Premise 1:
I think religious persons seek control more than other persons do. After a slight loss of control they fear great instability. So it may be an overreaction. Now, for them, the control may be provided by a higher creature and not necessarily by the persons themselves. Nevertheless, that higher creature is, in my opinion, an invention of such persons, hence in the end this control is provided by that persons themselves indeed -- mentally.

Premise 2:
Sexuality is something that is typically out of control.

Conclusion:
Persons that seek control try to avoid sexuality.


Recently I listened to an interview with a Buddhist Shaolin Kung Fu master. He hurts himself all day, every day, with all kinds of tools. He also avoids sexual activities. Why? He said, he wants to completely control his mind and body which includes the controlled suppression of pain by repeating the painful routines on a daily basis. I guess, this growing experience of resistance makes him more happy than the satisfaction experienced during a 10 second orgasm which is, of course, provoked by a strange force outside the own will. -- I think, at the end of the day, even this procedure is just another variation of joy. Life isn't about avoiding joy. It's about having the goal to achieve joy. That's the motor. Life is activity.

So, I am asking how do you see the relationship between religion and sexuality? — Jack Cummins

The relationship is contradictory because religion seeks purity while sex is, somehow, related to "corruption" of the bodies. With the aim of reaching purity, a believer needs to avoid tentations, and sex is included in one of these. Our bodies only belong to God, and we should not "rot them." I do not want to get out of context, but with this argument, it is explained why religion bans suicide too. Conclusion, We are not free, and we can't play with our bodies and souls, because they are not "ours."

Related to this topic, I recommend you read Kazantzakis. Excellent writer and novelist. He made some interesting conclusions on the "humanization" of Jesus Christ, Francis of Assisi, etc.

I think religious persons seek control more than other persons do. — Quk

No. A religious person only seeks for mercy.

No. A religious person only seeks for mercy. — javi2541997

Yes, but that doesn't exclude the idea of seeking for mercy in an overly controlled way rather than in a randomly surprising way, does it?

The issue of sexuality and religious or spiritual perspectives may be connected to ideas about how pleasure is seen, especially the pleasures of the body. Many spiritual philosophies, including those in Eastern thinking see the seeking of such pleasure as a hindrance on the spiritual path.

However, it is complex, as suggested in the interplay expressed by the poets, John Milton and William Blake. Similarly, there are traditions of puritanism in Eastern philosophy and more diverse ones, such as Tantric systems? There is the whole idea of sublimation, which exists in Freudian psychology and Tantric philosophy. Expression of bodily pleasures and desires, especially in terms of sexuality, may represent an ongoing questionable area for living life to the fullest.

What is corruption and mercy? Is it an idea of 'forgiveness,' in the traditional religious sense, from the lures and desires of the physical aspects of human nature?

One aspect underlying the debate about sexuality and 'sin' may go back to Plato's idea of the lower versus the higher self. This may have been carried through into Kant's moral philosophy, which was incorporated into Christianity, especially in relation to the tradition of Paul's teachings in Christianity.

Through the enlightenment, ideas of the importance of aspects of the 'lower self' may have been demystified. In particular, while Maslow's hierarchy of needs does not look at sexuality specifically, it does make a less clear distinction between the lower and higher self, as differentiated by Plato.

So, in looking at ideas about sexuality in Western and Eastern philosophy, there may be ideas about hierarchies of needs. Scientific ideas, especially sexology, and reconstructive ideas in the social sciences may have called into question the emphasis on moral puritanical ethics, especially about the body.

So, it could be asked whether ideas of puritanical ethics have a place in ethical systems of religious worldviews. If this is true, what are the fundamental aspects for thinking about sexuality and its ethics?

Yes, but that doesn't exclude the idea of seeking for mercy in an overly controlled way rather than in a randomly surprising way, does it? — Quk

What is the main difference? You can seek for mercy in both controlled way and free will.
I would include redemption in our acts. But a Christian (or other religious person) is not necessarily overly controlled. They are even aware that some acts escape out of from their control.




