How do I explain (to ANYONE) why on earth us crazy Christians have such strict rules about sex?

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Mort_Alz

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I can’t even explain it to myself! As far as I know, it was just always taught as “wrong” and a “sin.”

Besides the risk of having a child when it’s not appropriate (financial reasons, living conditions, etc.), why the heck else should people follow the Church’s teachings on marriage, etc.

The only reasons I can think of is it prevents jealousy, provides couples with assurance that someone will love them (through commitment, they aren’t afraid that person will break up with them and run off somewhere). And, by saving sex for marriage, they aren’t afraid of the person comparing them to someone else.

But, as for the strictness of contraception, I’m totally lost on that one. But, this post is not particularly about THAT. I would like to focus more on the reasons of marriage being a way to prevent sexual jealousy and apprehension.
 
Might I suggest a book for you to read to better understand this topic? I just came back to the Catholic faith this year and truly I never understood Christian sexual morality until I read this book. It’s call Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West. I think it gives a great overview to topics such as why marriage is important and even why the use of contraception is a sin.

God bless!
 
Wow, my posting was going to be almost exactly the same as yours with a slight variation:
Krismarie24 said:
I never understood Christian sexual morality until I read this book. It’s call Good News About Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions About Catholic Teaching by Christopher West.
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😃

This is an awfully hard topic to discuss with non-Christians, because they just don’t have the fundamental basis to understand. When I was an atheist, I’d have considered this an absolute joke (I was completely mired in sexual sin). In fact, I’d also say it’s hard to discuss with non-Catholics, because a lot of sexual morality builds upon the concept of a sacramental marriage.
 
In addition to what the previous posters posted, I’d add starting with the axiom that children have a right to be born of and raised by their own parents, whom they know to be such. This is a good starting point for two reasons. First, nobody can deny any of the parts of that axiom. Second, it has to do with human rights, not crazy Christian morality. If children have the rights above, then that makes adultery and fornication wrong, because they violate the children’s rights to be raised by their parents.

The only hard part is when people come up with objections about abusive parents and adoptive parents. In response you can do two things. First you can cut off the objections by saying we are not talking about the hard cases, so let’s stay focused. Second you can say that abusive homes and orphans/abandoned children are going to exist anyways so why not just outlaw sex. (Or we could just kill the children, which we already do 115,000 times a day all over the world. And the conversation should pretty much be over at that point.)

If the person you are arguing with takes you seriously and has a problem with outlawing sex, which he probably thinks everybody has an absolute right to have sex, then ask him why people have the right to have sex but children don’t have the right to families. If gay sex (or illicit forms of straight sex) is at issue, ask him what possible purpose is served by ejaculating into a rectum. If you can stomach it, check Google images for that sort of thing and demand an explanation for how THAT can be LOVE. If he complains that love is whatever the consenting adults consent to, then tell him he sounds like an abused girlfriend who goes back to her abusive boyfriend.

If you just stick to the basics, you can be quick on your feet. But keep in mind that there is a level of disagreement that no dialog can ever get beyond.
 
I think this article explains things quite clearly:

catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

I would like to add that over the last 40 years, people have been given permission to not control themselves. It used to be that moving in with your girlfriend and having sex with her was a big scandal (Catholic or not). I was there. Do you know what those people said? “Shut up! Mind your own business! We’re responsible adults! We’ll do what we want!”

We were told that there was no ‘higher authority,’ just “consenting adults.” True love requires true commitment. People want to be loved - really, truly loved.

Peace,
Ed
 
If you want a short sized answer, I’d just usually tell people something like this:

Sex makes babies whether contraceptives are used or not. You want to argue that? No one thinks any miracles take place if someone’s contraceptive fails and they get pregnant. I respect that sex makes babies and do not see it as responsible to have sex unless I can say can say yes to getting pregnant – even if I would prefer not to. I thus believe I need a very special relationship to have sex, and not merely one where I think I’m in love. We have to be committed to becoming a family and bringing up our children as best we can. This commitment is marriage and it is formally entered into because its not some passing promise you make to someone or just let get thrust onto you.

I also believe that sex is very emotionally bonding and can make breaking up more difficult than it needs to be. Too many women have trouble breaking out of cycles of abuse because they confuse feelings of bondedness and dependence as love. I believe I need to be careful about who I give my heart to and reserve the totality of my heart for marriage. I need to look before I leap. As such, I see dating’s purpose as looking before I leap. I don’t see it as giving my heart to someone for a period of time with a less than marriage commitment to see “how things work.” As such, part of guarding my heart is not having sex.

