Sins of Heterosexuals

Just so homosexuals don't think I'm singling them out, there are many sexual sins that heterosexuals commit. Some of these sins have become so accepted as the norm that people don't even notice them anymore. But be assured, they are still sins:

1) Adultery: This is the big one, the capital "A" sin that any heterosexual can commit. Most people still consider this wrong, at least in the United States. But in Europe, adultery is widely accepted and considered "no big deal."

2) Fornication: Guess what? It's still a sin to have sex with someone you're not married to. Does anyone even remember when people thought this was wrong? It doesn't matter what people think, God still thinks it's a sin.

3) Pornography: Here's another one -- looking at pornography is a sin. Does that surprise you? Pornography is then #1 use of the internet so really it seems a lot of people don't care.

4) Prostitution: Engaging the services of a prostitute is a sin. People might realize this, but they might not realize just how sinful it is. This is not a "victimless" sin -- the prostitute is the victim. Quite often she comes from a home where she was sexually abused, ran away, was raped by a man who put her out as a pimp, and is forced to work for him by threat of violence. Some prostitutes are sex slaves who were kidnapped or sold by their families. Really, hiring a prostitute makes you guilty of everything anyone ever did to her to hurt her and force her into prostitution.

5) Masturbation: This deserves a mention, but I won't go into details.

6) Use of birth control: Only the Catholic Church has held on to this one, but until 1930 every Christian church acknowledged the use of birth control as a sin, even within marriage. In 1930, the Anglicans changed their position, starting them down on the slide into moral irrelevancy.

7) Divorce and remarriage: Only the Catholic Church has held on to this one but it comes straight from the mouth of Jesus. If you divorce your wife and remarry you are committing adultery, and you are forcing your wife into a life of adultery. The Catholic Church grants annulments, but it is a complicated process. Most people don't bother because they don't care about living in a state of sin. The Protestants recruit a lot of Catholics because of this one.

Living with a person of the opposite sex: This is the sin of scandal, a very serious sin according to Jesus because it sets a bad example to children.

9) Withholding sex from your spouse: Guess what ladies, if you're using sex as a weapon against your husband, that's a sin. But this rule also applies to husbands. A woman in France recently sued her husband for lack of sex and won a money judgment.

10) Permanently not having sex with your spouse by mutual agreement: Depending on how you interpret Paul, it is ok to temporarily stop having sex (on this passage the Catholic Church bases its teachings on natural family planning) but it may be a sin to stop having sex permanently, even if both spouses agree. Of course, the Virgin Mary and Joseph did not have sex, so I'm on shaky ground on this one.

 

Thank you for post Blackrook. Thank you for showing how (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up (2,3,5,6,8,9,10) just how (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up the religious way of thinking is.

 

I think there might be a simpler way of explaining this other than by making a list of things that are bad.

What is key here is intent and a simple question: What is central in your life?

The next part is a clarification on what sin is, and, hopefully as you answer the question above, you will see why the sin is destrctive. Sin is not a crime. A crime is a legal write and, for example, jay walking is a crime, but it is certainly not listed as a sin.

Sin is something that comes it between you are your relationship with God. The best definition of sin that I have found is: a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God.

The reason that sex has so many commandments is because it is a natural process that can have great hold over us as human beings. As simply as I can state this, as a man, when you start viewing women as a vessel of sexual pleasure only, you have chosen sex as the center of your life and have drifted from the teachings and wisdom of God.

Its not like God is going to reach out and strike you dead for a sexual sin, but, repeatedy engagement in sexual practices have consequences. Adultry? It will ruin your marriage. Fornication, and yes, even masturbation, lead to pleasure centric attitude in which sex is seem as a mere vessel rather than an expression of love and affection of for your spouse.

The ideal is perhaps more important than the list of sins. A man and woman, married, committed to each other, bound by love and affection with one another, mindful of their duties to each other and their children, and with family as the focus of affection, and children seeing sexuality as a natural extension of a love centered relationship.

That ideal stands in stark contrast to the promiscuity of bar hopping does it not? It should.

I realize that there are many broken families out there, but the closer we are to this ideal, the better off we often find ourselves.

We sometimes get focused on what we are not supposed to do, and miss those things that we are supposed to do.

But, who would not want to be married to a man whose authority and duty, was the service and provision of love and affection to his family? Who actively finds way to be better husband and father?

Again, that stands in stark contrast to guy that just wants to jump on a woman because she has a nice caboose.

