Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[GaryLouisSmith]

Pornographic trivia is bad because unwary people can be persuaded that casual violence and unreal sexual relationships are normal. Good art, like good religion, is defined not by sensation -seeking but by serious concern for truth and beauty.

I rather doubt that those unwary people exist. People are not that stupid. As for whether or not art and religion is defined by sensation, I think they both sometimes are. Seriousness is prudish idea. You should stop trying to dictate to people what is good and bad.

Here is a good video that challenges your idea of the unwary being manipulated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp2vGAD-BGw

[Karpel Tunnel]

Pornographic trivia is bad because unwary people can be persuaded that casual violence and unreal sexual relationships are normal. Good art, like good religion, is defined not by sensation -seeking but by serious concern for truth and beauty.

I think good religion includes, accepts and loves sensation and does not put in the category evil or bad. The Abrahamic religions with their hatred of the body (and the emotions) have defined for 'us' what religion is about.

I am more of a pagan.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Pornographic trivia is bad because unwary people can be persuaded that casual violence and unreal sexual relationships are normal. Good art, like good religion, is defined not by sensation -seeking but by serious concern for truth and beauty.

I think good religion includes, accepts and loves sensation and does not put in the category evil or bad. The Abrahamic religions with their hatred of the body (and the emotions) have defined for 'us' what religion is about.

I am more of a pagan.

When you speak of the Abrahamic religions I think you are thinking of the very prudish British High Church. That certainly is not the whole of Christianity.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I think good religion includes, accepts and loves sensation and does not put in the category evil or bad. The Abrahamic religions with their hatred of the body (and the emotions) have defined for 'us' what religion is about.

I am more of a pagan.

When you speak of the Abrahamic religions I think you are thinking of the very prudish British High Church. That certainly is not the whole of Christianity.

There are so many versions of Christianity, there's pretty much any possible lifestyle in there, but the Bible prioritizes transcendance and controlling the body and emotions. I mean, think of Jesus' redoing of the commandents, sinning inside is even a sin. Clerical celibacy - and while in the Orthodox church priests can be married, bishops cannot, with the implication that the closer to God you are, the less sex is for you. And extramarital sex or premarital sex is forbidden.

If one googles Bible on sensuality it is pretty much the road to a permanent grave, with no qualifiers, such as if it was balanced or coupled with faith it would be ok.

Sensuality has no place in the life of a child of God (1 Peter 4:3). Romans 8:4 says that Christians “do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit.” First John 2:15–16 warns us against loving “the things of this world,” which include the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Those things summarize the heart of sensuality. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). That “cross” symbolizes death to our old sin nature. No one carried a cross who expected to come back alive. Jesus was saying that, in order to follow Him, we must allow Him to kill that old sin nature, which includes sensuality. We cannot please both Jesus and our flesh (Romans 8:8). Jesus is going in the opposite direction of our flesh. So before we can truly follow Christ, we must be willing to die to our old nature, which includes sensuality (1 Peter 2:24; Romans 6:2, 11).

The flesh and the divine are opposed.

People do pretty much whatever they want with scripture and create their own customs, but the particular scripture leads to particular tendencies.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Thanks for the excellent post. Now I have something to think and write about. I am a Christian, but I am most definitely NOT a Calvinist. A Calvinist believes that man’s mind it totally depraved because of the Fall and cannot have direct contact with reality, much less with God. I am of the Armenian side of religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianism which believes that the Fall only affected the body, not the mind, and therefore the mind can have direct awareness of God. Therefore I am of the Charismatic branch of Christianity. One goes directly to God and doesn’t need to go through scripture. Scripture can be interpreted any way you want and theology becomes a mess. The Charismatic side of religion is not so interested in doctrine and interpretation, but in having an experience, a direct experience of God. And that experience is usually not calm and serene, but wild and filled with trembling and shouting. Thus it is a type of shamanism and orphic enthusiasm. And of course it becomes very sensual and even sexual. It is Woodstock of the soul. Calvinists look on in dismay. My grandmother thought Billy Graham was the anti-Christ because he said that speaking in tongues, glossolalia, was from the devil.

As for me, I am gay. I was an early in-your-face gay activist in the 1970s. I was way too bookish for the political activist life, however. I was oversexed and very religious in the charismatic sense. It seems to me obvious that Jesus was gay. People have speculated about the “Disciple that Jesus Loved” in the book of John, but it remains uncertain. Anyway Theodore Jennings Jr., a theologian from University of Chicago Theological Seminary, has written a lot about homosexuality in the Bible - https://www.amazon.com/Man-Jesus-Loved- ... way&sr=8-4 and also https://www.amazon.com/Jacobs-Wound-Hom ... way&sr=8-5 another good book is this one - https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Phallus-Oth ... 910&sr=8-1

They are all rather scholarly but readable.
-
Of course the best book on The American Religion is by Harold Bloom, The American Religion –
https://www.amazon.com/American-Religio ... 465&sr=8-1

I have written a ton about the matter and you can find my books on my blog - https://tapaticmadness.wordpress.com/

Religion ain’t the boring thing you think it is. Jesus is the believer’s trick for the night.

