Talk:Religion and sexuality/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Religion and sexuality. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Comments

SIGN YOUR COMMENTS --Tirolion 10:23, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a brief comment: Sex is NOT!!! the be-all and end-all of morality. Danny

I agree: there should be a morality article for the general issues. User:Ed Poor

Regarding my NPOVizations that were reverted:

The mention of "by force" is completely random for a introduction sentence. Putting it in the first sentence makes it seem like it is something that is central. Furthermore it brings a negative connotation about "morality" before any other issues are even discussed, and even further more the statement is not backed up. The topic sentance, as it was, was not appropriate. I will change this back to my version.

"However, polygamy is a much more common social pattern worldwide, with some 80 percent of world cultures considering it acceptable"

Please back up this statment if you would like to use it. I dont believe that polygamy is common in China or India. I know its not legal in North America or Europe, I dont think its legal in any South American countries, so I have a hard time believing the qualification "more common social pattern". As for number of cultures, I dont believe this statement either. Where do you find such things, back it up with a reference. But even if it is true, this is irrelvant. Its like saying that if the world voted on something by countries.. that the vote of Lichtenstein and India should be the same. I will change this section back to my modification as well.

Regarding statements made about political leanings and sexual morality in the USA: I dont nececarily dispute the content, but rather the biased tone underneath. I dont care to try and rewrite it in a non biased way. Use of sentences of the form: What many conservatives call "traditional morality" .... or What many liberals call "free thinking"....

I think are inherently derogatory and not appropriate when constructing NPOV content.

The second paragraph which addresses the liberal point of view takes a much softer tone, and paints that view as being the "right" one. Neither should be painted as right or wrong.

I specifically take issue with the statement at the end of the "conservative" section which says "whether consentual or not" which highlights the authors bias towards saying that consentuality is the only qualifier for morality in sexual acts. (Which I, in fact, happen to agree with more or less)

To point out my beef Ill attempt to switch the bais keeping the same form:

"In the United States, what many liberals call "free love" is held to permit any and all concentual sex, because of the moral belief that sexual relations should always occur between anyone who wants it. This view of morality thus approves of some or all of the following--premarital, extramarital, and homosexual relations--whether in loveing relationships or not.

There are people who disagree with this lax view. Generally they believe that sex is a natural behavior which should be only within loving marrages and not in un-natural same sex relationships. Even among the most liberal conservative views of sexual morality in the US, there is generally agreement that involving same sex partners in sexual relationships should be restricted and punishable under the law."

Now this is a bit of an exaggeration, but it makes my point... compare it to the previous form. I will remove these two paragraphs. If someone would like to try and re-write the same information without bias, go ahead, but this version needs to be removed.

-Catskul

Unless this is an article designed to promote a particular POV of sexual morality as present in the US, the general should precede the specific in the article. Also, this is not at present a "history of" -- which implies cause and effect and changes over time. This is a general discussion of the article topic -- sexual morality -- giving neutrally presented examples from different periods and cultures. It makes some sense to discuss both chronologically and geographically, but that does not make it specifically history.JHK

Can someone explain this? Otherwise I'm going to delete it:

social and environmental conditions play a part in the development of a given society's most commonly held views on sexual morality.

What's to understand? morality does not come forth fully formed. Different societies have different views of what is moral. Social and environmental conditions have a causative effect on thought and belief systems and the development of a moral culture. BTW, whoever kindly added the Homosexuality in Greece header -- not necessary and misleading. The point was that the kin-group's needs helped to form sexual practices in terms of marriage, etc. I've added more clarification.JHK

Let's also not forget things like new technologies and economic conditions. Years ago, having sex outside of marriage often had disastrous consequences; childbirth was dangerous and often fatal, bastard children were often scorned by their families and weren't properly cared for, diseases were easier to spread, etc. Pre-marital sex risked many of those things. Today with modern medicine, safe and reliable birth control, better knowledge about disease, better social acceptance for single parents, and other changes, the consequences of pre-marital sex are much less heinous. There are still the emotional consequences and some remaining medical risks, but it's just not the terrible risk it once was. Moral values can't help but change when the human condition itself changes. --Lee Daniel Crocker

I removed "These conservatives believe that human beings are capable of abstaining from sex when unmarried or separated from their spouse, a view which some liberals apparently dispute." since the statement is biased. It seems to state that the "liberal" position is just that people are "incapable" of abstaining from sex, whether it is "right or wrong." It is not a question of being able to abstain or not, so please, let's not oversimplify this with snide jibes at other opinions. Danny

In traditional US morality, is divorce considered to be wrong, or is marriage lifelong? If divorce is allowed, is sex after remarriage allowed too? Are there different opinions on these matters? AxelBoldt

I replaced the word adultery because of the religious, i.e., moral connotations. Similarly, I removed "even homosexual" since this implies that one might think otherwise. Finally, I qualified "premarital, extramarital, and homosexual" by saying "one or more of the following, because the rejection of one does not necessarily imply the rejection of the others. Danny

Axel, it depends -- most protestant Christian denominations in the US frown on divorce, but also allow remarriage.

Danny, I like most of your changes. I'm wondering why sex ed. is even mentioned, as it's really very peripheral. JHK

For example, in Hellenic society, homosexuality was often encouraged and accepted as part of the socialization and upbringing of young men, especially those in the military. These relationships were in addition to heterosexual relationships entered into for the establishment of families and the production of progeny so that property would be inherited and kept within a larger kinship group.

How does this fact relate to the gay rights contention that sexual orientation is fixed and unchangeable? If men can be "encouraged" to engage in homosexual behavior, doesn't this contradict the gay rights position? --User:Ed Poor

Homosexuality <> Homosexual behavior.

Gay people and most scientific researchers believe that sexual orientation is relatively fixed, but not sexual behavior. They are not the same thing. --User:Dmerrill

Many people, arguably a majority, disagree with this traditional view.

This is *not* traditional view. It's only what conservatives call "traditional". There was never any society in which there weren't any premarital or extramarital relations. --User:Taw

I didn't say there wasn't any, just that it was traditionally frowned upon. If that's your only reason for taking the sentence out, then it should go back in. --User:Ed Poor

Ed, yopu'll have to define traditionally here before making an assertion like that. Danny

Where it says: 'For example, in Hellenic society, homosexuality was often encouraged and accepted as part of the socialization and upbringing of young men,' the word "homosexuality" should be replaced by "pederasty".

I would like to note that this information on homosexual practices in Hellenic society is quite misleading. I have read sources that support the position that acts of homosexuality (including pederasty) were common and encouraged; however, I have also read sources that claim only the lesser individual would be on the receiving end (the female role, in terms of heterosexual relations). I have not found any conclusive evidence for one side or the other since it appears that both sides slant the evidence. Therefore, I believe that the inclusion of the Hellenic view of "homosexual behavior" is ridiculous considering the lack of a viable conclusion. Am I strongly misinformed? Have I read highly biased resources? Perhaps. However, I'd like to hear an unbiased expert view. But even looking at the Hellenic view, I agree that Hellenic thought is more cultural than it is religious, though an argument can be made that religions and cultures for many ancient societies were one of the same. -- Cheruben

Also, from ( http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln08_childrearing.html )

(I'll be glad to know who is writing this. Thanks -- 6birc 19:33 Dec 29, 2002 (UTC).)