And it should

 

Ok, but don't tell me atheists are as moral as Christians, because you have just proven that is not true.

 

The reason I started this thread is because I started thinking about this show called How I Met Your Mother.

The show portrays single young professionals in New York City who have multiple sex partners and unstable relationships that never last more than a few weeks or months.

One of the characters is named Barney, who is said to have had more than 200 sexual partners.

I've been pretty numb to this show but I'm beginning to wake up.

All of the characters (with the exception of monogamous married couple Marshall and Lily) are leading very sinful lives.

Hollywood dumps this stuff into millions of households every week and this is just one show out of hundreds portraying people acting this way.

 

I'm sorry but it's time to stop soft-pedaling this stuff. People are committing sins all over the place and have no clue its even a sin.

The priests and pastors and rabbis and whoever else need to get in the pulpit and start informing people of what's what.

This is a sin. Here's why.

People need it spoken to them plainly and that's not happening.

It's nice to talk about love and forgiveness and mercy and all that, but at some point you have to talk about sin.

 

The MainStream Media (MSM) is controlled by people who hate Christianity.
Those same folks control the NEA and most major Universities. Our sources of info are compromised.
Most of our Christian Evangelists are duped into more than one major historical misinterpretations.

Questioning everything is a good start.

 

I am going to have to disagree with this one.

MSM is controlled by people who think rating are important because ratings are tied to advertising rates - higher rating equal more money.

There is nothing inherently sinful in making a living, and indeed, there are just as many 'good' shows as bad ones on TV. The disney channel pops immediately into mind, and there are agencies that rate television content that will help steer people toward more ... family oriented TV.

I am just not much of a fan in nebulous conspiracies, especially when we have the power to click away from offense - and, if enough of us stop watching .... the show will go away.

Its not the network executives fault they give us what we want when we scream for more.

 

It's a spiritual battle, but the problem is the enemy holds all the major fortifications and controls the battlefield.

Hollywood, on a 24/7 basis, pumps shows into our living rooms portraying glamorous young people engaging in promiscuous lives without suffering any consequences. Many of these shows are aimed at teenage girls.

We almost never see anyone catching a venereal disease or having an unwanted pregnancy. We almost never see the emotional toll it takes on people to engage in meaningless sex with multiple partners. No one ever has to have an abortion to keep up with this lifestyle.

Hollywood portrays promiscuous sex as fun and harmless and suitable for children of all ages.

 

do what thou wilt is the whole of the law

 

People know its a sin.

A couple of things:

#1 - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

#2 - I would remind you of the error of the old testament. It too was a rules based approach to God, and the rules spelled out in deuteronomy are almost identical to the list in the OP (You did leave out beastiality though, shame on you).

But then there is John 8, where Jesus encounters and deal with one of the very sins you list, adultry. It does not end with condemnation, and it certainly does not end with an excuse for the sin. It ends with:

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:11)

That is key - sin no more.

People know that it is a sin, but sex, indeed a desire for love and affection, are powerful things. Running around and avoiding the temptations and desires that pull us in this direction and calling it simply "Sin to be avoided" is ... off putting to say the least.

Each of the sins you listed is at best pointless sexuality, masturbation, or deeply destructive, adultry and prostitution. The wisdom and logic of each commandment makes sense, but sex remains a powerful thing.

And sex is natural.

We avoid the bad ... but we seek and follow the good as well. And life without sex is not a good thing. Sex is part of a love centric relationship, a gift and blessing to be shared between to loving and committed people.

Sex in and of itself is not sinful, it is what WE choose to do with it that is sinful. People have been committing sexual sins (and many others - God loves us anyway) since the dawn of humanity. People have chosen to stop doing them when they realize who destructive the practice is, or deaing with the issues tha tfeed the destructive behavior.

Again, are the men sleeping around with women really happy? Are the women they are sleeping with happy? And yet, that lifestyle can can be trapping when there is no alternative solution offered.

There is a better way. That too needs to be part of the message.

 

Nice. We have a Thelemist amongst us.

Welcome to Religion Forum.

 

I only started this thread so I could show that I am not singling out homosexuals.

The sexual sins of our nation have become so pervasive that we need to abort 3000 unborn babies a day to keep up the lifestyle.

So the sin is really not just lust, its murder.

Murder is a sin that cries out to heaven for justice.

 

B, you are drifting.

1. The choice to have sex often has no physical consequences, particularly if proper protection is used. The destructive effects of this behavior is much like alcohol. A singel drink will not kill you, but excess drinking will ... and promiscuous sex will, if not kill you, certainly have very destructive influences in your life.

