I happened to glimpse something on the Today show about Christian colleges where kids were required to live on campus and there were strict rules against drugs, alchohol and sex as well as strict curfews.
Not to single Christians out, but what’s the deal with people who completely abstain from all vices?:
drugs
alchohol
sex
gambling
I’m not advocating becoming a heroine addict or indulging in completely irresponsible behavior, but what’s the deal? Do people think that only the dullest 1% get into heaven? Does suppressing every natural urge somehow make you a better person?
I agree. Nothing is good when done in excess. But a little dab here and there makes life fun and interesting. If you want to, that is. I guess what I’m saying is that none of the things you mentioned above are inherently bad. ODing on them is.
Those certainly aren’t the only vices out there and they certainly aren’t the only things that make life interesting!
I have never used drugs and I don’t gamble. I am a social drinker but not drinking wouldn’t make much difference to me one way or the other. Certainly dig getting hot & bothered with a pretty lady but I respect people who for whatever reason are “saving themselves” (for marriage or the right person, etc).
Had plenty of friends in college who didn’t do any of those things and they were still a lot of fun. That just happened to be their belief, that they shouldn’t do certain things. It didn’t make them dull at all.
Sorry, to expand a little bit there are perfectly legitimate concerns about drinking, gambling, using drugs and even (gasp) premarital sex. I don’t personally think that the way to deal with these problems is to make them Forbidden Fruit (that can backfire and it doesn’t teach kids how to deal with those issues safely, I favor education, education and then some more education), but I understand why a private religious college might want to handle it that way.
A sin-free life doesn’t go on forever…it just seems like it.
Blech. Sin is like spices in food…necessary to give it some flavor and bite. We’ll be in Vegas during the holidays, where I’ll happily indulge in almost all of the things that college prohibits.
I was thinking about that study myself. The fact that 90% of people have had premarital sex doesn’t mean that there is anything mentally/morally/physically wrong with people who chose not to, nor that it does them any harm (beyond an increased Vaseline bill), nor does it make them dull or abusing themselves or liars. I’m sure that some of them are, in the same way that some people who are sexually active are those things too.
It’s their moral decision to live their lives a certain way. I don’t think that people who avoid those particular vices are automatically beady-eyed lunatics (some of them, sure), nor does it automatically make them dull. You and I choose to live our lives differently and for my part I think that I turned out pretty good.
I happened to tune into a Christian radio station the other day when a woman was telling a story about her abstinence “missions” to colleges. She was very upset as she related a tale about how A Christian couple came up to her and the boy told her that they were trying to keep “pure” by just having oral sex. According to the woman, “Then the girl started crying - you could tell her heart was broken by her lack of purity.”
I think she was probably crying in frustration because she isn’t getting the raunchy plowings that college students require on a regular basis.
Look, sex doesn’t belong in this discussion. IT ISN’T A VICE. Once you’re ready - usually sometime between 16 and 18 - it’s time to get out there and start hitting it hard.
Sex itself isn’t a vice but the way in which people conduct themselves sexually can be (or can indicate some severe problems). My having a beer with dinner isn’t a problem. If I pound a 6 pack every night then I’m on shakier ground.
Agreed. I happen to disagree with a lot of Christian doctrine, but having grown up in an extremely conservative community that was also pretty insular, I can understand the logic behind it … for communities like that. Drinking and drugs can affect people’s behavior for the worse. When a man spends his whole paycheck to get drunk and then goes home to beat his wife and kids, the community as a whole suffers. If a woman is strung out on heroin or spending all her time in the casino, she is not helping to raise her kids or support her family in a meaningful way. Result = the community suffers. In Biblical times if a woman got pregnant but was unmarried, death–hers and/or the child’s–was a real possibility. And with no birth control available pregnancy was the inevitable result of premarital sex. Women had no power, few rights, and very few jobs available outside of being a prostitute, which didn’t pay all that well. So premarital sex eventually = rootless beggars and/or more prostitutes, neither of which could be seen to be in the community’s best interests. So the community suffers again. Enforcing behavioral discipline was the only way to make sure the community avoided paying for the mistakes of individuals.
We are pretty well removed from Biblical times, so the natural logic behind a lot of religious rules isn’t obvious anymore. But they still made a lot of sense as late as World War II, when many communities were still intimate and women didn’t have a lot of options. People don’t talk about it much, but a lot of the taboos of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are the same, possibly because of a shared origin in the beliefs of nomadic desert tribes in the Middle East. American society has changed so much these rules don’t make as much sense as they once did; the same can’t be said for every other country that follows these religions.
I should add that the ability to say “sex is not a vice” is a direct result of the modern society we live in, which led to the invention of birth control, safe® and legal abortions, and sex without consequences. If birth control is not available and pre-marital sex (inevitably) leads to the existence of a child that must somehow be cared for, sex can seem like quite a vice indeed. Children are not as much of a joy when they are not a choice.
This change in thinking about sex is a lot newer than people think; the Pill has only been around since the early 1960s. Wasn’t being on the Pill but unmarried once something you would want to keep to yourself? it would imply you were a bit “loose” if it got out.
It isn’t just religious people who choose to abstain. There’s the whole straight edge movement, though i’ve got no clue why they do what they do (and know a straight edge guy, and I still don’t know why he abstains).
A guy goes to his doctor’s office for a checkup right before his 50th birthday. He asks the doctor, “Doc, will I live to be 100?”
Doctor: Well, do you drink?
Guy: No, not a drop since college.
Doctor: Do you smoke?
Guy: Yecch. Never.
Doctor: Do you carouse with women?
Guy: No, no I don’t.
Doctor: Would you tell me again why it is that you want to live another 50 years?
My point was that there aren’t many who do choose to abstain, and most of the people who claim to do so are lying. As for the few who do, I expect most are motivated by fear/hatred towards the opposite sex, or religious fanaticism. That’s why I don’t respect them.
Most of the remainder likely just have a low sex drive, which is arguably a defect ( but hardly their fault even if it is ). Even if it’s not, it’s hardly a moral triumph to not do something you aren’t tempted to do.
Finally, I expect most of the people who really do abstain from premarital sex won’t have much if any sex after marriage.
Which only applies to the kinds of sex that get you pregnant. And condoms have been around longer than the Pill.
