Now hear me out…
This question has come about as a result of a few observations.
A local (Christian) church magazine I was flipping through that was examining the statistic that there are more people screwed up sexually in the church, and religious ways for them to handle it. (They explained the statistic, btw, as due to the fact that people were joining the church to get help).
Sorta related, one of my textbooks on social deviance notes that alcoholism is at 1% in the Jewish community as opposed to 7% in the general population. They attibuted this to social and religious drinking in Jewish families, with an emphasis on both the pleasure of it, and keeping it under control.
Adam Corolla of Love Line (was listening on the way home from kendo) was talking to a caller who had been abused from age 3 to 15 by a PK every Sunday at the local church. Adam was of the opinion that we never heard of Jewish sexual abuses (as opposed to those by priests, televangelists, deacons, pastors, regular Christian church members) because the incidence was lower in Judaism since they have a more practical and moderate view of food n sex (food, that’s where I tie in #2) which leads to less dysfunction.
So. In the opinion of the board, is this a valid trend? Are there statistics for or against? What about examples of Judaic beliefs which could screw up a person sexually, or Christian ones which allow it to be managed in an open fashion.
Anyway, just wondering.
I tend to agree with this assessment. Any religion which bans or severely restricts natural behavior tends to cause neurosis and dysfunction w/ regard to that behavior. Orthodox Judaism forbids masturbation, which may cause for some sexual disfunction. Of course, liberal Xtianity probably allows for social drinking, premarital sex, etc. As such, it’s the fundamentalist variety that probably screws people up the most.
One thing to keep in mind is that Xtians make up about 90% of the population, verses around 2% for Jews, which may account for the differences in what we hear reported.
I’ll go Opus1 one step further. The observation is made that Christianity is much more prevalent than Judaism. Very true. The thing is, that small group of Jews, at least in the U.S., tends to be better-educated than average, and to be more economically stable. The gap between the average Jew and the average gentile isn’t enormous, but imagine the gap between the poorest 20% of Jews and the poorest 20% of gentiles. I say “imagine” because I don’t know the statistics, but I’d bet a cheeseburger that the sorts of things that go along with sexual dysfunction are much more common in the lowest gentile quintile.
What does along with sexual dysfunction? Oh, anything really, since there is a huge variety of sexual problems out there. I mean, are we talking about impotence? Incest? Date rape? Teen pregnancy? Beastiality? Premature ejaculation? A lot of these problems are not in the same ballpark with each other.
On the other hand, sexual dysfunction is not like a lottery - there are identifiable syndromes. Alcohol abuse is part of the syndrome, as has been mentioned. Good education is not a perfect shield against sexual dysfunction. But one thing a lot of these problems do have in common is, ignorance is going to make it worse. Let’s say you’re a teenage mother, raising kids. You got pregnant because, well, you were an irresponsible teenager who didn’t take precautions. If you have no education, you’re much more likely to grow up teaching your kids zilch about the birds and the bees. Long ago, I think the problem was more about shame: “Don’t talk about that! That’s filthy! Don’t ask questions! Don’t think about such things!” Now, I think the problem is much more about apathy: “Don’t ask me about where babies come from while “Married With Children” is on”.
In any case, good education will come in handy as a defense against nearly any form of dysfunction. Jews have a little more than average. Religion probably plays some role, but I don’t know how you could measure it. I mean, it seems to me like Judaism is more open about sex than a lot of Christian faiths, but how am I to know if this is generally true? I only have anecdotes: priests being sued for sex abuse; fundamentalist kids signing virginity contracts; Jim Bakker. Jimmy Carter said he committed adultery - a major sin - in his heart … because he found women other than his wife attractive. Jimmy, Jimmy, that’s called heterosexuality. It’s considered perfectly normal nowadays!
<< imagine the gap between the poorest 20% of Jews and the poorest 20% of gentiles >>
Perpetuates the popular myth about how rich Jews are. In fact, the gap is zero. There are Jews who are homeless and wander the cities with their shopping carts, as well as Jews at the wealthy end of the spectrum (although not at THE wealthiest end). It’s just that there are so MANY non-Jews.
While I would tend to agree with a lot of the stereotype regarding our scholarly prowess I would tend to disagree with the common belief that we all have an average higher income when compared to gentiles.
There is a strong cultural history among my people that pushes us toward higher education as a matter of routine. It’s just cultural and tradition.
As for the economics of Jews in general the main reason it is believed that we are all money grubbing or wealthy comes from two major places. The verses in the bible about moneylenders in the temply which could be used to imply that Judaism is a monetary church and in more recent history some orthodox Christian churches having proscribed followers from handling money. Thus you end up with a situation where a bunch of German Orthodox Christians hand over all their money to bankers the most visible of which were Jews (actually there were all kinds of bankers and only a few were Jews but when it came time to persecute them it’s a lot more fun to kick a Jews ass than someone who looks and talks just like you do.). When an economy starts to fall you find someone who is not like you in some way and who happens to have money and you come to the conclusion that the reason you are poor is that they made you poor. Not that you were an idiot who invested poorly, that just can’t be! Must be the damned Heebe who did it to you.
