The only reason that this thread is in Great Debates is that it’s religious in nature.
If this site is correct: http://christianparty.net/christianpopulation.htm
Then “Ninety Three Percent of North Americans Are Christians”
And looking at various sites, 53% - 60% of Americans think that premarital sex is OK.
So, if you’re a Christian, and have, or have had premarital sex, then is it because
Your denomination didn’t teach that it’s wrong.
Your denomination teaches that it’s wrong, but you don’t believe that it is.
Your denomination teaches that it’s wrong, but you don’t care.
Other, please explain.
I myself never had sex before marriage because I do believe my churches teaching on the subject, although I did do, <ahem>, “other things” because I didn’t believe that they were as wrong, or wrong at all.
I believe they think they got a pass because they “accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior”. Hypocritical BS in the extreme, but they’ll argue that “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven”, so they even got their hypocrisy covered… :rolleyes:
“Didn’t care,” would be more accurate. At that point in my life, the raging battle between teenaged horniness and religious conviction tilted toward the side of evil with surprising ease.
The first cite is nowhere near correct. Ninety-three percent of Americans are Christians in the sense of “not anything else.” The percent that actually go to church and/or believe the teachings of the religion is much, much smaller.
Although I’m formally Catholic, I’m rather some sort of agnostic, but a few days ago I discussed this with a cousin of mine who takes Christian principles very serious, and I enjoyed religious education at school, which is why I actually paid attention from time to time. My understanding about this issue is that premarital sex is not OK to a faithful believer, but that the point here isn’t the formal marriage (i.e. the moment you have your marriage certificate in your hands). It’s more a psychological thing: You should be mature enough to know about the consequences and responsibilities that come up if you have sex with somebody. If you are, premarital sex is fine even if you’re not formally married.
I tried searching around the web but had a hard time finding any sites that said not only the percentage of Americans who were religious, but of those who were religious, what percentage were Christians.
Setting aside the issues of how “Christian” is in some cases more like an ethnicity than a religion. . . .
If I’m remembering the story right, my boyfriend and his wife were intending to do the whole “save for marriage” thing, and then someone asked (him?) why, given that they were engaged, loved each other dearly, and were and are still committed to each other. His response was something along the lines of, “. . . good question.”
I believe eventually they decided that marriage is a thing in the heart, not various miscellaneous pieces of paper and a blood test.
But from a Christian standpoint, I thought that you had to be married in the eyes of God before having sex wasn’t a sin.
Also, some people do differentiate between having sex when you’re engaged VS one night stands or just sleeping with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Well, I believe that with most Christian denominations, a proper wedding that unites two people in the eyes of God is done in a church ceremony, any sex before that happens is premarital and is usually defined as fornication, a sin.
Well, first, because the number of devout (for lack of a better word) Christians in America is certainly way less than 93%. Second, because many hold the belief articulated above that it’s okay as long as the people are committed to each other. I disagree with that, but hey, free world. Third reason, of course, is that many don’t care.
I’m not a Christian but I seem to remember something about Rasputin and a theory that, in order to get to Christian Heaven, you needed a lot of Grace (whatever that is). Apparently, you got Grace when you were forgiven for sins. So, the more you sinned, the more you had to have forgiven and, therefore, the more Grace you got and the more likely you were to get to Christian Heaven.
I am no longer a Christian, but I was raised fundamentalist, and I would say that while conservative Christianity favors the former “church wedding,” the Biblical text is not that prescriptive. Apparently, according to the apostles, a couple is married if they are married by the customs of their people, which typically involves publicizing your relationship in some way. Church weddings were a later invention. Monogamy is strongly encouraged, but not required.
I got it from the OP (sorry, I should have attributed from it). I’m not a Christian, so I can’t answer the OPs question, but I was curious, since the OP seems to imply that he considers certain sexually activity outside of marriage to be OK, and some to be not OK. I’m wondering where his drawing line is, and how he justifies such a drawing line in terms of his religion/world view.
I suppose this is a bit of a hijack, so I’ll understand if the OP chooses not to answer.
Well, after a while, I did begin to question whether they were wrong or not. As for what I did, sheeze, can’t you figure it out on your own? You know, I’m talking about things like fondling and so on.
