Nitpick: syphilis first appeared in the 15th century. It didn’t influence the sexual mores of any Abrahamic religion.
Thank you for the correction, but it’s completely beside the point. There were STDs in prebiblical times. Whether or not one of them was syphilis is not the thrust of the argument.
Abrahamic religions didn’t originally prohibit extra-marital sex for men, but only for women. Sexual control of women in the ANE was a way to prevent any questions about paternity of children and to protect what was perceived as “property.” Men could still have multiple wives, concubines or have sex with their servants. They were forbidden only to have sex with women who “belonged” to someone else or to engage in cultic sexual practices with temple prostitutes (a lot of whom were male). The latter was seen as idolotry, though, not so much as sexual immorality as religious infidelity.
That should have said ancient Judaism, not Abrahamic religions.
Hm… I was relatively sure that the Old Testament didn’t even like masturbation.
I’m not sure what the interaction is between the Talmud and the Torah. had to look up “Talmud”
The story of Onan is sometimes pointed to as an anti-masturbation tale, but that’s not really what it’s about.
As for the OP’s question, I suspect it would take a book, or several, to satisfactorily answer it. But it’s important to keep in mind that reliable birth control is a relatively modern invention, so prohibiting sex outside of marriage is a way of requiring that children have a mother and father who are married to one another.
This has nothing to do with anything - just a personal anecdote type thing - then you can all get back to your heavily educated theological discussion.
It was always explained to me that sex was designed by God to be shared between people in marriage as it goes deeper than the mere physical and becomes a spiritual exchange as well - to that end you would want to do it with only someone you have made the commitment of marriage with and not just random partners.
As I said before - this was just a Sunday School/Bible Camp explanation, so no cite, sorry.
Arguably, the modern day feelings about this stuff can be directly traced back to the original views pointed out above of sexual purity for females but not males. It still has the same reasoning, in theory, preventing unwanted consequences to people who can’t handle it. Why it’s still so directed at females in particular is probably because society has been male dominated for so long. Thing is, females have it bad both ways, because if they don’t do anything then they’re prude. Generally from what I observe most non-celibacy-promoting people don’t look down on sex in a committed relationship (indeed, by college it’s an expected facet of the relationship), but only women who sleep around outside of a relationship (and then even there there’s a growing number of people who don’t really have a problem with that… seems people are finally realizing the double standard imposed on women)
Excuse me but where in the Bible (or Koran) does it say to wait for marriage before sex. I’ve seen the part about adultery but not premarital sex.
It always amazes me that people can have the astonishing hubris to suggest that they know God’s motives. In this case, clearly God has the institution of marriage in mind - no doubt in accordance with the various U.S. state statutes governing it. I’m thinking that even if there WERE a God, it would be unseemly for the all knowing, all seeing, omniscient one to clue in a few folks about his motivation - just so that they could make it clear to the rest of us rubes who have to go to camp to learn about this stuff.
I read somewhere once that genetic studies have shown that a lot more children are not their official father’s than we expect. So, while there is lifetime bonding for humans, there doesn’t seem to be an equal desire for sexual exclusivity.
How about this as an explanation? There are two cases to consider: adultery for women and premarital sex. For the former, as has been said multiple times, the desire of a man to know that the kids he’s supporting are his is reason enough. For the latter, wouldn’t a girl be considered a valuable commodity in building connections with other families? Think of the arranged marriages for royalty until very recently. A virgin child would no doubt be considered more valuable than one with experience.
Women not falling into these classes would be more or less not subject to these restrictions, thus prostitution.
I don’t think religion need be involved, except to enforce rules already there.
looks around Huh? Whozzat? usually it’s only me or **anu **posting about Hindu matters!
Regardless, I’d like to extend to you the invitation to stay. I’m atheist Hindu (well - now I am) myself, and North Indian, so there’s a lot of perspectives that I miss out on. And yet I always like to add what I know about Hinduism. This board gets so focused on the Big Three sometimes I feel we don’t always broaden our horizons. It’d be really nice to have someone else who could add a few answers now and then. So…I hope you stick around, Jay.
I agree with you, btw, that it was the influence of Christianity and Islam that changed Hinduism…we were considered savages to be tamed by them. I also think it’s rather sad.