sex and marriage

Chapter 7 Christian Morality (2)
But the Roman Catholics were not so contrary to the laws of nature as the hermits of St. Paul and Tibeid.St. Paul gives us the impression that marriage offers only a legal outlet for sexuality.We can see from his words that he had no objection to birth control; on the contrary, we may infer that he considered pregnancy and childbirth to be very dangerous.The church is another concept.In orthodox Christian teaching, marriage has two purposes: one is recognized by St. Paul; the other is to produce children.result.The Church has made sexual morality an even more unacceptable thing than St. Paul has prescribed.Not only is intercourse outside marriage illegal, but intercourse between husband and wife is also sinful, unless the purpose of the intercourse is to induce pregnancy.According to Roman Catholic teaching, the only legitimate motive for sexual intercourse is the desire to have a legitimate child.To show their allegiance to this motive they resorted to no cruel means.Even if the wife hates sexual intercourse; even if she may die in another pregnancy; even if the child may become disabled or mentally ill; that power.As long as he has the hope of having children, it is enough.

Roman Catholic teaching on this subject is based on two things: on the one hand, it rests on the asceticism we see in the words of St. Paul; It is a good thing that as many souls as possible come, because every soul can be saved.I don't know why they don't notice the other fact that the soul is also mortal.For example, Roman Catholics used their political influence to prevent Protestants from practicing birth control, while at the same time they believed that the vast majority of Protestant children produced by their political actions would never be born again in the next life. This makes their conduct seem cruel, which is undoubtedly mysterious and incomprehensible to those of the world.

Roman Catholic teaching recognizes children as one of the purposes of marriage, but this recognition is limited.The Roman Catholic Church, which strongly promotes the notion that sexual intercourse other than for the purpose of bearing a child is sinful, does not, however, permit the dissolution of a marriage for barrenness.However eager a man may be, he cannot be saved in Christian morality if his wife is barren.In fact, the positive purpose of marriage, the so-called procreation, is not very important, but its real purpose, as St. Paul says, is to prevent crime.Adultery is still somewhere between sin and innocence, and marriage is at bottom the more fortunate of two misfortunes.

The Roman Catholic Church strongly advocates that marriage is a sacramental teaching to cover up their aversion to marriage.The practical object of this preaching is to lead people to presume that marriage is indissoluble.It doesn't matter how badly either of the husband and wife behaves, even if one of them is mentally or mentally ill, or develops a habit of drinking.Or openly live with another person, the marriage relationship between two people is still sacred.Although, in some cases, they were allowed to divorce, they were never given the right to remarry.Of course, this often brings great pain to people. Since this pain is God's will, it can only be endured.

In addition to this extremely cruel theory, the Roman Catholic Church often has a certain degree of forgiveness of sins.The Roman Catholic Church recognizes that human nature is always incapable of acting according to the teachings of the Church, and therefore it has elaborately prepared a method of absolution for adultery, provided the perpetrator confesses his sin and sincerely repents.In fact, this way of forgiveness is the means by which the clergymen increase their power, for they alone can forgive sins, and if only they can forgive sins, adultery can pass through their hands from eternal punishment.

Compared with Roman Catholicism, the concept of Protestantism seems to be somewhat different and milder in theory, but in fact it is much harsher in many respects. "It's better to marry than to burn with lust." This sentence left a deep impression on Luther, so he fell in love with a female monk.He believed that, notwithstanding his vows of celibacy, both he and the friar had a right to marry.Indeed, we can all say that he has a right and a duty to marry, because if he does not marry, it will deprive him of his sexual desires and put him in the position of common man to commit crimes.Since then, Protestantism stopped praising celibacy, which coincides with Roman Catholicism.

In places where Protestantism prevails, the teaching that marriage is a sacrament is also abandoned, and divorce is allowed under certain conditions.But Protestants have a far greater abhorrence of fornication than Roman Catholics, and their moral condemnation is therefore far more severe.The Roman Catholic Church believes that all people have sins to a certain extent, so they have formulated various methods of forgiveness of sins; on the contrary, Protestantism abolished the Roman Catholic regulations on confession and forgiveness of sins, making the offender live in a different state than the Roman Catholic Church. more desperate situation.We can see both aspects of this attitude in modern America: Divorce is extremely easy there, but adultery is condemned and censured more severely than in most Roman Catholic countries.

