why aren't you allowed to have sex before marriage?

-- mike t (foofighter013@hotmail.com), December 06, 2000

Answers

Hi Mike ,

The #1 reason we aren't allowed to have sex outside of marriage is because God has commanded it.( 1 Corinthians 6:12-20)

As Christians(follower of Christ), your body is part of Christ's body.Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.

Next, some of the consequences: pregnancy, STDs(sexually transmitted diseases),HIV/AIDS. Premarital sex can effect your emotional, physical, spiritual/ethical, social and psychological health .

There is a non-denominational organization called "True Love Waits". Their purpose is to challenge students, or singles to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. Over a million students have taken this pledge: .."Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my future mate, and my future children, to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."

Obeying God's commandments is a pure way to show your love for Him. Your concern for yourself can allow you to choose to avoid that which leads to guilt, broken relationships, disease, and even death.Honoring and obeying your parents and siblings ia a natural result of honoring God in your life. Sex before marriage always hurts people. You can choose not to hurt others through sexual misbehavior. You can begin now loving the mate and children that God will give you. (www.truelovewaits.com)

Love, SSM

-- SSM (non-catholic) (heartwjesus@yahoo.com), December 07, 2000.

My own perspective was greatly influenced once (not that I was questioning anything) by a priest, who in a homily once stated: ''I am forbidden to have sexual relations, not because I'm a priest-- It's because I am a single man.

Over many years, I've heard the most contrary things said by immoral men, who insisted on their right to a ''macho'' attitude to sex. One said to me, ''God didn't say I should not have sex with that woman-- she is not married. The commandment says 'Thou shalt not commit adultery!' If I leave other mens' wives alone, it's OK.'' This man was himself married! But he thinks he can argue with God.

Single men (((As well as single women))) are definitely committing serious sin when they give in to this temptation. The temptation is never far away; it's been a fact of life throughout the world's history. For women, also!

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 07, 2000.

Personally, I wouldn't marry someone with whom I had never slept. The time to find out if you are sexually compatible is BEFORE, not AFTER, you make a life-long vow.

Preferrably, tho, the sex should take place after the engagement has been announced, but before the actual wedding. That way, if the wedding is suddenly called off, people are able to draw the obvious conclusion -- and being adults, most of them will be not only understanding, but grateful that a disaster has been avoided.

Now I realize that technically, all of that is sinful. But I believe that any older priest will tell you a bad marriage in which the two turn out to be completely mis-matched sexually, could have easily been avoided by a quiet roll in the hay before the vows are made -- and that this is infinitely preferrable to divorce or annulment afterwards.

-- Yeah I know (you@don't.agree), December 09, 2000.

Dear Yeah, I Know--

I suppose that during the 'roll in the hay' your sexual satisfaction would be ''more or less'' satisfied. In an hour or two, you might return for another roll, then another. Possibly a month or two more of the same.

Then, a gentleman of your sort might be excused if he thought: ''Hm. I thought it would be better than this. I have to admit, I was wrong; we aren't very compatible as sexual partners. I think I'll move on. She'll understand.''

The law of promiscuity and selfishness is the same as the law of the jungle. Someone has to get hurt. Any woman that would marry YOU is strictly out of luck. The saddest thing about it, is you are one of many thousands who want it this way. It is very clear to me at least, where you are heading.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 09, 2000.

"The law of promiscuity and selfishness is the same as the law of the jungle. .... Any woman that would marry YOU is strictly out of luck."

Truth is, I'm a woman. And I'm not talking about promiscuity. YOU are, but only because you can't refute what I say.

Picture any woman on her wedding night, having just pledged before God & everyone she knows to be faithful for the next 60 or 70 years of her life to a man who is, for whatever reason, unable or unwilling to satisfy her. That's a real human train wreck -- and one that's quite easily avoided. An ounce of prevention is worth any number of unpleasant annulments/divorces/desperately unhappy marriages.

-- try the shoes on (before@you.buy), December 09, 2000.

Very well, my argument doesn't faze you. Your husband then is just like a shoe. If the analogy holds true, then he'll be discarded like the shoes you don't care for any more. You are entitled to your opinion. What are you doing on a Catholic board? It seems you aren't worried about the Church's teaching. Surely you aren't here to convert Catholics to your superior code of conduct?

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 10, 2000.

Does this forum have only a few people who think they know all the answers to the Mystery that is God? It seems to me that there are many more who believe they are right and all others are wrong. This keeps the conflict alive!

-- Darian Borne (shadows@vmbc.net), December 10, 2000.

