Just shy of a month after I posted Is marriage the cause of sexual immorality?, I see that Artisanal Toad has now responded with Dishonest Dalrock Thinks He Won:
Rather than prohibit sexual activity “outside marriage” as Dalrock claims, Paul actually said “it is good to not have sex a woman who is not your wife”. Meaning, “yes, that is permitted, but it’s good not to do that.”
The same day I wrote my original post (Aug 9th), I predicted how the discussion would play out:
The challenge as is the rationalizers want to play a game of theological rope a dope, firing off rationalizations faster than you can refute them with references from the text, hoping that eventually you or the people reading will grow exhausted and give up. But this still leaves the fact that they have inverted the fundamental teaching on marriage, holding it as the cause of sexual immorality instead of the way to avoid it.
After a thorough filibuster, Toad is now claiming that I didn’t give him a chance to make his argument! A month later, he now comes back claiming that I banned him:
Dalrock banned me before I could respond and 1) call him out for not actually answering the question and 2) point to the real issue. Of course, I’d have also called him out for lying, once again, but that’s beside the point.
This is a lie, but I will happily ban him now. With that in mind, for those who want more Toad feel free to follow the link above and read him on his own blog.
Did Paul actually say that? I can’t find the Scripture that says that particular passage. Perhaps it is in Toad’s Bible under Paul’s letter to the Toadidians.
I doubt you banned him, Dalrock…and I’m sure we’ll see proof when he tries to post a rebuke in the comment section.
[D: I had not banned him before. But I have banned him now.]
Pingback: Still going. | @the_arv
I’m willing to say this on record that Artisanal Toad is a bald faced LIAR
I staid throughout the entire blog piece watching the exchange between him and everyone else and not once did Dalrock ban Toad…..
Toad just simply stopped posting
Mind you if you ask me personally it sounds like Toad is butt hurt and is using “projection” because when that coward starts to lose an argument he won’t hesitate to ban you on his blog
Awwwww what’s the matter Toad…..perhaps you need a safe space to crawl back into after being soundly beaten by Dalrock and everyone else
PATHETIC
So AT is just a flat out liar. You’d never guess that a man with three hot assassin wives would have to stoop so low.
Some of the most dishonest people I have ever met have been pastors…
I tried to read through the comment section of that post. I got maybe 1/3 the way through and I couldn’t go on. Like Dalrock said it’s a so many rationalizations and loopholes you don’t even want to deal with it and call it wrong.
He has every right to rationalize his immorality…but he has no actual Scriptural basis to do it and will continued to be rebuked if he keeps trying that.
What if a thing asymptotically approaches ‘totally wrong’, but never quite gets there?
Often things like this come quickly to an end once you list all the arguments, loopholes and counter-arguments next to each other. It goes on and on only if one side finds a way to step from A to B to avoid an argument against A, and then from B to A to avoid an argument against B.
Or there is just an argument from a general feeling on how it should go. Therefore the best formulation for that must be the proof one was looking for. Soon all written things will become expressions for an undeniable feeling behind them, instead of actual claims and definitions.
Final thing is that AT’s argument may forever stand if someone gives him that a remotely plausible out of context definition of a word or a sorely forgotten or never heard of cultural context will allow it. So, when he hangs it on x, and not even one in ten thousand believes in that particular x, everyone can be happy with what he got.
Or was it just that “it’s not good for a man to rob a bank” implies that robbing banks is not strictly and actually forbidden? In that case there really was no argument. I got tired far too early to really get all that was said here.
Id say that if you can’t prove your argument in a month, you don’t have much of an argument.
“Toad banned – Boxer hardest hit. “
How many sites have banned Artisinal Toad from commenting? If the answer is more than 2 then the problem might not be “people don’t understand A. Toad”, but rather … something else.
Rights are grounded in what is right. We have a moral obligation to respect and defend rights.
Immorality is not right and has no right. It is understandable that sinful men justify their sin, but it is wrong. We have no obligation to respect and defend any immorality.
AT has no right to lie about Dalrock banning him. AT has no right to twist Scripture to rationalize his own desires and deeds. AT has no right to teach the Bible and make others twice the son of Hell he is. He has no such rights because all of those actions are morally wrong. There may be no legal penalty, but he has no right to practice them.
AT’s latest lie proves out he is not of us who are Christians, and should be treated as an unbeliever.
To that knoweth to good and doeth it not, to him it is sin…
…To him…
Boxer assured us that AT is an intelligent and entertaining individual. Don’t be kooky.
Cane,
I feel like this comment needs more love. I laughed, at least.
I would assume that a non-KJV is involved, somewhere.
Toad has some good arguments, but also some totally wacky off track obsessions as well.
The Bible clearly teaches that sex is reserved for marriage. I think Toad is obsessed with finding loopholes that permit whoring. God does not allow whoring.
His accusations against Dalrock were way out of line.
This comes as no surprise.
After I had some discussions with Toad, he recommended some further reading which I did. When I went back to his blog to discuss it with him, he refused to answer my questions, would not allow my posts to appear on his blog, then started with the name calling.
His dishonesty should be obvious to anyone who engages with him.
Pingback: Still going. | Reaction Times
Understandable is a better term to use.
You do also notice oftentimes when sinful men try to justify their sin by twisting Scripture, they resort to insults, name calling, and lying when called out about it. It reveals just how hollow the justification is. It’s no different than ‘alpha’ preacher trying to blame husbands for everything that goes wrong in marriage and giving the wife outs to not submit.
I don’t see why AT would say he was banned since his comments appear many times in that thread.
From AT’s blog link:
…Dalrock chose to take advantage of the ignorance and cultural conditioning of all his Dalrock bros…
Hey! This is like a Trump voter being insulted by the Hollywood elite.
Necro King sez:
Right. I am also disappointed in this looney meltdown. Toad is an interesting guy with some far-out ideas, but I’ve never seen him kook out this way before. It’s a distinctly feminine and dramatic tirade he’s gone on.
Oh well. More blood in the gutter, and me without my spoon!
Best,
Boxer
Don Quixote sez:
I had a perfectly congruent experience with Toad, a few months ago. Check the comments of this muhfugga…
https://v5k2c2.wordpress.com/2017/07/28/the-obsession-with-wife-beating/
tl;dr: I took issue with Toad’s promotion of weird sexual fetishes on his blog, and wondered out loud how he could reconcile S&M with his supposed faith in the bible. He became completely outraged in the comments. I tried to calm him down, even offering to print a rebuttal on my own site (or link to one on his) without comment. Naturally, he didn’t take me up on this.
He also didn’t follow through with his invitation to coffee or whiskey with his death-dealing wives; though we had a hurricane in my area recently, and people are busy, so maybe he’s tied up with rebuilding the compound. Who can say?
In any case, I enjoyed the debate with Dalrock, and I’m glad it happened. (Dalrock is the only person patient and knowledgeable enough to illustrate the usual theoretical shortcomings in his work). Hopefully my nigga Toad can somehow recover from the unbearable trauma of people disagreeing with him on the internet, and get back to posting substantive content.
Best,
Boxer
“This is a lie, but I will happily ban him now.”
I’d noticed things had been quieter here lately. Monomania is one thing but false accusations are quite another.
…
PokeSalad @ 1:39 pm:
“Toad banned – Boxer hardest hit.“
Threadwinner!
Gunner Q sez:
All I see are a handful of spankards, desperate for my attention…
Regards,
Boxer
So Dalrock has banned Toad. No more scrolling past 3 page comments just to find someone interesting, like Boxer, Earl, or even ASDGamer.
Is Insanitybytes banned too.