 

As I am an agnostic atheist, I'm unable to contribute with helpful comments in this discussion about "God's bodies" and "Plato's ideas" etc. I'm sorry. -- I accept your religion, and I see no reason to make any points against it as long as you allow me to claim that my body belongs to me and nobody else.

Face it - old school religions hate sex, and they were mostly patriarchal. We look at it nowadays through our comfy rose-tinted modern spectacles but that's how it was. The Buddha was an exception to the patriarchal trend, in that he allowed female monks during his own lifetime (with many extra rules!), but even Buddhists would pray for rebirth as a male (maybe so as to avoid the burdens of menstruation, which was deemed a gross impurity by pre-modern cultures, and childbirth.)

How does the dialogue between science, religion and spirituality impact on thinking about areas of controversy, including gay and transgender issues, and underlying cultural wars and agendas? — Jack Cummins

How easily we forget that Western culture has been through the sexual revolution (that's a link to the Wikipedia page for reference). Because we've mainly been brought up after it, we don't understand how profound a change it was from pre-modern attitudes. Vastly different. (One area where this comes up, is in Muslim attitudes towards LGBTQ - I read recently about the dismay in a US town which elected a majority Muslim council, which then promptly set about banning Gay Pride flags.)

Face it - old school religions hate sex, and they were mostly patriarchal. — Quixodian

I find the first part of this sentence to be a vast overgeneralization. That most of the major religions we know of are patriarchal to varying degrees seems about right. However, the shunning of sexuality seems to me to be largely confined to Abrahamic religions, which have by now more or less spread their influence worldwide.

Nevertheless, religions worldwide that occurred prior to Abrahamic influences quite often looked upon sexual intercourse, or sexual union, as a possible means of closer proximity to divinity. This can be witnessed from ancient paganisms to ancient Hinduism to ancient Shinto. To list just three examples. The case can also be made at least at the symbolic level for certain forms of Tantric Buddhism.

Despite the considerable controversy to "paid-for-sex within contexts of the sacred and divine" (which I'm not trying to condone), this article on sacred prostitution does illustrate the global span of well known religions that once embraced sexuality - symbolically if not also carnally - within the contexts of the sacred.

However, the shunning of sexuality seems to me to be largely confined to Abrahamic religions, which have by now more or less spread their influence worldwide. — javra

Well, yes it was a generalisation. But the early Buddhist texts were unequivocal in their rejection of any form of sexual activities with other persons, which comprised parijika offenses, meriting explusion from the order. Likewise Hindu yogis were always encouraged to be celibate (brahmacharya). When I said 'old school', I mean the original, now archaic, forms of those cultures. Of course as those cultures developed, sexual mores changed considerably - Tantrism has sexual rituals, as you point out, and there is graphically sexual iconography in some Hindu temples although they came along many centuries later (see The Red Thread). But I still don't think it's easy for us to appreciate, from a modern perspective, how different sexual mores were in traditional cultures, to what we take for granted. After all in those ancient cultures, slavery was also taken for granted. I'm not saying they were any better for it (obviously not, in the case of slavery) but that the cultural gaps need to be appreciated.

So, I am asking how do you see the relationship between religion and sexuality? — Jack Cummins

For my part, what I’ve so far found from my studies can be expressed in this generalized form:

If the religious view holds the natural world to be both good and sacred, then sexuality is not shunned and can in certain contexts be itself deemed sacred. If the religious view however does not hold the natural world as both good and sacred, then sexuality is typically shunned by it.