True Love is the answer. The flame of God's love and the Holy Spirit that burns in our hearts. There isn't much mystery for us. You either love or you don't. Don't deprive yourself of natural ways, know that love is within you, let it be strong enough to love who ever your intimate with. We are here to love each other.

-- Darian Borne (shadows@vmbc.net), December 10, 2000.

Dear Darian. Find a thread and please stay on it, if all you are going to contribute is your Messiah complex.

You already have started about 8 or 9 separate threads single-handed; each with a superfluity of words and self-aggrandising. You are rapidly saturating this board. Give yourself some down-time, please!

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), December 10, 2000.

Dear Mike:

You raise some very interesting points that seem to be in the forefront of problems facing our youth today. Fr. John Corapi has some strong views on this subject and here are a few thoughts on sex and marriage of his that I thought might assist in this debate: Very often in our confused world, basic realities aren't understood very well at all. Love, marriage and sexuality often get confused. In the Book of Genesis we read that God created man in his image. Male and female He created them. Then God blessed them (the first marriage shall we say) saying, "be fertile and multiply!" God is telling us he want the union of a man and a women but only in unity with God. This mystery of human nature, this mystery of love within the unity of marriage goes back even further than Genesis because the answer lies in eternity. It is in the interior operations of the Trinity itself that we find the beginnings of the answer to our mysterious nature. From all eternity God our Father loves His Son, that love actually begetting the Son. The Son in turn loved the Father and that mutual self-donation of love, that interchange of love between the Father and the Son breathes forth or spirates the Holy Spirit, personified love. Even in God Himself, the interchange of love is fruitful. The interchange of love, breathes forth that breath of God, the Holy spirit. In marriage, we have to look to the Trinity in order to understand the mystery of relation and how it begets new life. In marriage, in unison with Christ, for Christ is present in all Sacraments, the two unite as in the Trinity and they become one flesh. Marriage is beautiful, sacred, and profound. Sexuality is also sacred ground. A lot of people who don't know any better think that Catholics somehow think sex is dirty or no good. Just the contrary, we think it's noble, magnificent, transcendent, an entrance into the creative power of God Himself, an entrance into God's own love. And husband and wife, in that interchange of love, beget life, a child, a child destined to praise God forever (even if by virtue of existence only). Not a small gift, the gift of life! Marriage goes to the very reason we were created. Jesus Christ is the great model. He's called the bridegroom. Who's His bride? His Church, Jesus and the Church, that's the model for marriage. St. Paul in the 5th Chapter in his letter to the Ephesians, gives us some tremendous teaching and insight into the mystery of the sacrament of marriage. He begins, "be imitators of God, be imitators of God as His dear children, follow the way of love, even as Christ loved you. He gave Himself for us as an offering to God, a gift of pleasing fragrance." We should do the same. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation, Jesus is the one we have to imitate. The word love is possibly the most abused word in all of language. Well that word that best describes married love, in Greek as you probably well know is "agape". That's a self-donating kind of love, that's a Godly kind of love. That's the love we see in the interior operations of the Trinity. Jesus said, "whoever has seen me has seen the Father!" We look on the cross we find Christ and in looking at Him, we have a clue into the love of the Father. Total, self-sacrificing love! That kind of love which pours itself out and doesn't count the cost! That's the love of God.(And don't forget, we are made in His image!) And that is married love. Be imitators of God as His beloved children. And then St. Paul goes on to say, "as for lewd conduct or promiscuousness or lust of any sort, let them not even be mentioned among you. Your holiness forbids this." The Bible forbids this sort of conduct outside of marriage. You know today a great many people think that sex is something trivial and mundane. Our society trivializes it, we think it is nothing. It's much more than nothing. It's sacred. Absolutely sacred, and to profane that which is sacred is dangerous and borders on the sacrilegious. . It opens the door to evil. Do we understand what sexuality is? Do we understand what marriage is? Do we understand if we enter the sanctuary of sexuality we enter into God's own love, we enter into God's creative power? It's holy! And that which is holy we dare not profane because there are consequences for this type of