that sort of ignorance about the world is very dangerous.

The catholic church has always been dreadfully afraid of sex, and unable to consider 'sex' and 'love' as two separate ideas.

Sex feels good. If you want to feel good, have sex. Where exactly is the 'sin' in that? What is so terribly wrong about people feeling good?

Love is completely unrelated. You can have sex without love, you can have love without sex. And sex is certainly not just a baby-producing process, it is just as much if not more a social process.

This is the issue about religion and politics. The catholic church doesn't want people to feel good, or be happy generally, because then they'd realise the falseness of their faith. It is a throwback to Puritanism, the terrible fear that someone, somewhere, might actually be happy.

Mort-Hog, that's just nonsense. That's not what the Church teaches, and to call its teachings on sex puritanical is just based on stereotypical views.

Wrong wording on my part - I meant stimulation of your partner with your hand.

Mort - Catholics simply believe that sex was designed by God to be a birthing process, and that to solely use it for pleasure is against God's will. They're not saying that sex is a dirty, sinful thing, though I guess you'd get that idea from the fact that they have limits on sexual practices.

Did you even read my post? I even stated in the first sentence that it was the result of me and my friend discussing the issue satirically. I felt obliged to include that because i knew people would take it seriously (a bit like the bibl... you know what, i'm not even gonna go there).... yet somehow you still managed to.

Honestly, I don't think that this discussion is the greatest place for satire..and your discussion with your friend actually isn't too out of line with some peoples' 'real' thinking.

Taking the Bible seriously and literally are two different things altogether.



IIRC, impotent people may marry, but if they have hidden it from their partner before marriage, it is grounds for an anullment.



I've ran into much, much more of 'pushing agendas' when I was Protestant..doesn't happen much at all in my Church.

Brainwashing, anyone?

Again, I saw much more of that in my Protestant upbringing than I have as a Catholic. Please don't throw your biased and uneducated views out as if they were true -- have you researched the actual teachings of the Catholic Church, or are you going by the massive amount of blatantly anti-Catholic websites around?

Jack is high.

It's CTRL+V time!

/clear

Nonsense. If those people were so concerned with following Catholic doctrine, they wouldn't be having sex outside of marriage in the first place. Unless you want to tell me that most of the people spreading AIDS in the developing world are married to each other, there's got to be another reason why they're not using condoms.

Side note: The new Pope was previously the Grand Inquisitor.

Oh yes cause we all know everyone in the world should know everything about the pope cause everyone in the world is Catholic.

Under Church law a couple is not considered married until they have consummated the marraige through intercourse. So technically it's impossible. During the mandatory marital preparations a number of questions are asked, one of them being whether or not the man is impotent.

If the answer is yes, the priest will not procede, since the marraige has no capability of ever being "legal" under canon law. If he lies, everyone would assume it was a legal marraige, but that would be grounds for annullment due to the deception and it being non consumatum, or some latin phrase to that effect.

With that logic... Maybe killing someone you hate feels good. So if you want to feel good, kill your enemies. What's the sin in that? What's so terribly wrong -- you're just trying to feel good after all...

And your beliefs are entirely correct and without error I presume?

.. except the pope was in italy, which was developing fascism, which is anti-social/communism .. and Ratzinger was part of the Hitler Youth, which was Nazi, which is also Fascist and anti-communism ..

viagra fixes all.

It doesn't work in some cases, unfortunately.

Benedict XV (1914-1922): reigned during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia which store the establishment of Communism.

you do realise that john paul the second did a whole lot of things that involved trying to get people of other religions to be at piece with (not convert to) catholisism. He was a very important figure of the late 20th century.

also, the fact that ewoklover did not know about the pope's existance is disturbing because it makes me wonder what sort of non-religous things he doesn't know about because they don't affect him. having good knowledge of the world is a necesity if you want to go beyond high school (or college as it is in canberra because we have four years of high school then two of college) as many inclass essays (i.e. the type when you have no idea what it is about until it is given to you) need more than just the basic stuff you may be given for help.