And that is pretty much that.
Now on to the original topic.
Among traditional reasons for the allowance of a divorce to a Jewish woman two to make not of were 1) physical abuse and 2) sexual inactivity. A husband should not beat his wife, nor should he be remiss in his attentions to her. I think both husband and wife have a right to sex at least once a month. Now that isn’t a whole lot of sex, but I can’t think of too many major religeons that guarantee women sex on a regular basis.
I think you will find that there are more proscriptions about sex and deviancy in the Old Testament than in the New Testament so if this is what causes sexual problems than I would think it would be more prevalent amoung observant Jews than observant Christians.
I think Boris has the real answer with his demographic analysis.
No. The terminology I used was “better-educated than average” and “economically stable”. “How rich Jews are” is your verbage.
That’s a very bold statement. Zero is a very small number when it comes to statistics. And, if you’re talking about income, you’re off the topic; I was talking about education level.
You’ve lost me here. If you think I didn’t know that there were any Jewish homeless people, well, I guess I’ve come across as a complete idiot. Obviously the wealthiest people in the U.S. aren’t Jewish, since if I’m not mistaken both of them are gentile. I don’t know what this is supposed to prove. zen101 wrote,
If you hear anyone expressing that belief, go right ahead and disagree. Still, I don’t understand the sentence structure - “… all have an average …” “All” is sort of redundant in that sentence. If group A has a higher average income than group B, it doesn’t mean everyone is group A has a higher income than the highest in group B, but an average does describe a mathematical fact about a group.
Basically, either Jews have a higher average income than gentiles, or gentiles have a higher average income than Jews. The odds against CKDextHavn’s assertion that the difference is zero are astronomical. I hesitate to get into the income argument, since I do believe it is irrelevant, but I feel the need to defend the social sciences here. What if I produced statistics showing a measurably higher (say, by 10%) mean income for Jews? Would this mean that Jews are “all money grubbing or wealthy”? No. Do statistics showing that gentiles vote less often than Jews mean that gentiles are unfit for democracy? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean gentiles vote exactly as often as Jews do.
Jews being richer is a outdated concept really(though one of my old teachers still says “Jewing”) Most people are satisfied with the economy and see no need for a scapegoat.
Sorry, I used the wrong word. The article was referring to either sexual deviance or addiction. Will keep my eye out for the magazine. Might even be able to find it online.
But I think you know what I meant. And that was just an example, I was wondering more if people knew of others.
Hm. Interesting point. Granted, education isn’t a shield against actual physical dysfunctions, but that wasn’t what the article was referring to, or what I was really asking about.
The interesting question is, though, why did Jimmy Carter feel that he had committed adultery? Because he was literally interpreting the book of Matthew! What can the stress and guilt of feeling you are constantly committing a terrible sin do to you? Would it be more likely to push people over the edge?
Well, those are the circumstances under which her husband can be forced to divorce her against his stated will. Divorce with husband’s consent could be for any reason.
No one should beat anyone.
If I recall correctly, the exact frequency depends on the job the husband holds (i.e., there are some jobs that take a husband away from his wife for long periods of time; wives who marry a man in those professions are expected to have lower expectations than wives whose husbands come home every night). I’m pretty sure that for some professions, the right is more often than monthly, and for some, less often. And if a husband changes profession in the middle of a marriage to one that keeps him away more than his previous profession, that, too, was grounds for divorce.
lemartel:
You’d expect so…except you’re forgetting something, which, I think, is the root of the issue. Sure, the Old Testament contains many restrictions on sex. It also contains many restrictions on eating, on doing work, on waging war, on building a house, etc. Amongst Orthodox Jews, sex isn’t singled out for restriction, it’s one of many areas of life that are restricted…and thus, it’s viewed, healthily, as just another part of life.
Christianity, for reasons that I’ve never quite understood, adopted the Old Testament restrictions on sex, but not, to that degree, on any other areas of life (is there anything that Christians don’t eat, other than meat during lent?). That puts a focus on sex that leads to unhealthy dysfunctions.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by cmkeller *
**zen101:
No one should beat anyone.
If I recall correctly, the exact frequency depends on the job the husband holds (i.e., there are some jobs that take a husband away from his wife for long periods of time; wives who marry a man in those professions are expected to have lower expectations than wives whose husbands come home every night). I’m pretty sure that for some professions, the right is more often than monthly, and for some, less often. And if a husband changes profession in the middle of a marriage to one that keeps him away more than his previous profession, that, too, was grounds for divorce.
**
You have that right, I thought more on it after posting and tried to find my History of Sex Through The Ages book but couldn’t locate it. I think it was a shepherd that was obliged to service his wife on a monthly basis while a rabbi or shopkeeper had to perform on a weekly basis (poor guys <wink>.). I should call my mom and ask her but she might think I’m getting married and I’d hate to dissapoint her.