action. Today we are blinded, we don't have the light. It seems we are immersed in darkness. Human sexuality is a gift, a blessing, it belongs inside the circumference of married love, that beautiful self-donating love that two spouses have that manifests and mirrors the love of Christ for His Church. How did Jesus love His bride? Totally! He didn't hold back. He didn't say, "I'll love you just this far, but I won't go beyond that point." Do you know why the Church teaches that pre-marital sex is to intrinsically evil? In the nuptial language of the body, sex outside of marriage registers subconsciously as rejection. In marriage, the two give themselves totally to each other. "Everything that I am and everything that I have is yours" and vice versa. Sexuality is an external expression of the interior love of the two, one for the other. In that mutual interchange of love, nothing is held back. You don't say, "this much of me you can have, but I give you no entrance into the most profound sanctuary where the two of us together meet God and enter His creative love. In a pre- marital sexual relationship this isn't the case. Oh, consciously you don't recognize it, but at the level of the subconscious it registers as rejection. And a human being can just take so much of it and from the one that supposed to be closest to, it's more painful than ever. And so, it isn't a surprise to me that the percentage of couples who engage in common law relationships have the highest incidence of separating and divorcing? Coincidence? Perhaps, but when you step outside of God's wisdom you step out of the light and into the dark. The darkness doesn't have any power to bring forth life, and so we live in a world with a latent death wish. We pretend we're in love with life. But from the first moment of conception to the last moments of old age, from abortion to euthanasia, with suicide and violence mixed in between, darkness and death stalks 20th century America. And when you don't know what sexuality is and what it's for; when you don't understand what marriage is and what it's for, you begin to abuse it. Things begin to break down. And so, the fabric of the being begins to unravel, and then we wonder why our young people are killing themselves at an unprecedented rate. We wonder how it is that a mother could do away with the child in her womb. We wonder how the elderly are now endangered of being killed through euthanasia. Let's get it right about marriage and sexuality. True love is forever. God's mercy, His love, His promise endures forever. In marriage we enter into the very love of God, we enter into the creative power of God our Father. You don't get half-way in and say, "I've had enough, it's no longer relevant, I think I'll now go off and do something else." That's what shacking up is all about! Can you imagine if God did that to us? If He held out the promise of paradise and suddenly we were no longer interesting to Him, that He tired of us and all of a sudden said to us, "See you later, I've had it, I'm taking off! I've grown tired of all of this, I've grown out of love with you!" Impossible! Marriage is forever, indissoluble, the two become one flesh. That interchange of love brings forth new life. That life is destined to praise God forever. It doesn't mean it's easy, it doesn't mean that every moment is going to be rosy. Remember what love is, go back to the beginning of that 5thChapter of Ephesians, "Imitate God as His beloved children!" Manifest that love of Christ, crucified love! You know today we live at a time in history where we're kind of brainwashed. "Go by your feelings! God will understand!" we are told. And so, we go by our feelings. One day we're up and the next day we're down. The devil has access to the lower faculty of the soul, the emotions, the feelings. He can play you like a yoyo if you let him? He doesn't have direct access to intellect and will. Our mind is made for truth. Jesus is the truth! Our heart, our will, are made for good. He's the good! And so, if you stay firmly rooted in Christ, if you make a decision for better or for worse, rich or poorer, in sickness and in health, the decision is where the love is. Love is desiring the highest and best thing for the sake of the beloved. Since everlasting happiness is the "highest and best" thing you could possibly desire for anyone, than shouldn't you desire Heaven for the one you're going to spend the rest of your life with? Shouldn't you desire that they get in and have the highest and best place in the kingdom of God? Are you willing to do anything to get them there? Aren't you willing to devote the rest of your life for them in this goal? Do you want to be there with them forever? Do you want your children to be there? Do you want to praise God as a family forever? If you genuinely love them, then you must live your life according to God's wishes. For I tell you, if you don't want the "highest and best" for your beloved and are willing to give up your life for this, then you don't know what love is and you don't know what Christ's love is

