On what logical & moral grounds can TSCC determine that sexual relations should only be between a married heterosexual couple? Why is it so bad for two consenting non-married adults to participate?

This is different to other proposed commandments such as murder, stealing, adultery etc where there is an obvious harm that is commited to another person and hence the act itself could be determined to be intrisically wrong, regardless of using a morality appeal to God.

But this can't really be said of sexual relations between two consenting adults, so it seems the only thing to determine that this is a 'sin', is simply that the Mormon God says it is.

I'm comfortable with commandments that are intrinsically wrong and that harm others. That's just a common sense way to live in harmony with others. But I'm increasingly disturbed by self-proclaimed prophets who say that God has given commandments that don't make sense....like no coffee, tea etc.

Any thoughts?

When you can convince people not to have sex with each other for no good reason, you can convince them to kill people for no good reason and to give you their money for no good reason.

That's what I think..

Mormonism didn't invent this "sin". They just ran with it. Puritanical rules about sex were invented long before mormonism, and have survived in a lot of America's religious cultures (think of all the pushes for abstinence-only sex-ed in the Bible Belt). Mormons just haven't relaxed the rules over the last century or so the way a lot of society has, because it's all about control. It's about making people think that they need The Church to guide them and help them and think for them or else they'll be unable to resist temptation.

From a Mormon (and maybe otherwise) theological perspective, the rule is in place because it involves the creation of life (murder, in contrast, is the destruction of life). We only get to create life within the boundaries and rules that jeebus lays out for us.

As per the counter example, many religions believe that there are boundaries and rules set that we can also take away life. Mormonism has done this, as have many other religions in the past.

Now, other people have pointed out the reality of the argument. From a non-theological perspective it is about control.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2013 01:04PM by snb.

It is not part of the LDS breeding program.

They want breeders. That is how they grow, especially now. By controlling a persons sex, they control the person. I think that is why they put the enormous emphasis on masturbation. They need horny kids to keep the pipeline full of new recruits.

It is also a reason why they encourage and counsel homosexual persons to marry heterosexual persons and have children.

It is the most evil, vile, and sinister facet of LDS Inc.

What I really find over the top about this is the whole concept of sexual relations outside marriage as a "sin next to murder."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!

I like to apply this test to this question. Would you be more concerned if one of your children had sex with their BF/GF, or did any of the following:

1. Robbed a bank
2. Swindled old folks out of their retirement savings
3. Put on a white sheet and participated in a KKK rally
4. Framed a friend for a crime
5. Committed non-leathal assault & battery
6. Failed to pay child support
7. Abused a spouse
8. "Served" a Mormon mission (hey it's about time not to give pats on the back for doing this)

And I'm sure the list could go on and on of acts short of murder that are more harmful that simple sex between unmarried persons.

snowball Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> 1. Robbed a bank
> 2. Swindled old folks out of their retirement
> savings
> 3. Put on a white sheet and participated in a KKK
> rally
> 4. Framed a friend for a crime
> 5. Committed non-leathal assault & battery
> 6. Failed to pay child support
> 7. Abused a spouse
> 8. "Served" a Mormon mission (hey it's about time
> not to give pats on the back for doing this)

9. Told a gay person that they were evil and "unnatural" and
shouldn't be around normal people.

From "On This Day in Mormon History:"

Nov 13, 1965 – CHURCH NEWS quotes a talk given by BYU
president Ernest Wilkinson to the student body indicating that
BYU does not intend "to admit to our campus any homosexuals.
If any of you have this tendency and have not completely
abandoned it, may I suggest that you leave the university
immediately after this assembly; and if you will be honest
enough to let us know the reason, we will voluntarily refund
your tuition. We do not want others on this campus to be
contaminated by your presence."

It could well violate my power and control over your mind.
We certainly don't want that to happen!

As usual - Robert Heinlein has the explanation:

Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.

Revolt in 2100 (1953)

Yes!

No need for in-depth analysis.

Sex is permissible only when it produces mormon tithe payers.


Just as god intended ...

Well, I am a good example...

In my past life, I went on a mish, came home, married in SLC Temple, was a HP GL, GD teacher and so on and so on....

This year (April) I resigned from TSCC (heritic) moved in with an Ex-Catholic lady (living in sin) and now I drink (glass of wine on weekends) and swear (Where the hell are my keys?) and engage in all mannor of riotous NON-LDS living...

My TBM Ex-DW claims I am probably crazy (TANGO UNIFORM) and tells me "wickedness never was happiness."

BUT I am enjoying life, and finally making my own decisions.

Marriage is a State approved legal contract. Maybe it is finally time to remove "Church" from this contractual process.

Please don't judge me ( I feel safe posting thoughts here). I am very happily married to my lovely hubby - and have no wish for anyone else - but occassionally wish I would have been a little more 'adverterous' in my single days, let go at times, instead of remaining controlled.

You should feel safe because it is anonymous. You also have a right to express your opinion. I was raised in a TBM household, outside the morgbot corridor, and attend a high school that was non-lds (maybe 3 of us). I also wish I had not been a moron at the time. There were many opportunities that I turned down b/c I wanted to be a good mormon boy.

