I am female and Christian and had sex before marriage. I wouldnt like to say whether or not I am right or wrong. But I would like to say this…I enjoy sex and although it is supposed to be sinful I am prepared to live with this because it is so good. I got pleasure fom it and wanted more. I suppose it is up to God to judge me when I finally reach the pearly gates. I cant say why your friend feels the way he does but one thing that worries me is that he appears to be letting religion stop him from having any life. Having sexual desires is perfectly normal and he should not feel guilty for something nature controls. I hope he manages to find peace or some sort of compromise.

Gadzooks, I would say any Christians who have premarital guilt free sex are delusional Christians are people who are spiritual but not Christian. That would be like a cop in a uniform but actively stealing and fencing goods. Christians know what the Bible say about adultery and fornication, if they don’t, they need to get with a meat Christian and not a milk one. I think if you know in your heart that is the partner you will marry and spend the rest of your life with, even though it is not official, in the heart and mind you are wedded to that person. To simply sleep around and try to say “I am Christian” is just saying that to make you feel better or for your own good, not that of God.

Thankfully not every Christian reads the bible literally. Avoidance is not the answer for your friend @ninjacolin. He needs to gain perspective. In order to find his spouse, he’s going to have to find some solution to his sexual needs while keeping within his religious beliefs.

As for myself, I had sex with my husband prior to marriage. We both deemed we were in a monogamous relationship. We remain the only people either has ever been with.

Your friend is normal for having sexual desires. He’s going to need to figure out if he ever wants to act upon those before marriage. No matter what he chooses, again, avoidance of the opposite sex is certainly not the answer.

Don’t get upset, but I do just want to state that I know very religious people that are still able to differentiate between the past and present. We’re simply in a new age, and the fact that your friend limits human contact due to a book or religion is completely asinine. Society, civilization, and life progresses. If some people can’t understand that, I don’t know what else to say.

In case there is a misunderstanding this is clarify:

Although there are exceptions, most Christians do not consider sex to be sinful, just sex outside of marriage is sinful.

When I was a brand new Christian I slept around. I did so because, I was deeply wounded from my childhood. I suppose I thought that was the only life I deserved.

Mature Christians don’t. Just my opinion

I think the problem and the struggle is the fact that people are waiting so much longer to get married than they did even 50 years ago, much less 2000 years ago. The body is biologically engineered to start reproducing in adolescence, and all our primal instincts are telling us to make babies.
Today’s realities, postponing marriage into the late twenties and even into the 40’s is at odds with our nature. I don’t have an answer. I don’t think everyone should start getting married at 16, but I think treating those that choose to marry right out of high school like idiots is not helpful either.
When I get to heaven, I am going to submit this question to the “Your Questions Answered Here” booth ASAP.

@Judi You bring up such a great point. Cultural realities have changed so much since biblical times, which is why I have a hard time understanding when people follow the bible to the letter.

Another important point is that up until recently, marriage and wealth depended on each other a lot more than they do now. Property was handed down from the father to the eldest son, and women had much fewer opportunities to earn a living, so marriage was much more important. Being unfaithful in a marriage, having an illegitimate child, or anything that threatened a marriage also threatened your financial well-being. There was no separation of religion and law, so it makes sense that the leaders would regulate people’s behavior through religious teachings.

I think this is a case where people need to follow the spirit of the law, and not the letter. A more moderate and livable interpretation might be, “be faithful to your spouse.”

The devil attacks you in your most weakened spot. His seems to be the relationships with the opposite sex.

I was not a Christian and I did have sex with women, then I became a Christian and I continued to have sex. Some didn’t like what I was doing and tried to explain all the crap I was going in. ONE : I am entitled to make my own mistakes and learn from them. TWO : what another thinks is right doesn’t apply to me. THREE : better to just do it and ask for forgiveness then think about it all the day long… Jesus said even if WE LOOK at a woman in a certain way we already committed adultery. So why keep repeating a sin all day when it can pass after several hours.
That is not the best approach but most people that do it several times after a while see there’s nothing to it and they stop having sex after several times. Which is good because mistakes help them grow. Or just learn to live with the guilt.
I wouldn’t recommend to someone to follow my mistakes but in my own way I rationalized it for myself to work and it did.