[D: Insanitybytes is banned, as is ASDGamer.]
According to Toad a real Christian would have to wife both of them up –
http://knuckledraggin.com/2017/09/well-so-much-for-that-threesome/#comments
Insanitybytes … I miss her lunatic BS at Alpha Game…
It’s of the wailing and gnashing of teeth variety. I wouldn’t call that feminine, though…I’d call it more distinctly harpy.
OT but worth a read…seems as though somebody has caught on to the idea that woman’s feelings like we see in rom-coms can be as bad as porn.
Pornography and Sentimentality: The Ruins of Beauty
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/2013/10/12/pornography-and-sentimentality-the-ruins-of-beauty/
AT is a waste of breath. He has gone so far now only God can help him recover from his error.
May God have mercy on him.
Often the rom-coms include pornography, rather than just playing with a woman’s emotions. It’s a both/and in many cases rather than an either/or.
Gosh, I was all set at some point to make a joke about how I could never tell Artisanal Caldo and Cane Toad apart, but I guess it is too late now … 😦
The “fake ban” seems like the Secret King declaring victory as he runs from the fight.
By self-declaring the ban, he allows himself the, “I coulda won, if he let me into the ring.” Further, it makes it appear as if his words were edited/deleted.
In the end, I think he wants to direct traffic to his site and ban those who de-pants him.
Too funny.
He accuses of fake banning, then puts all comments in moderation.
The Secret King wins again!.
I’m glad AT is banned. He was wordy with little content that was substantive and useful, inaccurate or deceitful about what the Bible’s words meant, and ultimately on the side of evil.
Off topic Dalrock, but Bettina Arndt hits the nail on the head:
Women don’t understand cause and effect, example MMMCCCLXVIII :
NY Post Writer : When I don’t yell at my husband, I have better sex.
Even illiterate peasant women in the 19th century knew this, but this highly credentialed twat (on whom taxpayers + parents spent $500K+ to educate), discovers this mysterious correlation.
A response to Earl
Often the rom-coms include pornography, rather than just playing with a woman’s emotions. It’s a both/and in many cases rather than an either/or.
Both of you are missing reality.
First, as the second poster notes, rom-fic includes explicit porn, at the detailed level[1] But.
Second, because women are not men the entire rom-fic fantasy is solely intended to give the female reader an emotional roller-coaster ride that is a simulation of an affair both sexual and romantically emotional.
[1] Again i challenge doubters to go to the nearest chain bookstore, proceed to the “romance” section and start skimming the hardback and paperback books. In a 250 page book the first blatant sex scene should be found somewhere around page 80 or so. Test this. Then test it again, until you understand what “romance fiction’ actually is. Look around you at all the women under 70 who read “romance fiction”, yes, including the ones in your church. Are they really reading this? Yes, they are.
Then you are ready to look at what Amazon will sell for under $5 American, typically under 150 pages; porn that previously was found only in various corners of the net. Look around at the fresh faced women under 40, and especially under 30. Are many of them (not all, ok) reading this?
Yes, indeed, they are.
So if “exposed to porn” is a disqualification for marriage to a churchgoing person, or a “get out of marriage free” divorce card, then…sauce for the gander is what for the goose?
@Earl
“”Perhaps it is in Toad’s Bible under Paul’s letter to the Toadidians.””
L*….good one!
Boxer says:
September 6, 2017 at 5:13 pm
I too have been impressed with the patience of our host [Dalrock]. This blog is a great source of entertainment and enlightenment, and the eclectic mix of contributors ensures that nearly all discussions are worth the read.
One of romcom’s most Satanic and destructive lies is the notion of the Soul Mate. That …
1. A Soul Mate understands, supports, and loves you completely — just for being you! You need never change for your Soul Mate. To your Soul Mate, you are perfect just as you are.
2. Everyone has one, but only one, true Soul Mate.
3. The Universe/God wants you to find your Soul Mate. It is God’s gift and blessing to you. You were meant to find your Soul Mate. You are justified in doing whatever it takes to find your Soul Mate.
4. If the man you married is not making your haaaaappyyyy, he is not your Soul Mate. You are thus justified in cheating on him, divorcing him, whatever, to move on toward finding your Soul Mate. It’s not your fault. Marriage to anyone other than your Soul Mate was not meant to be and just won’t work out.
5. Wait as long as it takes. Dump or divorce anyone who gets in the way. The Universe/God will guide you to your Soul Mate. It’s meant to be. It’s the only way you’ll ever be haaaaappyyyy.
My wife gets upset when I say this, but I don’t believe in soulmates. Biblically, which is my reference point, there isn’t any such concept. The Bible doesn’t say if you and your wife are meant for each other, love your wife. It says love your wife. If you can’t resist fornication, get married and use your wife for your sexual urges. The expectations for marriage are very pragmatic, which isn’t flattering to women, but that’s the command.
And, of course, the upside is that when the feelings get low, the expectation is still there to do right toward your wife, which is an advantage to her, but doesn’t always feel like one when expressed in clear words.
Then probably upwards of 95-99% of churchgoing people are disqualified for marriage.
I personally recommend against deliberately exposing yourself to pornography.
RPL–
That is also the formula that creates the framework and justification for the (now defunct) “boyfriend/girlfriend” relationship.
(Sort of committed but not really because it might not be true love and I need some undefined period of trying various genetalia compatibility and if one person decides this was not meant to be then the relation ends no matter how sure the first person is about it and…)
“I personally recommend against deliberately exposing yourself to pornography.”
A good recommendation, and Gary Wilson, in his study “Your Brain on Porn,” agrees with you. Wilson uses science to demonstrate the detrimental effects of pornography on various aspects of human psychology. He does not do this from the perspective of religion (he happens to be an atheist), but I think his arguments are solid, and provide good ammunition for believers.
AT’s views, unfortunately, are but an extreme form of a growing libertinism in large sectors of contemporary American Christianity. One sees it in less strident forms all over the place: in the lax sexual attitudes of many millenials who self-identify as Christian, in the vicious response of many Christians to the (I think totally reasonable) Nashville Statement, and so forth.
The sexual licentiousness has been going on for much longer than just the millennial generation. The creation of the pill led very rapidly to a breakdown of sexual morality, to the point where pornography is now a very common theme in books and television, and there are very few (if any) boundaries around the subject at all.
If women want to really know why they aren’t happy or satisfied…it’s because feminism told them to hate/rebel/fight their husband (and eventually God).
Yes, rom-coms, soap operas, even stuff like ‘The Bachelor’ is emotional porn for women.
I get why women are upset at men watching a simulated sex scene on the screen to get off physically…I doubt most women get why when they get off to emotionally to simulated emotional roller coasters (emotional porn) how that causes them to hurt men because it provides unrealistic emotional expectations. ‘I’m unhapppppy and I want the man who can give me the feels like this movie’ can be just as destructive to a marriage as a man finding sexual pleasure with someone other than his wife.
The “fake ban” seems like the Secret King declaring victory as he runs from the fight.
Nice Vox Day “Gamma” reference!
The only concept in the Bible is ‘helpmate’ or ‘helper’…and that applies to women. Soulmate gives us the idea that your spouse is basically God and can fulfill all your hopes and needs. It’s another unrealistic expectation placed on people. No one, not even your spouse, can do that…only God can.
That’s a very interesting observation.
Still Going ….
Earl sez:
It actually does more than that. Porn (be it hardcore or emotional) throws the subject into an altered state of being and becoming. It trains the mind to see other people as a means, and not an end in themselves.