Indeed, the husband was rarely with his family in antiquity-legislators sometimes suggest that in order to prevent population decline it would be a good idea for husbands to visit their wives occasionally and not just have sex with boys, as in Solon's law "that a man should consort with his wife not less than three times a month-not for pleasure surely, but as cities renew their agreements from time to time."30 But for the most part, as Plutarch puts it, "Love has no connection whatsoever with the women's quarters;"31 it is reserved for pederastic relations with boys. As Scroggs summarized Greco-Roman practice, "To enter the 'women's quarters' in search of love is to enter the world of the feminine and therefore is effeminate for a male."32 Xenophon says "the women's apartments [are] separated from the men's by a bolted door..."33 As Plutarch wrote, "Genuine love has no connections whatsoever with the women's quarters."34 When Socrates asks, "Are there any people you talk to less than you do to your wife?" his answer was, "Possibly. But if so, very few indeed."35

So the article should make clear that heterosexual relationships were not based on love or even pleasure. There is even a case of a Greek man who was infamous because he didn't engage in homosexual sex.

-- Haven't heard of this. Details, please?

I wish I could but I can't track down where I read it. I think I read it of a General of Alexander's but I can't be sure of even that.

RK, just a minor question about the opening sentence, I believe it was more generally related to a possibly wider gamma of cases and situations as it was before: I mean, we should consider that a culture, group, ... whatsoever, that produces a "morality", would probably like to extend its application even to non adherents. In this sense, it properly intends to develop a regulation of individual behaviours, in the sense that if non-members too could be forced (or however convinced) to respect its "code", in many cases the culture-group-etc would have achieved its goal. The proposed regulation in itself is usually declared in a universal form, an absolute "law", the proof being that very often non-members are discredited (sometimes for other purposes too) right because not accepting that rule. Also: why no concepts (deleted)? -- Gianfranco

"We should consider that a culture, group, ... whatsoever, that produces a "morality", would probably like to extend its application even to non adherents."

I totally agree that this topic should be discussed in the entry. I rewrote that sentence because I thought that this was a special case of a more general phenomenon; it seemed to me that the general case was that different societies (groups, etc.) have standards for sexual morality. Within this topic we can then note that certain groups at certain times try to enforce their views on others, which seemed to me like a sub-topic. Your thoughts? (And, of course, the thoughts of anyone else!) RK

We may want to expand on this topic. For example, the article should note that Islamist movement has made clear that it wishes to literally the entire world to follow the Islamic view of "morality"; however it isn't the sexual morality per se that militant Muslims want to spread. Its their entire socio-religious worldview, of which sexual morality is just a part. The same was true of various European Christian kingdoms for many centuries. (Of course, since The Enlightenment this is no longer a concern. Western Christian nations don't engage in crusades or wholesale religious persecutions of this magnitude anymore.) On a lesser scale, Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel try to coerce their fellow Jews to follow the Jewish laws of sexuality. I say on a lesser scale, since they don't literally force anyone to do this, and they only use words (newspapers, books, radio shows, websites, etc.) to push their views. RK

(forgive me, please, for my late answer)

You are right: we ought to underline the difference between the general case and the sub-topics. Besides, I'd say that these sub-topics are however available in relevant proportions, so maybe they might represent something more than simple exceptions to the rule and might be admitted into the general definition, as well: we could study this matter more in depth, but by now (at a first sight) I would guess that it is quite common for sexual moralists to look for (at least) an external agreement - or to develop an ideal vision of the world in which their own theories have gained a supremacy. It is a logical consequence that if these absolute theories effectively are correct, they have to be generally accepted (or they would not proof to be "absolutely correct"), so they should have general application, projectively among non adherents too. As a matter of fact, moralists often tend to justify their own theories with the sole condemnation of diversity in itself, as a "resisting" opposition to the "right belief".

This is a passage that is usually seen when the group is aiming to achieve a sort of cultural-social-political supremacy, however hidden or disguised, therefore telling to its members: "we need the supremacy because we developed the best theory - we consequently need to fight diversity - we finally need to merely explain our visions to "good" people and they will agree, as well, or we'll defeat them - we developed the best theory", and in fact the examples you made were going exactly in this direction. World (or related external context) has then in these visions only to be brought to compliance with these schemes.

Of course, in this sense it mostly is a sub-topic of the concept of morality and you already correctly noted that it is often the entire respective socio-religious worldviews we are talking about.

Now, I'd say this might regard most of the sexual moralists' schemes, so this is why I said that it could be included in the first note. But this is only my humble opinion, and honestly, truly I also find that the article is really fine after your edits, so we can perhaps better go on investigating in the directions you suggested, but I have no sufficient knowledge in this and - sadly - I won't be as helpful as I'd like to. I'll read instead with great interest :-) -- Gianfranco

If this article gets too big, we can always subdivide it into Islamic views of sexual morality, Christian views of sexual morality, etc. Ed Poor 07:58 Jul 23, 2002 (PDT)

If we are going to make room for Muslim views, we should leave room for all other major religions too, shouldnt we? Iammaxus 06:22 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Speaking of the Muslim view of sexuality, a Muslim man has written an excellent article on just that topic, which I've included in my Wiccan web site. I'm new here, so I'm not ready yet to take on the task of editing it down to a usable size for Wikipedia. I want to point all you "experts" at it, and see if anyone wants to adapt it. (It's a personal communication to me, that I have permission to use publicly, so there are no copyright issues.) To read it, go to www.gaia-web.org/gaia-wicca, select the "Sacred Sexuality" link in the left frame, then look for & take the link "this excellent essay" not too far from the top. Gymnos 05:29 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Requesting Views from other religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.. Also communist view. --Jondel 05:05, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Redirects

There should not be a redirect here from "Quaker views of morality". That needs to be deleted. If there is not going to be a specific discussion of the Quaker views of sexual morality (of which there are many), this is too broad of a topic for a redirect. (If there were a page on even "Protestant views of sexual morality", the redirect could be well and good.) This is similar to redirecting "live oak" to an article on "plants". User:Rlquall

I'm not sure Premarital sex should redirect here either. --Quasipalm 21:05, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Why only western religions are detailed?

I find it somewhat annoying that only the three major western religions are detailed. This is probably simply because the authors here are mostly westerners, but it still makes the article very biased (though unintentionally) towards those religions -- which are very similar, actually, at least when opposed to Indian, Japanese or Chinese religions. I find it strange that tantrism is not even mentioned here, though it is a very different point of view than those that are.

Perhaps the guys who worked on the article for a long time could make an effort to remedy this. I (bogdanb, forgot to login) am not familiar with those religions and I'm rather new here, so I'm afraid I can't help much.

Perhaps people could edit and shut up, rather than complain endlessly about things they are unwilling to do. Hyacinth 20:40, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since when are Islam and Judaism western religions? Both are middle-eastern, at least in origin; hardly western.

These are not my views but many asian historians say that sexual morality is a western concept. In Pigafettas writings, when Magellan came to the Philippines, the natives offered their wives to the sailors as a form of hospitality. They didn't see anything wrong with it until they were 'Chrisitianized'. Perhaps one should feel guilty if sexual disease is being spread. Else, what? Perhaps the key issue is being responsible? In Japan, nudity used to be more accepted.

Terminology clarifications

It might be useful to include definitions of what a mikva is. As I understand it it's basically a tub, but I would want someone more educated in Jewish sexual morality to come up with a better summary, for risk of offending people by downplaying its significance. I'm sure there are other parts of this article that need terminology defined.

Merger discussion

Please see Wikipedia talk:LGBT notice board for a discussion about merging and renaming some LGBT articles, including this one. -- Beland 03:54, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment from paragraph on Christian ...

(Sections need to be written on the modern day views of Catholic Christians, Orthodox Christians, Protestant Christians. It would be useful to trace how their views evolved.) Moved here from the article by --Etxrge 18:33, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

POV in section on Islam

I removed/rephrased the following text from the opening paragraph of the section on Islamic views:

"(Curiously, however, Islam allows men to marry outside their religion whereas women are only permitted Muslim husbands; the reader will no doubt ponder the obvious difficulties this poses given that roughly equal numbers of men and women are born into Islamic society.)"