P.S. 1 : those who are Christians and read my words feel free to just “tolerate” them.
P.S. 2 : those of you who are not Christians feel free not to take them into consideration because you wouldn’t understand.

All western philosophy is one way or another a continuation of a debate between Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotelians will be inclined to accept the material world that we experience to be the valid and real one, and thus we should interact with it as it appears. Something pleasurable, like sex, would be regarded as a good thing.

Platonists on the other hand, would believe that the material world that we perceive is a sort of fake, a crude representation of the “real” world, which we are unable to really know. Thus the mystical notion of an unknowable God, or similar stuff, out there in the Platonic perfect world, from which we are sadly excluded and can only try to imagine or imitate.

In that case, indulging in real world pleasures would be sort of a meaningless distraction, since we should really be trying to figure out the Platonic “other world”.

Modern Christianity is what happens when the follower of one of many mystical healers on the Mediterranian rim in the ancient Middle East travels through Greece on the way to Rome. No doubt the Apostle Paul. Plato’s ideas influenced the story, and Paul was probably a persuasive guy, since he would have been regarded as being educated in his time.

For the record, I like Aristotle.

I’m sorry if I replied it [not single]. I just wanted to share something.

@Hibernate said: “Jesus said even if WE LOOK at a woman in a certain way we already committed adultery.”

OMG! Was jesus really saying that it didn’t matter at that point since the sin was already done?
not that any knows what jesus was really saying about anything but..

Jesus never spoke a single word about premarital sex. He spoke of adultery, as it is committed by one who lusts after the spouse of another. The term “fornication” was a much later interpretation from the New American Standard translation of the original Greek of porneia or pornos, whereas one intentionally sets out in advance to commit a lustful act of objectifying a person for sexual pleasure.

This is one of those situations where Christianity is a bit hypocritical. All sins are supposed to be “equal in God’s eyes”. So, having sex is equal to going out on Sunday at noon and feeding your face gluttonously so that your stomach is the size of a bean bag chair (aka not treating your body as the temple of the Lord). Yet having sex will get people kicked out and ostracized from the church, whereas buffet barn will get you more “Christian” friends.

Yeah. You really get the p.s. points.

I won’t bother getting into an argument with you @RealEyesRealizeRealLies because you only see things as you want them to see WHILE dear @ninjacolin you don’t really care about the question even if you asked it. You don’t really care about my explanation so I won’t give it to you.

I’ve told this story on fluther way in the past. I’ll tell it again.

When I lived downtown St. Louis, amidst the fine hotels and convention centers, I was often hired by these facilities to photograph groups that came into our city. The hotel manager across the street told me they would be getting a lot of extra money from pornographic movie rentals on a particular weekend. I asked him why? What group was coming to town that would increase pornographic rentals so much?

He said the Baptists Convention was that weekend. Porn rentals shot through the roof when they came to town.

@Hibernate… I see things the way they are clearly laid out for both of us to see. If you don’t want to argue with me that’s fine. But you can’t argue with the translation changes over time that were bent to make Christianity fit the modern day interpretation. Jesus never spoke about premarital sex. And I’ve explained the erroneous conflation from porneia to fornication. It just isn’t there. There is nothing wrong with premarital sex whatsoever as long as both parties agree and are not disrespecting or lying to one another.

The message of Jesus is one of overcoming deception. Deception comes from the Father of Lies. That’s all he wanted to teach us. Believing that Christ said anything against premarital sex when he never spoke on the matter at all is falling into the very deception that Christ warned us against.

Why would God design a human being to be so hormonally driven to ensure the survival of a species and then tell us that we would burn in hell for eternity for fulfilling the way he designed us in the first place? Just because a person is religious doesn’t mean they have to abandon all logic. I’d wager God would be very pleased if we traded away useless dogma for reasoned logic. But then I guess I’d burn in hell for making that wager too.

It’s just what you want to be true. Sexual interactions were meant for reproduction not for pleasure how we use it now. And Jesus explained adultery there not premarital sex. Indeed he did not talk about it anywhere else but the example was to prove something else.
If we start a debate others will just look over it as a quarrel like we did a few months ago. And I wouldn’t want @ninjacolin ‘s question to be “unfollowed” by people who might give him the reply he wants to hear.