[GaryLouisSmith]

If one googles Bible on sensuality it is pretty much the road to a permanent grave, with no qualifiers, such as if it was balanced or coupled with faith it would be ok.

Here are some good Charismatic religion videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zDLqTMFOM And of course rock-n-roll came out of the black church - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybr2UUJynQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYy-wU1e2tU

Here in Nepal you find the same thing among the Hindus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMKbfRVGzLQ

If you follow the progress of the American Religion, you see that the core of it did not come from Europe, but from Africa and Native American Red Indians. Along with Voodoo. The American religion is shamanism.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Here are some good Charismatic religion videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zDLqTMFOM And of course rock-n-roll came out of the black church - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybr2UUJynQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYy-wU1e2tU

Well, sure, I said all sorts of things can happen within Christianity, but even in the black church that energy had to move outside of the church as ground for music, where the sexuality could be introduced openly.

Here in Nepal you find the same thing among the Hindus - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMKbfRVGzLQ

Hindus aren't Abrahamic.

If you follow the progress of the American Religion, you see that the core of it did not come from Europe, but from Africa and Native American Red Indians. Along with Voodoo. The American religion is shamanism.

And that core is not Christian or Abrahamic. People can manage to have extremely mixed sources and contradictory ones. But Christians are fighting a battle against judgments, explict and implict, against sensuality, the flesh, this world, sex, and bodies. It is demeaned. The true Good is something else. And this is true even in the americas. I mean, sure I'd go to a black church before a white one. I'd attend Mexican ceremonies over US ones. Anywhere the non-Abrahamic elements are in the mix and undermining the Christian elements, the Biblical ones. And I'd go to reformed rather than orthodox Jewish things. Sufis over traditional Muslims - hell, at least they get to spin around and have altered states. And indigeous groups who are so syncretistic it's like Jesus is just another jungle spirit.

People are creative and get around facets of Christianity they don't like, more and more or when it is dropped, fairly recently in history, on some other group.

[Belindi]

Karpel Tunnel wrote:

People are creative and get around facets of Christianity they don't like, more and more or when it is dropped, fairly recently in history, on some other group.

Xity can shape- shift better than other religions because it's founded upon a man's lived experience. Men experience their lives variously. Xity and its major spiritual predecessors the OT prophets identified the origin of the good in a man as his good intentions. Before this time what a man did was evaluated according to reciprocal behaviour.

"Good intentions" undoubtedly include sensuality, reason, ordinary kindness, scientific knowledge, obedience to authority, ethical values, and so forth. All is grist to the mill of goodness. Usually people go for balance between their senses and their reason.

[GaryLouisSmith]

People are creative and get around facets of Christianity they don't like, more and more or when it is dropped, fairly recently in history, on some other group.

I'm having trouble figuring out why you want to prove that Christianity and the Abrahamic religions are so very much against sensuality and sex. Do you have something invested in that idea? Other people, most notably college teachers, want to prove that Plato was just as much against sensuality and sex. They even speak of Platonic Love as non-sexual close friendship. Some say that Christianity got its anti-body attitude from Plato. Then I am the one who comes along and says that none of that is true. "Platonic Love" is not Platonic. And Christianity is not ant-body. Then you come along and you try to prove that I am wrong. What's going on? Why this anti-sex thing? I have my ideas.

If you read about Samuel and David and Saul in the Book of Samuel you can see quite clearly that what that early Israelite religion was, was a phallic cult, a rave. When Samuel was a boy God exposed Himself to him. Later David was God's boy-toy. For those who have eyes to read it all right there in plain sight. God was originally the sexual lover of the Israelite men. WELL, you can just imagine that there were a lot of those men who didn't like that. Some went to the neighboring hill top and worshiped the Great Vulva of the Goddess. But most just rebelled against God's Love and inserted in the Biblical Code laws against sodomy and such. They insisted that God has no body and that He is really just a Great Moral Principle. What I am saying is that it was the heterosexualists who made religion anti-body, anti-sex. What to do? Most mystical literature written by males is homoerotic and therefore unacceptable to the many. And it was the same people who in the Christian Church insisted that God's Love be purely "spiritual" or intellectual and not sexual. It's those damn heterosexualists who have taken the life of the party out of Christianity.

