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On Sex, Religion, And Despicable “Authority”

Usually, writer’s block is due to an empty head with seemingly nothing worthwhile to put on paper. Occasionally, the reverse may be true; a head so full of ideas and subject matter that trying to pick out one and concentrate on it is next to impossible. Thoughts on many topics keep crowding in; a mishmash – like a ball of tangled string with no apparent end to work on.

That’s how I feel today.

It was my intention to write of my views on sex and religion – the effects of one on the other – but again, I can’t find an end to get me started. Perhaps if I write just about sex, the involvement of religion may drop into place?

Ever since I was old enough to think of such matters, I have never been able to fathom why sex is so difficult for human beings to assimilate and accept. Why so many taboos; so many rules? After all, it’s one of the most natural things we experience, isn’t it?

Now that I’ve lived long enough to have gained some perception of human life, the answers to those questions are more obvious. But, if the answers are so clear to me, why is the rest of the world seemingly oblivious to them?

OK, here’s where the religion bit come in.

To discover the source of our species’ unease with matters sexual it is necessary to unearth a society where sex was accepted as a normal, everyday practice to be enjoyed without the restraint of pernicious societal law that regulated when, where, and most definitely how, the function and everything related to it, was carried out.

That’s not an easy task, but possibly one of the best examples was in Polynesia, before the Christian missionaries arrived and spoiled it all! The warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, the balmy sun-kissed beaches and relaxed atmosphere apparently had a similar effect on the inhabitants as when British tourists first discovered the Spanish Costa del Sol. Not only heterosexual, but also homosexual behavior was considered normal and deregulated in these idyllic surroundings.

Or, at least, they were until recently when a New Zealand researcher, Dr Lee Wallace, wrote in her book, “Sexual Encounters” that such ideas were all hogwash and the Polynesians were, in fact, a male-dominated, vicious race of people who practiced homosexuality and treated females as property – before the Christian missionaries arrived and taught them better ways!

While Margaret Mead’s 1928 book, the only modern, authoritative account of Polynesian pre-Christian life, was ridiculed much later by Derek Freeman, his refutation of Mead’s work was seen by many as suspect, not least because he himself was a strong Presbyterian, and most of those women who had contributed to Mead’s work, and whose testimony he used to base his refutation, were old and had long converted to Christianity.

While Lee Wallace states that we learned our modern interpretation of homosexuality from the Pacific Islanders, and before that the practice never really existed (she seems to have totally ignored the ancient Greeks!) and both she and Freeman insist the idea of a relaxed sexual attitude among pre-Christian Polynesians never existed – despite the writings of Cook and his lieutenant, Joseph Banks, William Bligh, and even the French artist Paul Gauguin – Margaret Mead reached the conclusion from her research that the transition from childhood to female adolescence in those islands carried none of the emotional or psychological distress, anxiety, or confusion she had seen and studied in the United States.

I, personally, have no doubt she was correct. Our evolution has not caused the stress-related state our society suffers when dealing with sexual matters, it has been created by our society in vain attempts to regulate and control.

Without doubt, one of the most successful of society’s sex-control ideas has been – the invention of “SIN”.

“SIN” – the “evils” thereof preached from a million pulpits every Sunday morning.

“SIN” is the ultimate control tool. “SIN” is not a wrong committed by one person on another, “SIN” is a wrong-doing against “GOD”.

Has God told us this himself? Does He stick His Divine Head down through the clouds and bellow, “THAT’S A SIN! DON’T DO THAT!”

No, he conveniently leaves it to a group of individuals, sometimes dressed in fancy robes, often wearing silly hats, occasionally carrying a stick to hook sheep, ALWAYS telling us what to do, and WHAT NOT TO DO!

Why?

Because GOD says you can’t do that.

How do THEY know GOD says that?

BECAUSE GOD TELLS THEM! He doesn’t tell US – He tells THEM – in their silly hats, fancy robes and sheep sticks!

IT’S A “SIN”.

Suppose they’re wrong? They pore over one book all their lives in order to tell us how to live our lives.

Suppose they’re wrong?

Jesus never said we should listen to men in silly hats with fancy clothes and sheep sticks, who yell at us every Sunday. Yet these same men tell us HE was the Son of God.

Organized religion created the concept of sin, and its accompanying polarities of “right” and “wrong” to better control the masses. It worked – probably beyond their wildest dreams. The same concept is used today by politicians. They create a fabric of deceit, spin it to the masses as truth, and because we have become so indoctrinated into accepting the word of those “in authority”, we believe it without question.

Take Iran as a current example. A member of the “Axis of Evil” – (“evil” equals “sin”) Politicians spin so much crap they soon believe it themselves. Iran has done absolutely nothing against America. It’s nuclear aspirations are totally legal within the framework of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, but by labeling Iran an “evil regime” it allows the US government to attack Iran, or goad Iran into attacking America, when the US government decides it is ready to commence stage two of of its invasion of the Middle East – which is scheduled, of that there is no doubt.

