I’ve always felt that fear was an element, maybe a strong one, of belief in something that obviously isn’t so. A niggling “just in case” feeling that would stave off any absolute denial.
Are you serious?
Imagine this scenario: You go to the doctor for a routine checkup. The doctor does some tests and comes back to tell you that you have AIDS. You have only ever had sex with one person - your spouse - so you talk to the spouse about how this could have happened. The spouse confesses that affairs have been going on for a long time now, and they must have contracted AIDS from a hooker.
You’re upset about this, of course. But you’re not upset because it will affect the Pope’s new hat - or his cash or power. You’re upset because your spouse has simultaneously breached your trust, and infected you with an incurable and lethal disease.
Trust me, God is much more concerned about your happiness and your health than He is with the Pope’s hat. I can’t really speak for Popes on the subject, but God’s position seems clear.
There was a scene in the movie Evelyn (wonderful movie, BTW) where the title character, a young girl, is going to bed on her first night in a Catholic girl’s boarding school. She gets under the covers and lies face-down, and a nun immediately comes over and turns her onto her back, saying something like, “We mustn’t tempt the devil!”
I was watching the movie with my mom and stepdad, and that scene completely baffled my mom. I understood it immediately: a girl lying face-down and under blankets can masturbate without anybody being the wiser, but if she’s on her back it would be hard for her to touch herself without it being obvious to an observer. I didn’t feel comfortable explaining it to my mom, though.
That scene did trigger an “Oh!” moment for me, though. It explained why all those old newspaper comic strips, “Nancy” in particular, always depicted girls sleeping on their backs with their arms on top of the covers.
You example assumes a modern world scenario.
I am talking about biblical culture and am hearkening back to the era in which the cultural mores of marriage were established, which were by the church. Prior to the advent of Christianity, marriage was really only among nobility and was done for the purpose of transferring property ownership. This is where many of our modern ideas about marriage fidelity come from. Only most people don’t research the history of marriage so they don’t realize what all this is rooted in. You know, like Christmas and Easter are based on pagan holidays but we treat 'em like Christian ones.
In the modern world, sexual infidelity doesn’t necessarily mean the creation of children nor the passing on of disease. In this day and age, we know where babies come from. Back in the day, I doubt the knowledge was quite as common.
Apples and oranges.
Dogzilla:
Say WHAT??
The Biblical idea of marriage long pre-dates Christianity, as it was practiced by Jews, not just amongst nobility, but amongst all classes, and fidelity was very much an important aspect of it. Even if one doesn’t believe that the Bible is as old as we Orthodox Jews consider it to be, certainly by the time of Alexander the Great it was pretty much in its current form, because not long after that is when it was translated into the Greek Septuagint.
Marital fidelity in the Bible is really only expected of women. Men are free to have multiple wives and concubines, and bang their maids and sisters-in-law.
I think that the RCC teaches any thought about sex is an impure thought. An impure thought is a sin. At least that is my understanding of it!
And you know it is God’s position because? Some human said it was God’s position, or is that just yours, or what you were told by another human, etc.?
Diogenes:
Those were still formalized modes of marriage, though. Men were expected to only have sex with women they were married to (in any of those manners), and if a man were to be caught having sex with an unmarried girl, he was expected to marry her or pay a fine to her father. And not having sex with a woman married to someone else was a responsibility of the man as much so as of the woman.
Dio, a more accurate thing to say is that marital exclusivity in the Bible is only expected of women. But men were still expected to act within the legally-defined boundaries of marriage, multiples allowed as they were.
I had a friend who was member of the Morman church. He told me that for a wife to commit adultery was a huge sin, while for a husband to do the same was a minos sin.
I don’t know how true this is, but it’s not totally unbelieveable.
Does it make me a bad person if I actually find one of kanics post useful?
Does it make you bad if you find one of mine?
Freudian slip;
From m-w,