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“Fornication” as we define it in the church is so absolute. Get a paper document signed by the courthouse and you can “do it” all you want. Don’t get a paper document and you can’t. The issue I have is that our divorce rate shows that a legal marriage is no more a sign of commitment than getting a 1 year lease on an apartment together. The paper document you get at the courthouse is something we as humans invented to provide a legal record of property and rights. It has nothing to do with God and I can’t imagine he could care less what kinds of fancy certificates we want to laminate while we are here. Sexual morality and fidelity are actions, standards and feelings. That’s it. Did Adam and Eve get married in a courthouse and have their certificate signed by a witness? So did they fornicate all of us into existence at the displeasure of God? Amen, Katzpur ! Amen ! I went through a lot of guilt myself when I was younger. The church as a culture, you could say, almost makes people “super-sensitive” to sexual sins when in the rest of society (outside of mainstream mormonism) certain “behaviors”(sins) are quite common place (e.g. living together common law, masturbation, viewing pornography, etc.)
Honestly, i think the church has good standards but the approach to “serious” sexual sins may be a bit over done by church leaders. I think it’s good to aim high for common sense reasons but to not forget we are human beings too. The church was made for man, man was not made for the church (similar to Christ’s admonition of “the sabbath was made for man, man was not made for the sabbath”).
… and canadian girl – we are waiting for your input !!! 😆 ! (: P)Katzpur, that is tragic. I know it’s highly discouraged, but you should write a letter to one of the brethren. They need to know stuff like this is going on and that the way chastity is taught can have long-lasting negative repercussions.
I’d recommend writing Elder Scott, as to me, he seems to be the most compassionate to those struggling with sin and whenever he talks about these sorts of things, he also always mentions forgiveness through the Atonement.
Andrew wrote:Katzpur, that is tragic.
I know it’s highly discouraged, but you should write a letter to one of the brethren. They need to know stuff like this is going on and that the way chastity is taught can have long-lasting negative repercussions.
I’d recommend writing Elder Scott, as to me, he seems to be the most compassionate to those struggling with sin and whenever he talks about these sorts of things, he also always mentions forgiveness through the Atonement.
You know, I probably would — and I write one dang good letter! — but I’ll tell you what’s holding me back. If I didn’t get a response that was compassionate and encouraging, it would make matters even worse than they are right now. I would just have one more person to be angry with, and I really don’t want to be angry with the Church leadership.As an aside, kind of off-topic but very interesting: I have a close friend who was married to an abusive man, an active member of the Church and priesthood holder, for 40 years. Over 40 years, he beat her down to nothing. They had five kids together. She just wanted to do everything humanly possible to keep her family together, “for the sake of the kids.” But when she finally got up the strength and courage to file for divorce, she did write a letter — to President Hinckley! And she got a very, very nice letter back from him. So I guess it sometimes does pay off.
GBSmith wrote:Quote:As far as I’m concerned there is no way that is remotely accurate and exaggerating the seriousness of it will not really prevent it either, it’s just as likely to result in excessive and unnecessary guilt after the fact or alienate an increasing number of members that already don’t believe it’s half that bad based on their own experience.
Guilt is not bad if it moves a person to change but
not feeling guilty and not changing because a person’s experience that fornication is not so bad is a problem.Expecting people to be chaste in the temple covenant sense of the word is just a standard. You live it or you don’t but I don’t think you can rationalize your way out of it. And as I said before expecting sexual morality and fidelity has a lot of positives and the opposite really doesn’t. That’s why I have no problem with the churches stance. If lack of guilt is a problem then I honestly don’t know what the solution is. It’s almost like the Church wants to give me another guilt-trip simply because of the fact that I don’t feel bad about this anymore. There’s really not much incentive for me to rationalize that it’s not that bad now because my worst sins according to the Church magically changed into no sin at all as soon as I was married. So now I could just as easily say it was a big mistake and I should have waited until I was married but I have learned my lesson. Instead, I have no regrets whatsoever about it and if I could go back in time and do it all over again this is one of the absolute last things I would do differently.