God bless you!

Ed

-- Ed Lauzon Sr. (grader@accglobal.net), December 10, 2000.

I THINK THAT ONLY POPES AND YOUR BUNCH OF PEDOLILES

HAVE SEX BEFORE MARIAGE.

STOP YOUR INDOCTRINATING ON THE WEB THIS IS A CRIMINAL TO THE

LIVING SENS.

SMAC " THE SENS OF THE NONSENS"

-- omer jan de MEYST (vzw.smac@advalvas.be), December 27, 2000.

to try the shoes:

you're putting the cart before the horse. I know it sounds easier to say than do, but to avoid the situation you mentioned (unwilling/ unable) make doubly sure you're right before jumping in, and if that winds up being the case regardless...well...sex is not the reason you're (or any of us are) here anyway. That sounds like a very earthly-oriented argument.

-- anthony (antaine@aol.com), January 18, 2001.

Hello. Rather than retyping my entire reply, see my short essay (five paragraphs), The Myth of "Casual" Sex: The Secret Behind Closed Doors at: http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/mrrenaissance/csex.html. I think you will find it both Scriptural as well as practical and to the point.

God Bless, -Eric

-- Eric Knickerbocker (mr_renaissan13@yahoo.com), June 06, 2001.

In response to the post written by Yea I Know and others who feel as she does.

Jesus knows what is good for his children but he gives us freewill to choose. The next time you go for a "roll in the hay" before marriage, realize that Jesus is standing there, and realize that he patiently waits for you to answer his question, "Do you love me?". And as you "roll in the hay" look up at Jesus and spit in his face and say, "Not your will be done but mine!"

When you finish you might realize this person is not "right for marriage" according to you sexual standards. Whew! what a relief you must feel after "testing the water". If you are a "responsible adult" you probablly used a contraceptive. Well, you just spit in Jesus' face again. Not only have you taken the act of sex out of the sacred unity of marriage, You have taken the act of procreation out of that same sacred bond and then prevented it from being fruitful. You might reply, "well, I didn't want to get pregnant!" That's what sex is for! If you don't want to get pregnant, don't have sex!

Now, contraceptives are not 100% accurate. Suppose after that "roll in the hay" you find yourself pregnant. "This pregnancy wasn't meant to be!", "It was a "test drive"! "I can't marry the other person there not right!" It would be easy just to have an abortion, right. I mean after all, your already putting your will before God. It would be so easy to condemn that little fetus because it was so easy to condemn yourself.

When are you going to say, "I love you , Jesus". Jesus said If we love him we will obey his commands. He's waiting.

-- Michael (williams007@aol.com), June 07, 2001.

Well, the answer goes as follows. Jesus did say that adultery and fornication is a sin. Paul expounded on it. The point is, in a relationship both parties have to be committed and giving. When i way giving, i mean that you must give your attention and love to the woman. The woman should do the same to the man. That causes a reciprocal harmony and balance. Being self centered disrupts this harmony. And the womans feeling cannot penetrate if the man is self centered, if she would want to love him but he wont love her, so she stops loving him, and vice a versa. When i say love, i mean in the sense of affection which isnt based on sex, like hugging [being close proximity] and talking affectionately. But sexual arousal is like a fire that goes out in lets say an hour at best. What do you do when you are done? Some people try to stay aroused, but that isnt a rational approach, because the physiology and psychology of a man or woman doesnt permit us to stay aroused all day and function. Its like taking Viagra all day, that isnt a healthy function, and it will devastate the mind and body in a serious sex addiction and withdrawal phase. So , the point is, all you have left in a marriage, since the fact of life is that arousal does not last, is a true committing relationship. Since in fornication there is no marriage, you have nothing left, so the relationship dissolves abruptly. The marriage love is like the love you had for your mother when you were a baby, actually the love is hard to define. BUt it cannot be self centered. Sex before marriage is a self centered act. Because although the man would be willing, noting his fast arousal, the man could also exercise self control just as fast and easily [God gave us the tools to sin or not to sin]. Because the sexual urge carries with it a fallen nature of consumption, lust is the desire to consume that which is not given to you. I say that the sexual urge is fallen because usually the sexual urge becomes a desire to have sex before marriage, so its so important to control this fallen nature and utilize it in the way God prescribed us to use it. In conclusion, for a really happy marriage, you have to wait till marriage to engage in coitus. IN response to the notion of checking out compatibility, the best way is to get to know each other by talking. Some people call it courting. but i would avoid trying to win her over bit by charming her with expensive gifts, because you have to be honest with each other and be yourself. There is so much to know just by talking. Can this woman be your friend, a life long partner. Communication is the most essential activity to find this out. But coitus is not much of a communicating activity, because both parties would rather just be self centered and get pleasure out of it. And the sexual state of the man or woman is not what you are marrying, you are marrying the side which is communicating. Married life is basically tons of talking, and having children. but the time to make children is tiny compared to the time you are together just talking and then talking to the kids. Therefore, shouldnt communicating verbally to test the emotional compatibility and psychological compability, the best approach to know if you can marry him or her. I mean, cmon, when you are having sex, you arent exactly yourself, you usually go into a another state of personality. It can be evil, or it can be good. But the point is, it is still something not meant outside marriage, because outside marriage it would be completely selfish and against what God says to do. I mean, look at these people who marry each other when they hardly knew each other and then argue all day/divorce. If they would have just talked to each other before marriage, really talked about everything for a year or a couple of months, talk about anything really, they could make better choices.