The trash tee-vee program that Earl mentioned earlier, The Bachelor, is a perfect example of this. Rather than doing what normal people have always done: get married and get on with life, the tee vee is now programming (lol) people to see marriage as the end, and the human interaction and relationship as a disposable byproduct. Hence you’ve got one joker with 20 women, and he samples most (or all) of them sexually, discarding them one-by-one, before he finally decides to marry the last woman laying.
In Marxist terms, this is an extreme form of commodity fetishism. A private process, which in a healthy society would be closed to family members, is now packaged and sold as entertainment for the world. Every healthy social relation has been inverted in the process, resulting in an exhibition of the most extreme dysfunction possible, promoted as entertainment.
Boxer
Cheers for this one. I had never heard of it.
The author apparently touches (lol) on a sensitive spot in the male psyche: Wasting time with tons of pr0n sometimes leads to desensitization, the end result is not being able to get it up with a real live human girl.
Embarrassing!
Boxer
Boxer:
Great analysis. It is the reversal of roles: persons are viewed as means and sex, marriage etc. are viewed as ends. It’s completely sociopathic, and it is promoted in almost everything we consume as “entertainment” from pop music to television to books.
Reminds me of this good advice from a man who had great insight….
“You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.” -Bishop Fulton Sheen
It’s what happens when a society becomes more pagan or atheist and forgets about God. Someone has to take the place of God and it’s very tempting to make your spouse or future spouse that person. It could even have nothing to do with the person but the feelings you have with that person.
I’d find it very irresponsible to place the idea of deity onto my future wife because she’s not…only Christ is my Savior.
squid_hunt: My wife gets upset when I say this, but I don’t believe in soulmates. Biblically, which is my reference point, there isn’t any such concept.
I’m pretty sure that Soul Mates are a New Age concept, so probably rooted in paganism. Yet it’s infected Christian female thinking.
I once dated a self-professed Christian woman in her late 30s (I was in my 40s) who said that her primary goal in life was to marry. She didn’t want kids, just a husband. Despite her age, she’d never been married. Yet she wasn’t worried. She knew that God would her send the right man, at the right time. She had faith that God had a perfect plan for her.
She told me that she prayed after our one date, and searched her heart, and God told her that I was not the one.
And of course the flip side to the cad tatics is the inevitable drama the women have with each other trying to win the affections of the man. It’s why shows like ‘The Real Hypergamous Sluts of (City)’ and ‘Keeping Up With The Dysfunctional Family’ shows never die because women eat up that emotional drama.
The floodwaters kept coming up and I prayed to God to save me. The police car, the boat, and the helicopter weren’t the one though.
Red Pill Latecomer:
You owe her god a tremendous debt in that regard.
Boxer @ 9:14 am:
“It actually does more than that. Porn (be it hardcore or emotional) throws the subject into an altered state of being and becoming.”
So does beer.
“It trains the mind to see other people as a means, and not an end in themselves.”
Other people are means to ends. The biggest mistake of my early adult life was letting myself be taught otherwise, with the result of endless unrewarded exploitation. I exist for my benefit, not yours. We cannot be friends unless I enjoy your company. You will not employ me unless I make you money. Even God Himself didn’t save our souls without an expectation of personal benefit exceeding the cost of Crucifixion.
@Anon Reader
My wife and daughter hit the local yard sales, and it is extremely common for an overtly Christian woman to have a stack of her used chick porn for sale alongside a stack of the very same “Christian” marriage material we discuss on this blog. These women are totally oblivious as to what they are giving away about themselves, because they think it is perfectly normal for a Christian wife and mother to be obsessed with sex with vampires, etc. A man who brought out his stash of X rated DVDs to sell next to his stack of Kendrick brothers movies would at least have the good sense to be ashamed enough of his porn collection to not put them on display for his neighbors.
I have a post in the works on a related topic. While women are as you point out shameless in their consumption of porn, there is another aspect of the custody of the eyes issue that doesn’t involve porn but merely sexual thoughts about real life women they encounter. These twin sins (lusting after women in real life, and porn) are favorites in modern Christianity because the belief is that only men are sinning. But aside from the chick porn issue, there is another area where women haven’t considered their own sinfulness. In real life, the counterpart to men looking/lusting is women dying to be looked at and lusted.
GunnerQ (again) dances for my attention, wowing the crowd with this remarkable observation:
No, they’re not. They’re people. That’s especially important to consider when meeting the girl one may have to live with for the rest of his life. A man who approached a prospective wife with your attitude would never bag anyone worth marrying. He’d either end up embittered or married poorly, to a nasty sort that would arrange for his enslavement.
Making everything into some personal anecdote says a lot about how marginalized and alone you must feel. SirHamster does this too. It inclines me to feel sorry for you guys, rather than to play with you.
In short, try harder.
Boxer
A photo of this, with or without the unashamed saleslady, would be a truly hilarious post in itself.
Dalrock
My wife and daughter hit the local yard sales, and it is extremely common for an overtly Christian woman to have a stack of her used chick porn for sale alongside a stack of the very same “Christian” marriage material we discuss on this blog.
No yard sales for me, but I have seen the same thing play out at used book stores; woman just mixes both stacks and puts them on the counter for trade-in. Include vague smile looking off at the wall as needed.
A man who brought out his stash of X rated DVDs to sell next to his stack of Kendrick brothers movies would at least have the good sense to be ashamed enough of his porn collection to not put them on display for his neighbors.
Don’t often laugh out loud reading the web, but…LOL.
But aside from the chick porn issue, there is another area where women haven’t considered their own sinfulness. In real life, the counterpart to men looking/lusting is women dying to be looked at and lusted at by the Alpha of the situation, such as Deti’s RoddyRockbandDrummerMcPraiseTeam. (Pardon my edit).
The young women in the corner at the potluck talking to each other while looking over their shoulders towards the band in the corner are probably not trading rhubarb pie recipes. However, to understand the social dynamic requires a realistic understanding of women as humans, which runs smack into the standard “Women are Wonderful!” view we are all taught by feminism. Including the conservative feminism that is a feature of just about every group of church women and far too many church men.
Far as I can tell, the closest anyone gets to this in the church setting involves clothing, and even there rebellious women (usually teens to 20’s) demand to know why they should have to limit their dress choices because “can’t the boys just keep their eyes to themselves because I’m not dressing for them but just want to be comfortable because it’s summer and I don’t like to be sweaty in church and what’s the big deal anyway it’s just skin haven’t you ever been to the beach?!”. Or some variation thereof.
One answer to that might be “men have to work enough not looking at boobs shoved in their face at work, on TV and even just walking down the street, why should they have to deal with the same during church?”. But your larger issue remains.
‘You owe her god a tremendous debt in that regard.’
Lower case g is certainly apt here. It could have been her feels or some friend/sister planting the idea he didn’t meet her unrealistic standards.
Of course they are…has any pastor ever broached that subject about how sinful and destructive those books are? You can bet a woman will know frontwards and back how bad her husband’s x-rated porn habit is from the pastor…and even give her grounds to frivorce him. A man should see a woman’s smut book habit is as big a red flag for marriage prospects as a woman seeing a man’s porn habit.
@Roger
*A good recommendation, and Gary Wilson, in his study “Your Brain on Porn,” *…..end quote
You do realize that the pseudoscience involved in “your brain on porn” has been thoroughly debunked? you do know that right?