The only thing to motivate me to have sex while dating is to get the benefits of married life without the responsibilities (and that’s more than just sexual in meaning). If I can be less committed (free to break up) and still have that intimate level of emotional and also physical intimacy, why would I pursue marriage at all? Sounds to me like like a way to get around Christ’s statement that those who marry, divorce and remarry commit adultery. Well, hurry so I’m technically not married and can keep test driving more people?

Ok maybe that wasn’t a short answer. Anyway, I did wait. I got married at the age of 29 and I don’t regret waiting one bit. I truly think my approach was the right one.
 
Krismarie24 said:
Might I suggest a book for you to read to better understand this topic? I just came back to the Catholic faith this year and truly I never understood Christian sexual morality until I read this book. It’s call Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West. I think it gives a great overview to topics such as why marriage is important and even why the use of contraception is a sin.

God bless!
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Agreed wholeheartedly on the book by West.

To date, even within the Catholic Chuch, the teachings on sex have been couched in terms of the Mosaic law… Thou shalt not… But why?

Pope John Paul II’s greatest legacy is his Catechesis “Theology of the Body”. Few people realize that JPII dedicated 129 Wednesday addresses, from the first day he rose to the Chair of Peter, speaking about human sexuality.

Think about that for a minute. The Pope, the leader of the Church established by Jesus Christ himself, spending the first five years of his pontificate speaking about human sexuality. Is it right to wonder what he said? You bet it is and Christopher West does a great job explaining it.

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY FOR BEGINNERS BY CHRISTOPHER WEST

-Tim-
 
Mort_Alz said:
I can’t even explain it to myself! As far as I know, it was just always taught as “wrong” and a “sin.”

Besides the risk of having a child when it’s not appropriate (financial reasons, living conditions, etc.), why the heck else should people follow the Church’s teachings on marriage, etc.

The only reasons I can think of is it prevents jealousy, provides couples with assurance that someone will love them (through commitment, they aren’t afraid that person will break up with them and run off somewhere). And, by saving sex for marriage, they aren’t afraid of the person comparing them to someone else.

But, as for the strictness of contraception, I’m totally lost on that one. But, this post is not particularly about THAT. I would like to focus more on the reasons of marriage being a way to prevent sexual jealousy and apprehension.
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The practical aspects aside, God tells us that our bodies are holy temples and have been given to us as vessels for Him, to produce life and to work as His hands and feet on this mortal coil. How we desecrate that temple when we take the sexual gift and trample it into the ground by treating it as though it were given merely for animal pleasures! Non-religious people will not understand that at all. They treat their bodies as their OWN possessions, as if there is nothing else, no sacredness, no temple. It’s all for fun and for free, including whatever forms of and whatever quantity of sexual acts they wish to pursue.

That’s where Christians can’t go, and where the secular world lives. So there will always be a gap in thought and belief.

Read the Bible if you can’t think of any other reasons, God’s pretty clear on the rules.
 
edwest2 said:
I think this article explains things quite clearly:

catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html

I would like to add that over the last 40 years, people have been given permission to not control themselves. It used to be that moving in with your girlfriend and having sex with her was a big scandal (Catholic or not). I was there. Do you know what those people said? “Shut up! Mind your own business! We’re responsible adults! We’ll do what we want!”

We were told that there was no ‘higher authority,’ just “consenting adults.” True love requires true commitment. People want to be loved - really, truly loved.

Peace,
Ed
Click to expand...
The media told us “God is dead!” so a lot of people who had a conscience before that went crazy and became their own gods. The gods of lust, pain, suffering and debauchery ruled…they still do…
 
twoangels said:
If you want a short sized answer,…
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I have an even shorter answer:

“My girlfriend has a little apartment that is soaked with gasoline from floor to ceiling. We really love each other, so I walked in there with a lit candle in my hand. I tried to cover the flame but the place exploded, and now we don’t know what to do. We never intended this to happen.”
 
I was thinking about this last night and tried to come at it from a more practical standpoint. I think trying to explain why we have rules entirely misses the point.

I recalled the Sisters who were on Oprah not too long ago and when asked about the lack of sex, one replied that she was actually in control of her sexuality, rather than her sexuality being in control of her. That got me thinking further of my own situation…

Like many others, I had been totally immersed in sexual sin before I came back to God and his Church. During that time I could not control myself. I obeyed every whim and urge that came to me, often with little or no regard to the possible consequenses. In short, I was no better than a dog or some other kind of animal. My sex controlled me.