-- my name is anonymous (sam275z@hotmail.com), June 18, 2001.

way=say , i made a typo in my last message on like the third line

-- my name is anonymous (sam275z@hotmail.com), June 18, 2001.

And I WANT TO MAKE A NOTE TO THAT WOMAN UP THERE IN THE MESSAGE BOARD YAPPIN ABOUT "PLEASURING THE WOMAN". Let me make some real points here. In this world, we arent taking heroin all day, are we? is taking heroin a healthy activity. Then, why is it so important to pleasure the woman. I am using heroin as an example of how a woman or man could be "pleasured". Most women are just happy to find a man who really loves them for better or worse. We are brought up that way, by our parents, when they love us with verbal or physical affection, we are happy emotionally and physically, and it has nothing to do with sexual urges. Do girls make a relationship as they go from puberty to adolescence to teenager years based on pleasure? NO, They make relationships based on who is giving them verbal affection, or maybe a hug. when they are given verbal or physical affection, should they feel a heroin/orgasm of pleasure? No they dont. Why do you presume that this orgasm is so necessary in marriage. Does pleasuring the woman make her "healthy" that would be like saying heroin is necessary for a healthy mind. Aside from the health problems that comes with heroin, i am taking the pleasure aspect solely here. No , heroin is an addiction that causes a withdrawal phase, and it compounds the anxiety because the withdrawal aggravates a small anxiety into a huge anxiety. its the physiological responsa of the chemical dependance. orgasm also is a chemical rush. And yes, you can be addicted to it. and it isnt healthy, and it destroys a functioning relationship because you end up just wanting that pleasure, and you end being selfish and self centered, not to mention irritable. Therefore, if a woman is pleasured by coitus, God bless her, only in marriage. But if she isnt , it doesnt matter. Because if a woman is honest, shouldnt the real pleasure be having a loving husband. You can ask any of these masturbators out there, do they have more feeling from hugging a woman who really loves them or masturbating. They would say of course that hugging is much more pleasurable. because the pleasure is the mind , body and spirit when you have a woman who loves you who is hugging you, instead of pleasure that is just focused on the genitalia. And in marriage, since you have this relationship of mind body and spirit, you can have a satisfactory sexual relationship, but it wont be consuming you, and it is just one part of an ongoing relationship, the aim really is to love Jesus Christ together and to bring into this world children which you raise to love God. God bless everyone. AMEN

.

-- my name is anonymous (sam275z@hotmail.com), June 18, 2001.

When i said i was using heroin, I didnt mean that i was actually using heroin. I was using the case of heroin use, as a case in point, of a pleasure scenario. Lest any of ye should reckon i was using drugs. Drugs is a terrible sin, and i have never taken it. but i have read some studies on drug dependance, and what not.

-- its not available for use (sam275z@hotmail.com), June 18, 2001.

Question:

Doesn't the Bible call marijuana "witchcraft?" Is my regular meditational use as a rasta considered sorcery by the Bible?

Answer:

The most common argument within the church against any sort of use of marijuana is the "Pharmakeia argument". Although this argument can be heard in almost any church, it is hard to recognize in a casual Bible reading. In order to come to the conclusion of the Pharmakeia argument one needs to study the original Koinne Greek Bible text. Pharmakeia is a Greek word found in the New Testament that means medication, pharmacy, magic, sorcery and witchcraft. Its root is pharmakon which refers to a druggist, pharmacist, poisoner, magician or sorcerer. God clearly states that Pharmakeia (the use of drugs) is a sin in Galatians 5:19-20a; "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft" (Pharmakeia).

Most people are shocked when they learn that this verse refers to drug use. Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is not a new drug. In fact, just recently marijuana ashes were found in a fourth-century tomb. The drug was believed to have been smoked by a pregnant teenager sixteen hundred years ago. Some documentations of marijuana use date back as far as the nineteenth century B.C.

The popularity and use of marijuana has increased within the past few years. This pattern of today's intensified drug use was prophesied almost two thousand years ago in the book of Revelation. There are three passages in this book that speak directly about Pharmakeia, Revelation 9:21; 21:8; and 22:15. These three verses tell of the sinfulness of drug use, the non repenting hearts of the users, the state of the end times, the separation of drug users from the kingdom of God, and their second death by placement into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. We conclude that God is very serious about how he deals with this sin.