More recent scientific studies have come out using CAT scans, that show there is NO correlation to desensitizing, erectile dysfunction etc with porn use….The whole methodology, fake biased stats, pseudoscience etc behind “your brain on porn” has been thoroughly DEBUNKED and proven to be flawed
The brain was shown to not being able to differentiate between an orgasm during sex, or via masturbation and porn
The whole scare tactics and anti-porn crusade was nothing more than just another attempt by feminists, and anti-sexual ascetics to bash male sexuality and to retain control over MEN
@Boxer
*It actually does more than that. Porn (be it hardcore or emotional) throws the subject into an altered state of being*…………..end quote
WRONG! See my above quote for a partial refutation
@earlthomas786
Unfortunately the double standards that are applied to women to excuse their wicked behavior are so ingrained and entrenched in society, and reinforced by brainwashed pastors (churchians), that no matter how often we point out a woman’s sins and hypocrisy they will never see it
I’ve seen time and time again, women with tears running down their faces, and vicious self righteous indignation at their husbands porn habits, the equivalent rage as , if their husbands had just committed murder, and then seeking to frivorce them for watching porn, whilst denying that their mills and boon romance novels are ALSO porn, and that their copy of True Blood, and 50 shades of Grey are fullblown porn as well
The inherent blindness in women is staggering
Not that I have a problem with either men or women indulging in porn, whether it be visually or in books, just stating the double standard being applied here
Dear Brother NecroKing:
I see no quote above. Can you reproduce it for me?
Earlier you wrote…
It might indirectly serve feminist interests to limit pr0n consumption, but it’s still a valid argument. Even a total hedonist might reasonably inveigh against it. If nothing else, watching a bunch of pr0n jades a brother. It tends to make sex less enjoyable as a result.
Consider the wisdom of Epicurus, who wrote:
18 As opportunities to see, associate with and live with another are taken away, the emotion of love becomes attenuated.
(Vatican Sayings)
The inverse is just as compelling. The more hawt chicks you see on the tube, the less likely you are to bond with the one real hot chick who would make you a suitable wife. Moreover, if you eat chocolate ice cream daily, then you won't like it any longer. If you spend your life in a brothel, then sex will cease to be any fun. It'll become a chore. This is not the way to go through life.
Best,
Boxer
It won’t change; while x-rated porn is condemned, pornography in television rated R, PG-13, TV-MA, and TV-14 is commonplace and accepted by most people, even people who consider themselves anti-pornography. Unless and until we are willing to tackle the problem of pornography in that most teenagers and adults watch, then “X-rated porn” will be the only type of porn condemned as the unprincipled exception.
@Anon Reader
Ha! Thank you.
It is true that they want the sexual attention of the alpha most of all, and that they will be creeped out by lesser men being too overt about their attraction (the definition of sexual harassment). And yet, they still also crave the sexual attention of lesser men, so long as the men demonstrate that they know their place. Go to any woman’s facebook page to see this in action. Or look at how even the most hard bitten ugly feminist reacts to no longer being desired by even creepy men.
‘If you spend your life in a brothel, then sex will cease to be any fun. It’ll become a chore. This is not the way to go through life.’
It leads to ennui because having lots of sex in a brothel or viewing porn all the time never leads to lasting satisfaction. Much like women need to consume and seek out more emotional drama because they are becoming easily bored.
Dear Earl:
Always knew you were an Epicurean. Me too.
On a (much) more general note, there’s a reactionary tendency in the ‘sphere, especially among younger brothers, to create an inverse feminism. Feminists want to restrict pr0n, so pr0n must not be restricted… Fuck you Mom!! Hail the sex bots and the artificial placentae!! I don’t need no woman!! etc.
The reason feminists are dangerous is because they’re often close to the truth. If they were total nutters, then they wouldn’t have the sway they have. They tell the truth, but tell it slant. Our job is not to directly oppose them verbatim, but to deconstruct their arguments and illustrate exactly where they’re leading society astray, and why.
Best,
Boxer
Dalrock:
I didn’t know where else to write so I’ll leave my question here:
Since the subject you and AT have debated seems to raise the fur on many commenters backs, I would like to see a poll of your readership re: their personal experience with love, sex and marriage. In particular, I would like to see the correlation between ones beliefs on the subject and their actual life experience. I would bet that AT’s understanding of marriage initiation is uncomfortable for most of your married readers because they took used women to wife . . . I did and it was an uncomfortable subject to delve into. By the way, I came to the same conclusion on marriage initiation as Toad 7-8 years ago from reading scripture and Strongs alone; I didn’t know what the manosphere was. I have also found online forum discussions in Pentecostal, COC and non-denom circles where this same belief was argued and defended. There really is no new thing under the sun.
Begging for attention with sideswipes is fitting of your new title. Feeling alone because your buddy got himself banned for tedious lying?
From I’ve read about him, I wouldn’t say I’d be a disciple of his. His idea of pleasure being the greatest good is much like the hedonist although he preferred the idea of doing it in moderation as a means to avoid pain versus a hedonist wanting pleasure all the time as a means to avoid pain.
While I don’t agree with his idea that pleasure is the greatest good…he’s got the right idea about moderation. It’s in line with the cardinal virtue of temperance.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14481a.htm
Necroking,
Your comment on “science” disproving “your brain on porn” is incredibly naive.
Science doesn’t work that way. Follow the money. The medical and psychological industries don’t want us healthy and happy. The elites want men to be addicted to porn.
Porn helps turn men into weak, passive, pussies. That is what the “powers that be” want. Therefore, that is what “science” will find.
Excessive porn use does hinder erections and I’ve experienced it myself. When I frequently viewed porn, my erections clearly got weaker. Once I quit, I soon got much harder.
Hundreds of thousands of guys have experienced it. Damn straight it’s true.
It’s like a direct competition between the sexes about which side should be completely sexually liberated and which side must be completely sexually repressed. I’ve even seen articles by feminists about how porn and that industry empowers women…so they don’t really have a unified front about it.
@Caleb
I can’t speak for others, but if Toad’s theory were correct it would mean that my wife and I didn’t do it wrong after all, so I don’t have that particular vested interest in rejecting his theory. On the other hand, the idea that I have more than one wife would be very disconcerting.
The reason I think you see the reaction against Toad that you are describing is twofold:
1) He makes a complicated series of seemingly insignificant assumptions that result in some truly bizarre outcomes down the road. According to your and Toad’s theology, knowing who your father is isn’t part of God’s plan. Think about that. Feminists hate the patriarchy, but you and Toad figured out that the Patriarchy was a sham all along! You also have to assume that in 1 Cor 7 where the Apostle Paul instructs us that marriage is the solution to sexual temptation, that he really meant it is ok to bang women you aren’t married to. There are a whole slew of these kinds of glaring problems. As Boxer pointed out early on, Toad (and you) are creating an entirely new religion based on a very dubious series of readings of Genesis and Leviticus. Up is down and down is up in this new world you have discovered. You may as well own it.
2) Toad’s persona and style. The more cynical among us might be tempted to suspect that the aspie guy on the internet who claims to be a super alpha with three assassin wives isn’t telling the truth. Moreover, his laughably predictable pattern of hiding the ball and always going back to the beginning to walk us through his 37 point step process of deduction is tedious. Notice that I wrote my post on 1 Cor 7 on August 9th, and it was only on September 5th, after nearly a month and over 1,400 comments that he finally gets around to claiming:
I understand why he does this, because as I’ve pointed out before one doesn’t simply write something this nutty without paving the way with truckloads of distraction first. So he couldn’t do what a normal person would do, and make his case in the comments section or respond with a post of his own early on. He had to write volumes dancing around the issue, then sulk for a month and suddenly reappear with the butthurt claim that he lost the debate because I secretly banned him. What else could he do?
Dear Earl:
I was sorta joking. Epicurus was a later disciple of the presocratic atomists. As such, most religious folks dislike him.
