Please bear with me, I will try and be consise since I am not a great writer and explained myself badly I think. I've gotten a couple of pretty interesting inbox messages about theology neither of which were rude, and were fairly though provoking), in the end a lot of what The Bible says can come down to interpetation, I'm sure Catholics for example can find plenty of ways to justify the way they do things by The Bible, as can protestants that broke away from the church, and anyone in between.AMMO Kid said:
Most of that is kind of irrelevent. What I was getting at is more along the lines of the story of Abraham, a basic synopsis of which is God demands a sacrifice, knowing Abraham only has his child, Abraham goes to kill his child for god, and god sends a goat by so he doesn't have to kill his kid, pretty much doing all of this as a "test of faith" to see if Abraham would love him more than his own son. By anyone's standards that's bloody sick, and I can't see a benevolent being doing something like that.
Once you view god as benevolent and just (which is what my gut tells me) and Jesus Christ as your savior, it actually puts some of what The Bible says into question, especially when you look at Old Testament stuff. God does some things one would attribute to a vengeful, evil deity in a sword and sorcery novel. I tend to see anything that makes me doubt his benevolence as being false, especially in parts where it's contridicted by something else. Maybe things change with a depper understanding scripture than I have, but I call it like I see it.
AS IT APPLIES TO THIS DISCUSSION, what I am getting at is something similar to what Yahtzee said in one of his reviews, about how god is a jerk by giving people bits that feel good to rub together, and a massive instinct to do so, and then passes all these decrees telling you not to do it, or face eternal and endless torture and torment.
Stop and think about this for a second, would a benevolent creator do something like that? To me the answer is 'no'. Thus I am extremely wary of this being an intended message in The Bible.
On the other hand when you remove the entire god-bit from the equasion, I can see why perfectly moral social engineers working with what is already there, might want to regulate such things using the fear of god so people would overcome their sexual urges and work together better as a society. Things like marriage (removing someone from the pool of potential mates), and not running around trying to get your rocks off constantly both benefit the creation of a productive society.
Thus I feel God never gave people those urges and said "don't give into them, or engage in recreational sex, or sex out of wedlock". That wouldn't be "right" from his perspective. On the other hand I can very much believe that PEOPLE had reasons for wanting to do this, which were on their own quite benevolent, so The Bible was altered and god was effectively made to say something he never actually said.
The nature of free will being such that god probably wouldn't punish someone for doing this. Nor do I suspect the person doing it would go to hell, given the good intentions involved. I've never been a firm believer in th maxim "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" since we mere mortals have to work within what we have, and what we know. With god being a benevolent being I don't think all that many people actually go to hell, it being reserved for the wicked (so to speak).
This is debatable, and pardon me for getting too theological. I am as I pointed out not a deeply spiritual person. The bottom line is that I personally do not believe that there is any true divine mandate against sex. While in the bible, when I consider god's nature, it leads me to believe that any such mandate in religious texts comes from other men, and were doubtlessly created to address issues at the time.
No need to argue, that's simply my thought. Perhaps such thoughts mean I'll burn in hell despite the salvation of Jesus. But I can't help but be honest about how I see things.
Religion seems to have become more of an issue here than I intended it to be.