Likewise Hindu yogis were always encouraged to be celibate (brahmacharya). When I said 'old school', I mean the original, now archaic, forms of those cultures. — Quixodian

I don't know. As to Hinduism, for one example, the Kama Sutra is fairly ancient. There's of course a wide array of differing practices in the ancient Hindu religion and culture, but I haven't found that it as a whole shunned sexuality. Don't mean to bicker, but, although my anthropological studies on sexuality date a couple of decades back (my thesis was on the borderline of obscenity), I remember researching a richness of sexuality in both ancient Hindu folklore and spirituality.

All the same:

But I still don't think it's easy for us to appreciate, from a modern perspective, how different sexual mores were in traditional cultures, to what we take for granted. — Quixodian

Can't find disagreement with this.

I don't know whether the American province of Christendom is / was any worse than the English or Australian branches as far as the body, sex, sexuality, and physicality were concerned. From what I've read in American manuals and family advice books from around 1900 - 1910, American attitudes were pretty strait-laced at the beginning of the 20th C. By the 1960s, a lot of young people were ready to ditch the old-fashioned sexual morality. (Birth control pills greatly facilitated sexual liberation.)

Protestant Christian thinking had a large influence on American culture, and so did Catholic thinking (especially on Catholics). I was loaded with all sorts of guilt feelings and shame about sex. So were millions of others.

It was a great relief to hear about Stonewall and begin participating in consciousness raising in the gay male community. It was an even greater relief when I finally figured out the various protocols of cruising, bathhouses, parks, and so forth. I knew that the church (broadly speaking) disapproved of homosexuality in 1971, but the erotic drive was very strong, and I sought out and gave in to temptation.

By the mid-1970s it was possible to be gay and sexually active and be a member in good standing of Metropolitan Community Church (nondenominational), Dignity (Catholic), Integrity (Episcopal) or Lutherans Concerned. These mostly male groups stood in frank opposition to the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches with respect to sexuality.

By the early 1980s, I was ready to exit from Christian belief. Attitudes toward sex wasn't the only thing about which I objected, but it was one of the most focused dissatisfactions. I much preferred feeling free to pursue sex and love without the irritating intrusion by stuffy morality.

Gay liberation was and remains for many a liberation from Christian sexual and family morality.

True, there are denominations and congregations which are now anxious to embrace gay people. I suspect this is similar to the interest of many white congregations to get some colored folk into the pews. There is also the problem of diminishing membership in many churches. A dozen or two younger, reasonably well-employed gay couples can make a nice addition to a struggling congregation. Necessity made a virtue of inclusiveness.

But I still don't think it's easy for us to appreciate, from a modern perspective, how different sexual mores were in traditional cultures, to what we take for granted. — Quixodian

It can be hard to get into the minds of people who lived just a few centuries ago, never mind 2 or 3 millennia. Native Americans, for instance, thought much differently than the Europeans did on all sorts of matters.

It can be hard to get into the minds of people who lived just a few centuries ago, never mind 2 or 3 millennia. — BC

Hell, for that matter, it can be hard to get into the minds of people who are our contemporaries, never mind those who lived before. :razz:

Native Americans, for instance, thought much differently than the Europeans did on all sorts of matters. — BC

As many of them still do. Thought this should be said. (e.g., "water defenders" who uphold the sacredness of nature and are in opposition to western industrial interests)

As I am an agnostic atheist, I'm unable to contribute with helpful comments in this discussion about "God's bodies" and "Plato's ideas" etc. I'm sorry. — Quk

I like your comments and you contribute with good arguments. They make me think for a while, indeed. I was just debating with you, that's the nature of a philosophy forum.

I think it doesn't matter if someone is an agnostic atheist. Everyone is, somehow, free to express arguments on religious matters. Respecting and avoiding insults, that's for granted. :up:

(Birth control pills greatly facilitated sexual liberation.) — BC

You think? :yikes:

It can be hard to get into the minds of people who lived just a few centuries ago, never mind 2 or 3 millennia. — BC

'The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there' ~ L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

Javi, thank you. Debates are fine. I'm not complaining. I'm just no expert in those particular historic details; I'm unable to add anything to that part of the thread which so far just seems to be a random collection of quotes from history books rather than an attempt to spread the context further in a creative, thought-experimental way.