I don’t know what you’re accusing me of, @Hibernate.
please speak freely

@Hibernate “Jesus explained adultery there not premarital sex”

EXACTLY! He never spoke of premarital sex. NEVER! If he never spoke of it, then why should any Christian be concerned with it whatsoever?

Christianity is nothing more than a history of butchering the teachings of Jesus Christ. It wasn’t even called Christianity until it turned into a religion. The original movement was called The Way, and those who embraced it were called The Followers of The Way. Christianity is a bold faced lie.

When I was single, I did struggle with guilt when it was sex for fun, rather than an extension of my feelings of love and companionship. Even when I started dating, I knew I was not just sampling the wares, but looking for a wife.
I think people think Christians are a lot more anal than most are.

“Now concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord.”
—1 Corinthians 7:25

“It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.”
—Voltaire

If someone wishes to argue that premarital sex is specifically prohibited to Christians, we will need chapter a verse. If it’s a Greek text, I will be happy to investigate it. If it’s a different language, I may have to consult with one of my colleagues. Furthermore, the verse will need to be independent of the Jewish identity laws—which do not apply to Gentiles, and may not apply even to Christians of Jewish descent according to some arguments—and we will need some evidence that it is specifically premarital sex being discussed in the passage at issue.

@Hibernate “Sexual interactions were meant for reproduction not for pleasure…”

Please read the Song of Solomon. There is no mention of sex being designated for reproduction. There is however, quite a bit of vivid eroticism based purely upon the pleasure that a man and woman find in one another’s body.

I think your thinking of this too complicated. There are also non christians who do not feel that pre-maritual sex is for them. I think it has more to do with an individuals sense of morality. Some people don’t want to have sex with someone before marriage because they feel that marriage should mean more than just the physical. They don’t want to feel obligated to marry someone because they had sex or even a child.
Some people just feel that it will make the wedding night special.
Some people don’t want to marry someone who has been around and think it will make their bond deeper if they both learn and explore together.
There are many reason.
Some people simply don’t want to disappoint their parents if they are old fashioned.
Some just think that it is respectful to wait.
My point is it may sometimes be based on religious belief and sometimes its just their personal preference.
As for the ones who do have premaritual sex. Well most of those just think the rules are outdated.
You might as well ask, why do so many Christians, break any rules in the 10 Commandments.
They are people and are flawed. We sometimes take the path of least resistance.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies do not talk about that :) He had a lot of wives not to mention all those wooers. I do believe he was the wisest man but he was the stupidest person I’ve ever read about. But what can I say except HE WAS HUMAN.

@ninjacolin I was not accusing. I just said I’m not gonna argue here so you can get your answers. As for the “you don’t care about the question” ; I was referring to all the drama that’s gonna be created around it. I might have not used the words there. Sorry if you misunderstood me.

@SavoirFaire New Testament, for all non-Jews alike, that means the rest of us.

1Cor 7:2–5 _But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. v3: The husband should fulfill his martial duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. v4: The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. So kills off the notion of a misogamist God. v5: Do not deprive each other except my mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

1Cor 7:8,9 Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. v9: But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

I don’t see anywhere in there that is says if you will burn in passion just sex the one you are with. Husbands and wives usually mean marriage. And if sex with anyone, anywhere was not a lack of control, why need a husband or wife to keep you from burning in passion?

We would do well to separate the teachings of Jesus with the later teachings of the disciples. Jesus taught about recognizing/overcoming deception, receiving/giving forgiveness, finding the kingdom of heaven within you, and having faith that God loves all.

The disciples taught the dogma which created religion.

When Jesus spoke of sexual immorality, it was always in the context of addressing adultery.

For instance, the woman at the well. Even amidst her adultery, he offered her the gift of eternal life.

John 4:9–19
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

“I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

Maybe Jesus was putting the moves on her… hubba hubba.

@Hypocrisy_Central Those are explicitly recommendations of Paul and not moral laws from God. The passage I quoted in my original post, which directly precedes the passage you quoted, demonstrates this.

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