This seems to me to be very POV, and is not written in an appropriate style for an encyclopaedia. I've left the information itself in the article - I am assuming it's correct, but I'm no expert - but I've moved the original text here in case anyone can think of a more NPOV way of phrasing it. --Pierrot 12:15, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

sexuality vs sexual morality

On Aug 20 User:Redwolf24 seems to have moved the page from sexual morality to religion and sexuality ~~and marked it as a minor edit. Firstly, I don't believe moving a page is ever a minor edit. Secondly,~~ Without clear edit summaries or an explanation on this talk page of all the moving between articles that is happening, I'm finding it hard to work out what is going on here! If some kind soul were to write a brief explanation of the rationale of moving content and renaming, it would make it easier for others to contribute to this page without working against the work underway.

Where was the discussion about the page move? I looked on the Wikipedia talk:LGBT notice board as suggested in a brief note above and couldn't find any discussion — just a suggestion by a single user (Beland) in the archive with no explanation for his/her reasoning. Did I miss something?

Is this page a merge of two or more articles? I just edited a section called Secularist views of sex and morality as it was poorly written but I have to wonder what place such an section has in an article about "religion and sexuality". Also, though I appreciate that the article Religion and sexual orientation is catching an 'overflow' of stuff specific to "homosexuality/bisexuality etc." (though what that is is exactly is not clear), the two page titles are not very well differentiated: "Religion and sexual orientation" and "Religion and sexuality". ntennis 01:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Why does sexual morality redirect here? this is ridiculous. if anything religious moral attitudes to sex are a sub topic to a wider idea of sexual morality. Not the otther way around. JFQ 01:25, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Would you like to propose a rename or suggest a way to organise the content? The name of this article as is stands is a euphemism (even if the "secularist" stuff is moved to a general page about sexual morality); it should be Religion and homosexuality or Religion and same-sex sexuality. I've discovered a few other pages that do the same thing (e.g. Non-human animal sexuality). ntennis 01:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

there already is an article Religion and sexual orientation which i think covers most of the information here. I think what I'd like to see is this article merged with that one and the redirect from Sexual morality removed and have that article cover a more general list of topics regarding sexual morality. Topics would include things like adultery, sodomy, beastiality, homosexuality, promiscuity, etc. with a general discussion about various sexual practices as they are viewed from widely held systems of morality, both secular and religious. For instance, a utilitarian view on adultery is going to vary intensely from a kantian view or virtue ethics view of the same act. JFQ 21:50, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

recent cleanup

Hello, It seemed to me that the article effectively had two introductions, the one labeled "Introduction" and the one above that point. I also thought the two introductions were somewhat repetitive as well as lacking in focus and overview. I've thus merged the two and tried to provide a better overview to the topic. I hope that you find the changes acceptable. Thanks.

68.220.96.77 13:54, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Sex and culture

I just did some major edits, but this looks like a "sexuality and culture" article rather than "sexuality and religion" MAybe I'm off base here but aren't these different topics? MPS 00:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, this article is a redirect from Sexual Immorality. Is the only opinion on "sexual immorality" going to come from Religiouns or are there other groups/cultures that have a definition of sexual morality/immorality? MPS 15:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Church of the SubGenius

Do we really need to know what they think about sexuality? --Nucleusboy 22:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... pre-marital sex is ILLEGAL in India? Wow, that sounds like news to me. Yes, it is indeed frowned upon and considered immoral by many, but I'm pretty sure it isn't illegal per se. 65.94.111.136 07:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Christian Morality

The section on "Christian sexual morality" only covers offical Catholic teachings on sexuality, only covers them from the cathechism as opposed to referencing parallel papal bulls and encyclicals (such as H.H. Pope John Paul II's "theology of the body" stuff), totally leaves out Orthodox and Protestant sexual morality, and treats Christian sexual morality as monolithic—as if all Christians or all Catholics believe the same thing. Come on, peoples! There's plenty of debate and dissent within both Catholicism and Christianity as a whole with regards to these issues! xanandax 19:14, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I've rewritten it to be shorter, more readable and more ecumenical (well, that's my opinion anyway). I do worry that someone's going to come along and scream "NPOV!" at me, because I didn't state "Christians believe..." every other sentence, but I'm hoping that the fact that it's expressly a section on "Christian views" will suggest that that condition applies to what's therein. -- Perey 06:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Bad example

I removed the following example with reference to a custody case where a Muslim father illegally kidnapped his children and returned them to his homeland.

(eg, book and film "Not Without My Daughter").

A quick check reveals that Not Without My Daughter involved a case where the non Muslim mother willing returned to Iran with the father and the children. According to the story, she was abused and mistreated in Iran and so decided to illegally kidnap her daughter back to her homeland. There is no point getting into morality here but clearly this is not an example where a Muslim father illegally kidnapped his children. It may be a relevant example but needs to be added to a relevant sentence... Nil Einne 12:49, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Lutheran/Reformed/United churches in EKD (Germany), Sweden, Netherlands and homosexuality

I wrote over the liberal sight of lutheran/reformed and united churches in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland or Sweden, where gay couples get a blessing in churches and gay priests are permitted and homosexuality is not longer a sin..

The EKD is a not one Church the EKD is a Union of 23 Churches with 23 Points of view but its correct that most churches say that homosexuality is not a sin. But in Germany the "Evangelikalen" (FEG, EFG (mostly Baptist), Jesus Freaks and the most member of Gnadenauer Verband) says that homosexuality is a sin. Nandus

Homosexual slant?

This article is titled relgion and sexual morality, yet it spends a very large part of its time discussing religious and social views towards homosexuality. The article should be covering general religious views on sexuality, not focusing in on one particular sexual issue like homosexuality. For example the sections titled "Neo-Pagan views of sex and morality" and "Secularist views of sex and morality" talk entirely about neo-paganism's and secular society's views on homosexuality without even touching on the issue that they are supposed to talk about, which is their views of sexual morality. The secular section should include things about the development of the pill and sexual revolutions, as well as views on casual sex. The Neo-pagan section should include information about how sex is tied to nature and things like that (admittedly I am not that familar with Neo-paganism).

If you read above you can see that several other editors have made the same point. Everybody seems to agree but is just waiting for someone else to do it! ntennis 03:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

New pages for each religion

This page is so ugly and messed up that there need to be created new articles on the sexual moralities and mores of each major religion on this page.

Now, I know that there is already a separate page for homosexuality and religions in general. Probably what should happen is that that separate article on homosexuality and religion should remain, but it should contain a link to each religion's ethics page. So, for example, if I want to find out about homosexuality in Buddhism, I can either go directly to the 'ethics in Buddhism' article and read the section there on homosexuality, or go to the 'homosexuality in religion' article, and get linked to the 'ethics in Buddhism' page, and commence reading the homosexuality section there. Likewise with the other religions. This seems to enable us to get the most, highest quality information in the least amount of places. If necessary, a 'homosexuality in Buddhism' page should be created, and linked from by both the 'ethics and Buddhism' page and the 'homosexuality in religion' page. But the point is that we've GOT to get some of the content from this page to other places so that it can be navegable.

I like the link to sexual norm, which I have now proposed to be merged with sexual ethics.

user:Whoistheroach 7:36 PM Chicago time, 20 Jun 2006

What do you mean? There already is a homosexuality and Buddhism page. There is a table in the article with links to homosexuality and a number of specific religions. ntennis 06:44, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Help with tables

I really like the 'homosexuality in religion table' that's right in the middle of this page. It can also be seen at the 'homosexuality in religion' page. But I think it's more important to have a 'sexuality in religions' table, with a list of links to the various pages of religions' sexual ethics doctrines in general. Perhaps that table can be made in addition to the 'homosexuality in religions' table.