What else was I going to do under the circumstances? If you ask them the answer is that I should have either gotten married when I was just a poor student spending so much time studying or else I should have just lived like a monk for several years after I had already done that for more than 2 years straight because of my mission and was completely sick of it. Either of these options would have definitely left me with more regrets at this point and I would probably still be wondering what might have been if only I hadn’t let the Church control almost every major aspect of my life. I know some TBMs that got married immediately after their mission and started having children like the Church recommends while they were still in school and it took them more than twice as long to graduate. I honestly don’t think it was much fun for them once the honeymoon was over.
The reason I don’t believe that fear, guilt, and shame work quite as well to get people to avoid or permanently “repent” of supposed sexual sins as they typically would for other sins is because this is basically a natural physical desire that is not being satisfied so no matter how hard you try to fight it the feeling is still there and won’t go away. For me, all the guilt-trips about porn mostly led me to sin even more by the Church’s standards because I started to get discouraged as if I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Celestial Kingdom anyway so then I stopped paying tithing and attending Church and started drinking. By then I felt completely “unworthy” to marry any good Mormon girl so I gave up on that idea and started dating non-Mormons and inactive members instead. At that point, most of the guilt went away because I knew there was no way I was going to stop “sinning” and confess all this to the bishop so I felt like there was no point in worrying about it too much anymore.
GBSmith wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:I don’t care if they want to continue to preach that fornication is wrong and that marriage would typically be better; what I don’t agree with at all is the idea that it is almost as bad as murder.
No argument there but
to be honest I’ve not heard anyone preach that or write about that for as long as I can remember.I think it’s part of mormonism’s collective memory but as I say I don’t think it’s an issue.
Boyd K. Packer brought up this same idea that sexual sins are next to murder again in the last conference. It sounds like his theory is more or less that things like homosexuality, casual sex, and porn are Satan’s artificial substitutes for the divine institution of marriage. Personally, I think he’s paranoid because it seems like many atheists and agnostics are still married and care about their families just as much as any Mormon.
I also think some Church leaders see members that drink, smoke, and/or have sex before they are married typically become inactive and conclude that this is confirmation that all these things are so evil and dangerous to members’ eternal salvation that they need to harp on strict abstinence even more because it’s supposedly a slippery slope where any one of these things can lead to members becoming complete heathens. Because of this, they mistakenly think the answer is to try even harder to prevent these things at all costs rather than forgive and cut people some slack and make them feel welcome. It’s sort of a vicious cycle where their overreaction results in even more of the same things they are so concerned about like losing members that will no longer listen to them.
DA, I wonder if breaking the law of chastity was closer to murder in generations past when less education and science made it so that sex was more probable of pregnancy. Bringing a kid into the world is close to taking someone out of the world in some respects. I’m not too up on the topic, but it seems to me now there are more ways to protect against that, and so it is less like murder than perhaps it was in the past? Would you agree? PiperAlpha wrote:DA,
I wonder if breaking the law of chastity was closer to murder in generations past when less education and science made it so that sex was more probable of pregnancy.Bringing a kid into the world is close to taking someone out of the world in some respects. I’m not too up on the topic, but it seems to me now there are more ways to protect against that, and so it is less like murder than perhaps it was in the past? Would you agree?I can see why fornication would have definitely been much more serious before we had effective birth control but I’m still not sure it would ever be next to murder when you have things like attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, etc. that you could possibly rank higher on the list. However, this idea is something Church leaders should probably consider when they try to apply scriptures that were mostly written before 1844 to people nowadays when so much has changed since then.