It is evident that the whole system of Christian morality, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, needs to be re-studied in order to exclude the prejudices which the majority of the people have accepted in Christian doctrine.Any kind of repeated preaching can produce firm beliefs in most people, especially in their infancy, so that they can dominate their subconscious minds.So while many of us think we are quite liberal about orthodoxy, in fact we are still unconsciously governed by these teachings.We must ask ourselves quite frankly: Why does the Church object to all adultery?Do we think that there is some just cause for the objection of the Church?Or, if we think it has no justification at all, are there any other reasons than those of the Church that would lead us to the same conclusion?

The ancient Church believed that there was something inherently unclean about sex, although sex could be excused if certain basic prerequisites were met before engaging in it.This attitude is purely superstitious.This attitude of the church was presumably due to the oppositional attitudes discussed above.That is to say, those who first came up with the idea were unquestionably pathological, physically or mentally, or both.A generally accepted view does not prove that it is not absurd.Indeed, a generally accepted belief is often foolish and unwise because of the ignorance of the majority.The islanders of Pelu believed that piercing the nose was necessary for permanent happiness; Europeans believed that this was more easily achieved by getting the head wet, accompanied by certain prayers.It is ironic that the belief of the Pelu Islanders is a superstition, while the European conception has become a truth in our sacred religion.

Bentham devised a table of motivations for behavior.In the table, each desire has a name and is written in three parallel columns, praise, disapproval, and neutral.In the first column we have "gluttony" and in the opposite column we have "love of eating and drinking".Then, we saw the column that recorded the impulse to encourage, and it said "love", and in the second column opposite, what we saw was "resentment".I advise everyone who wishes to gain a clear understanding of moral issues to follow Bentham in this.Get used to the fact that almost all words that imply disapproval have a synonym that embodies praise, and get into the habit of using neutral words that connote neither praise nor disapproval.

"Fornication" and "adultery" are two words that contain very strong moral derogation.When we use these two words, our minds generally have a hard time staying conscious.However, those dirty writers who want to corrupt our morals use other words, "love" and "love unfettered by cold laws."Both types of words are biased.Both types of words must be avoided if we wish to think calmly.Unfortunately.This will undoubtedly destroy our literary creation.Words of praise and words of disapproval are emotional and evocative.The reader can be misled by words of curse or praise, and the writer can manipulate the reader's emotions with language tricks at will.However, we all want to be sane, so we must use neutral terms that are neutral, such as "sexual relations outside of marriage."But this kind of language is too boring, after all, what we are discussing now is a problem closely related to human emotions.If we completely exclude emotion from our work, we will not be able to reflect the essence of the issues we are discussing.Speaking of sex.It is a matter of a certain emotional disposition, and it all depends on whether we describe it from the point of view of the person in question, or of the envious spectator.Our perception is that our own behavior is "flirty" and the behavior of others is "adultery".We must therefore remember those words of emotion, which we may use now and then, but with great care.In general, we should use terms that are neutral or scientifically correct.

Christian morality greatly degraded the status of women by focusing on sexual purity.Generally, those moralists are men, so women have become temptresses; if the moralists are all women, men will replace women in the degraded position.Since women are temptresses, their chances of seducing men should be reduced.As a result, those women with status are more restrained; at the same time, those women without status are regarded as sinful and are greatly despised.It is not until modern times that women have begun to regain the freedoms they enjoyed under the Roman Empire.as mentioned earlier.Patriarchy has a lot to do with the bondage of women, but this rarely happened before Christianity.After Constantine, women's freedom was reduced under the pretext of protecting women and exempting them from sin.It is only in modern times that women have regained their liberty because people have changed their views on evil.

In ancient times, the works of the godfathers were full of words cursing women.

Women are seen as the gates of hell and the source of human evil.She should be ashamed just to think that she is a woman.She should live in constant repentance, for the evil she has brought upon the world; she should be ashamed of her dress, which is a sign of her depravity; and above all, guilty of her beauty, which is the The devil's most powerful weapon.In the 6th century, a provincial council even banned women from receiving communion with bare hands, on the grounds that women were unclean.Since then, the status of women has been very low.Physical beauty has always been the subject of church curses, though rare exceptions can be found.For example, in the Middle Ages, the physical beauty of bishops was often inscribed on their foundation stones.

After the French Revolution, the laws of property and inheritance, which were directed against women, were changed by the tireless efforts of free thinkers, so that women could regain their inheritance.

(End of this chapter)