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301 entries for this category:
 | Thoughts about human sexuality |
If one believes there is a God at all, or any intelligent force behind the universe, then one has to notice some things about IT (HIM?HER?)
1. If omnipotent, He could have created the human and animal species any way He wanted to. Why sexual reproduction? If it was all that nasty and gross, why not make people reproduce like Hydras, just flop out a bud of protoplasm and go from there!
2. If He believed our genitals were disgusting, why put them in front where you can see them and touch them? Why not hide them safely from view, under a flap of skin or deep within the body only to emerge when needed to reproduce?
3. If one believes that Man was created in God's own image, as both Jews and Christians purport to believe, then God has roughly the same equipment!
4. If sex were only for the purpose of reproducing the genes, then why make it possible when reproduction is not. Man is the ONLY creature on this planet which has sexual congress when infertile! If it is, indeed, ourselves that are made in God's image, (And not the pussy cat, or the polar bear) then God also must have known personally and personally valued this ability and given it to us for its goodness and value.
5. The Bible is also full of statements like, "Man was not meant to live alone." "Man and woman, He created them." "A good woman is above Rubies, she maketh glad her household." Women like Judith were praised for their heroism; women like Ruth, for their loyalty; Miriam for her steadfast love; Mary for her obedience to God in the face of certain stoning to death. Women are no seen as good or bad, any more than men are. The Bible is full of venal men as well as heroes. David had his best general killed because he coveted the man's wife. Saul was a bloody warrior who disobeyed God and killed off an entire city of people whom God had wanted spared.
But Moses was courageous; Joshua was a great general, and David, for all his faults, was a wise and good king. Christianity and Judaism are BIG enough to encompass many ideas about people. They are good and evil, smart and foolish, brave and cowardly, both the men and the women.
6. In the three centuries following the death of Jesus, there arose many followers, with many different interpretations of what Jesus had told them. Some of these were the "saints of the desert, who went and sat on pillars in the desert until they died of starvation and thirst. Jesus NEVER either did such things himself or suggested to followers that they do them. Self destructive behavior was not part of what Jesus ever taught. He suggested giving what you have to the poor and following him to preach the GOOD NEWS of salvation--the opposite of the prevailing Jewish thought at the time, which was that people needed huge numbers of rules and justifications to avoid falling into evil behavior. Jesus said, "Hey, people, listen up: You only need two rules "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all they heart, mind and soul, and that shalt Love thy neighbor as thyself." This was the good news. You don't need to be a scholar, you don't need to whack off a bit of your body, you don't need to eat only certain foods or combinations of foods, you don't need to abstain from sex two weeks out of every month, you don't need to be unclean, even if you are sick with leprosy, or having your menstrual period, all you need to do is believe the GOOD NEWS, that the Lord God wants only two things of you, that you love HIM and love one another as you love YOURSELVES.
7. All this presupposes that you love yourself FIRST! You need a template of how to love. And Jesus provides two possibilities for you: YOu can love others as you cherish your own body, your own safety, your own health, your own thoughts and ideas. Failing in that, you can, "Love one another as I have loved you." He says, "I'll show you how to love, just in case you have believed the Sanhedrin and learned to despise yourself. Here is how I do it: I forgive the wrong doer, not once, not twice, but forty times forty times (The biggest number he knew, probably); I cure the lame and the blind when I can; when I am wronged, I do not fight back, but I tell him that he can just hit me again; I refuse to participate in the horrific punishments that humans dish out to one another, I will not throw the first stone at the adulteress, and I will caution you not to do so either. I will suffer the little children to come near to me. I will sit and eat with the despised and diseased. I will dance at weddings and celebrate life. I will not allow myself or the things I love to be used as for mundane and secular purposes (like changing money on the steps of the temple.) And if it is necessary, if there is no other way to teach about how to love, I will allow myself to be tortured and murdered, so you can all see how a brave man dies, still loving and even forgiving, those who kill him.
This is what the religion of Jesus is about. These are Jesus's words and His teachings. Hear the Good News. Mankind does not need to fear God, but merely to love Him and himself and others in order to reap all the benefits of living in this beautiful world. Forget the crap, the silly rules and laws that serve to keep us condemning ourselves and our neighbors. Live as Jesus lived or as you live truly loving yourself and spread that around to those you know. Our bodies and our selves ARE ALREADY HOLY. They require no further sanctification but what God has already provided in making them in HIS own holy image.
People who feel defiled by their or their partner's sexual urges have simply not read the words that are there for them. They have listened to what others said about Jesus and not read it for themselves. If Jesus was celibate, and we just do not have much information on that aspect of his life, it is not because he abjured the company of women. Many of his early followers were women! (See Lazarus' sisters, Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalane, etc.) It was not that he felt defiled by them. But one thing he NEVER did was condemn anyone! Not even Judas. Not even Peter, when he denied him three times to saves his own hide from the Roman soldiers. Not even the tax collectors, or adultresses or prostitutes. And if we would follow what he said, and "love one another as I have loved you," then we would not either. Nor would we condemn ourselves, for we are made in the image and likeness of God the Father Almighty, and He did nto make any junk!
Jeannie By: Jeannie Katherine Reinleitner
Category: Love One Another - Jesus |
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