The problem is, right now, I don't know how to make that table! Help!

user:Whoistheroach 8:01 PM Chicago time, 20 Jun 2006

If you want to get started, you should first make a distinction between 'tables' and templates'. Tables are in-article spreadsheet style documents, for example 2006 Fifa World Cup (it's worth looking at that article anyway). A 'template' is something a little different, it's the sort of thing that is usually at the top or at the bottom of a page, but in this case, "homosexuality and relgion" is in the middle. To include this template on a page, write {{Religion and homosexuality}} when you edit a page, and the standard template will be copied there. To see/edit it, it can be found at Template:Religion and homosexuality, and to start a new one go to Template:R&S. You want to keep template names short, because you don't want to keep having to type out 3 words.A J Hay 06:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

For more, see [[1]]A J Hay 06:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Kidnapping back to the Middle East?

Particularly famous are custody cases in which Muslim husbands have unlawfully kidnapped their children while fleeing to the nation of their origin, primarily in the Middle East.

Source/Citation please?! I seriously don't know how that could be integrated within the article. I personally need to see source of these studies, numbers and figures, otherwise I think it shouldn't remain as a 'fact' -- Omernos 12:28, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Secular views

I wonder if this should be removed. Firstly, secular views are by definition not religious views and so don't really belong in religion and sexuality. Furthermore, the section currently only mentions homosexuality and not other issues related to sexuality. Even the mention of homosexuality seems incredibly one sided since there are many secular views that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable and punishing people for being or practicing homosexuality is incredibly wrong. In fact, it evens suggests lesbians are more prone to disease which is something that is rarely claimed (most people with disease arguments conviently ignore lesbians and simply discuss gay men or homosexuals). Nil Einne 00:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I moved the section here (below) in case anyone wants to resurrect it or find a more appropriate article in which to insert it. ntennis 01:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Secularist views of sex and morality

Some opponents of homosexual relationships argue regardless of religion that homosexuality undermines traditional family structures and is a psychological construct. Secular disapproval of homosexuality is also associated with the idea that homosexuality is inherently weak, unhealthy or dangerous, and that lesbians and gay men are prone to disease (see 'Homosexuality and medical science' for more information).

Gay rights advocates point out that many heterosexual couples engage in accepted non-reproductive acts and marriages, including those who do not use contraception, practitioners of oral and anal sex, biologically infertile couples, and the elderly. Many homosexual couples also do have children, whether adopted, carried forward from previous relationships, or produced with donor sperm or egg. In the future, new technology may even allow homosexual couples to produce children which carry their genes, without the help of reproductive cell donors. Homosexual sex acts, because they do not contribute to biological fertilization and pregnancy, are often condemned on these grounds. The idea that homosexual couples cannot produce children is also a frequent objection to same-sex marriage.

Content from intro

I moved a whole lot more stuff here that to me was off-topic waffle, dominating the lead section. Here it is (below the line). ntennis 02:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Since the sexual revolution, the moral debate regarding sexuality has largely become divorced from procreation and other traditional and/or religious priorities. The strength of the conservative movement in the eighties draws part of its inspiration from the negative reaction to these changes from religious conservatives. In the face of these novel developments, they argue for an end to abortion, birth control, and nonprocreative sex, as well as divorce. In Western pluralistic societies of the 20th and 21st Centuries, there often exists debate on not only whether there is a common morality, but on whether it is right to expect such a common view. In most Western societies, laws allowing a wide range of sexual relationships between consenting adults are the norm, although that legal range varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The debate thus often includes a sub-argument of what is legal versus what is moral.

In previous centuries and in many non-Western cultures of the 20th and 21st Centuries, there has been less room for debate. This does not mean, however, that views on sexual morality have ever been homogeneous.

For example, in Hellenic society, homosexual behavior was often encouraged and accepted as part of the socialization and upbringing of young men, especially those in the military. These relationships were in addition to heterosexual relationships entered into for the establishment of families and the production of progeny so that property would be inherited and kept within a larger kinship group. The importance of the kin-group and the maintenance of its property was such that, under certain circumstances, Athenian law allowed an uncle to marry his niece in order to keep family property together. It could be therefore argued that the needs of the family constituted a higher morality that helped to define the sexual mores of the society as a whole.

In Roman society, sexual morality concentrated more on the social status of those involved, and their taboos concentrated on high-status men committing any kind of sexual act that was thought of as passive or submissive. Providing that the sexual act was dominant in nature, and the man had a high social status Roman society made little distinction between the type of sexual partner and type of sexual act.

In the modern world, opinions differ on how homosexuality should be treated, and there is a full spectrum of reaction exhibited - execution for sexuality alone, execution for sexual acts, imprisonment, gay bashing, hate speech, shunning, segregation (e.g. gay schools), castration, reparative therapy, ex-gay movements, prayer for change, hate crime laws, allowing gay marriage, and full equality.^{[citation needed]}

On the other hand, significant segments of human society on all continents continue to strongly oppose homosexuality, either as a sin, a crime or an illness (note that this is opinion has not been expressed at any given time. In many socities it was accepted or tolerated some giving homosexuality its own social class. The prevalance of opposition to homosexuality may be easily dismissed as an effect of European Christian imperialism) . These objections are often from a religious perspective, and call for punitive consequences for homosexual behavior ranging from social censure and counselling to so-called reparative therapy and even death in certain theocratic societies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, within the past hundred years, societies which had been historically open to love and sexuality between males have been influenced by the west and have become antagonistic towards same-sex love. This development can be seen in many African societies, India, China, Japan, and Papua New Guinea.^{[citation needed]}

Another example is the contrast between traditional European and traditional Asian or African views of permitted familial relationships. British law and custom, for example, frequently forbade intermarriage between those related by marriage. However, thousands of years ago in tribal rural regions of Nepal, and surrounding nations, fraternal polyandry, in which two (or more) brothers marry the same woman, was culturally accepted. Likewise, European mores generally advocate monogamy strongly. Polygyny is widely practiced by many societies throughout Asia and Africa, and polyandry is the accepted norm in a few African societies.

Least to most extreme bit on Judaism

I've put a dubious next to the bit about ranking that Talmud laws on sex from least to most extreme. I'd have thought that most people would be opposed to beastiality and necrophilia rather than seeing this as an extremist prohibition. Personally, I'd say that the prohibition on masturbation is the most extreme law, but it might be best to delete that sentence in aid of N.P.O.V. policy.

POV in Jewish section

Individual's personal POVs are being presented in this section as normative. As in other sections on Judaism, traditional views based on traditional sources come first, followed by official views of more liberal denominations, followed by private individuals private opinions. There is great controversy within all branches of Judaism on these matters and most views require individual attribution sourcing. --Shirahadasha 23:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Removed the following to this talk page:

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of Jewish law is the laws related to taharat ha'mishpacha (Hebrew: literally "family purity"). These rules inform us that a woman becomes tame (in Israeli Hebrew, pronounced [tɑ'me]) or niddah when she is menstruating. During this time a couple must refrain from all physical contact, especially sexual relations. After the cessation of her menstrual flow, the women counts seven days before immersing herself in a mikvah, at which time sexual relations between man and wife can resume. The words tahor and tame are often, but erroneously, translated as physically "clean" and "unclean". However, these terms actually describe a state of ritual applicability in regards to fulfilling biblical commandments, such as those associated with the Temple in Jerusalem, the cultic function of Kohanim (priests), and sexual relations within a Jewish marriage. Modern Jewish authors often translate tahor and tame as "ritually pure" and "ritually impure".