My point thoug wasn’t to show how fair by todays standards Hebraic law was concerning marriage but to demonstrate that, taken in context, it was quite progressive in regards to marital relations and to repudiate the profession that religeon engenders sexual dysfunction.
Of course to do that last part, all I need to is delve into Tantra and new age mysticism (which IS viewed by practcioners and many open minded people as a valid religeous belief system). But I kinda’ figured that woulda’ been cheatin’ a bit. So I went for something more old-world and traditional (and yes, I know that the basis for modern Tantric practices are really friggin’ ancient, but the modern practice is new-age.).
In closing. You all should be having sex right now. If not in fact, then at least in the Jimmy Carter sense. I know I am. It’s what makes my job tolerable.
Well, I figured I had a good idea of what you were talking about, but I’m wrong about these things pretty often so I figured I’d try to take all the possibilities into account.
Yeah. I was sort of taking a public health viewpoint - a more educated community will be more in tune with health practices. This doesn’t apply quite so much to psychological problems, which aren’t really contagious, but in a way, it does. A more educated person might be more likely to go to a shrink when they get the inkling it isn’t perfectly normal to have a crush on the neighbor’s cow. Whether or not education is any help against sexual addiction, I have no idea.
I kind of think it would, and you’ve grasped my point exactly. It’s really sad, from my impious standpoint, that someone would consider himself a sinner just because he looked lustfully at a maiden. Or whatever. According to certain Biblical passages, you get zero credit for treating your wife like a princess, never so much as smooching another women for as long as the two of you are alive. You’re an adulterer just for thoughts - thoughts that nearly every heterosexual male has several times a day. (I’m not saying women or homosexual males are any different, but I don’t really know.)
My criticism for some* Christian ethical systems is the unwillingness to prioritize. I mean, imagining yourself having sex with your fiance is a mortal sin; sexually molesting a young child is also a mortal sin. ???
Maybe I’m missing something here, but it doesn’t look like violence is an aspect of the Seven Deadly Sins or of the Ten Commandments; mutual consent never enters into it (although, in a twisted way, it does - if you make sweet love to your fiance, two people have sinned; if you molest an altar boy, at least he’s innocent). I must be missing something here, because it looks to me like if a priest has molests a child he is no worse off than if he is seduced by a grown woman. It would be even worse for the priest if this were a married woman, since then he would have broken Commandment 9 as well as 6.
That is my criticism. If you don’t like extramarital sex, don’t do it, but don’t tell your ministers and parishoners it’s as bad as rape and expect their moral compasses to stay in good working order.
Please don’t skip over this word and think I’m talking about Christians generally
(Laughing out loud!) Actually I kind of chuckled when I was reviewing my post. I thought about saying “gentile fifth” but then people would have thought I was talking about a bottle of liquor.
Leaving aside the idea of whether extramarital sin is bad or not …it seems silly to suggest that because 2 acts fall into a category of “mortal sin” …that they are automatically considered “equal” in the eyes of that church. Intercepting U.S. postal mail and murder are both “felonies” under the law…neither are “misdemeanors”…I doubt anybody considers them to be equal…
The only church I am aware of that even uses the term “mortal sin” in any official capacity is the Catholic church (someone correct me if I’m wrong here). The terms mortal sin and venial sin are analgous to “felony” and “misdemeanor”…they are both somewhat crude attempts to distinguish among various acts.
If a church considers rape to be more serious than extramarital sex, it should come out and say it. Constantly repeating the Ten Commandments doesn’t help. Maybe there is some little-known church doctrine which says that rape is worse than extramarital sex, but I’m talking about sermons and exhortations and the stuff the devout want to post in public schoolhouses. I’m talking about the endless repetition of the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Commandments, both of which condemn non-marital sexuality, neither of which condemns rape or child abuse specifically.
Sure, most people think sexual abuse is worse than an extramarital affair. Some of the most progressive even believe that marital rape is a bad thing. But they have arrived at these beliefs with the benefit of no Christian writing I have ever seen.
don’t know if you consider this a “little known church doctrine” …but from the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church :
“2356 Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.”
Thanks to beagledave for the cite from the catechism. Notice that it talks about it being graver still in case of incest or of those entrusted with the child’s formation. So there are degrees of mortal sin.
As for former President Carter: Yes he is interpreting literally the Book of Matthew. Does he seem dysfunctional or twisted by guilt? Doesn’t look that way. Heck, he made that statement in an interview for PLAYBOY! The only dysfunction I ever saw in him was a strange – for a politician – propensity to tell us the truth, even when it was Bad News<tm>. What is often missed that Carter’s beliefs lead him to acknowledge himself as a sinner, but those very same beliefs include that salvation is at hand. He will not be humanly able to avoid such things as lust, but his God will help him avoid digging himself deeper in the hole. And to him, that is liberating.
Contrast the guy from Plains to the guy from Hope.
A comparison between Christianity and Judaism is conveniently offered in the New Testament.
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, Do not murder, [1] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, Raca, ’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, `You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of room for degrees of sin there, folks.
