Well I'm going to get slaughtered here
Not by me. You have consistently overestimated my animosity to what you believe.
No, not by you, holmes. You aren't usually hostile.
My views of sex education are completely based on God's law as revealed in the Bible, and in some sense I only apply this law to Bible believers because they are the only ones who respect that law. However, since it is a universal law, it affects everyone equally.
I get that's your view and that's fine. Just as I believe there is no universal law (you are mistaken). And I would NOT want my views foisted onto your worldviews (or vice versa) through an educational course.
Well, in the sense I was outlining, your general views ARE running the educational courses these days, and running the culture at large, because your general views are those of the Sexual Revolution as I sketched it out -- and to one degree or another everybody else's too, as I also mentioned, with various qualifications by some, although you're the only declared Libertine in the crowd. My conservative views, in the same general sort of way, used to run the culture, and pretty much all cultures, as I was also claiming in that post, until the Sexual Revolution. That's the gist of my message.
That said, I was raised Xian and have a pretty decent knowledge of the scriptures and think you may not be availing yourself of some worthy aspects of modern sex ed, that could be palatable to you. But you'll see...
OK, I'll see, but again this thread addresses "abstinence-only" and I've kept my remarks to the meaning of that idea from a Christian perspective, and avoided all the particulars about HOW it is taught, so I don't know how you could guess whether I'm "availing" myself of anything in particular in modern sex ed. I'm simply not addressing sex ed as such. Abstinence-only except within monogamous marriage was once the cultural standard, however frequently violated, and it ought to be the guiding standard of ANY training on sex at ANY level if a culture wants to remain healthy. That's my position. It isn't going to happen, but the important thing to me is to keep it at the forefront of the conversation rather than bogged down in the successes or failures of various ways sex ed is taught, the clinical aspects and so on.
Also, it is primarily not about health or self-respect, it's about living in accord with this law, a law that runs this universe -- and if you do that, as a consequence you will be blessed with health, and if you don't do that you can count on negative repercussions.
Okay to me that actually reads as sex ed SHOULD be about health and self respect, only you have an additional dimension.
Um, well. From one point of view, if anything at all is taught that is in accord with the moral law, of course we're better off than if all-out selfish libertinism were being explicitly encouraged to run amok. But the problem with the health-and-self-respect focus is that all such moral particulars are really ad hoc piecemeal attempts to deal with the negative fall-out from the Sexual Revolution that is running the show, and the fact that it IS running the show gets obscured. Later in this post you even claim Schraf and Brenna and someone else don't have the SR perspective, but my point is ALL of you do. Some qualify it in various ways, but as long as it is considered OK for *anyone* to "choose" any form of non-monogamous sex, that's the philosophy of the SR talking.
While "liberal" programs focus on the physical and mental dimensions you believe in a spiritual dimension. You are worried about impacts on spiritual health and self-respect. Indeed even what issues might effect the culture in a spiritual pandemic so to speak, which can lead to real physical and mental problems later.
Hm. I suppose all that's involved, but I'd spell it out more like this: I see proliferating STDs, proliferating varieties of sexual deviance, more breakdown and stresses in families, increase in single parenting, more stress and alienation among more kids, possible increase in crimes, eventual strain on the welfare system. Sure, people figure out ways to cope and cope well at times with all these situations, but cumulatively it can't be a good thing.
Here's the deal, unless you are believing that God is not working through viral and bacterial agents, and these diseases simply "appear" in a person when he makes a judgement... Or that pregnancies occur by a baby simply appearing... physical description of how the reproductive system works and what environmental factors are faced with sexual activity helps a good xian just as much as anyone else. It does not and cannot promote "bad" behavior.
But I'm simply refusing to address the clinical aspects of sex ed because my interest is in keeping the focus on the loss of the old cultural standard of abstinence-only until marriage. There are no doubt necessary and good aspects to the clinical presentations, but there may also be elements I'd want to object to -- I don't know off the top of my head, but it would be too complicated a discussion for me to want to get into right now.
Yes, people should not be taught any behavior is "bad" or "good" by a sex educator.
