The parenthetical comment seems redundant. Do you do any other kind?
I’m again reading Paradise Lost by our favorite Puritan, John Milton. Here c&p’d is his description of Adam and Eve’s pre-fall nudity, plus the mildly racy sex scene thrown in for good measure (it’s okay because they were married, but dancing doesn’t get off so easy):
Well…according to the guy who invented original sin (St. Augustine) it went someting like this. Before sin man had complete control over his body. Adam decided to raise his penis like you decide to raise your hand to shake hands.
Sin destroyed the harmonious (not to say incredibly boring) state of affairs. Human bodies were now ruled by their unrulely passions and not their (one assumes, Divinely given) will. Adam’s rebellious penis reflected his rebellion against God. And was, therefore…shameful.
At least that’s the theory. Too bad we had to put up with 1400 years of original sin because of Augustines hangup about being controled by his dick
Yeah, he sort of followed it around for considerable time.
And you are obviously on a Hell-bound train.
The second post gives the major Bible verses that I know of. Before the fall humans were meant to have been naive and innocent - and didn’t know what good or evil was. After eating from the tree of knowledge of good and even maybe it’s a bit like them watching lots of trashy films and getting lots of wicked thoughts put into their heads that they have to fight to overcome…
BTW, in Isaiah 20:3, many Bible translations say that Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years (though the NIV says “stripped”).
See
http://www.religioustolerance.org/nu_bibl.htm
for more bible verses.
from that link:
“Many centuries later, St., Francis of Assisi followed Isaiah’s behavior. He removed his clothes in the center of the village. He and Brother Rufino later preached nude in church.”
I remembering reading or hearing from some Christians that God wants people to dress modestly and I think they also said something like they should look forward to the “restoration” if they want to get back to Eden, rather than try and recreate Eden on our fallen Earth.
Actually I think God stopping Adam & Eve eating from the tree of life made them mortal…
Genesis 3:22
In Revelation the tree of life is back and saved people are allowed to eat its fruit - perhaps it is also the reason for their immortality.
Just an extremely minor technical point to throw into the mix: In Scripture, “naked” and “unclothed” do not mean the same thing. A person who is naked is, of course, obviously without any vestige of covering for his/her body. However, “unclothed” is sometimes used in Scripture to mean naked, but significantly more often it means “without appropriate outerwear” in which usage the men so described are wearing loincloths or similar underwearage – and may be considered decently clad for some forms of labor in hot weather. An unclothed woman might similarlybe dressed in a revealing shift but not be nude.
The above is less than on point to the topic under discussion, but could lead to some misinterpreted passages, and hence to some skewed understanding of what Scripture says or implies, so I thought it a nit worth picking.
:eek: Well that’s a bit harsh! I happen to be wearing clothes now :).
Hmpfh. Just hmpfh.
Who’s richer, Bill Gates or Scrooge McDuck?
Does 2 + 2 = 5 for very large values of 2?
And so on, oh ye scoffers.
It was always my impression that she was guilty of naiveté and gullibility more than anything. YMMV.
/end Tammy Faye hijack
I’ll throw in with those who feel that the Bible does not classify nudity as inherently sinful. However, since sexual relations are generally preceded by getting nekkid, and all three of the major Near-Eastern religions teach that sex outside of marriage is sinful, being nekkid in public, where you could be aroused by seeing other people’s naughty bits, would be classed as near occasion to sin, if not sin in and of itself.
I imagine if Christianity had come to some of the indiginous cultures in which people ran about either naked or only having their most delicate bits covered for, erm, safety issues, in a more enlightened age, people in those cultures probably wouldn’t have been required to cover up (except in the presence of the missionaries, who weren’t used to seeing unclad bodies and therefore might become unduly aroused.) I mean, hell, if you’re seeing boobs and butts all day, every day, they’re probably no more arousing than any other part of the body, such as the aforementioned nose or ear.