This POV represents one view. Wikipedia:NPOV policy means that this view cannot presented as the truth, and opposing views presented as "misunderstandings". "Most misunderstand" is a good codeword that someone is trying to use Wikipedia to sell a POV and claim that other POVs are a "misunderstanding" of religious "truth". It is not the role of Wikipedia to do this with respect to religious matters. I myself would personally prefer "ritually pure" and "ritually impure" to "clean" and "unclean", but presenting things in the manner this passage takes is not consistent with NPOV.

Separating out sections

Why should there be a single Religion and sexuality article as if there were either a monolithic religious view or different religions simply represented perspectives on the same thing? Why not separate articles on each major religion? Why not have summaries in a more general article on sexuality? This article appears to create a danger, from its structure, of presenting a particular POV. Best, --Shirahadasha 00:33, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me to be appropriate that they are all together as they have much commonality, especially the Abrahamic religions. There is nothing wrong with POV in an article. If you have a POV that you think is not represented well, feel free to add it and cite it appropriately. Atom 13:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that depends on what you mean. This article should present POVs (document, describe, compare even) — that's its whole purpose. But it shouldn't promote any of them, which is what the WP:NPOV policy is about. As for whether it should be split up, well, I don't know. I guess the only criterion that would definitely need a split would be size. Shirahadasha, could you go into more detail on how you think the structure risks promoting a POV? As it stands, the problem is mostly a lot (a lot) of mixing in of different views in no logical order (particularly in the Christian section, it seems to me). There's also the problem of one religion's section making comments contrasting itself with other religions, without presenting any balancing counterargument (read the quote under Judaism on Christianity, for instance) — but I'm not sure whether one article per religion would make it any easier to present all sides of a 'compare and contrast' argument. -- Perey 16:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Striking the right balance in the Christianity section

Atom recently reverted some edits I made to the Christianity section, and after a brief discussion on his talk page, he suggested we continue here.

The purpose of my edits was to move some material on liberal views to its own subsection, and so emphasise what I believe to be factual (and not altogether clear from the article as it stands), that conservative views are very much the mainstream in most Christian denominations worldwide. (In the process I deleted some material that seemed to duplicate, and to an extent contradict, existing paragraphs).

After some thinking on the matter, and pondering exactly what beliefs are at issue and what 'conservative' vs 'liberal' views are, I've boiled it down to what I think are three or four essential points. (I'm even starting to think we might rearrange the whole section on these lines, rather than by denomination.)

The nature of sex—basically, is it good, or not? The Victorian attitude that sex is bad seems to be largely absent from mainstream Christianity these days (and, in my opinion, was never an essentially 'Christian' attitude anyway). The major position seems to be that of Paul, perhaps a little more relaxed: 'Sex is good, but celibacy is better, for some people anyway.' Some groups (like fundamentalists) seem to be more strongly holding on to the more Puritanical view, though, and the dying out of this attitude elsewhere does leave something of a contradiction for many; 'sex is good, but you can't talk about it.'
Monogamy (and the commitment thereto, i.e. marriage). I think it's safe to say every mainstream denomination holds to this one. Moving the material on Liberated Christians, to emphasise that their disagreement with this is unusual to say the least, was the main aim of my edit.
Heterosexuality. The major denominations are at least split, and at most firmly entrenched, on the idea that homosexual behaviours are a sin.
Specific acts. Even within heterosexual marriage, Christianity has often had issues with acts other than coitus; most denominations seem pretty hands-off about it, but in some cases (Catholicism, I think?) it makes its way into church doctrine. And of course, there's always the matter of masturbation.

Thoughts? Does this help in giving points to note when comparing various 'liberal' and 'conservative' views? How does this look, as a way to restructure the section? -- Perey 15:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

As I said in our discussion on the talk page, my reverts were more about what seemed to be removal of material, even though it was partly a movement of a section. I edited many, many articles on sexology and sexuality, and it is common for them to be vandalized, or for people to just remove material they don't agree with.

Now, this article does seem to need some editing. The Judaism section has benefited from some attention by others recently. I think perhaps it is too wordy, but at least is more informative and better edited.

The Christianity section needs alot of attention. The main difficulty it has is in not breaking the spectrum of religious thought down more. I think a bulk of christians are moderate politically and fall into moderate views about sexuality. As there is no central authority for Christiantity, there is no one way, or agreed upon dogma. Various interpretations of the bible, give the best central guidance available, and the multitude of variations of text available in english don;t help clarify. I'm not certain what a "mainstream" denomination is. I'd guess that pthers would define that term based on large numbers of adherents to that particular sect. Even defines as such, dogma based on the popularity of the denomination seems hardly meaningful. Another important point is the difference between "homosexual" and "homosexual act". You are right that Christians consider homosexual acts to be sinful. That does not mean, however that they hate homosexuals. Most Christian churches, except for a very few extreme right wing churches accept homosexuals as members of their church.

Another thing is that you say that most people are against sex outside of marriage. In europe large numbers of couples decide to co-habitate and have children outside of marriage. More than 20% in Europe as a whole, and 50% in the Netherlands. In the U.S. also it is a growing trend to choose to have children and live together without marriage. These countries are not known for low religious participation. How can you justify saying that all or nearly all churches believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong in a country where 20% to 50% of the population choose to noe marry and have children?

Despite our differences of views, I agree that the article could use some cleaning up. I'd like to do it on a basis of us finding meaningful references and citations to do that though, and not based on various editors opinions, or religious bias.

Atom 02:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

'Mainstream' is, I admit, a pretty vague and subjective term. But generally speaking it's a combination of size and recognition/consensus across denominations. Actually, it's only really Protestantism that presents a problem; Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, and probably the other eastern churches (about which I admittedly know little) generally make it easy to identify what is 'mainstream'.

I wholeheartedly agree of course that Christians should not (and most do not) hate homosexuals. It is a core doctrine of Christianity that everyone is a sinner, and everyone (whatever their sin) can be redeemed by Christ. However, people are expected to (try to) stop sinning, which leads to things like ex-gay movements, pressure on known homosexual Christians (most sins don't have a 'coming out' cultural aspect to them, so homosexuality is singularly prominent), accusations of homophobia...

I don't have any kind of numbers on how many people who identify as Christian engage in whatever degree of pre- or extramarital sex. However, those who do so are almost entirely going against official church doctrine; that much I do know and would be confident in finding references for, if I get the time. Certainly, the article should mention the differences between church teachings and actual positions of members (although the latter do need good citations to back up numbers), but I think the core of "Christianity and sexuality" should be church teachings on the matter. -- Perey 04:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm also convinced this article needs a good deal of cleaning up to reflect Liberal Christian denominations views of sexuality. Good summary here at this reference.^[1] Sexperts 22:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Conservative Judaism after December 2006

Rewrote the section entirely in light of the decision to permit gay unions and clergy. Removed this material to talk page as it appears to be simply dated and appears no longer to reflect contemporary Conservative belief or practice. The quote, for example, appears to claim that "Judaism" has a single view or speaks with a single voice about sexual matters, and such a claim appears to be inconsistent with contemporary official Conservative belief, as the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has articulated it. It also speaks of "husband" and "wife" as being the subjects of conjugal relations.