Marijuana is a hallucinogenic (Funk and Wagnalls 445). This is one of the reasons why using it is sorcery and witchcraft. With the use of drugs, you are opening yourself up to all sorts of spiritual attacks and seducing spirits. Mind altering drugs are used in witchcraft to alter your reality. This can be very dangerous. This is why God calls us to be sober and avoid attacks from Satan (I Peter 5:8). This implies that if we are high, we cannot avoid attacks from the evil one.

In conclusion, marijuana is not a biblical sacrament that we must take in order to become closer to God. In fact, the Bible speaks against marijuana because it is a sin. Marijuana is clearly a stronghold that Satan has used on this world for many generations. God can deliver and heal one from an addiction to marijuana. The truth can be found only through faithfully studying the word of God.

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." (Isaiah 40:8)

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Business

-- max cooper (clemens900n@hotmail.com), June 18, 2001.

As the mother of 8 who are all 17 and above talking about sex before marriage in this age is hard. Please don't revert back to a whole lot of stuff that teens don't understand or care about. The cold hard fact is that most of todays youth do have at least one sexual act before marriage. It is not because they are spitting in God's face but because they are human and have human feelings and animal longings that are part of being human. No, I cannot show them one of the 10 commandments that states no sex before marriage. The 10 commandments are rather cut and dry. However, from a boys perspective, sex outside marriage sometimes leads to an unexpected baby and that is something they will pay for for the rest of their life---with support paymants for the first 18 years and the emotional attachment or detachment that goes along with it. From the girls point of view it is different. Girls have sex for different reasons than boys. They have sex not only for physical reasons but emotional reasons. Everytime they have sex they leave a little piece of their heart behind with a boy who was usually only after physical gratification, not a true relationship. They end up hurt and confused because the boy does not return their feelings after the act. Everybody is looking for love--usually in the wrong places. Youth today generally has poor self-esteem problems so they feel that if when the situation presents itself, they must participate or forever lose the potential partner. Society has helped make people feel inferior if they are not in a partnership. This starts way back in grade school. Think about that everytime you or someone teases your 6 or 8 year old about having a boyfriend or girlfriend. Little boys and little girls are meant to be just that--not little adults. It is not cute. Children raised in that culture are the ones who are devastated when Jr. High relationships fail. They sometimes take drastic steps. If the normal progression of the dating game were started later in life, the final page would be written a lot later in life, not at age 13-15. I am the product of a very religious home with parents who believed and still do very much in the Church's teachings. As a teen myself, the teachings of the Church were about the last thing on my mind when sexual urges hit. Since that was the main thing emphasized in my life, it was not understood or comprehended well. Now it's my turn as the parent and it goes something like this. God says not to have sex before marriage because it hurts you. If you give yourself away often enough, there will be nothing left of you. You are a special person and you do not give special things away. To my son--do you want to pay for the rest of your life for a physical feeling that lasted less than a minute? Do you want to marry a woman that you don't truly love just because she's pregnant and you need to do the honorable thing? Do you want to raise your child with a person who truly doesn't love you? What does that teach your child? Marriage is hard enough without adding all these strikes against it from the start. How you feel at 16 or 18 is a far cry from how you will feel at 25, but by then you will be stuck. Do you think it's just a joke and you can put some girls name on your list of who you've had or gotten? Guess what? The joke's on you you because she'll have gotten you. Forever. To my daughter--Why are you so eager on giving yourself to the first boy who comes along? Oh, you love him and are swept away by the feelings--just a big wave of feeling, is it? Well, the landing on the beach is not so soft. If you don't get pregnant you will still feel empty when this "relationship" dies its normal death. You will feel that you have been used and that you gave away a part of yourself that you can never get back. If you do end up pregnant, you will have to deal with a child. There are dirty diapers and a house to clean. There are meals to prepare and dishes to wash. And that is after you work at least part time to pay the bills. There are bills and bills and no money to pay them. And the crying--the crying never stops. And this is everyday this week and next week and 10 years from now. Do you want to be just another name on some boys list of sexual conquests? Or just another bean in the pot, so to speak? Don't you want to finish school and see the world? The way you're going the only thing you're going to see is the inside of a Safeway or the waiting room of a doctors office with sick kids. Don't you want to dress up pretty and and go out and have fun? Or would you rather stay home and wash floors on Friday night? Oh, your husband is going to help. When? After he worked all day like a dog at a low paying job? That of course assumes that he does marry you.. but why by the cow when the milk's free? ----Sometimes as Catholics we seem to forget that sex is a normal physical function. We elevate it to the "God" level and forget that it is a part of being human just like breathing. The urge that pushes you on to it is similar to the urge you feel when you're hungry and need to eat. It is part of the human animals makeup. We in society have made it seem so absolutely mind-boggling that children grow up with the attitude that they have to have it--like it's something that selfish adults are keeping from them. When they finally have it, they will become part of the adult world that knows some big secret. The big secret is that sex is just sex, physically gratifying, sometimes. Love and sex are a whole different story. When two people care and respect each other enough to get married, their sexual life takes on a whole different meaning. Any child born of that relationship is someone who is expected not a lapse in planning or thought. Partners can expect to count on each other because that is what marriage is--a partnership between people who have vowed in front of witnesses and God that whey will support each other. Sex without love and the commitment of marriage is empty much like singing off key or without instruments. It's missing a vital piece. God says not to have sex before marriage because it hurts you and He has given you this wonderful world and a body with which to enjoy it and by irresponsible sex, you throw it all away. And then you die and He says "Show Me what you've done with the body and brain I've given you." And your answer is probably somewhat lacking. Ellen

