Living together before marriage - thoughts?

[Deepfake]

You either have willpower to do something or you don't, Traveler.

Jesus didn't get crucified for some reason, now? That's a new one.





EDIT: I'm a troll, now! That's brilliant. I'm not going to ask for an explanation, thanks all the same. I appreciate that instead of simply not continuing to communicate, you have to post your smug affirmation that you have chosen not to discuss it with me.

So you didn't have the willpower not to post in response to me so far as it concerned your ego. See? You either had willpower enough to do something or not do something. Let me know if that changes - it seemed to be your point that your will changes with your mind. I can agree with that, but you haven't said the words (unlike that time where you brought up "not always being at your best").

Perhaps what you meant to say is that your resolve is context-sensitive. Certainly, you're providing an example for change of context. Perhaps, if you'd had the willpower enough to actually see things through, you might have brought this up.

Unfortunately, the circumstance you provided was a "life or death" scenario rather than a "finding your fiance bonable" scenario. You see, we are talking about particular context here, as you attempted to explain - that faith isn't simply general but is instead situational.

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

On your first point, all I can say is that I genuinely appreciate the fullness of your explanation. And to a greater extent, I appreciate the fullness in which you obviously embrace that belief. It's very saddening that anyone would feel they have to go to such lengths to avoid the mis-assumptions of others (ref. having others around when you're with your girlfriend), because I strongly dislike the concept that the opinions of others (particularly the WRONG opinions of others) can have that large of an impact. But cool, that's your life, I just hope you wouldn't advise everyone else to do exactly the same as you. ;)

So, no, not appalled by your religious "wackiness". Maybe appalled that your quest towards God includes the unfair social expectations that have been injected into Christianity (and several other religions, let's not forget).

Also, if you believe that we should be one with God through our lives and actions, then why would you rock the seven deadlies? That is a rather unique way of becoming one with God.

Because I don't follow the Biblical teachings that suggest what I'm doing is against God. My personal path to becoming one with Deity doesn't have to follow a guideline set out in a book written by man. It's assessment, and learning, and doing what I can to be a good person based on experience, not based on the passages of the Bible. In the same way that you believe you are on the path to becoming one with God (or however you would phrase it), a person of another religion might see you breaking one of their cardinal rules and declare the exact same thing of you. While we might be striving towards the same general result, we don't all take the same route. I don't think it's damaging to be prideful or lustful, I believe it's damaging to overindulge in those behaviours. Moderation of all things is more important to me and my beliefs than specifically being humble and chaste. I can be prideful so long as my pridefulness doesn't drive me to act in a way that is unfair or cruel, or be unquestioning in myself. To this end, following the Bible without question is actually more against my beliefs than many things: Christians are taught never to question the Bible, the Church, the religious leaders. That's bad. Questions are what make us improve as people. Questions let you puzzle through things and figure out why something is right or wrong.

This would also be a tremendous difference in perspective, and again, I think you're wrong. (aren't opinions great?) I believe people go through high points and low points, stressful and peaceful, thick and thin. Willpower and determination waver, I believe you will agree with me on that. People are not always at their best; a person who is a vegetarian due to moral choice, who honestly believes that eating meat is a sin, will totally reject that double bacon cheeseburger you offered them. Yet, if that same person found himself a homeless victim of Hurricane Yasi and goes three days without eating, how long before they chow down on that pack of hot dogs they found?

You may disagree with the logic, you may say comparing food to sex is stupid, but either way, I believe the same principle applies on a much larger and more important scale here. People's willpower is not a constant factor; it is subject to wavering, and thus I try never to rely on mine unless I must.

Sure, a person's restraint will waiver, but there are ways of avoiding performing an action you otherwise know you want to avoid (like, you know, just NOT HAVING SEX :p ). Certain situations show this VERY clearly. For instance, I will NEVER forgive a person for shaking their baby. There is NO reason that person's lack of control can be justified. If someone is that unstable, they need to place the baby in its bed and call a ****ing ambulance and say "I'm freaking out, I'm going to shake my baby, I need help". There is no forgiveness, no excuse, no justification for having "a low point" in that situation.

I compared food to sex already. Someone on a diet is tempted to eat cake, but they should not. Someone who is Christian is tempted to have pre-marital sex, but they should not.

A vegetarian put into a situation where they have no other choice but to eat a meat product is in a situation where it's no longer a question of will-power, but now a question of survival. I would never condemn someone for breaking their self-imposed rules under circumstances where it was a survival situation. Just like I do not condemn someone for using self-defense. I do not believe in violence, I do not believe in killing people or animals needlessly, but in a self-defense situation, those things may be necessary for your own survival.

There is not a case where I can see having pre-marital sex as a survival situation (unless we get REALLY crazy here).