Now, through much prayer and seeking God constantly, and especially through the sacrament of confession, I have been celibate and have not acted out in approximately 2.5 years. I am in control of my sex now instead of my sex controlling me. I decide when to pick it up and when to put it down. When urges do well up inside (and they do), I decide whether they stay or go. I decide whether they are allowed to continue or whether they get put down. I don’t have to worry about what is on my computer or who will find my phone and look at my text messages. I don’t have to lie about where I was or about where the money went.

In short, I used to be a slave. Rules were a leash which kept me from running wild and thank God for them! But now, I am free and that is really the conversation to have.

My point is, we have rules to keep those who need them from killing or hurting themselves or to keep them from doing something else incredibly stupid. In so far as religious rules protect us from the weak and them from themselves, they are really no different from civil laws. But Christianity is not about the rules. Explaining why we have the rules is not the point of Christianity. It’s the wrong conversation to have and totally misses the point.

It’s about being free from rules. Christ came to give us a way, an actual and very real way, to overcome the need to even have rules in the first place

Romans 6:14 - For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. Go ahead and ask me about crazy Christian rules and I’ll tell you about something better.

-Tim-
 
Sometimes an interesting perspective is revealed to us if we do a simple mental exercise - namely, turn the original question on its head:

Thus:

How do the debauchery-advocates of the world propose to explain (to US FAITHFUL CATHOLICS) why on earth their crazy cohorts have such ridiculously permissive ideas and blatantly cheapened values about sex???:bigyikes:

Let 'em chew on that for awhile! :rotfl:
 
Mort_Alz said:
I can’t even explain it to myself! As far as I know, it was just always taught as “wrong” and a “sin.”

Besides the risk of having a child when it’s not appropriate (financial reasons, living conditions, etc.), why the heck else should people follow the Church’s teachings on marriage, etc.

The only reasons I can think of is it prevents jealousy, provides couples with assurance that someone will love them (through commitment, they aren’t afraid that person will break up with them and run off somewhere). And, by saving sex for marriage, they aren’t afraid of the person comparing them to someone else.

But, as for the strictness of contraception, I’m totally lost on that one. But, this post is not particularly about THAT. I would like to focus more on the reasons of marriage being a way to prevent sexual jealousy and apprehension.
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First off, I would stop calling us “crazy Christians” even if you mean that in a joking way.
 
. . . because the shortcuts that feel good don’t work well for you, or society, over the long run.
 
Simple - Catholicism has the fullest and most properly integrated understanding of human sexuality. Sex is not just some sensory experience, but one of the fullest expressions of human love.
 
Here are some reasons why pre-marital sex is a mortal sin:
  1. Human law provides the minimum standard for humans to live by. In other words, what is the most that humans can get away with without destroying themselves? God’s law is exactly the opposite. God holds us to the highest standard possible. In other words, what behavior would be needed in order to achieve an absolute perfect society? We don’t change God’s law to suit us because we fall short. We don’t even change God’s law because it’s impossible for humans to achieve. Instead, we adapt because we should always be striving for the ideal. With that stated, what kind of behavior do you think God would expect of unmarried couples?
  2. Moral behavior also requires that we have the highest respect for human life possible. As such, we should never do harm, short of self-defense. Pre-marital sex, no matter how careful, always has a risk of pregnancy. This could lead the mother to another mortal sin through abortion. The couple is also putting a potential human life’s entire future at risk by not being prepared to accept the responsibility to raise it or be prepared to do so in advance. It might have to grow up in a single parent or unstable household, finances would not have been prepared, and so on. The fact that a couple could potentially put an innocent life at risk is the highest form of selfishness and is completely irresponsible.
  3. Despite years of scientific study and philosophical debate, no one knows precisely when the soul enters the human body and human life begins. As such, Catholics are required to take the safest route and assume the most conservative answer, which is that life begins at the moment of conception. Birth control can cause the failure of a fertilized egg to implant, thus causing an abortion. Someone could be the unknowing partner to unintentional murder. Some might also choose to use the morning after pill, which does essentially the same thing, but on purpose.
  4. Pre-marital sex always presents the possibility of sexually transmitted disease. It would be a grave sin to infect someone with a dangerous disease, and some diseases, like HIV, can be transmitted even through condoms. People might not even know they have them. HPV has no symptoms, and yet can cause cervical cancer. How many times have people believed themselves to be in a monogamous relationship, only to discover that their partner is cheating? Over 50% of the population has been cheated on at some point. How many had suspicions beforehand?
  5. Promiscuity leads to more promiscuity. By sleeping around, it decreases the special bond that one has when they are exclusive with a single partner. They want to explore the lustful side of sexuality more, unimpeded by feelings. It increases the possibility of cheating during marriage, and has helped to contribute to our skyrocketing divorce rate. Why get married when I can just sleep with someone and move on? People get obsessed with the initial sexual attraction, and never move on to the more intimate phases of relationships. When the fireworks stop, they simply dump their lover, find someone new, and recapture the feeling again. You always hear in the movies about “fear of commitment”. Well, a LOT of this is due to the fact that people think they have a good thing going. Why would they want to limit their sexual fun by committing permanently to someone?
  6. During pre-marital sex, one is treating the partner like an object of pleasure, rather than an object of love. (This can occur EVEN INSIDE OF A MARRIAGE, by the way…) Rather than using sex for its wondrous purpose, which is a special unity that offers the possibility for the creation of life, we detach from that purpose, and use it solely for pleasure. To be sure, sex is pleasurable and provides fun and great intimacy for couples, but it is meant to be a unique bond that strengthens the family unit, rather than fracturing it through promiscuity. By giving into lust, a couple is exploiting each other for selfish purposes, even if the bond of love is there. The minute that sex becomes just about fun, the couple begins to test those boundaries to see how much fun one can have. These boundaries are difficult to resist, and one can find themselves in trouble very fast. Even inside a marriage, when you are not open to life, you are taking one of the most special gifts of God, which is actually being allowed to participate in the process of creation, and rejecting it as if it is worthless.
So, why is pre-marital sex bad? It could lead to abortion, it could lead to the creation of a child with a family completely unprepared to raise it, it can transmit disease, it is selfish, it weakens the family, it provides a mentality for divorce and lack of commitment, it is exploitative, and is the misuse of a hugely unique gift from God. Does that help?
 