2. Even if sex results in an unplanned pregnancy, they are certainly not all aborted. A freind of mine, Christian, wound up with a guy that steadly pressured her for sex, and eventually, believing he was committed, she gave in. She wound up pregnant, and then discovered that the father was married. So she both fornicated and committed adultry. That was destructive.

However, the result is a child, a beautiful girl, intelligent, charming, and a blessing. She is now married to another man, and the child has been raised in a love centered house hold.

The sin was there, but I can see why Jesus is not quite so .... demonstrative with the adulterous woman in the Bible. Sex is ... tricky in a contextual sense, and it is one area of our lives that I think almost all humans WILL sin in.

The lesson there is forgiveness and a realization that the sins of sex must stop if we are to be whole .... and raise our children in a love centered marriage.

3. Abortion is not as simple as wishing to continue promiscuous sexual activity. There are issues with the health of the child, economic inability to care for a child, rape, incest, etc. There are cases where women seek abortions as a simple out, but many women who use this agonize a great deal about the decision.

Again, condemnation may be warranted, but so is compassion, and, more importantly, help when the feeling of helplessness leads to abortion being seen as a viable option.

To be a mother, alone, afraid, scared, and responsible for another when one knows that they cannot take care of themselves? I can think of fewer people more desperate for the love and concern of God.

Those of us whom are perfect are not always the ones who need God's love and compassion. God knows this.

 

Is only in your head, because this god only resides in your imagination.

Too bad you cannot see this.

 

You can stop with the fallacious arguementation FSM boy.

Please do not derail another thread with your demand for evidence nonsense once again.

You made the claim that God is imaginary, so either back it up or shut your flame baiting trap.

 

Dear rstones,

The topic of this thread is the sexual sins of heterosexuals.

If you want to talk about your disbelief in God, please start your own thread.

Thank you for your anticipated courtesy and cooperation.

Most Sincerely,

Blackrook

 

I think the big thing about this is whether or not the person is repentant or not. If they don't care, or they just have sex for fun and think nothing of it, then there is little God can do for them. Jesus forgave the adultering woman because she was repentant, at least I think so. If she acted like she didn't care, or like it was just the way things were, or even that she just liked it and that was that, I think he would have condemned her. But if the sinners are repentant, why wouldn't God accept them back and forgive them?

 

People aren't going to repent when they don't know they're sinning. And the way Hollywood portrays sex as a casual pleasure act to be engaged in between strangers, many people are being misled.

The churches, corrupted themselves, have failed to respond.

This is a moral crisis of major proportion and most people are blinded to it, even within the churches.

 

Well, in that particular story, I think it would be hard NOT to be repentant if you are the caught adulterer. Drug out, your murder demanded for your sin, but really just a clumsy attempt to trap a prophet in a bit of legalese.

I think the important part of that parable that speaks to sin is the first statement, "Let he who is without sin caste the first stone."

None of us can do that.

Sex is .... complicated. A person can indeed choose to ignore the commandments, in more areas than just the sexual arena, but, as I have often said, the proof is in the pudding when it comes to God's wisdom.

A man can indeed become the prodigal son, and they will bear the consequences of the decision. When they are ready, God will be waiting for them to sin no more, be ready with his love, compassion, forgiveness, and with the example of a better way.

 

B:
Every church I have ever been into has sermons on the wiles of sexuality and the benefits of chastity.

 

Dear Blackrook,

These 'sins' you speak of is nonsense. It is a made up word that a made up being says is wrong. What this allows for is religion becoming a crutch for people like yourself and others to voice their disdain for people actions that YOU deem inappropriate. But it allows you to do so in manor that is not considered 'personal'.

If you have a disdain for the way people live their lives, that's fine. But if you want to publicly post these, then expect some backlash. Simple really. Don’t throw stones in a glass house and you wont have problems.

Most Sincerely,

rstones199

 

I have never heard that sermon.

The Catholic Church does not teach that sex is evil or "dirty".

The limitations on sex are placed there because it such a precious gift of God that it must not be misused.

Sex between a husband and wife is the consummation of the sacrament of marriage. It is a holy act.

It's a completely different approach.

 

There is nothing you wrote there that is substantially different than what I have written.

It is a different approach and why I ended with this:

 

Why should I care what any church thinks? Until a few hundred years ago it was the stance of the Catholic Church that the only legitimate way to cure sickness was prayer that the use of any medication was not only a sin, but a sign of witchcraft...