While I wholeheartedly agree that keeping the fact that one is impotent secret is grounds for anullment, I'm trying to wrap my mind around this Catholic law. Is the official Catholic stance that marriage is simply a means for procreation?

Two people in love and committed to eachother should be able to have sex if they choose. Plain and simple. It's not wrong.

From your viewpoint. Stop trying to pass off your points of view as moral absolutes.

No, it's a lot of things. Sex is supposed to be the ultimate gift of the self, and what makes the two one flesh. The child is not neccesary to marraige, as the infertile can marry. There's a lot to it, but that's the short answer.

Pulled from a guestbook here..

My aunt had a similar situation..
A guy she met in college recently is a really nice guy, and he is a catholic. His parents did not go to church, so obviously he never did either, nor did he recieve any religious education. So in short, he's not a practicing catholic, unlike my aunt who is. Sad to say, he had no idea that Moses and Jesus didn't live in the same time period.

It always seemed pretty rough, I didn't know there was the possibility of a dispensation available.

Woah hold up. I just read the last few posts... someone didn't know the pope existed? Or am I confused?

Well thanks for clearing that up, you clearly know everything there is to know.

You guys are ignorant. I just list my opinion, not pressing it on anyone, just sayin what I thought, and you jump on top of me like a whore. Calm the hell down, if you cant take a serious discussion about this in a civil way on a message forum, you seriously, honestly, utterly, need to go outside and get off the computer.



Honestly though, what the hell is WRONG about two people in love, committed, having premarital sex? Sex is the most natural things two humans can do, and it expresses the love for one another when involved in a relationship. HOw on earth that's a sin it just doesnt make any sense.

OH no, you didnt kill anyone, you didn't steal, you didnt do anything wrong, but you had premarital sex....COngradulations, welcome to hell. RIght.

Sounds like you're the one who needs to "calm the hell down." I don't see anybody "jumping on top of" you..perhaps I missed something?

If you're in love and committed, how better can you show your committment to your partner than by waiting until you're married? If you have sex before marriage, doesn't that make the actual status of marriage much less significant?

I see it with people living together all the time..they're acting as if they were married (living / sleeping together), but they're not..it has led to an increase in divorce rates as well. People basically end up practicing divorce..they break up, find someone else, screw around with them...break up, find someone else, etc. How is that committment?

Because the doctrines of Catholicism/Christianity say this. These people (and me) willingly choose to follow these doctrines. If you don't follow Christianity and its teachings of WAIT, then fine, do your own thing. But to me, and many Christians, we believe that premarital sex is a bad thing.

Ahhh, how I've missed this place...

If i may be allowed to throw in some Aquinas (not the be all and end all of Catholic doctrine, but always a good place to start) sex is given to mankind for 3 reasons:

- Procreation

- An expression of love

- For the enjoyment (yes, the Church follows Aquinas in acknowledging sex is fun! Part of the accidents of the act, perhaps.)

Biologically, sex is fun to encourage reproduction among animals too stupid to realise it is in their own good to have little cubs that will grow up to bring home kills when mama is too old.

So both biologically and theologically, the highest purpose of sex is reproduction: hence sex that deliberately denies the possibility of reproduction violates the whole purpose of sex, whether from the view of (the Catholic) God or nature, and the Church teaches it is a sin.

O, and condoms don't work.

Anyways, thats one view on what the Church teaches. You don't have to agree.

As for biblically, man and wife become one flesh - Gen 2:24. (Not man and, well, anyone other than his wife - the Hebrew says, "his woman" but wife is clearly implied, as it is the woman he leaves his parents house to go make a home with). With respect to the issue of procreation, the Bible, at the other end to Genesis, says,
"the Lord is witness between you and the wife of your youth,
with whom you have broken faith though she is your companion, your betrothed.
Did he not make one being, with flesh and spirit?
And what does that one require, but godly offspring? - Malachi 2:13.