In A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, Conservative Rabbi Isaac Klein wrote a summation of Conservative Jewish views towards sex:

Modern man is heir to two conflicting traditions neither of which is Jewish: On the one hand, the rebirth of the old paganism which found its extreme expression in the sacred prostitutes of Canaan...and on the other hand, the Christian reaction to the excesses of paganism...sex became identified with original sin, and celibacy was regarded as the ideal form of life. Modern man, while opting for pagan libertinism, also suffers a guilty conscience because of his Christian heritage....Judaism is free of both extremes. It rejects the espousal of uncontrolled sexual expression that paganism preaches, and also Christianity's claim that all sexual activity is inherently evil. Jewish marriage is based on a healthy sexual viewpoint that rejects the two extremist principles, and so are the regulations governing the conjugal relations between husband and wife, taharat hamishpacha, the purity of family life. [Note that this passage presents Rabbi Klein's view of Christianity]

Best, --Shirahadasha 10:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Sex and Religion

Why does "Sex and Religion" redirect to this page instead of the Steve Vai album? Sk8a H8a 22:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Click the link where it says "For other uses, see Religion and sexuality (disambiguation)". That should help. Disinclination 05:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Do not directly copy sections from other articles

This is to deal with the Wicca/NeoPagan section. It's on both of the religious views of masturbation, and on this one. Except on this one, it has a different starting paragraph. You cannot apply the Charge of the Goddess to the entirety of Neo Pagans. The Charge is a Wiccan concept/lore/etc. It is directly copied from the Sexual intercourse section on Wicca. You cannot take one and put it in each one. In fact, it had nothing to do with masturbation. So please.. just stop copying. Re-word it, I really don't care. But the fact is.. you just.. can't do that. It offers no new information, and the section that was copied was made specifically for the Sexual intercourse section ON Wicca. I'm going to remove the copied information, and you guys can all find the original here: Religious_views_on_sexual_intercourse#Wicca. Disinclination 05:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Confusion over redirects.

How come this redirects from sexual repression?. Not ALL of sexual repression is caused by relegion. (Although in my mind a large portion of sexual repression is).

Could someone please clarify? Nateland 02:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: Put this redirect up for RfD. --Shirahadasha 16:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Orthodox Judaism

"Orthodox Judaism also maintains a strong prohibition on interfaith sexual relations and marriage." I'm taking out the word strong (there is no legal punishment).Wolf2191 15:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

"As a core aspect of Jewish law is the love of the body" It isn't it's the need to guard one's health and I wouldn't quite call it a core aspect. Wolf2191 15:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Religious views on sexual intercourse/Merge Proposal

Question: is there a reason that article exists separately from this one? A merge would seem like a possibility. I also posed the question there. Mackan79 17:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Added for proposal: from all I can tell, Religious views on sexual intercourse was created without knowing about this article. Either way, a redirect from that title would seem to make a lot more sense. Mackan79 02:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge Agree subjects are too similar to support separate articles and a merge here is warranted. --Shirahadasha 05:01, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Islam and sexuality Qur'an quote

The section of the article immediately preceding the quote from the Qur'an is a linguistic train wreck in dire need of repair. The quote itself has its reference at the end of the quote rather than following any Wikipedia standard and includes editor's comments from the person who transcribed it. While the quote and related statements have merit considering the article, the manner in which they are presented is woefully inadequate.

Also, in the section's third paragraph, removing actual information to put [specify] and [citation needed] tags? Cute, but another train wreck. Argument needs to be made in a manner that isn't stupid. 67.103.18.138 18:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Buddhism

In response to a request on the Buddhism talk page, I've had a look at this section & deleted some highly interpretative material. Peter jackson (talk) 11:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Correction: not the Buddhism lalk page, the Wikiproject talk page. Peter jackson (talk) 11:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Gay couples in church

I was attending my very conservative Catholic church (in the US) the other day when the pastor asked those celebrating a wedding anniversary that month to stand and be recognized. A dozen couples stood up including two women holding hands. They received the "blessing" of the congregation along with everyone else. While "welcome" is hardly the proper term for Catholic and most conservative churches, they are normally not going to be asked to leave. Student7 (talk) 12:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Citations in Unitarian Universalism section

I'm crap at citations, so I haven't included any in the UU section I just did. Sorry 'bout that. Some that might be interesting:

http://www.cuc.ca/queer/ - Has notes on the intervenor status of the CUC Homosexuality_and_Unitarian_Universalism has other notes that might be relevant to link to.

I didn't want to focus on anything in particular since UUism doesn't have specific guidelines except being welcoming and not discriminating against consensual sexual practices. Any help in representing that clearly is welcome. jbailey (talk) 01:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Catechism references

Well, I messed them the attempt at footnoting. But as I was looking around, stumbled across this one which is way more pointed than the ones that were supposed to be referenced:

" 2390 - In a so-called free union, a man and a woman refuse to give juridical and public form to a liaison involving sexual intimacy.

The expression "free union" is fallacious: what can "union" mean when the partners make no commitment to one another, each exhibiting a lack of trust in the other, in himself, or in the future?

The expression covers a number of different situations: concubinage, rejection of marriage as such, or inability to make long-term commitments.183 All these situations offend against the dignity of marriage; they destroy the very idea of the family; they weaken the sense of fidelity. They are contrary to the moral law. The sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."

This may not be the specific issue that was addressed but seems to indicate that the situation is not quite so minor, as interpreted by the church, as the editor was suggesting.Student7 (talk) 22:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you were refering to this editor. However, I was not suggesting that the described situation was "minor". I have the personal opinion that the Catholic Church takes pre-marital sex very seriously, and counsels against it. It is, as cited, mentioned in the detail in the Catechism. The point I AM making is that we editors in Wikipedia need to remain faithful to the citations.

There are a variety of opinions on the issue, from people who believe that any form of sexual contact before marriage and outside of marriage is a form of lust, and therefore a capital sin. Some of these people also believe that sex is not for pleasure or enjoyment, but only for procreation. The other end of the spectrum are people who believe that the Church can only act to give guidance, and that although frowned upon by the church, that the act of pre-marital sex a special gift from God. Why argue, or choose? As the Catholic Church has clear guidance of the Catechism, it should be quoted, and interpretations should be left out of the article. If the Catechism says "disordered" or "Gravely Contrary", then the article should say that, and not "sinful", or some other adjective. In this case, the Catechism describes fornication as "gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality". Atom (talk) 01:02, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree about the paraphrasing from proper sources. The quote above says "..always constitutes a grave sin.." (not necessarily my opinion, but it is the quote) Student7 (talk) 12:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, my opinion on the matter isn't important either. I just want the article to be true to the topic. I quoted one part of the catechism correctly. If someone wants to quote a different part of the Cathecism, I am fine with that. Atom (talk) 15:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I woud agree that where there is an authoratative source, the article language should stick close to the source. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Rationalizing Paul

An editor has rationalized that Paul might have only been opposed to sexual slavery, that everyone has misunderstood all these years and (therefore, by implication, of course} that there is nothing wrong with pre-marital sex. Just a two-millennial misunderstanding. The piece sounds WP:OR BTW.

Ignores the fact that Paul said "Marry or burn." Why bother if there is absolutely "nothing" wrong with pre-marital sex? Little problem with the production and raising of children in those days - no condoms or birth control pills. No wonderful "safety net" with food stamps, Medicare, etc. for single mothers.

And a thousand years behind Paul, who was Jewish, of interpretation of Jewish law which was not friendly to fooling around before marriage either. Paul was first a Jew. The "Christian" part came much later - maybe after he died.