So I'm going to just outright tell you you're wrong. You're making the wrong kind of comparison. Which is why I went with diets and cake. A person dieting can continue living even if they break their diet, but it's important to them that they stick to it. A Christian can continue living if they have pre-marital sex, but it's important that they stick to their beliefs. Cake is pretty awesome, so you can understand why a person would be tempted to eat the cake (especially when they're not supposed to). Sex is also pretty awesome, so we all know why it's a temptation (especially when you're not supposed to ;) ). We can live without cake, and we can live without sex. A person dieting can definitely live without cake, and an unmarried person can definitely live without sex.

A vegetarian might not be able to continue living if they haven't eaten for days and still refuse to eat meat that's available.

I like having friends with different ideas. Remember, I need the opportunity to question and grow to feel like I'm actually progressing in my path to God. You present me with that. I either alter my thinking to suit new input, or I become stronger in my ideas because they held up against challenge, still logical, still making sense. So it's awesome that we're friends. :3

[Fairlight Excalibur]

There is not a case where I can see having pre-marital sex as a survival situation (unless we get REALLY crazy here).

Well, this is VGF after all... ;)

So I'm going to just outright tell you you're wrong. You're making the wrong kind of comparison. Which is why I went with diets and cake. A person dieting can continue living even if they break their diet, but it's important to them that they stick to it. A Christian can continue living if they have pre-marital sex, but it's important that they stick to their beliefs. Cake is pretty awesome, so you can understand why a person would be tempted to eat the cake (especially when they're not supposed to). Sex is also pretty awesome, so we all know why it's a temptation (especially when you're not supposed to ). We can live without cake, and we can live without sex. A person dieting can definitely live without cake, and an unmarried person can definitely live without sex.

A vegetarian might not be able to continue living if they haven't eaten for days and still refuse to eat meat that's available.

I pointed out ahead of time that I recognized there were differences in the situations, and my illustration was indeed extreme. However, there will always be differences between illustrations and the discussion they are linked to. Your illustration was also silly; breaking a diet is not a sin, so far as I know, and thus has no bearing on a discussion where morals and ideals are involved. But I'm not going to halt the discussion and argue with you over your illustration when I can clearly see the point you were making. The point I was making is that willpower is not always consistent.

Rather than rely on any further illustration, I'll simply pose to you the same question that AI avoided: Is human willpower 100% consistent, or does it vary depending on time and circumstance?

If your answer is yes, it is consistent, then we have a simple disagreement. If your answer is no, it can change, then you understand my reasoning; I do not want to rely on something that is fallible if there are any other options available.

So, I'm just going to outright tell you that you're wrong.

(Protip: In the Bible, we see that Daniel, Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah were willing to die over their dieting habits, because they felt that eating Babylonian meat would defile their bodies. They were willing to starve to death or perhaps be executed - my illustration not only makes sense, it has a historical equivalent.)


ZeldaGirl, my hat is totally off to you. You spark awesome discussions.

[CaptHayfever]

^In their case, though, the Babylonians knew of Hebrew dietary restrictions & were intentionally starving them of anything but non-kosher foods as a deliberate attack on their beliefs. The Babylonians wanted to see them forsake their Lord. They didn't. Thus they won.

There's this quote I'm fond of:
"You are the child of God's holy gift of life. You come from me, but you are not me. Your soul & your body are your own & yours to do with as you wish."

It's from the movie Secretary. The movie tries to pretend it's a Biblical verse, but it's not. It's read by the main character's father, as his way of blessing & approving her unconventional (read: "dom/sub") romance with the man she's come to love.

The idea of our souls being our own is contrary to what I've learned in religion classes growing up; instead we're taught that our souls are God's (so long as we don't sell them).
But our bodies are our own. That doesn't mean the completely anarchic do-whatever-you-want mentality that some might interpret it as, but rather that we do have to make our own decisions that we can each live with. We rightfully ask God for guidance, but in the end, we were given free will for a reason, that reason being that none of our choices matter a lick if we aren't the ones making them.

Would I have been placing myself in a tempting situation if I had lived with my female friend that year? Probably. She is very attractive. But we each knew we could make the right choices if that had been the case, for a lot of reasons: Our shared devout Christian faith, our looking at each other as essentially siblings, her long-term boyfriend (who 2 years later became her husband, in fact), my still being in love with someone else at the time, et cet.

People who evaluate their major life decisions carefully beforehand tend to do better than people who rush into things. As I said before, a couple who want to move in together so they can screw like rabbits with no one getting in the way shouldn't, not only because of the moral wrongness, but also because they clearly haven't put much thought into the decision. A couple who took the time to carefully weigh their situations first, however, is likely to make what will be good decisions for them.