The purpose of biblical marrriage is thus godly offspring... or at least that is the basis of this passage, which is actually a prophecy for the nation (hence there are other ways of interpreting it).

Hope that helps somehow. Viva Papa Benedicio!!!

PS The condoms crack was a JOKE for those here with long memories, please take it as such!!!

No, sex has just a much a social value. Humans, and many other pack animals, are very social, because on their own they're useless. They can only survive in a group. Sex is one of the many methods of forming that group and establishing that bond, telling the other animal that they're not in competition. This is also the purpose of homosexual sex in mammals.

This is why you experience lust - the desire to have sex. Repressing this desire is very unhealthy.

Bwaahaa!

Premarital sex leads to an increase in Divorce rate!?! Oh you guys kill me!

Ok, so premarital sex isn't for everyone, and if you want to wait 'till you're married, fair play to you sir. But pulling crap like that out of nowhere is just silly and undermines you. An increase in divorce rates is to do with loads of factors - society becoming more 'sexual' is one of those, yes, but there are plenty of other more significant factors, the one I would offer first would be that the working life of both men and women are becoming more stressful - women moving into the workplace puts stress on families that simply don't have enough time to spend together already - not eating meals together for example.

I have a girlfriend, we are in love, we are at university together, we practice safe sex, we are planning a life where we can afford to bring children into the world, which involves finishing our degrees, getting stable jobs and a mortgage. Neither of us are going to stop thinking hte way we do about premarital sex, and completely fairly, nor are you. Both practices are utterly right when practiced between two consenting people. (So that is not an absolute moral truth, it's a RELATIVE truth - I believe I am right, and CL believes he is. We are both right. We can agree to disagree)

Anyways, I should be working... :S

It boggles the mind how an increase in divorce rate is instantly considered a 'bad thing'.

The reason people didn't get divorced before was that they believed they should stay with their partners even if they didn't love them, even if they hated them and the marriage is miserable, they'd stay together.
But today, people see that if they make a mistake, and they marry the wrong person, they can fix that mistake. Staying together even if they're both miserable is insane. They divorce, find partners that they're both happy with, and marry them.

They're married, but unhappy. They divorce, they re-marry others, they're happy. How is that a 'bad thing'?

The increase in divorce rate only shows how society is willing to do more work in order to achieve happiness. Yes, if you add children into the equation, it certainly complicates the situation, but it is probably much healthier for the child to be brought up by a single-parent, or a step-parent, than by parents that argue and bicker and hate eachother.

Good point, but sexual relationships make up a relatively small number of interhuman social relationships, and adding sex can tend to screw up as many as it 'cements'. This is not due to our Judeao-Christian hang-ups either (says I) but because since reproduction is the ultimate point of it all, excessive social sex would lead to confusion as to whether we are passing on our genes or not, or someone else's (so to speak - you know what i mean). Hence the completely natural and biological reaction of jealousy where there are non-exclusive sexual relations.
Ummmm nooooooo... I would still say its the urge to pass on your genes, to procreate. Women get more lustful when they are ovulating (I am told).
I agree. U should channel it into something else. Thats why Catholic boys are the best rugby / soccer players :p

...or, you could have sex. With someone else that also wants to have sex. Desire fulfilled, all happy.

You are told correctly.

while
women=ovulating
beat(stick)
end

Gah, too much MATLAB

Class starts in 5 minutes..on a different floor..but I pulled this up real quick -- haven't had a chance to read over it, but it looks relevant to my earlier post..

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0087.html

Ahhhh, okay. Thank you very much.

But these Catholic boys are taught to wait until marriage. If they want to say "screw you" to Catholic/Christian doctrine then they can go bang some girl to "relieve tension." But to those who willingly follow this, they have to find other methods of fulfilling desires.

See, I'm not sure that you grasp that. Catholics are Catholics because they choose to follow Church principles because they believe in them. If they want to wait until marriage, let them wait.

I'm with ShiningTed. I believe that "lust" is your desire to procreate and to have your genes spread about than to join a social group.