He mostly tried to preach to Jewish emigres BTW who would have understood and accepted all this. Student7 (talk) 00:11, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Sex in Zen Buddhism

Maybe it should be a separate sub chapter of Buddhism (or maybe a separate chapter) in the article; several prominent Zen Buddhists practiced sex in honor of the Buddha and as part of being true to The Way. Notably Ikkyū aka Crazy Cloud, who was a most significant zen monk and a Japanese folk hero. The sexual drive (as well as the penis) is referred to as the red strike. I can quote from Three Zen Masters if you like. - Sigg3.net (talk) 11:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Religion and ART

Should religious responses to assisted reproduction be a subsection here or should it have its own article? Joe407 (talk) 11:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

My thought would be to start out here, then fork the article if (when?) it gets too large. But it seems a part of sexuality and religion, so "see also" as a totally separate article doesn't seem quite appropriate IMO. Also cloning and using more than two parents for fertilization. Lots of uncovered issues Student7 (talk) 19:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Religion and sexuality#Hinduism

This whole section has not one citation. As far as a reader could see it's completely WP:OR. Some of the statements are controversial and it's a religious topic so it would be nice to have it heavily sourced and allow for differing POV's... because there are differing views. See the history of revision on the Lingam page. Alatari (talk) 03:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Also I find it ridiculous to claim that "In general, however, Hindu society has been influenced by Islamic and colonial British viewpoints to reflect their quite conservative attitudes in matters pertaining to sex." I'm pretty certain they have their own views on sexuality.

Christianity around 1930

(moved from discussion in comments on main page)

The disputed section is this:

Otherwise, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant views on sexual union was unanimous until 1930. This view is simply that the primary end of sexuality is marriage and that the primary end of marriage is begetting children.

This is certainly untrue, at the least for protestants (the only books I have on the Orthodox are about the Trinity unfortunately so it would take someone else to comment on whether they had the same Thomastic emphases). The discussions below tend to work against this sentence, hence I tagged it as a contradiction to flag up the need for review.—Kan8eDie

[Taken from page] how is this a contradiction? The text following describes the divergence of the Protestants away from procreation. The editor may not like it, but that is how all Christian religions taught before 1930. That is different than a "contradiction."—Student7
- On the contrary, that 'divergence' goes back more than half a millennium before the fairly arbitrary 1930 date around which the article seems to resolve. Views did not change overnight at the least.— Kan8eDie (talk) 01:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, have quick article from Martin Luther. See. Summary sufficient to see where it is going. Luther is lucid and smart and theologically correct as understood by Catholics and Orthodox today. Who were you thinking of that disagreed? Hopefully not Henry VIII? :) Student7 (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I am not convinced. It is clear that Luther radically departed from the Catholics on marriage somewhere along the line, given his decision to marry a nun. The article you linked argues that Luther viewed procreation as necessary to marriage, which is all well and good, and certainly not controversial, but we are discussing here whether it is sufficient, that is, are there other purposes in marriage of equal importance? For Luther, the best quotation to bandy around states that

Marriage is the God-appointed and legitimate union of man and woman in the hope of having children or at least for the purpose of avoiding fornication and sin and living to the glory of God.... The ultimate purpose is to obey God, to ﬁnd aid and counsel against sin; to call upon God; to seek, love, and educate children for the glory of God; to live with one’s wife in the fear of God and to bear the cross; but if there are no children, nevertheless to live with one’s wife in contentment; and to avoid all lewdness with others.

That is a far from the 'conventional' (Catholic) views (Augustine: Of the Good of Marriage). To argue about Luther alone misses the point though. Since the start of the reformation, views were diverging, and there was not complete agreement until 1930, or any other arbitrary modern date.— Kan8eDie (talk) 20:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

It may be correct to forget about Luther. He decided to forego his vow of chastity to marry. But this had nothing to do with his perception of marriage per se, just his perception of his vow to God.

How do Catholics differ with the blockquote? Perfectly good definition IMO from a RC POV. Student7 (talk) 11:02, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Censorship!

Cripes! I am using an editor at a gym frequented by children. It was MY editor that MAY have been deleting words. I will stop editing this now in the hopes that someone can correct it. Sorry! Student7 (talk) 18:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The edits you meant to do were good, but there were too many edits done by your gym's content filter for me to sort it out, so I have just reverted to the last version before you started editing. Try editing the article again when you're on a computer without the filter. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Fringe theories in the Middle Ages

An editor has delved into a textbook with deals with (essentially) fringe theories on sexuality in the Middle Ages. A textbook anyway is the tertiary source, not really permitted for real solid information. The textbook is simply exploring the fringes of opinion. What is being quoted is not necessarily what the church taught, which can only be quoted from what the pope said, or Martin Luther or various solid references, not some jottings of an erratic monk someplace with no standing. Student7 (talk) 13:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

There's nothing fringe about it - it's a mainstream textbook, on the syllabi of all major universities. PiCo (talk) 09:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

You may be right. Student7 (talk) 21:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Buddhism section

The Buddhism section gives a slightly misleading idea of the nature of Buddhist teaching - for example, it gives the impression, to me at least, that the Four Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the Five Precepts are three different things - in fact Buddhism is more like a set of boxes, and the the Eightfold Path is in the fact the fourth of the Four Truths, while the Five Precepts make up the third step on the Eightfold Path. Would anyone mind if I re-wrote it? PiCo (talk) 07:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Go for it! Please keep in mind that the article is about Religion and Sexuality, and so we want to keep detail about Buddhism at a minimum. There are links to more lengthy articles at the top of the section. Atom (talk) 14:33, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

The section is inaccurate in saying that nothing is said in any of the scriptures. That is simply not true. Gautama Buddha is attributed as saying:

"One conducts oneself wrongly in matters of sex; one has intercourse with those under the protection of father, mother, brother, sister, relatives or clan, or of their religious community; or with those promised to someone else, protected by law, and even with those betrothed with a garland" (Book of Tens, Anguttara Nikaya, X, 206).

"Abandoning sexual misconduct, one abstains from sexual misconduct; he does not have intercourse with women who are protected by their mother, father, mother and father, brother, sister, or relatives, who have a husband, who are protected by law, or with those already engaged" (See Bhikkhu Bodhi translation, In the Buddha's Words, p. 159, based on MN41; Saleyyaka Sutra; I 286-90).

Should these be quoted exactly or paraphrased? It seems off that this has been left out and I think it is just deleted material cause I found a wapedia historical entry based off wikipedia that had the phrases. I'll look through the article's history. Alatari (talk) 04:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I found that Atom deleted the extensive text in the main article as being from only one sect of Buddhism. These are statements attributed to Gautama so why the deletion? I'll source the statements to the appropriate Suttas. Alatari (talk) 04:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll move this work to the main article. Alatari (talk) 04:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I add my support to this being done. The statement Details of accepted or unaccepted human sexual conduct is not specifically mentioned in any of the religious scriptures is a falsehood, as the user above has shown with his quotation from the Canon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.72.68 (talk) 00:37, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Orthodox Judaism - sources and references

The section lists lots of prohibitions, without sourcing them. They should be sourced to the Torah as far as possible, or the Talmud, if they're not in the Torah. -- Alexey Topol (talk) 01:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Article structure

I don't know that just dividing it up by religion is a very good structure. I'm not that familiar with the guidelines on this but think a mixture of this and division by some other scheme(s) might be a good idea. I'm generally against this sort of structure as it doesn't allow easy reading if you are more interested in some other aspect (e.g. homosexuality) rather than the one used (e.g. a specific religion(s)).