Well, but THAT is also a tenet of the Sexual Revolution mentality, or the moral relativist mentality. Implicit in my whole message is that once upon a time it was pretty universally understood that sex belongs in marriage and that everything else is "bad." Again, this represented the official mores of communities, not that there weren't plenty of people doing what was bad. But the difference is that such things were thought of as bad. What has changed via the Sexual Revolution is that now nobody is allowed to say what is objectively and universally bad or good. So I'm not allowed to say that your libertinism is bad -- and I didn't, merely pointed out that the moral law has something say about it and there are consequences for violating that law. You insist that for you it is good and that you have a right to decide what is good, and all of us have that right to choose our own sexual behavior, because what prevails now, and the Sexual Revolution is right in line with it, is moral relativism -- there ARE no objective standards any more. But there used to be, and pretty much everywhere on earth, as I was saying in that post -- again, even though they were violated.
Then there was this concerted intellectual attack on those moral standards, criticizing them as bad for the health, as the product of a power elite's desire to control the people, as a throwback to a primitive mentality, as the product of evil religion and so on and so forth. Thus was the sexual revolution born. And now, as I said, it's running things. No more objective universal moral standards -- only private personal moral standards.
And this new mentality is well illustrated by your post, as you go on:
Who are we to say anyway (remember the garden)? But that is not to say they should be left to do as they will either. Such questions should be forwarded to parents and other important persons in one's lives (like pastors). How sex effects one beyond the purely physical dimension, including later physical aspects derived from spiritual/cultural issues, is up to them to put into perspective for that person not sex educators.
Etc.
What sex education allows a person, any person of any culture, to have is the knowledge of how the body works on the physical level and what that person can do to prevent certain physical issues. I do not know of any scripture which says that is not something valuable for people to have.
But remember, I am explicitly avoiding this subject because I haven't fully thought it through, and because I may have objections to various aspects of the way the physical information is presented, if I knew more of the specifics, and I simply don't want to make any premature judgments; and because I'm interested in this cultural overview.
I might add that Jesus generally tended to be merciful and aid those physically who were unworthy and made mistakes. Remember the addage of helping those even the ones you view as most vile. If people are going to make mistakes, isn't it better to be forgiving and at least help them avoid or deal with some of the worst physical issues? Doesn't that help you as much as them by alleviating suffering?
I have nothing against alleviating suffering. It hasn't been addressed.
I guess I find it odd to believe that sex ed's ability to help people avoid contagion and unwanted pregnancy, in the short term, would be powerful enough to overcome God's will for man.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here.
And I also am not certain why one holding such a position would not be against the medical profession in total, including all aids to the suffering of women in childbirth. Why is it sufficient to prevent the masses from knowing what the doctors know?
I have no idea what you are saying holmes. I have not discussed any of this, or implied anything about it as far as I intended.
But those are side issues. My main idea is that while we are certainly personal philosophical enemies, your ad hominem against my beliefs reflecting my vision of your own, we do not have to disagree on the teaching of clinical knowledge regarding the body to those who lack such knowledge.
I don't recall making any ad hominems, or even thinking much about your particular philosophy while writing my post. And again, I have no idea how far I might agree or disagree with you about clinical knowledge. To me that is a whole other subject.
As a point of fact, you say my sexual philosophy leads to cultural suicide, but it is proven that in areas where your moral philosophy holds sway and abstinence is the only message taught, the worst ills are occuring.
My moral philosophy simply does not hold sway any more. Where you think it holds sway it doesn't. The moral philosophy that holds sway everywhere now is the Sexual Revolution. I did my best to get that across in my post. And I'd need to see these studies you claim show this anyway. I'm less and less a fan of social science.
Despite my shock at how some people in my community are ignoring clinical knowledge they have access to, they are certainly fairing better than YOUR communities. The worst hit at this point are the ones with no clinical knowledge, or are ignoring such clinical knowledge.
I have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about. How do you know what MY communities are? Such sweeping generalizations about who knows what?
Doesn't that argue by itself that ignorance of clinical knowledge (regardless of moral beliefs) is what the problem is? I might add that HIV was not initially sexual and continues to be spread via bush-meat eating along with lines of new SIV-type transfers. Last I read there were at least two more varieties and it is increasing among african exotics. You can preach against sex all you like, with regard to HIV the cause was interaction with contagious exotic animals in a nonsexual fashion, and such interactions combined with globalization will hit us in many different fronts in the future.
And what is this supposed to prove?
Abstinence until marriage, with monogamy, will not help one bit to a family in Africa who uses or participates in the bush-meat industry. If a husband comes down with it, should they not know how to prevent the wife from contracting it? Or is she supposed to divorce him?
Huh?
Clinical knowledge has no moral value.
And your point is?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
™ Version 4.2