He was certainly a hedonist, but he thought it out carefully. Pleasure is most intense when it isn’t something you constantly indulge in. Consider a hardcore playa or ho’ and compare the state of their happiness with a married brother or sister. Epicurus was an astute early observer of such stuff, and he noted that people into the playa culture actually had less pleasure than the disciplined types, who saved their sexy time for special occasion with the wife. A great part of pleasure is the looking-forward-to the pleasurable act.
There are other reasons he’d give to promote living what he called a “cheerful poverty”. Overindulgence in various pleasurable acts often leads to things like a bad dose of herpes, or being 500 lbs, or getting put in the drunk tank. These consequences far outweigh the initial pleasure of wanton sex, or good meals, or drinking wine.
Best,
Boxer
Another factor about hedonists isn’t so much that they constantly pursue pleasure…but that they do things try to avoid pain (or for the Christians out there trying to avoid their cross). Constantly indulging in pleasures without some temperance will certainly lead to plenty of pain down the road however some hedonists don’t get that.
Does Christianity bring you pain? I think Epicurus would have objected to Christianity on theoretical grounds, but he was all for living a disciplined life. That included the sort of inner peace that the religious life brings.
Saul of Tarsus was all about bringing good news to people, and making friends out of former enemies. Let’s see what Epicurus says about that…
1 A happy and eternal being has no trouble himself and brings no trouble upon any other being; hence he is exempt from movements of anger and partiality, for every such movement implies weakness
Of course, the religious life demands discipline. So did Epicurus…
5 It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly. Whenever any one of these is lacking, when, for instance, the person is not able to live wisely, though he lives well and justly, it is impossible for him to live a pleasant life.
And the text of the bible does a pretty good job of focusing the mind on important things, and encouraging its students to quit wasting time on things that don’t actually matter…
29 Of our desires some are natural and necessary others are natural, but not necessary; others, again, are neither natural nor necessary, but are due to illusory opinion.
Thus the practical end result of hedonism is pretty much the same as the practical end result of Christianity. The theory behind it is very different, but truth is truth.
Best,
Boxer
Repent of his lies and seek truth. But that would be Christian.
Toad routinely dodged pointed questions at his jaded view of scripture. He would repeatedly ignore case law after case law that i presented to him. However, with that being said, he wasn’t the only person in the comment section that ignored the case laws i presented. In fact i found many people’s comments quite disconcerting in there ignorance of God’s law.
Perhaps not to the level of Roman style torture, Communist starvation, or ISIS headhunting in the current US…but from Christ’s Passion to the numerous martyrs for the faith….there’s certainly plenty of potential for pain to be brought to a Christian through persecution.
I suppose another way to look at it…it requires sacrifice. Hedonism isn’t about sacrifice.
Dear Earl:
Geez, I feel dumb pulling all these quotes that you’re not reading.
Hedonism is, of course, about sacrifice. It’s all about sacrificing the fleeting pleasures to get at the long-lasting inner peace (which, along with friendship, is the greatest pleasure touted by Epicurus.)
Where hedonism differs radically from Christianity is in its theoretical underpinnings. For Epicurus, the belief in some nebulous afterlife leads to fear of eternal punishment, which would keep you from living a full life in this, the only world he claims we will ever know.
Best,
Boxer
Boxer (September 7, 2017 at 1:39 pm) wrote:
To Boxer‘s point:
Dalrock:
First off, my hats off to you for marrying a virgin, I wish I had held out for the same . . . maybe my kids will get it right. Let me clarify, I agree with AT that intercourse with the virginal woman was the original wedding ceremony. If it were left up to man and his civil law to decide what constituted marriage, we would have two dudes getting married . . . oh wait we already have that lunacy! I am simply looking at the first example of marriage and drawing my conclusion from that. I do not ascribe to the belief that one can “bang ho’s” or “prostitutes” with impunity. I also don’t read anything in Exodus 22:17 to suggest that the spoiled woman gets another bite at the marriage apple after daddy bucks up. We don’t know what happened to these women. God gave women a maidenhead for a reason, it wasn’t an accident and the ancient Hebrews placed value on this as illustrated in Deuteronomy 22. Point is I have some disagreement with some of AT’s interpretations, however I don’t think it is kooky to ask the question and AT isn’t the only one who has ever breached this subject. I understand he is abrasive and I can do without the name calling (it isn’t dignified), however I think he and others are correct to examine this issue because the marital relationship is the most important human relationship . . . everything else flows from it. If we get marriage wrong, everything that comes from it is chaos. That requires one to ask what is “marriage” and how did go instruct us to enter this God created institution.
The rest of the spat between you two doesn’t interest me. I am just looking for the truth to teach my kids and hopefully do my part to right the ship along the way.
Dear Caleb:
One question I’ve asked Toad (for years) was why this reading doesn’t appear in the Bible. For example:
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
A careful reading suggests that Adam wakes up and names Eve (23), God interjects by presiding over the marriage ceremony (24) – giving Eve the title of “wife”, then, and only then, were they married. Subsequently they became “one flesh” and were “both naked… and not ashamed” (25).
A serious and sincere question from me (a theological neophyte). Where am I going wrong? If you can give me a thoughtful answer, you’ll have one-upped Toad, because I don’t remember him ever bothering to try.
Best,
Boxer
SirHamster at his best.
Not so much.
Dude, lose the homoerotic yearning¹ for Boxer, or whatever the hell it is. It demeans you.
You have a lot of good things to contribute.
Sniping at “The Secret King of the Gammas” isn’t on that list. No one cares that you think ill of him. Move on to better things.
Pax Christi Vobiscum
[¹: A joke, dude. A joke.]
Are you sure that’s hedonism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonism
If pleasure is the primary good when it comes to hedonism…wouldn’t sacrificing it for some higher purpose be called something different?
Dear Earl:
Yes sir. I’m using the term in the way philosophers use it. It defines a Hellenic school of thought (inspired largely by Epicurus and his descendants).
For classical hedonists, the greatest amount of pleasure comes not from getting drunk and running ho’s. It comes from living a just and thoughtful life, being surrounded by friends. Doing things that end up in getting hit with child support judgments, drug-resistant syphilis, and nights in jail, are more painful than pleasurable and should be avoided.
Best,
Boxer
Looking a little closer it seems his philosophy of it was almost a 180 from the previous thought…the Cyrenaics…and they were the ones who focused more on the physical and sensual pleasures.
This is really interesting. I had never heard of the Cyrenaics before.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/cyren/
In some ways, Epicurus (who appeared 100 years after they started up) is an antithesis.
“such as Deti’s RoddyRockbandDrummerMcPraiseTeam.”
These guys?
Red Pill Latecomer says:
September 7, 2017 at 9:43 am
squid_hunt: “My wife gets upset when I say this, but I don’t believe in soulmates. Biblically, which is my reference point, there isn’t any such concept.”
“I’m pretty sure that Soul Mates are a New Age concept, so probably rooted in paganism. Yet it’s infected Christian female thinking.
I once dated a self-professed Christian woman in her late 30s (I was in my 40s) who said that her primary goal in life was to marry. She didn’t want kids, just a husband. Despite her age, she’d never been married. Yet she wasn’t worried. She knew that God would her send the right man, at the right time. She had faith that God had a perfect plan for her.
She told me that she prayed after our one date, and searched her heart, and God told her that I was not the one.”
The definitive post forever completely debunking the validity of the soulmate concept:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/9/
The first part of it (without any diagrams, and less than half of the verbiage):
Soul Mates
“What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?
—Benjamin Staffin
What a nightmare that would be.