Hmm. Well, I was hoping more for answers about how it benefits the couples. We can talk about the kids all we want (and, of course, we should. I am not devaluing that aspect.) I have always been disappointed at the lack of voice about how marriage is better because of the security it provides.

I am not married, but the idea is pleasant to me. One, as was said before in this thread, human beings want love, real love (not cheap, fake love), and marriage is a model for that. In marriage (if it’s taken seriously), both couples PLEDGE THEMSELVES TO ONE ANOTHER. If you’re a participant in this, you have the peace of mind that your significant other has promised before God to love you and stay with you and devote themselves to you and only you (in the sexual way). That’s beautiful to me. Of course, there is more to marriage than sex and there is more to sex than pleasure, but this subject I’m speaking about is not really talked about that much (or used as a decent defense for marriage), which kinda puzzles me. Am I the only one who thinks this way?

Then, completely taking another turn, there’s the cases of seemingly uncondemned polygamy in the old testament (I think there’s even cases where God provided more wives to some of his servants in the Old Testament), which that idea is just as foreign to me as a threesome. They both seem abhorrent, yet, why is polygamy in the Old Testament uncondemned? Why did God provide more wives to some of his servants (seemingly like gifts?)

Just asking honest questions. Thanks in advance for your answers (and for the ones previously)
 
Since when were Christians the ONLY ones who have “crazy strict” rules regarding sex outside of marriage? Last time I checked, Hinduism had similar beliefs, along with Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians. And yes, I knew a girl in college who was Zoroastrian and she was probably more chaste than most Christians I know.

I can tell you about the benefits for the couple. I was a virgin, my husband was not. I didn’t have to compare my husband to anyone, or sit around and wonder “are we ‘compatible’?” before marriage, I looked forward to experiencing something new and sacred with him and ONLY him, we were both disease-free, and yes we DID pledge ourselves to each other. There is a huge sense of security because we are married and faithful to each other and only each other. Of course things aren’t perfect but that’s not what we strive for. My husband thought I was a little crazy before we were married when I said “no ringy, no dingy,” (er…I was much younger then:p) but he eventually understood.

I also relish the fact that I don’t have “baby daddy/momma” issues, as many other people I know who had sex outside of marriage, and as a result ended up with a child. I see what strain that can cause on a couple that decides to get married where a person from the couple was not the parent of the child. Marriage can be really fragile, and it’s one less stressor to worry about.
 
I would admit first that if Jesus is not Lord, then we are crazy Christians and our teachings, though probably very good ethically, are nothing but moral guideline from a religious cult.

If Jesus is Lord and Scripture and Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church is TRUE, then we have an invitation to become Children of God. All these crazy sex taboos that force us to deny our natural animal nature are required practices in self-mastery. It is the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden which is one of the concrete ways that we profess our love of our Lord above ourselves.
 
wynnejj said:
All these crazy sex taboos that force us to deny our natural animal nature are required practices in self-mastery.
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But didn’t you know? We’re entitled to indulge in our biological drives, because they’re natural:rolleyes:
 
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