is balanced in that it should put this argument to rest. In essence: Believe what you believe. Believe it with all your heart, but keep it to yourself, lest you risk shaking someone else's belief.

 

Blade, you have nothing to prove to your friend, but you must be careful not to damage his belief-systems.

 

 

WOW! What a great discussion!

 

Happy Holidays to you all!

 

[Alura 2,773]

Saul is definitely an enigma; an enigma, in my opinion, not worth trying to solve.

 

His teachings were diametrically opposed to Jesus'. That's all I need to know.

[oddcouple2841 16]

How many here have read Heinlein's JOB: A Comedy of Justice and Stranger in a Strange Land and did they affect your beliefs? Looking through the old posts I find some discussion and here seems like a good place to reopen it.

 

I will have to say the he really affected my thoughts and opened my eyes to things I felt but had not really thought about. This seems especially poignant on the eve of Saturnalia (AKA Christmas).

[nice_cpl_n_bama 24]

As far as discussing non-monogamy with religious people the short answer is DON'T.

 

The ones who are open minded enough to accept the idea, and personally strong enough to overcome the anti-sex religious culture will do the research necessary. They will find out that the Biblical definitions of the words fornication, adultery, and lust are FAR different than the way they are used today. They will find out on their own that the true teachings of Christianity are loving others, not hurting others, forgiveness, and the granting of second chances.

 

If you attempt to discuss it with religious people you will either offend the narrow minded or preach to the choir. There isn't much point to either one.

 

All I can say is if the church would abandon the position of the Pharisees and quit idolizing church law and their own opinions as the Law of God people like Spoo wouldn't be forced to adopt an agnostic position. (No offense meant, Spoo. You were just a handy example.)

[sereneiders 263]

hotblueyes said:

My lack of religion is based on a knowledgeable and reasonable assessment of the historical and scientific facts, it has nothing to do with belief.

 

I agree with Spoo and with you about the "who cares?" approach, however, I have to disagree with you here.

 

You believe on those "knowledgeable and reasonable assessment of the historical and scientific facts", and you believe it has nothing to do with belief.

 

No scientist today would ever dare to say "science leads to the truth". The more likely is they would say something like "science produce models allowing us to explain the subject of study observable behavior", and even so, those models still doesn't cover the whole universe of knowledge. Physics are still looking for some unifying theory able to correct those models, at least where they still collide with each other.

 

However, we may trace back this claim about science as something going beyond beliefs to some more than a century ago, to the positivity approach, "if we may find all the causes, then we'll find out all the consequences", like domino tiles in a row, you tilt the first one and you know when and how the Nth one will fall, so if there exist a God, then He only arranged the tiled and tilted the first one. You shouldn't pray because there's nothing to do about it: there's a fate and the free will is an illusion coming from not knowing the tiles arrangement.

 

But the same science kicked this tile's board and that very comfortable thought and belief you share, opening the door again for some God to be still around, throwing dices to decide our fate. So far, the models tells us there's a limit for what we can manage to know about the cause/effect chains, leading to very controversial philosophic approaches. So far, we rely on indirect ways to observe what cannot be seen with our own eyes, and for those indirect ways to become reliable proxies for our eyes, we give for granted that certain models indeed resemble the world's behavior well enough, and once you observe something, this also reassures the model's validity. This is the very same science you rely on to claim there's no faith leading you: an intellectual construction proven to be very useful so far, whose value is granted by pragmatism, but that's it.

 

Pragmatism (a philosophical approach) is required as to tell this construction "is better than" any other intellectual construction (as a religion could be seen). And yet, there is people around, who have the right to claim their intellectual constructions have as much value for them, under their philosophies, as science for pragmatics, and even when they're outcasted by the pragmatics.

 

Science knowledge validation relies on the negation instead of the affirmation, a theory remains valid until someone proves it wrong, meanwhile can be supposed to be right, and no one inside this paradigm can claim it IS right. We feel comfortable enough as to believe in the knowledge's validity once gathered this way.

 

The problem here is when we do the same many religion apologizers do, claiming our knowledge is "the truth", that we have more grounded means to grant it valid than the means other's have to question it. The positivism (and the associated and undeniable technological advance it provided) became so hegemonic as to push religious people to find "scientific roots" for their beliefs, and even more, this hegemony is what deems the scientific beliefs as knowledge while everything else nor relying on science remains there as a mere belief.

 

And back to the OP's problem, here they are, a religious guy asking the OP to "formalize" her take on the morality of polygamy, as if he were more "scientific" himself because of being able to find more statements in the Bible supporting his own take on this, and pushing her into being more "scientific" and do the same to revalidate her own statements.

 

Whether we like it or not, we all rely on faith, on a set of beliefs able to make us feel comfortable in our every day life, whether it is science, one religion or another, we're all in the same boat, struggling with the same old questions: where we came from, why are we here, where we'll go, and even the denial of those question's answers value is an attempt to answer them.

 

The problem arises when someone else challenges our set of beliefs by exposing us to some other set of beliefs, telling us those other beliefs are "more solid" than ours.

 

Regarding those questions, no one have a "solid enough" belief, so I endorse Spoo's "who cares?" answer. It's much like discussing the sex of the angels.

 

My question for the OP is... WHY do you need to justify your beliefs in front of your coworker?

[dragonblade 27]

Thanks all for posting. Sorry that I haven't been around, but you know Christmas with the opening of presents and the further opening of the darn plastic that surrounds kids toys...I'm finally out of that fray

 

Firstly, to address Sereneiders, it's not that I need to justify my beliefs to him, to me, it's intellectually stimulating, and I like being challenged. I've noticed that he has started to dodge the topics covered though, because he hasn't been able to counter what I've said. He's the same age as myself, (25) and he just got married 4 months ago, and I find it interesting to discuss with him things that he never even contemplated before we started discussing (his words not mine).

 

He wasn't at work today, so no further discussion ensued, but I was talking with a couple other people who wanted to know what we were talking about in depth and I just skimmed the issue saying it was about differences of beliefs and learning from one another.

 

They went on to say that Jehovah's Witnesses are taught to lie to people to draw them in and try to convert them and I might as well not really discuss differences of belief. That their magazine "The Watchtower" told them how to approach people and dismantle their beliefs in attempt to draw them in and lie if necessary. No offense intended if there are any JWs here, but is that true? The other question is: Isn't their bible a lot different from the standard one (for instance KJV)? Note: most of the people in my work are "Christians" and even hold prayer meetings now and again during lunch hour. I don't know if I agree with their approaches, but they mostly leave me alone about that stuff. I never knew Louisiana was "Bible Belt" until I moved here. Anyway, is that stuff true? Or are they basically just saying it because JW's aren't "like them". Just a side note/question out of curiosity.

 

When he comes back to work I am going to point him to Romans 14 like Intuition suggested. (She's my forum heroine too Richdon03 ) I really think this has been a good thread, I've learned a lot about different view points and I value them all.