One more thing, the highest value in the West is cleanliness. In science and engineering and housekeeping it is paramount. Sex ain't clean. Here's something I wrote a while back on the topic. https://tapaticmadness.wordpress.com/20 ... e-windows/

[GaryLouisSmith]

Jesus is just another jungle spirit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_nKPDm8__0&t=53s

[Karpel Tunnel]

I'm having trouble figuring out why you want to prove that Christianity and the Abrahamic religions are so very much against sensuality and sex.

From my perspective I believe it and so I am arguing that position. To assume something different seems to imply ad hom type stuff.

Do you have something invested in that idea?

An ad hommie question.

Other people, most notably college teachers, want to prove that Plato was just as much against sensuality and sex. They even speak of Platonic Love as non-sexual close friendship. Some say that Christianity got its anti-body attitude from Plato. Then I am the one who comes along and says that none of that is true. "Platonic Love" is not Platonic. And Christianity is not ant-body. Then you come along and you try to prove that I am wrong. What's going on? Why this anti-sex thing? I have my ideas.

About my motives, well, let's leave those guesses about me out.

If you read about Samuel and David and Saul in the Book of Samuel you can see quite clearly that what that early Israelite religion was, was a phallic cult, a rave. When Samuel was a boy God exposed Himself to him. Later David was God's boy-toy. For those who have eyes to read it all right there in plain sight. God was originally the sexual lover of the Israelite men. WELL, you can just imagine that there were a lot of those men who didn't like that. Some went to the neighboring hill top and worshiped the Great Vulva of the Goddess. But most just rebelled against God's Love and inserted in the Biblical Code laws against sodomy and such. They insisted that God has no body and that He is really just a Great Moral Principle. What I am saying is that it was the heterosexualists who made religion anti-body, anti-sex. What to do? Most mystical literature written by males is homoerotic and therefore unacceptable to the many. And it was the same people who in the Christian Church insisted that God's Love be purely "spiritual" or intellectual and not sexual. It's those damn heterosexualists who have taken the life of the party out of Christianity.

Well could be, but it's been out for a long, long time and the Bible is pretty clear in many places about the proper view of sensuality, in general, and the churches have, in the main passed this on. It is a complicated messy set of texts and there are contradictions, but the category 'the flesh' is a pejorative in the Bible, as I said, Jesus was even more stringent about sinning sexually even just in one's heart, and sensuality is also a perjorative term throughout the Bible.

Perhaps this is not the real Christianity but it's the one I see affecting most of its adherents and more so in the past.

[Karpel Tunnel]

"Good intentions" undoubtedly include sensuality, reason, ordinary kindness, scientific knowledge, obedience to authority, ethical values, and so forth. All is grist to the mill of goodness. Usually people go for balance between their senses and their reason.

Sensuality is negative in the Bible. The flesh is negative in the Bible. I don't think Chritianity presumes our good intentions. We are fallen creatures, originally sinners, with this sensuality we must control and condemn.

[Sculptor1]

Perhaps this is not the real Christianity but it's the one I see affecting most of its adherents and more so in the past.

There is no true Christianity just like there is no true Scotsman.
But at least there is something call Scotland; there is no Christ.

I prefer to judge by deeds and not by empty words; Christians are murdering bastards that have condemned sexuality and vilified homosexuality.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Perhaps this is not the real Christianity but it's the one I see affecting most of its adherents and more so in the past.

There is no true Christianity just like there is no true Scotsman.
But at least there is something call Scotland; there is no Christ.

I prefer to judge by deeds and not by empty words; Christians are murdering bastards that have condemned sexuality and vilified homosexuality.

And their scriptures give them good grounds to do this.

[Belindi]

"Good intentions" undoubtedly include sensuality, reason, ordinary kindness, scientific knowledge, obedience to authority, ethical values, and so forth. All is grist to the mill of goodness. Usually people go for balance between their senses and their reason.

Sensuality is negative in the Bible. The flesh is negative in the Bible. I don't think Chritianity presumes our good intentions. We are fallen creatures, originally sinners, with this sensuality we must control and condemn.

Christianity developed out of the cultural shift of which an early sign is the Commandment "Thou shalt not covet".Here we see that motivation is beginning to take the place of casuistic moral laws.

Jeremiah told how in days to come the Lord would write the Law "on their hearts".

Again there is the appearance of relativity. Jesus said "He who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his own heart". Inner motivation. The critical examination of morals was not limited to the Judeo-Christians. The Greeks understood that morality was relative to the culture in its changes , traditional authorities were not to be blindly obeyed.

Sexual impulses and reproduction have to be controlled in any society. One way to do so was to allow allocated times of misrule when people could get drunk and have orgies. All societies employ kinship restrictions and sexual taboos. I don't think what we can glean of social customs from The Bible shows flesh to be inferior to mind and spirit. Where does The Bible say so? We need to separate doctrine from politicised doctrine.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/embodied ... vFr0xqXgrv