There are a lot of problems with the concept of a single random soul mate. As Tim Minchin put it in his song If I Didn’t Have You:
Your love is one in a million
You couldn’t buy it at any price.
But of the 9.999 hundred thousand other loves,
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice.
But what if we did have one randomly-assigned perfect soul mate, and we couldn’t be happy with anyone else? Would we find each other?
We’ll assume your soul mate is set at birth. You know nothing about who or where they are, but—as in the romantic cliché—you’ll recognize each other the moment your eyes meet.
Right away, this raises a few questions. For starters, is your soul mate even still alive? A hundred billion or so humans have ever lived, but only seven billion are alive now (which gives the human condition a 93% mortality rate). If we’re all paired up at random, 90% of our soul mates are long dead.
an assortment of stickfigure characters, dying in a range of dates, from 63,556 BCE to someone who is alive (but only until 2014)
That sounds horrible. But wait, it gets worse: A simple argument shows we can’t just limit ourselves to past humans; we have to include an unknown number of future humans as well. See, if it’s possible for your soul mate to be in the distant past, then it also has to be possible for soul mates to be in the distant future. After all, your soul mate’s soul mate is.
So let’s assume your soul mate lives at the same time as you. Furthermore, to keep things from getting creepy, we’ll assume they’re within a few years of your age. (This is stricter than the standard age gap creepiness formula, but if we assume a 30-year-old and a 40-year-old can be soul mates, then the creepiness rule is violated if they accidentally meet 15 years earlier.) With the same-age restriction, most of us have a pool of around half a billion potential matches.
But what about gender and sexual orientation? And culture? And language? We could keep using demographics to try to break things down further, but we’d be drifting away from the idea of a random soul mate. In our scenario, you don’t know anything about who your soul mate will be until you look into their eyes. Everybody has only one orientation—toward their soul mate.
The odds of running into your soul mate are incredibly small. The number of strangers we make eye contact with each day is hard to estimate. It can vary from almost none (shut-ins or people in small towns) to many thousands (a police officer in Times Square). Let’s suppose you lock eyes with an average of a few dozen new strangers each day. (I’m pretty introverted, so for me that’s definitely a generous estimate.) If 10% of them are close to your age, that’s around 50,000 people in a lifetime. Given that you have 500,000,000 potential soul mates, it means you’ll only find true love in one lifetime out of ten thousand…”
Dalrock and Caleb-
My first wife was a virgin and I was on #6 at that point. Both of us having grown up in the church of Christ (with a very hard-line set of preachers) I was exposed to the “if you have had sex with her you are married” and fretted over it quite a bit. Her parents actually brought it up a few times. It was in issue in the background for the entire relationship (we were married for 8 years, although it was really over at 6 and it took two years to finalize). I married the “good Christian girl” who blew up the marriage and was totally blind sided by it.
Then, her infidelity caused me to use 1 COR 7:11 as leverage against her, saying “you have two options–come back to me or be celibate forever.”
When all you have is the law, pound on the law. When you don’t have that, pound on the table.
Now, Mychael and I have been together for over 11, and married for 10.
I think about the kinds of things AT says/writes and have to ultimately get out of my own head because it can drive you crazy if you have had a non-optimal sex/married history and are currently in a stable, loving, marriage with children. I am able to look back at all this and see the wisdom of the Christian blueprint for marriage and all can do is thank God my conscience was not totally seared by my experience. Its pretty cynical and damaged, but not completely black. The trail of hurt feelings and awkwardness around the subject that has been left in the wake of it all is terrible and cannot be undone, ever.
I guess what I am saying is its very easy to be legalistic and/or come up with weird ways to interpret scripture to fit what you already want to do/are doing. I am the least disciplined person I know regarding these things, so I could be full of crap. It explains (at least in part) why Mychael and I are so focused on form (sacramental) over other parts of marriage. I also know many who read around here (and our blogs) are aware of that and think its hilarious. But it is working for us.
I should be a bit more precise about the teaching I received growing up.
Depending on the preacher, it was a variation of “you are married to the first woman you had sex with and all subsequent relationships are adulterous/or you now have multiple wives.”
@necroking48
Can you provide a link to this study that you say debunks Gary Wilson’s work? I’ll withhold judgment until I see it, but I’m a bit skeptical. Also, it’s absurd to say that Wilson is a tool of the feminists. He most certainly is not.
Boxer:
Are you asking me why God didn’t inspire Moses to just write into that chapter that taking a woman’s virginity means she is your property/responsibility (aka your woman)? If that’s the question, I have no good explanation. I have wondered myself why Moses didn’t address it before Exodus. I can’t agree with some here that God would build so much upon the marital relationship and then leave no instruction as to how we go about marrying . . . he did, we just don’t want to accept the totality of the scriptures because it doesn’t fit with what we have been taught and how we have been living for a long time. As I said before, leaving it up to man or the church to decided is a slippery slope, hence we have dudes “marrying” now.
It is a fascinating question (about Moses, and instituting a ritual) because on one level it should — to any honest protestant — give a little pause regarding sola scriptura.
There really isn’t a ceremony laid out in scripture. But tradition does have one, and its now very old. This is one area where the idea that scripture itself is part of church tradition, handed down and collated by a line of successive, authoritative apostles makes it way less ambiguous for confessional/sacramental faith traditions to deal with.
Scott:
I appreciate you sharing that and can relate as far as the permanency of things after the bell has been rung. . . it never goes away. I commented above not to make a blanket defense of everything AT has ever written, but to point out to the readership this (sex=marriage) is not new theology. I have experience in COC circles where these same debates took place and no one called it “kooky” for merely suggesting the possibility that the modern church got it wrong on marriage.
@Caleb to Dalrock yesterday:
@Caleb to Artisanal Toad the day before:
With that out of the way:
This would seem to be the foundation of both of your and Toad’s arguments: Since the Bible doesn’t give us detailed instructions for a wedding ceremony, the act of sex must be the ceremony. The idea of consent, wedding vows, and any ceremony around them are therefore unbiblical. But even a tortured reading of the text only supports the act of sex creating a marriage when an eligible-to-marry man has sex with a virgin. Yet the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Tim 5:4 that he wishes for young widows to remarry. But according to this theory they can’t marry because they aren’t virgins, and wedding vows are an unbiblical joke, on par with gay marriage. So suddenly we are back to consent/vows, and some sort of wedding ceremony. That was a lot of rationalization to end up having to accept the fact that just because the Bible doesn’t spell out the ceremony, marriage involves a promise, not just making the beast with two backs.
Dear Caleb:
Thanks for your response.
Like our brother Toad, you can’t seem to explain the marriage ceremony, presided over by God himself, which preceded Adam and Eve doing the wild thing for the first time. You clumsily sidestep, with a strawman attempt, rather than explain things. It’s sorta insulting.
I’m asking you why God pronounced Adam and Eve to be married, before they had sex. God clearly thought that marriage was something distinct from sex, since he pronounced Eve to be Adam’s wife publicly, and told them their duties, before they got all “naked and unashamed” and such.
Now, what Toad used to do to me was declare me too stupid or too worldly to understand the real meaning of the bible (which, when pressed, he would assert was only available to believers, through intuition or personal revelation or something). Don’t be like Toad. If you can’t reconcile your interpretation with the text, just be honest and say so. I’m not here to bust your balls. I’m honestly curious as to how we read this work so differently.
Best,
Boxer
In that, he is like the Judaizers who plagued the early church, going out on their own authority and throwing new believers into confusion by laying new burdens on them.