And you're also assuming that it takes someone being "at their best" to turn down sex.

I'm pretty sure that's what stance Lurch or Sig or one of them used to take whenever I used to talk about how easy it was not to have sex.

It's not "I fell over and my bits went into your bits and I didn't mean to I'm sorry".

I'm also pretty sure that's what happened at the end of Black Sheep.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Deepfake]

I'm pretty sure that's what stance Lurch or Sig or one of them used to take whenever I used to talk about how easy it was not to have sex.

It's not especially surprising, but it does tend to crop up pretty often. Some people aren't especially practiced at any kind of self-control, though, and that has less to do with sex so much as it does goal-orientation. If you're the kind of person who grasps at the closest visible pleasure, of course you're bound to make an error in judgment at some point in your life. I don't see how that applies to every single person, however, and especially not someone with the intention of chaste cohabitation - even before marriage.

Of course, this is all beside the fact that children and teens find it difficult to imagine anything that's generally forbidden to them is somehow going to be absolutely amazing when they finally get to experience it. Lovemaking is something a person gets good at, like most activities. A guilt-laden fling isn't likely to end up the brilliant experience they're probably expecting, and socially conservative attitudes about discussing things like sex are largely to blame for that misconception.

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

Well, I already answered that question (and AI answered it too, actually) with the following paragraph:

Sure, a person's restraint will waiver, but there are ways of avoiding performing an action you otherwise know you want to avoid (like, you know, just NOT HAVING SEX ). Certain situations show this VERY clearly. For instance, I will NEVER forgive a person for shaking their baby. There is NO reason that person's lack of control can be justified. If someone is that unstable, they need to place the baby in its bed and call a ****ing ambulance and say "I'm freaking out, I'm going to shake my baby, I need help". There is no forgiveness, no excuse, no justification for having "a low point" in that situation.

To further explain: I accept that a person's will-power can falter in SOME situations.

I DO NOT accept that their will-power can falter in EVERY situation.

Some situations are so severe, it is unforgivable for their will-power to falter. I do not tolerate that at all. However, many situations (most, even) where a person might sin is not so terribly serious, even to a Christian. If you felt strongly enough about anything, you would NEVER. DO. IT.

You said it yourself, it varies depending on time and circumstance. Certain circumstances are circumstances where a person's will-power will not vary. Will-power is only fallible if you're willing to let it be. If your will-power changes when it's "should I eat the last cookie or not?", that's one thing. If your will-power changes when it's "should I break this very important religious law to suit my boner?", then, you know, that's a WHOLE other issue that the individual has. When we're talking about whether or not someone will have sex, you would absolutely have to choose to go against your beliefs, because we all gladly agree that sex is not an accidental occurrence. If you BELIEVE it's WRONG, your boner shouldn't be enough to make you temporarily think "weeeelllllll okayjustthisonce :3" and then have a regret-fest afterwards.

As for dieting not being the same as sinning, I can just as easily say to you that sin is only valid to you because you already believe in it, you have given it personal value. Whereas to someone like me, sinning is a non-issue because I don't believe in it, and a diet is just as important to the individual dieting as sin is to a Christian (because they have given it personal value).

But instead of saying that ;) , I'll tell you the best analogy I've come up with so far!

Sinning is amputating a piece of your soul.
Confession/repenting/praying, they are the trip to the hospital with your lump of soul put on ice.
God is a whole team of micro-surgeons.
And God's forgiveness is the successful surgery to re-attach your amputated soul-bit.

So when you sin, you lop off some soul (size of that piece depending on the sin you did). You confess/repent/pray your way to the hospital. God fixes your soul up, because he's the awesome team of micro-surgeons that can re-attach the piece with any degree of confidence that the piece will work again afterwards.

Naturally, you don't WANT to amputate a piece of your soul, not even for a little while. That is terrible and awful and you definitely want to avoid it. Even though you know the doctors can fix you up afterwards.

So you avoid sinning. You avoid chopping of any piece of your soul, even if God will forgive it, even if He can sew it back on and make it work afterwards.

How does this even really factor in? Well, a butcher, for instance, has enough experience to be reasonably assured he won't be amputating his fingers when he works with a big slicer machine.

Some folks have enough life-experience to be assured that they will not sin when living in a certain situation.

You wouldn't want someone with no experience to just start working a slicer machine at the butcher's shop, and you wouldn't want someone with no experience just diving head-first into co-habitation with their partner. But with experience, they lessen the danger of the situation. There is always the chance that you'll slip and cut off your finger when you work as a butcher, and there is always the chance that you'll slip and sin as a Christian. But every situation, and every person within that situation has their own experience and their own likely outcome. It's foolish to suggest that the same course of action is the only thing suitable for every person who comes along. Not everyone's going to need a trip to the hospital just because they juggle running chainsaws; some guys have taken years to learn how NOT to amputate their limbs when they are performing a dangerous act.