100% agree. I was just the same. I often wish I could go back to when I was 10 years old and start over, I'd do things so much differently. I'd be more rebellious for sure. Being a "good mormon boy" is not the way to live life. You become an adult and look back and realize you didn't have a childhood. Instead of chasing girls like normal boys do, I was busy transforming into a GA clone. So depressing.

If I could go back in time, I'd definitely go to a different college, one where beer imbibing and weekend cohabitating were acceptable.

Yes, I think a lot of us wish we could have spent our twenties (and even thirties) in a more libertine mode.

But it's how the church controls: Money, sex, and time. By doing so they coopt your ability to think independently and clearly and rationally. And then they've got you (sometimes for life).

How do you protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases? Some STDs are not curable. Once you get the disease it is with your forever.

Sex is overrated. Good health, free from STDs is much more important.

Love your moniker by the way...I agree, good health is much more important. I would not have sex with anyone, without labs showing they are free from all STD's.

How can you prevent STDs? There are these things called condoms. Google it.

But Mr. Condom, not all condom wearing guys are honest. It's not a lack of condoms, Mr. Condom, it's a lack of honesty of the condomee's, Mr. Condom. They're not fool proof.

Are Condoms 100% fool proof? No, but they are really really good. Is there risk? Yes. But there is also risk in Marriage. Your husband or wife could cheat and bring something home. Nothing is 100% certain.

If you're so afraid of STDs, then fine don't have sex. But that would just be depressing.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to walk to work. I won't drive because my car could kill me. Sure there are safety features. But they aren't 100% effective. There is always a chance…

LOL...good one Mr. Condom, i.e. the risk of taking a car to work. I like that. I respect your opinion Mr. Condom. Personally, in terms of risk analysis, I will risk taking my car to work and I will risk having sex with my wife; however, I wouldn't have random sex w/ a prostitute, player, or homeless person because the risk is to high that I would catch a disease. How is Mrs. Condom doing these days?

How am I doing these days? Just fine thank you for asking! As far as risk analysis goes, having sex with hookers and homeless people would increase your risk. This is true.

But going back to the car analogy, if you speed you increase your chance if an accident. If you drive on the wrong side of the road you greatly increase your chance of an accident.

However, if you show a little common sense you can happily drive your car and park it in a garage. Maybe someday you'll want to park it in a different garage. Just drive safe ok!

For once, I'm speechless. Have a great day.

I'm sorry you're speechless, but you have a good day too! And give your wife some good sex tonight. Maybe you can make her speechless too!!!

Oh and don't drive faster than 45 on your way home. There are dangers out there.

Hugh, don't be such a scardy cat. I've been an out gay man for 25 years now with lots of partners, and condoms have kept me HIV negative.

Colds, the flu and other communicable diseases are much more a concern than std's for those who take simple precautions.

So a cold is more of a concern then contracting HIV? Okay..hey you know to each his own. We must agree to disagree. I am glad you are HIV free....are you STD free too?

Yep.

And your comments about sex with prostitutes is not really accurate. In Nevada, where prostitution is legal, they are tested regularly for std's and condom use is mandated.

Of course, I've never paid for sex, one of the blessings of being a hot gay daddy.

There are good reasons not to cheat on your wife. Fear of getting a disease is not really one of them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2013 04:31PM by sonoma.

Hugh it is possible to have sex with multiple people and still be perfectly healthy. It's been done by billions of people.

Exactly. It's sooooo Mormoney to try and scare people off sex by smearing non-Mormons as disease filled Typhoid Marys.

When I was a TBM, the way I explained this was that having sex could prematurely cause children to come into the world and risk being exposed to living a life without sufficient parental support and would point to society as a whole to illustrate this point.

However, that's what contraceptives are for.

Mormons hate contraceptives, since it invalidates their excuse for banning sex outside of marriage. Same reason why they hope a cure for AIDs never gets discovered.

I stay married legally for insurance. My ex has good insurance. Until gays can marry, then no point in us getting a divorce and he agrees. "Separated" for 17-1/2 years.

I have had a boyfriend for 8-1/2 years and, yes, I have sex with him. He has been laid off 2 times over those 8-1/2 years (chemist) and so I can't rely on his insurance. BUT I thought maybe I should get divorced and remarried just because it is the "right thing" to do. I really do need my insurance.

And then I REMEMBERED. His kids are entitled brats with trust funds. He even says they have an attitude of "I better get mine first before it is all gone." My kids have the attitude of giving more than they take. I will NEVER put what little I have to leave them when I die in jeopardy of his kids taking it from them. I will NEVER combine my finances with his.

And I can't produce anymore little mormons. Interesting that they never address that question--what about those who can't produce any longer?

Anyway--because of the attitude of it is bad to have sex when not married--every now and then I re-visit the question. If I put it to my TBM daughter this way--I actually KNOW she would agree with me.

Its one of the issues I have with the Judeo-Islamic-Christian religions. I think most religions "teach good things" but this isn't one of them. And they focus too much on sex, as if its the only "moral" problem the world has today.