Paul in 1 Corinthian 7 teaches contentment in our current condition – remain slave, remain free, remain circumcised, remain uncircumcised, remain single, remain married.
“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.” (1 Cor 7:17)
Even David kept Bathsheba, and Jesus came from her line of children. We ought not to create messes, and we will pay the price for unrighteousness, but rather than try to erase signs of our past and cover over the sins and mistakes therein, we are to live in the now with the correct focus and priority.
AT is doing the Devil’s work in sowing doubt, discontent and fear among those who are already saved from their sexual past.
Boxer:
I don’t take it as ball busting, I assume you want the truth just like me. That said, I don’t see any thing to reconcile between what I believe and what is written in Genesis 2:24-25. I always read the cleaving and one flesh to mean the act of intercourse . . . I don’t know what else this could mean and there are no other passages to explain it. Paul didn’t expound on it, he just repeated the “one flesh” concept without coming out and saying it was intercourse. I have never disagreed that God presided over Adam & Eve’s union, and I assume all godly marriages . . . but no man of the cloth is required. I see marriage as a package deal, with its component parts being: 1) the man departs his mother and father 2) goes into a woman (cleaves with her) and 3) the two become one flesh . . . they are now living in the state of marriage. The woman is necessarily a virgin the first time this happens and it follows then that she is married to the man that takes her virginity. I don’t think the sex can be separated out from the state of marriage. If mere intent to marry is all that is required, then two people can be married without ever having sex and no intent and desire to do so . . . that I can’t reconcile.
@Luke
You had me at XKCD.
Dalrock:
Did you mean to cite 1 Tim 5:14?
I am not sure Paul is referring to young widows there. Even if he is, he isn’t writing a commandment of the Lord . .. he is writing what he thinks best. I don’t hold everything Paul writes in the same regard as the Lord.
@Caleb
Yes. It appears I dropped the 1.
I don’t see where that is relevant here. Paul is saying he thinks widows should marry. Even if you disregard Paul’s instruction here, it is clear that Paul believes widows can marry. This would therefore require some sort of consent/vow/ceremony. And yet, your (and Toad’s) argument is that since the Bible doesn’t specify such a ceremony, sex with a virgin must be the biblical wedding ceremony.
Are you arguing that Paul is mistaken in his assertion that a widow can remarry?
Hi Caleb:
Thanks again for responding. Please see below…
That’s what I was asking after; and it’s pretty interesting.
Here’s how I interpret the POV and mood of the text:
Narrator says:
Then the POV shifts, and Adam starts speaking:
Then Narrator says, in future perfect tense:
Then Narrator says, suddenly shifting to past tense:
The tense changes in 24 allude to something that is being predicted. Note that she’s already being called “wife” but they “shall be” one flesh. If I were to be overly formal, and say “it shall be so,” I wouldn’t be describing something that had happened, or was happening. I’d be declaring something as happening in the future.
The tense changes in 25 suggest that after the marriage, then they had sex. The bible suggests Adam and Eve were completely alone in the garden, aside from God, who apparently hung out there with them; so I have to assume it was God himself who married them.
In any event, I’m not trying to convince you of the rightness of my reading, as much as explaining where I’m coming from. My hat is off to you for at least having the balls to engage me on this subject. Toad would typically just tell me to go to hell (in six pages or more).
Best,
Boxer
Dalrock:
I am not sure if Paul got it wrong or the translators of the 1611. But, if we read those passages to mean that a true widow (not merely a betrothed that lost her fiance) could remarry any man, then yes, I think Paul is out of line with God’s law laid down in Deuteronomy 25 re: levirate marriage. That’s the only place where I see God condoning widows remarrying. The elements of Genesis 2:24 would still have to be present in order for them to be one flesh, the only difference here is she is not a virgin. I don’t have an answer as to why God made this exception, maybe its because the two husbands were kin and therefore a blood covenant was already struck between the two bloodlines. Don’t take this to mean that we should reject Paul’s commentary in total, I only mean that we should be careful to elevate his teaching to that of Christ, in particular the areas where he is clear that he is speaking of his own opinion and not relaying a commandment of the Lord.
Dalrock/Boxer:
I would like to know your thoughts on Deuteronomy 22:13-21, in particular, why it was a death penalty offense for merely being a non-virgin. I have always read Deuteronomy to be Moses recounting the law given to him directly from the Lord, so if I am correct about this, then the Lord expected women to remain virgins until taken as a wife and told Moses as much. I have read other commentators say it was a penalty for lying but I don’t see liars being treated as harshly anywhere else in the law.
Dear Caleb:
I am not a Christian or Jew, and wasn’t raised as one. I’m also not Dalrock; and I’m sure that he’ll have a different opinion than mine. Just in case you’re still interested, please see inside text…
I don’t see the penalty here meted out for merely being a non-virgin. Let’s read on…
I agree. I also don’t see the penalty being meted out for merely lying.
It’s a very specific crime that’s being addressed here. It’s not merely whoring, and not merely lying. I’m pretty sure whores and liars were as common in that culture as they are today. The problem in the text is lying to pass oneself off as a wife, when one is really a whore.
Read the Bible as a historical novel, and try to put yourself in the context of the people it was directly written to. There are no DNA tests. There are also few resources. It’s a real problem if your family busts ass for ten generations, only to give all your accumulated wealth to my son … because I gamed your wife before consummation.
The idea that virginity at marriage was a big deal seems foreign to us, because resources aren’t scarce today, and we can easily prove paternity; but in that era, the only way you could be reasonably sure that your wealth would pass on to your descendants was to lock your son away with his new virginal wife for a few weeks or months, until she was visibly pregnant. At least you’d be confident the firstborn was yours (a hint as to where we got that tradition of leaving the firstborn our wealth – heh).
So you are right, and your critics are right too. Of course that’s my own reading of it. I’d be interested to see others.
Best,
Boxer
13 If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her,
14 And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid:
15 Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:
16 And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her;
17 And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.
18 And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;
19 And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.
20 But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21 Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
Aaaaahhh… Dalrock, what an incredible melee you’ve hosted.
I just got back from lurking around A. Toad’s blog (much as I’ve lurked around this one) and I suspect he’s an Evil Genius. I use this as a term of highest regard; I wonder what his day job is.
I’d suggest you reconsider the ban, if I didn’t know that the internet has an unlimited supply of crazy.
It should certainly give pause to the CoC and their idiosyncratic version of the Sola Scriptura doctrine (hyper-Sola Scriptura?).
I don’t see where it has any difficulty for protestants who affirm Sola Scriptura as historically defined (Scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith and practice). Remember, protestants have creeds and confessions and liturgies and traditions and catechisms. We just assert that these are not infallible, that they are subordinate to Scripture and must be corrected by Scripture if found to be in error.
@Caleb
You believe you know the law better than the Pharisees, and Christ’s will better than the Apostles! Why would you ask us such a thing? Moreover, why would I be so foolish as to answer one such as you? You are unteachable.
It would seem strange for Christ to attend (and by his presence and working of a miracle, bless) a wedding ceremony if in fact the entire thing was a man-made sham that perpetuated a flawed understanding of God’s proscriptions of marriage. Further, it would be strange for the hyper-specific God of the Israelites to not explicitly set forth the “proper” ceremony of indeed there was one. And finally, it would then require the belief that Jesus truly was “born to a single mother” as even Protestants hold that the marriage was not consummated before his birth. Which seems contrary to the dignity of our Lord and his mother (and indeed his foster-father, Joseph who would then have been leading a woman who was not his wife to various places)
More likely is that God allows the various cultures to determine the superficial aspects of “marriage” as long as they fall within certain parameters, namely that it include a man and a woman, that it is an exclusive union, and that it lasts forever and cannot be broken by man.
