Just wanted to pop in and say hello to old friends and non-friends. Some of you may remember me. This place has a different look now but the same feel. I hope everyone is doing well and is as thankful as I am that we've thus far avoided The Rapture.

Funny thing...Here's what made me think of this place; front page article on MSN about the polygamist compound bust in Texas. Sex with underage girls and multiple wives? Who do they think they are, Mohammed? (Just kidding, mostly.) Has anyone else noticed what a strange relationship the Christian religion and it's various offshoots have with the concept of sex? This is something worth giving some thought to.

Another thing that reminded me of this place...Got my very first home visit from the Jehovahs Witnesses this week. I had a friendly exchange with the guy but his main selling point for convincing me that we are in the long anticipated 'end-times' was the prevalence of homosexual acceptance on television. We went from a Bible verse in Matthew to him coming out with "Not to bash homosexuals but....".

Anyway...no time for long posts, but Greetings to one and all!

-LTT (Ben)

I am at a loss for where belief systems don't have some element of sex. I don't think it is limited to xtians.

Don't know you but welcome back.

Hele

It's true that all of the various religions address sex in some way but Christianity has a uniquely dysfunctional relationship with sexuality. So much importance placed on a 'virgin' birth. The requirement of priests to remain celibate. An almost hysterical fear/aversion to homosexuality. Child molesting priests. Ted Haggards. Jimmy Swaggarts. The list goes on and on. Plenty of examples of what happens when the sexual force is supressed, misunderstood, and misused. It gets uglier than anything I've just mentioned but we'll stop it there.

Give me Tantra any day.

(Thank you for the welcome. I used to lurk around in here a couple years ago. I'm not sure that I'm really 'back' per se, but at least I am for now.)

Heb 13:4 Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

Christianity simply put sex into perspective. No sex outside of marriage, what a novel idea. No out of wedlock pregnancies, no or very little STDs. None of the violence associated with infidelity, fewer divorces.

Sounds reasonable to me.

I think that Wilhelm Reich was right that control over sex is a matter of conditioning to authoritarian control generally.

First Thelyamhound and Berg.

Now LTT

Whose it going to be next, Sleestak or the Muslim twins Pure and Fromwater?

Good to see you LTT.

G

Agreed about the "strange relationship between Christianity and sex." The mixture of hatred, fear, desire, and confusion on their part toward this essential human drive would be comical indeed, if it hadn't caused so much suffering down through the ages.

It's pretty clear to me that Christian churches, particularly the Catholic church, are havens for every sort of repression, perversion, and phobia imaginable. If only you could take the comfortably asexual element of the population and have them running the churches, you'd be better off...but too often it's the weirdos and the freaks who end up there.

Repression...it's BAD for you...

If you are speaking of the priest abuse scandal, I think I take your point. Is that what you meant? Otherwise, what do you mean?

No fair, I haven't had a visit form a JW in decades! Had some mormons a couple years ago, but I was on my way out and couldn't chat. (Strangely enough, they were dressed like scientologists...)

Nice to see you again LTT!

But Christian religious leaders and their hierarchies of devotees down through the years have tended to have problems of all kinds with human sexuality. I doubt the scandals of the last few years arose spontaneously starting in the mid 20th century, for instance.

Protestants, too, have always been very repressed sexually, and pushed the notion that sexuality, unless part of a Christian-sanctioned marriage, was 'of the devil.'

It's pretty clear that Judeo-Christianity throughout its history has attempted to control, regulate, and repress human sexuality. Not a new insight of mine, I'd have thought.

Islam would of course follow the same path...

...how do Scientologists dress?

I didn't even realize those other folks had left.

What's this rating thing they've got now? Is it like golf (the lower the rating the better)?

It's good to see you too G.

I can't believe it took me this long to get my first JW visit. Clearly they are slacking. If wouldn't have been so early I would've had fun with the guy and tried to convince him I was Charles Taze Russell reincarnated.

Good to see you are still around and still happy to be atheist.

I'm not sure how much I'll be in here but I do blog occasionally at : <link>

Greetings Horus...

Repression is bad and suppression may be even worse. Some rivers can't be dammed (damned? hehe).

In professional mode, dark pants - navy or black (no pleats), white shirts and narrow solid colour dark tie (usually to match pants and jacket). Dark (solid colour, no pattern) jacket to somewhat match pants - tending to the less formal, though, not so much a blazer as maybe a sportcoat or often a windbreaker. Dark shoes - not shiney.

They could easily be mistaken for casual day Men in Black...cool, but not threatening.