Let me repeat the original poster's questions:

So, I am asking how do you see the relationship between religion and sexuality? What impact do the two areas have upon one another? How does the dialogue between science, religion and spirituality impact on thinking about areas of controversy, including gay and transgender issues, and underlying cultural wars and agendas? — Jack Cummins

For example, the word "purity" itself doesn't say anything about the deeper psychological picture the person gets when the person says the word "purity". I think the term "purity" is just an abstract curtain of something that is psychologically much more complex. Such stuff cannot be found in history books and holy bibles. So maybe here on the forum we can share our own thoughts?

The closest term to purity in a deeper sense may be asceticism, which may have influence many philosophy traditions and spirituality. It may have been bound up with ideas of renunciation, including bodily pleasures, especially sexuality.

I think the term "purity" is just an abstract curtain of something that is psychologically much more complex. — Quk

'Purity' represents 'the Unconditioned' or 'the One'. Everything 'worldly' is conditioned, compounded, subject to death and decay, whereas 'the One' is not compounded, unconditioned, and eternal. Hence the symbolism of the Virgin Birth. In Buddhist mythology, Siddartha Gautama was said to have emerged fully formed 'from the side' of his mother, able to take steps and speak straight away, also symbolising his pure origins, distinguished from the physical pain and corruption of ordinary birth.

Not even the One, i.e. the absolute singularity, is non-compounded. The One needs the Zero in order to differ itself from the Zero. So for its permanent existence, the One must permanently pair itself with the Zero. It's a binary pair. It's not a non-compounded singularity. So if the One shall be synonymous to "purity", then this "pure goal" will never be achieved anyway.

Secondly, these synonymous things still don't explain why these persons wish to be "non-compounded". Why do these person want to amputate all their components? I understand their will to amputate their hair and their foreskin, which is certainly not only for health reasons. But what's the psychological reason -- aside from all those myths and fairy-tales? I still think these old texts were invented by humans, not by gods, and I'd like to know why these humans invented such texts. The comments in this thread remain on the surface. I'd like to dive deeper into the brains themselves rather than into the books that these brains developped.

Not even the One, i.e. the absolute singularity, is non-compounded. The One needs the Zero in order to differ itself from the Zero. — Quk

Can you find a citation from philosophical literature for that? From Greek or Indian philosophy?

A counter-example I would cite is the 'Nibbana Sutta' of the early Buddhist texts: 'There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned'

Secondly, these synonymous things still don't explain why these persons wish to be "non-compounded". — Quk

I don't think 'persons' have such a wish at all. The term 'person' is derived from the mask representing 'dramatis personae' in Greek drama.

The intent to disentangle from the 'conditioned' is at the root of many philosophical traditions, but it might be better described as being 'transpersonal'.

I'd like to dive deeper into the brains themselves rather than into the books that these brains developped — Quk

Perhaps you might study neuroscience, then.

I fear neuroscience alone cannot answer my questions; in this deep area they exceed the possibilities of empirical tools. I guess an interdisciplinary combination of neuroscience and philosophy would be more helpful.

"The One needs the Zero" -- I think I heard of this idea in several variations many years ago, and at that time I had the same idea before I read those other sources. I can't remember the sources anymore. Why are you asking for a citation? Just take my comment as a philosophical suggestion that is here to be rationally tested by other philosophers on the forum. Why do you guys always refer to old books? What about the future? Future books don't exist yet. You can write them.

Future books don't exist yet. You can write them. — Quk

Working on it. I asked for a citation because of the import of the specific question at hand. I mean 'not even the One is uncompounded' *sounds like* something from classical philosophy, but on the other hand, you might have just made it up on the spur of the moment, for argument's sake. In any case, I stand by my original contention regarding the symbolic import of purity.