Of course, being Catholic I obviously recognize the existence and validity of a Josephite marriage so consummation (the physical binding) would seem largely (not entirely) inconsequential to the marriage itself.
And finally, it would seem that Adam did not “know” Eve until after they left the Garden, yet the “consummation” of God’s decree occurred immediately after the meeting.
And even more finally, since Marriage is understood as a symbol of the relationship between Christ and his Church, it would seem strange to require virginity in the human wife when Christ himself did not and does not require “virginity” out of his Bride and indeed could not have since as we know from the OT, Israel (and to an even greater extent the Gentiles) were whorish and exceedingly unfaithful to God at nearly every turn.
Also, wasn’t there a prophet who was required by God to take a literal whore as his wife? Strange thing to demand if the Law already forbid it.
Dalrock:
Not the response I expected and I am not looking for a teacher, already had plenty of that in my early life and all I got was confusion. I do not think I know more than the Pharisees, I am simply reading the law on marrying a widow that was laid down in Deuteronomy 25 and comparing it to that passage in 1 Timothy 5:14. I can’t reconcile the two, which leaves two possibilities: 1) the translators mis-quoted Paul’s original commentary or 2) Paul took liberty on the issue. He says that it is his will, he does not say it is a commandment from the Lord. I don’t understand why that upsets you so.
SkylerWurdden:
If we read those passages concerning initiation of marriage to make sex inconsequential, then how do we teach our children to abstain from “fornication” as that word is currently understood. That is precisely why young christians don’t take sexual sin serious in my opinion, they believe (because they have been taught) that there really are no real world consequences to having sex outside of marriage. No wonder there are so many christians these days that openly believe that fornication is no problem, thats what the church is telling them with this type of theology and cheap grace teaching. If your understanding is correct, then I don’t see how we can argue that fornication is a sin if it and marriage are mutually exclusive . .. thats a slippery slope my friend.
That’s called spiritual fornication….God wasn’t too fond of that when Israel went down that path.
@Caleb
We teach them that unreptented fornication will absolutely and unerringly lead to an eternity in Hell. If they need physical reasons to avoid fornication then they have already lost the battle and they should be told in no uncertain terms that they will recieve due punishment for their lack of faith. Our goal is Heaven, not so that our lives on this Earth can be happier, but so our eternal souls can live in union with God. If they don’t want that union then they are not fit for Heaven. Let them have their fun now, just like all fools do.
I don’t quite follow you. Fornication and marriage are mutually exclusive. Sexand marriage are not mutually exclusive, as the vast, vast, vast majority of marriages will necessarily include sex and even according to Catholic teaching (which allows sexless, Josephite marriages) the ability to consummate must be there for the marriage to be valid. A man without a functioning penis or a woman without a vagina are incapable of marriage. That being said, fornication is the blanket term for any sex outside of the marriage (adultery being a species of fornication). It is sinful because sex is a gift from God for the specific use of married couples. Sexual relations exist only for the benefit of the married couple. To use it outside of that context is to abuse the gift of God and to put oneself contrary to his Will.
We don’t need the threat of “you break it you buy it” to keep people in line. For one, the threat of Hell outweighs any possible physical threat, and even more importantly, people are not motivated toward God out of fear alone, but out of love. Fear of God (and of Hell) is the beginning of Wisdom, but if fear alone (however right) cannot bring one through the suffering and temptation of this world and lead one to God.
The reason young and old Christians don’t take fornication seriously is because they are not Christians at all, but rather the seeds falling on rocky ground and the seeds falling among the weeds. When the noon-sun rises (here representing the fires of temptation and suffering) they are scorched and wither away. When the weeds grow up around them (here representing the wicked sinners of this world) they are choked and die. The true Christian might fail on his or her life and commit the sin of fornication, because all men are fallen, but he or she will not doubt the severity of their sin because the Apostle told us (here speaking with God’s authority) that “formicators… will not inheret the kingdom of Heaven”.
Anyway, this is all shifting the goalposts. Originally the point was that sex must create the marriage because of some hyper-selective reading of the text. Now you say sex must create the marriage because otherwise people will fornicate with impunity. Neither position is very tenable. The first, like all hyper-selective quoting, ignores all the instances where the “rule” is brokem. The second misunderstands the purpose of the Law.
@earl
Indeed. However, that same God was willing to sacrifice his only Son to sanctify the “adulterous” Israel, and even more miraculously restore the lost “maidenhead” of the Gentiles, and in doing so create a proper Bride for Christ out of a sinful and broken race. If God has forgiven a spiritual adultery (the most heinous of crimes) then we should be expected to forgive the “mote” of physical adultery.
That being said, lest any excitable Dalrock reader think I am telling any men to “man up!” and marry a ho or tolerate adultery in his spouse, we should also be “as cunning as serpents” and not “cast our pearls before swine”. Forgiveness does not imply tolerance, nor does forgiving a woman’s past mean one is required to join oneself with her! My advice to all men would be to tread very carefully when marrying a non-virgin:
As a yoke of oxen that is moved to and fro, so also is a wicked woman: he that hath hold of her, is as he that taketh hold of a scorpion.
Sirach 26:10
Shoot Sirach 26 is as ‘red pill’ as it gets. Nothing new under the sun.
‘Women who are rivals bring heartache and grief, and a tongue-lashing shares it with everyone.’ (6)
‘The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids.’ (9)
A silent wife is a gift from the Lord, and nothing can be traded for her self-discipline. (14)
An ungodly woman will be bestowed on a lawless man as his portion, but a godly woman is granted to the man who fears the Lord. (23)
A loudmouthed and talkative wife is like a battle trumpet sounding an attack. The spirit of the man who lives under such conditions lives perpetually in the chaos of the battlefield. (27)
Caleb @ 6:24 pm:
“I am simply reading the law on marrying a widow that was laid down in Deuteronomy 25 and comparing it to that passage in 1 Timothy 5:14. I can’t reconcile the two, which leaves two possibilities: 1) the translators mis-quoted Paul’s original commentary or 2) Paul took liberty on the issue.”
Or 3) the Mosaic Law is inapplicable to non-Jews as explicitly stated in the NT. Until you agree, future debate is pointless.
Gunner Q:
What passage(s) are you referring to in the NT?
Acts 15:5-11. Note that’s Peter talking for all the apostles, not just Paul. Paul said it in Galatians 2:22: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
@Caleb
You misunderstand. I was not offering to be your teacher, nor asking you to be my student. I was simply stating a fact. You are unteachable. You stated that you don’t need to learn what Paul teaches in 1 Tim 5:14 because you have already read Deuteronomy, and Paul either agrees with you that widows can’t remarry, is mistaken, or is being mistranslated:
As I wrote above, you believe you know the law better than the Pharisees, and Christ’s will better than the Apostles. For Paul was foremost among the Pharisees in his knowledge of the law, and was instructed in the Gospel not by man, but by Christ. As Paul explains in Galations 1:
@Caleb
And the only “real world consequence” you can imagine is a Biblical prohibition?
This is, as if, there should necessarily, first be a complete, perfect set of rules. Then this perfect set of complete rules is applied to an obeyer, who voluntarily and knowingly enacts it. Therefore everyting is set in terms of law, i.e. “you need to”, and grace, i.e. “no, you really don’t need to, after all”. The hidden assumptions are that 1) law is the only good thing or definition of good, and 2) to get anything done, you need a law for it – and, finally, 3) the only way any thing can cause loss or discomfort is if a previously given law is being violated.