There will never be peace in the world while the concept of “SIN” remains. There will be no happiness, either. “Sin” is so bad it demands wrath and punishment. Isn’t the tale of Iran a good example of that?

All of Jesus’ teachings can be condensed into three words. He said, “Love one another.”

Isn’t that what sex between two people who care about each other really is? The physical manifestation of spiritual Love?

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6 Replies to “On Sex, Religion, And Despicable “Authority””

  1. I remember reading the meaning of sin as from the Greek, sine. It simply means missing the mark as in aiming for love and missing the mark and not able to love perfectly. So, in my mind, the greatest sin is to inflict meanness of spirit on humanity in the name of love. That is the worst thing of all. Next time we hear one of these silly hatted crooked stick people speak, we should all hold up mirrors. Don’t even get me started on the squandering of wealth on pomp by these “caretakers” of the poor. Bah!

  2. Hey! i’m first, for once!

    Maybe i have no business sticking my two cents in here, Mr. Adams, but my opinion is that our societal definition of ‘sex’ is rather narrow, and male based.

    As a woman, i think that ‘sex’ includes maturation, menustration, childbearing, breastfeeding, raising young and menopause, as well. But somehow the small interval that men hop on the great wheel of sex has come to define sex in its entirety. The rest just seems to be cast aside as being incidental to the male role in sex.

    And being as we as a species are supposedly evolved enough to be complicated individuals who are part of large extended networks of family and extended family and communities etc., i think that the above stages of sex should have a place of honour in all of these relationships. I guess that’s where the rule thing comes in.

    It might be more fun for the male if he could just meander about disseminating future generations, but where does that leave his mates and his children, the respective families etc? Promiscuity can be awfully hard on the human heart, and it’s just much more efficient if the responsibilities of raising children and fostering loving attachments are shared.

    I’m not speaking here of the rules surrounding ‘original sin’, which i absolutely do not believe in. Au contraire. In my way of life, we think that sex is just about as close to paradise as humans are ever going to experience, while still in the mortal coil… all phases of it, and its social ramifications.

    Isn’t that worth a little care and protection?
    After all, it’s scarcely fair to leave the woman left holding the umbilical sac everytime, is it?

  3. Yes it is all about control. It’s like telling a child if they aren’t good santa won’t come. To a child this is major. But at some point the jig is up and the kid figures out the santa deal. Now how to keep him in line? Tell him if he isn’t “good” and if he “sins” he’ll burn in hell forever after he dies. For a lot of adults this is major. But at some point for some of us there comes a time when we figure out the myth of the hell deal.

    Sister anan makes some very good points. Responsibility plays into sex. But that doesn’t make it a sin, just a requirement of responsibility.

  4. I have i think been blessed by having sensible parents who never regarded sex as a sin and i follow this view. Likewise i have no fear of the naked human body and have never understood societies obsession with the naked form as being “dirty”. I think that religion in its many guises has a lot to answer for in the way that it has forced its views/values onto people, after all as r.j. says, most of these views have been formed by men in funny clothes. How do they know exactly what was mean’t by the writings of ancient scribes? I will continue with my way of life, i am comfortable clothed or naked inside or out. The inner self is what counts and how you react as a person with those around you be they friends or strangers whatever your “religious” beliefs.

  5. Flimsy – rumor has it George senior and Barbara are not George W’s true parents. He was adopted. Sixty years ago a major manufacturer of chemical cleaners was experimenting with new substances to produce, they hoped, a revolutionary new toilet cleaner. It didn’t work, but George W was the result.

    PM – as usual, true meanings assiduously twisted to suit the purposes of the ego-crazed.

    Anan – your ‘business’ is always welcome here. I agree with your comment. Obviously, as a society, we cannot just fornicate promiscuously at our leisure (though some societies have tried it and found it worked, up to a point!) and sensible guidelines are necessary. I believe we all are responsible for our actions, so the results of sex -the most obvious being offspring – must be taken responsibility for. Society is right to legislate in such circumstances. I don’t believe it right to incarcerate people unless their actions have caused pain or serious suffering to another, as in the case of rape or molestation.
    I am in accord with your holistic view of sex. As a male, I don’t believe I am alone in that. Far more men these days are recognizing, and delighting in, their feminine side – understanding and wishing to be a part of all aspects of sexuality, not just the act itself. It is a slow process – America leads the world, I think, in still promoting the macho, “leave the bitch at home and go hunting” attitude. It is far more prevalent, for example, on US TV than European. When it does rear its ugly snout across the Atlantic, it is usually via imported US programing.
    Loving sex is undoubtedly a metaphor for paradise, though in my case I believe we’re already there.

    PoP – yes, indeed, and the numbers flocking to the indoctrinal lecterns each Sunday are proof of how childlike we remain.

    AP – Well said! I can’t add anything to that.

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