To this end, we also need to specifically say: you can come back from sinning, but you can't come back from death. People choosing to die rather than eat tainted food have obviously disregarded their survival instincts. In choosing to die, rather than live and acquire forgiveness for their sin (of eating the only thing available to them), I don't think they succeeded in anything other than dying to prove a point. How is this good? They didn't sin, but they cut their life short. How is that better? They would have been forgiven for their sins (or is this before the whole Jesus-on-a-stick scene? because then it has zero to do with our lives today, according to your religion).

[Deku Tree]

So Trav, are you saying that not only cohabitation is wrong, but that any Christian in a relationship that affords any opportunity for sex is wrong?

Do you wear a helmet when you go for a walk because human concentration isn't 100% and you might walk into traffic, or do you forgo the helmet because you're pretty sure you can manage?

[Fairlight Excalibur]

^In their case, though, the Babylonians knew of Hebrew dietary restrictions & were intentionally starving them of anything but non-kosher foods as a deliberate attack on their beliefs. The Babylonians wanted to see them forsake their Lord. They didn't. Thus they won.

I think you are reading too much into that passage. According to verses later in the same chapter (15-16), Melzar's actions were purely pragmatic. He thought Babylonian cuisine was healthier, and thus that was all that was served. It had nothing to do with forcing defilement upon them.

No and no. I am not in traffic frequently, and when I am in traffic, my focus is generally heightened due to imminent danger and my own personal desire to not be struck by a moving object of much greater mass than myself. However, if I were in a situation which resulted in my being in traffic for extended periods of time and I had an innate internal desire to be hit by a truck, I would probably invest in one.



@EssDee
Fair enough - I believe we have reached an impasse. My goal in these conversations is always to achieve a better understanding of my opponent's viewpoint rather than refutation of it (hence I spend more time elaborating my own points rather than poking holes in someone else's [hence I usually spend entire discussions on the defensive end of things]), and I believe we have reached that goal.

[United Nations]

I am not in traffic frequently, and when I am in traffic, my focus is generally heightened due to imminent danger and my own personal desire to not be struck by a moving object of much greater mass than myself. However, if I were in a situation which resulted in my being in traffic for extended periods of time and I had an innate internal desire to be hit by a truck, I would probably invest in one.

Wait, is your girlfriend the truck with the "much greater mass" than yourself? ;)

[CaptHayfever]

^
Ohhhhhhhhhh, you gonna take me home tonight!
Ohhhhhhhhhh, down beside that red firelight!

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Bomby]

So does this mean that if I don't plan on ever getting married, I am to never have sex again?

[ZeldaGirl]

Perhaps we should move on to - why is pre-marital sex wrong?

[Fairlight Excalibur]

So does this mean that if I don't plan on ever getting married, I am to never have sex again?

Actually, it means you should never have had it in the first place. :lol:

[LOOT]

OH SHI

EVERYONE GET IN THE TIME MACHINE. WE NEED TO STOP BOMBY FROM GETTING HIS GROOVE ON

[S1x]

Perhaps we should move on to - why is pre-marital sex wrong?

The same reason why for anybody over the age of 15, this is wrong

(note: this is less a joke post than you may think)

[Fairlight Excalibur]

I have to disagree... premarital sex will not completely destroy your brain.

[Marilink]

Traveler, I thank God that you're a lot more eloquent than I am. We seem to be of one mind on this one, but your maturity definitely shows itself. Kudos.

Christians are taught never to question the Bible, the Church, the religious leaders. That's bad. Questions are what make us improve as people. Questions let you puzzle through things and figure out why something is right or wrong.

That's not entirely true--at least not in the church I belong to. Since I believe the Bible is the Word of God, I don't question it, that part is true. But as far as church and church leaders go:

Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

The Bereans were commended for questioning the religious leader of their day. I've always been encouraged to do the same, and I and my peers ask questions quite frequently in class and I intend to do that for my whole life.

[Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds]

Because God.

That's about all I've ever figured. Pre-martial sex never did anything bad to me.



That's good, ML. Questions are a human's lifeblood. I suppose a more accurate thing to say, then, is that you don't question the Bible, and your Church and religious leaders are considered the local experts on the Bible, so most people will ask for their interpretation of passages, and that will be that. Perhaps less to do with not questioning the people, but not questioning their authority on the subject.

[Marilink]

Perhaps we should move on to - why is pre-marital sex wrong?

The Bible says so. My argument's done. :P

^SD, that's pretty much right, actually.

[Bomby]

But Dao de Jing says nothing.

I rest my case.