Even if we forget about fornication there is still the issue of porn and masturbation which is not so much about any practical consequences as much as Victorian/puritan style shame about sex and what is proper, natural, etc. or not. If sex toys like vibrators are clearly not natural and it made me slightly uncomfortable to look at them the first time I saw them does that automatically mean they are wrong and should be avoided? I think some Church leaders would say so if pressed to give an answer. Personally, I think some of the shame and fear surrounding what kind of sexual practices are acceptable or not will often lead to higher levels of sexual dysfunction and dissatisfaction among devout Mormons even after they are married and that’s why I think the less Church leaders say about it the better off members will typically be.
is murder really that bad in the grand scheme? the goal of this life is to die and go to heaven anyway. DevilsAdvocate wrote:I started to get discouraged as if I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Celestial Kingdom anyway so then I stopped paying tithing and attending Church and started drinking. By then I felt completely “unworthy” to marry any good Mormon girl so I gave up on that idea and started dating non-Mormons and inactive members instead. At that point, most of the guilt went away because I knew there was no way I was going to stop “sinning” and confess all this to the bishop so I felt like there was no point in worrying about it too much anymore.
It sounds like your sense of self-worth and self-image was impacted negatively and that your life went a different direction as a result. Life is hard enough for young people (and old too) without viewing it from a perspective of self-devaluation and unworthiness. It sounds as though you have no regrets on this topic and I hope that to mean that your life has been at least as meaningful and joyful as you might imagine it to have been otherwise.
I feel inclined (inspired?) to share with you and Katzpur’s daughter that you are of worth, that your value is not correlated to your actions, and that He who knows you completely also loves you completely. I feel that your life has prepared you to be you, that your unique contribution adds to the completeness of the whole, and that you should be encouraged to develop and cultivate what it means to be you without fear. I write this sincerely.
Roy wrote:DevilsAdvocate wrote:I started to get discouraged as if I wouldn’t be able to make it to the Celestial Kingdom anyway so then I stopped paying tithing and attending Church and started drinking. By then I felt completely “unworthy” to marry any good Mormon girl so I gave up on that idea and started dating non-Mormons and inactive members instead. At that point, most of the guilt went away because I knew there was no way I was going to stop “sinning” and confess all this to the bishop so I felt like there was no point in worrying about it too much anymore.
It sounds like your sense of self-worth and self-image was impacted negatively and that
your life went a different direction as a result. Life is hard enough for young people (and old too) without viewing it from a perspective of self-devaluation and unworthiness. It sounds as though you have no regrets on this topic and I hope that to mean that your life has been at least as meaningful and joyful as you might imagine it to have been otherwise.I feel inclined (inspired?) to share with you and Katzpur’s daughter that you are of worth, that
your value is not correlated to your actions, and that He who knows you completely also loves you completely.I feel that your life has prepared you to be you, that your unique contribution adds to the completeness of the whole, and that you should be encouraged to develop and cultivate what it means to be you without fear. I write this sincerely. Thanks Roy; one reason I don’t have any regrets is because I see my brother married to a super strict TBM and now he doesn’t get to watch R-rated movies or even football on Sundays and I think that could have just as easily been me so I think it all worked out for the best in the end. I try not to beat myself up about this too much especially after I stopped believing in the Church the way I did before and I think God would understand that I didn’t mean any harm by all my supposed improprieties. Katzpur’s story makes me think it is probably even worse for the young women where it seems like the main thing they hear about is getting married in the temple almost as if that’s the only thing that matters and once that’s gone there’s not much of a point to anything else.
… DevilsAdvocate wrote:Katzpur’s story makes me think it is probably even worse for the young women where it seems like the main thing they hear about is getting married in the temple almost as if that’s the only thing that matters and once that’s gone there’s not much of a point to anything else.
I tend to agree. There has always been a double standard about sexual activity. I think that this comes back to the emphasized role of women as wives and mothers. Both the role of wife and the role of mother has a sexual component (as in you don’t become a mother in the traditional sense without sex). Whereas the emphasized role of men of providers and presiders is much less sexual. I can only imagine the pain for a young woman who feels unworthy, unclean, or unwanted for that defining role.
Brown wrote:is murder really that bad in the grand scheme? the goal of this life is to die and go to heaven anyway.
Yes, I think it is, because it is a violation of the plan.
The definition of murder might be a better question.
If you shoot someone in battle, is that murder? Is accidental manslaughter murder? What about
crime passionnel?
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