What I define as good principals or morals are on how you affect someone else. If you are both being responsible and consenting then I see no reason why any kind of sexual relations are bad.

The whole sexual commandment stuff probably stemmed from men wanting to secure their own female sex partners and they had to make rules so that you could claim your own. This eventually got mingled with religion.

I think you're sort of on to something there.

I've long thought about how Old Joe might first pitch his brilliant new religion idea. How did he build a following? How did he manage to convince so many that polygamy was ordained of god?

Well, he used divine revelation. Anything you frame in terms of "god said so," naive people will swallow whole without thinking twice about it. So Joe cherry-picked a few scriptural references in the bible to polygamy, came up with his new and everlasting covenant and then went to work selling it to the masses. This ensured he got as much booty as he wanted, guilt free. Briggie Young just ran with it. I think Joe saw how much money and power came with the booty -- young single women brought essentially what would be dowries and the married women brought their husbands' assets to the table. Pretty soon, Joe was in control of a lot of money, property, and people. It seems he found the treasure he'd been looking for all along.

I was raised protestant...assembly of god, baptist, methodist...all said pre-maritial was BAD and a sin.

Not that i agree... just not a mormonism...though the interviews and wothiness/worthlessness are

I think that basically existing religious views on sex are simply out of date.

Birth control is the game changer.

Before birth control sex meant that there was a very high chance you were gong to create a new life. The moral implications of that were HUGE. If you had sex then it wasn't really just about the two of you having sex, it is potentially about 3 of you. The moral implications of creating a new life are HUGE. What are you doing to that potential 3rd person? That is what the morality needed to govern. In that context marriage makes sense in that it establishes a good chance at giving a good way to raise the child. (Let's set aside that a traditional husband & wife family is not the only successful way to raise a wanted child - the cultural change there is also a game change - in the past realistically it would have been much more difficult for a single mother to be able to survive and raise healthy children based on available resources.)

Now that birth control exists, certain forms of birth control properly used make the probability of an unexpected pregnancy practically zero. Depending on how you feel about the morality of very early term abortion this can reduce the possibility even more of bringing a new person into the world that you are not properly prepared to care for. This is a game changer. It completely turns the existing mores and morals on their head. It also turns much evolutionary programming on its head.

The religious moral approach to this just no longer applies in the same way because the whole reason for the existing religious approach to sex just changed completely.

Unfortunately this creates a huge black hole. It's easy to say its a simple as two consenting adults but I disagree that it is really that simple.

The thing is there is still deep evolutionary wiring associated with sex. It has a deep impact on emotions and can cause a lot of vulnerability.

So maybe what I'm saying is maybe we put the bar of "mutual consent" too low. Maybe someone can manipulate another adult into have sex and that is immoral even though it could be considered mutual consent. Maybe someone grooms another adult, especially if that other adult is in a state of vulnerability. Maybe someone takes advantage and manipulates another adult. Maybe someone takes advantage of another being drunk or otherwise impaired - what is the line there? Maybe someone is not fully truthful about the risk in sexual health the other is taking by engaging in sex.

Unfortunately religion's inability to progress rapidly to keep up with current social and cultural realities - which is always the case with religion - leaves a vacuum where the morality is poorly defined. More liberal religions catch of faster and I number already have - more conservative insular religions like Mormonism take much longer - and they even over apply the morals to silly things like masturbation.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2013 03:04PM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

If they can take control of something to central to your very being, they can control anything and everything about you.

Like cosmetics advertising, they convince you that you are flawed, then convince you that you need them to fix the flaw.

In the case of your sexuality, in an only semi-figurative way, they got you by the balls.

LDS Inc takes it a step further by condemning sex between one single consenting adult.

JERRY SEINFELD:

"I gotta tell you. I am really enjoying being an adult. You can do whatever you want. For example, If I want a cookie, I can have a cookie. I can have 3 cookie or four cookies or 11 cookies. Sometimes, I intentionally ruin my appetite and then I call my mother to tell her that I did. "Hello mom, I just ruined my appetite with cookies." Because as an adult we understand that if we ruin our appetite, there is another on the way. There is no danger of running out of appetites."

Yup, his TV persona is a great role model of the engaged life.

Instead of looking outside and blaming the rules on "them," look and see the effects on oneself. If sex were IT, then you'd need it only once. Married people with good sex would never get divorced. And the proverb "post coitum omne animal triste est" would not exist--the feeling of solitude hitting, with a realization that the merging was just a temporary one, and the beast with two backs turns back into to people with two backs.

There was a time, pre-pill, when preventing an accidental pregnancy was a lot harder than it is now. Women waited until they were married to have sex as a protection against such an accidental pregnancy. Women also tended to stay at home for most or all of their married lives as opposed to pursuing a career. They needed a working husband to support their child, and being married was the safest route to making this happen.

This was institutionalized in marriage as supported by various faiths.

The pill was a game changer. For the first time, women could have sex with a reasonably safe assurance that they would not become pregnant. The availability of early term abortions enhanced that assurance. And women began to enter the workforce in large numbers and to pursue careers. Many began to be able to support children with or without a man.

Various religions are somewhat to very behind the curve in catching up with the new social realities.