-- Ellen K. Hornby (dkh@canada.com), June 23, 2001.

1< No one can decide when you will have sex , but be aware of the consequenses , If that girl get pregnant , you must suffer the consequenses and help to raise that child ; otherwice that guy is a low-life with no responsebility or respect for life !!!!!!!!

2< But if YOU will have sex , but the other person says NO , this means also NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But if you go on , than this will be a rape !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

greetings :

Laurent LUG

No__religion@hotmail.com

-- Laurent LUG. (no__religion@hotmail.com), August 19, 2001.

In the whole discussion about "sex before marriage", one main argument is being neglected though: what's the true motivation to choose precisely the concept of "marriage" as a living form? The cultural origins of marriage are clear: it is first and foremost a BUSINESS contract, aimed at securing or merging families' fortunes, titles or crowns. It's all about worldly interests. God has not much to do with it, and if the Church goes for it, it's just because it fits in their policies.

-- LHOON (lhoon@lhoon.com), January 03, 2004.

In the whole discussion about "sex before marriage", one main argument is being neglected though: what's the true motivation to choose precisely the concept of "marriage" as a living form? The cultural origins of marriage are clear: it is first and foremost a BUSINESS contract, aimed at securing or merging families' fortunes, titles or crowns. It's all about worldly interests. God has not much to do with it, and if the Church goes for it, it's just because it fits in their policies.

If you want a business contract, then create a partership agreement, marriage is not it.

The main purpose of marriage is love. Love in the imitation of God's love, which always includes life.

In Christ,

Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45@hotmail.com), January 03, 2004.

LHOON,

It is certainly true that rulers of nations and some other people in high places have historically misused marriage in exactly the way you describe. It is also true that some individuals make financial security their sole purpose in pursuing marriage ("marrying money"). However, for the overwhelming majority of people who marry, such considerations are the farthest things from their minds. Even these people may not have truly godly motives in marrying - which is a major reason why so many marriages fail - but nevertheless, social or financial gain is simply not a consideration for most people who marry.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 03, 2004.

The woman who wants to marry by trying men who can "pleasure" her fully before marriage seems to be a terribly sick person. She needs to be dealt medically, psychologically, and spiritually. Only fools will give sound knowledge or wisdom or answer to such darkened foolishness. Here apt proverb holds good, "do not throw your pearls before dogs or swine..." I doubt the person is serious in what she (or he) is saying. As far as I see, if this is true, then such person is totally unfit to even mention the subject of marriage (leave alone marrying). It is obvious she has already lost everything that a woman should have in order to get married. She is only fit to be a prostitute of the perverted kind who will keep hiring studs on a daily basis to "pleasure" her to happiness long until she dies rots of STD/AIDS!

-- leslie john (lesliemon@hotmail.com), January 03, 2004.

leslie john: >>>> She is only fit to be a prostitute of the perverted kind who will keep hiring studs on a daily basis to "pleasure" her to happiness long until she dies rots of STD/AIDS! <<<<

That was getting to the point of hysteria. The person was wrong in recommending trial sex before marriage, but that last bit was just unnecessary and overboard.

Still it would seem a good point that before engagement, certainly before marriage, some discussion on issues like this should be broached. For what I have seen there are wide variations of opinons among Catholics on issues like oral sex, number of children hoped for, if NFP or none should be used (and some Catholics and nonCatholics might intend to use birth control) ... would seem best to discuss issues like that prior to marriage to some extent.

By discussion not experimentation. If one person plans on using birth control, wants two children, and expects oral sex then married someone wanting to use NFP or no birth control wanting to have at least 8 children and is opposed to oral sex would seem there is a major conflict in the making. Just like it might cause strife if one partner was Christian and one was not. Sometimes you believe love will overcome all, but the reality is those differences often cause years of resentment and strife after the initial love-glow is gone and you are disagreeing during the realities of raising children.

There are not guarantees, people can change after marriage. Would seem some discussion prior to marriage might at least help avert disasterous differences, or at the least no excuse that they simply didn't know until after they were married.

-- Marcia Dietrich (marciadietrich@yahoo.com), January 03, 2004.

Discussion and sorting out all important issues before marriage I very much agree!

It seems what I said was a bit overboard. But, just read what she has written carefully. A woman having a mindset of such lower-than- animal nature nearly grieved and angered me. What else should I say. We cannot just be soft toward such. She very well knows what she is and how wrong she is. Only she does not know where she is heading.... happiness? No curse. If you have her good in your mind, then you should join me in rebuking her.

-- leslie john (lesliemon@hotmail.com), January 04, 2004.

mike t:

Learn from other peoples mistakes, try not to make mistakes of your own.

It isn’t surprising why the world is in the state that it is in; when people regard selfish pleasures in the same manner, as they utilize a shoe (to quote: eugene c. chavez).

Ms.Yeah I know, is a modern girl; and doesn’t see beyond a few years of lust and co-habitation, but she will soon see the error of her ways.

She won’t see until later in her life that with each action of fornication she performs, she is emotionally attached and physically corrupted by pleasures of the flesh.

Like most, if not all women in big cities (assuming she lives in a big city), finding true love is a discouraging and hopeless cause, because people like herself regard relations in the same manner as they do, which is to say the least is not encouraging. (And this is not being religious in nature just truthful).

I sincerely hope Ms. Yeah I know finds true love before it is too late, because all I can see for her is feelings of inadequacy and disappointments with any new relationship.

Emotional hardship not withstanding, affects men and women.

-- JohnQ_Public (Anywhere@anyplace.com), January 06, 2004.

There are three barriers in life to God's Will. Catholic traditional teaching: These are the world, the flesh and the devil. From early childhood onward we have interference from the devil. When we enter adolescence, the world and the flesh combine to help the devil destroy our souls; if we let him.

One thing we can always be certain of. He'll make every attempt to ruin us; and the easiest way for him is tempting healthy people every day--! To sin. Especially the young.

Sexual desire is something healthy from the biological point of view. Gratification of the flesh isn't always healthy. A soul may give in totally to every temptation, so that even the health of the body is threatened. Not just by disease; but also troubles of the nervous system. The worst are an increasing filthiness of habits and corruption of our own imaginations. Isn't that what results in addictions, and coarseness, and sometimes even crime?

I don't know what the differences may be; all of them, in women. But likely enough, just like men, they'll fall victims to anxiety and depression, if nothing reins in their passions. Our ancestors knew what they were saying; calling these conditions a bad conscience.

Who takes control of you, if your conscience can't overcome the selfishness of your own flesh? Not the doctor or psychiatrist. Often these professionals help you only to suppress your conscience which is ruining your sleep, your peace of mind; and above all your spiritual health.

The controller becomes Satan himself. The devil-- imposing on us not only his will, but the world's evil influence and our own sex drives!

In the world all is pretense and money and immorality. The movies; contemptible best-selling novels; MTV, pornography. All can be justified in society; partying to abortion, when you earn the big bucks. That's what the world teaches us is good. Where is the counter-balancing influence? Is there one?

I can't recall in what passage of the Old Testament God says to man: ''I will make you lie down in sorrow.'' God can and often does permit great suffering to come to sinners. He will subject them to pain and loss, until they repent. --Suffering is the great leveller God introduces against the world the flesh and the devil. If a soul can still repent, God will punish him/her into doing it. He has infinite power to do that to us. Power over our health and fortunes. Over the devil, and the events all around us. God can strike fear into the boldest sinner. That's what makes the hardened sinner so pathetic in the eyes of the faithful.

All they think of is pleasure and freedom. But when the price has to be paid all is weeping and distress; God! Why, why!!!?

We are to rejoice in Him, then; and offer up prayer for the helpless and depraved, who need His holy intervention. He will bring us all to repentence; but we must pray. Not for a release from suffering, but for repentence in store for us by suffering ! Let's hope; in that very suffering of this world, to avert our eternal loss in the next. Even when things are darkest for the sinner, he/she can reform. It's never too late, until one day it's too late.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), January 06, 2004.