There might also be too much weight given to specific religions. Again I'm not sure how space is generally divided or the guidelines or rationality on this, but for example Judaism is a very small religion in terms of number of followers and it is given lots of space here. Richard001 (talk) 12:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile to consider, but think how it would read under a "topic" structure: "(Explanation of topic X (which is really explained in another article, not here)). Catholics, latter day episcopalians and Zen buddhists don't agree with doing X. On the other hand Northern Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, and Sunni Moslems require it. Southern Presbyterians usually don't care except during Lent. This is because...(for EACH religion! ???). This would be a muddle. It can only be broken down in terms of religion IMO. What would be another breakdown? Student7 (talk) 19:25, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The topic is "Religion and sexuality". The division primarily by religion is therefore understandable and most appropriate. "Sexuality and Religion" might be arranged in other ways. Kevin Bennett ekv (talk) 10:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Richard001 said, "Judaism is a very small religion in terms of number of followers and it is given lots of space here." but Judaism provides the core cannon of Christianity and Islam, as well as modern Judaism. In this way, Judaism is highly relevant to all three of those major religions. Kevin Bennett ekv (talk) 10:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Neopaganism

The following sentence "Homophobia is considerably most-common amongst Asatru, ..." requires some form of documentation. 46.9.12.58 (talk) 02:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Abrahamic religions

New text here says "According to Prof. Michael Coogan, a scholar who wrote a book upon the Bible and sex, in the Hebrew Bible there is no prohibition of premarital or extramarital sex for men, except for adultery, i.e. sleeping with the wife of another man.[2] Coogan affirms that premarital sex for women was "discouraged",[2] but the Bible has a word for the sons of unmarried women,[2] i.e. they were allowed to give birth to such sons, although they were relegated to an inferior social status.[2] According to Coogan, Paul the Apostle condemned extramarital sex out of apocalyptic fears (he thought that the world was going to end soon).[2] Jesus does not say anything about this,[2] except regulating divorce between a man and one of his wives, stance which bears no implication on premarital and extramarital sex."

Okay. But it seems to me that Christians don't get to say what Abrahamic religions believe unless (maybe) strictly cited as a WP:FRINGE theory or something.

I agree that Genesis kind of reads this way. They put a virgin in bed with Moses "to warm him up" as he entered his final illness. The narrator seems to see nothing wrong with this. On the other hand, that style of non-commenting is rather typical of the Old Testament. Lots of dysfunction is reported without commentary. Not sure that post-Genesis Jewish men are free to have sex with just anyone.

I think this section should receive some additional attention. Student7 (talk) 20:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

At a certain time, the Catholic Church defined sodomy as everything else than the missionary position between a man and a woman (man on top, woman below him). Even if not defined as sodomy, sex was considered sinful, except for the purpose of procreation. So, this is or was a mainstream view about sex, and it deserves being quoted as the standpoint of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, as inspired by St. Augustine. The problem is that Catholics believe that they have free will, i.e. that they are entitled to reject any dogma which they personally disagree with. Therefore, while it was the standpoint of the Church, we cannot jump to the conclusion that it would apply to all Catholics. Similarly, the Anglican Church may have an official standpoint on sexuality, which is not applicable to all Anglicans. There are lots of Protestant and Neoprotestant churches, I was myself an Adventist and I know what their official doctrine said and how individual believers coped with applying the official dogma in their daily life. The problem with such churches is that there are thousands of churches, thousands of different theologies, therefore a lot of diverse viewpoints on sexuality, and not all of these viewpoints are representative or notable.

So, to draw the conclusion: standpoint of the big churches is allowed to be rendered inside the article, as long as reliable sources make it very clear that it is the official dogma of such churches. As Coogan himself says, the Bible had lots of authors, so it is misleading to affirm "This is the standpoint of the Bible." Instead, we could define various standpoints represented by this or that author of the Bible, while affirmations like "there is no prohibition of premarital sex for men in the Old Testament" are verifiable affirmation, i.e. we can verify that in the whole Hebrew Bible there is no such prohibition. Such verifiable affirmations are to be presented only if they are rendered inside reliable sources, otherwise they are original research, which is not allowed inside Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a blog for your musings, even if you are a priest or pastor. E.g., Wikipedia is not a web forum wherein Catholics discuss their agreement or lack of agreement with their official dogmas, it is not a forum wherein Protestants give their opinions of the dogmas of other churches.

We thus render notable (representative) standpoints, only in so far they are supported by reliable sources. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

So we have 3000 years of thinking otherwise and one reference from one off-the-wall professor is stupendous? While the opinions of everyone else is worthless?

And what is this doctrine of individual Catholic nullification of canon law? I never heard that one before either. Student7 (talk) 23:06, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Calling reliable sources "off-the-wall" is not constructive for the debate. What you call "off-the-wall" is in reality mainstream scholarly opinion. For your information: he is teaching at a Catholic institution. He is respected in the academic world as an authority in his field. WP:SOURCES is an official policy of Wikipedia, as well as WP:VER and WP:OR. In lack of reliable sources, vouching your own opinion is contrary to such mandatory policies. About "the opinions of everyone else" see WP:NOT#FORUM.

What you call "nullification of canon law" simply means that believers do not always behave according to cannon law, either by choice or by lacking abilities for fulfilling canon law. If all believers would behave according to canon law, they would be without sin, and therefore not in need of salvation. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems WP:FRINGE to me. One quote on the web: " According to a review by Booklist, the work “will embolden social activists glad to weaken restraints rooted in traditional understandings of scripture.” The review says that God and Sex was written to help “progressive thinkers” on the topics of “gender equality and sexual liberation” to get past their vexations. Booklist writes; "Even more audaciously, Coogan turns the tables on Hebrew prophets’ denouncing the worship of female pagan deities, suggesting that such worship provided a much-needed corrective to patriarchy. In scriptural passages affirming a sexual discipline offensive to modern sensibilities, Coogan sees only a deplorable cultural bias, sustained by worshiping God as a jealous and abusive husband."

His school is not Ex Corde Ecclesiae US Catholic colleges. This means, generally, that the theology department tells students what the church believes and tells students it is a menu and they can "pick what they like." In other words, they have selected a separate magisterium from the church proper.

The quote says nothing about him being Catholic or teaching at an allegedly "Catholic" school. That is great. npov there IMO. So how he relates, or fails to relate, to Catholicism is not something that really concerns me nor this article.

Fringe might be okay, but mainstream stuff should be used as well. Right now "Abrahamic religions" are represented by this one fringe Christian opinion. That does not seem balanced to me.

BTW, the quotes I saw were mainly at "liberating women." The sexual license for OT men, seems to have escaped the reviewers I came across. Student7 (talk) 02:19, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I did not say that he states a theological mainstream view, mind you. I said that he states a scholarly mainstream view about the text of the Hebrew Bible. Do not conflate its text with theology, there can be quite a difference between them, unless you are a hard-core Bible literalist with profound knowledge of ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek (Bible translations can sometimes be so misleading). So, Coogan does not talk in the name of the Catholic Church, but he talks as a responsible scholar and academic, which has to be true to the facts rather than to your pet theologian.

Coogan presents scientific (i.e. falsifiable) views upon the Hebrew Bible. The text of the Hebrew Bible is an empirical study object for the use of scientists. So, the refutation of his views is up to his peers, i.e. scholars of the Bible, and Bible scholarship is again something else than theology. It has more to do with scholarship in ancient languages, textology, higher criticism, critical-historical method, history itself rather than with expressing what a believer should believe and do in his/her daily life. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

To put it a little naively, Coogan tells us what the Bible really says, not what your church really says. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Ehrman, Bart (2010). "A Historical Assault on Faith". Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). HarperCollins e-books. pp. 3–4. ISBN 9780061173943. My hunch is that the majority of students coming into their first year of seminary training do not know what to expect from courses on the Bible. ... Most students expect these courses to be taught from a more or less pious perspective, showing them how, as future pastors, to take the Bible and make it applicable to people's lives in their weekly sermons.
Such students are in for a rude awakening. Mainline Protestant seminaries in this country are notorious for challenging students' cherished beliefs about the Bible—even if these cherished beliefs are simply a warm and fuzzy sense that the Bible is a wonderful guide to faith and practice, to be treated with reverence and piety. These seminaries teach serious, hard-core Bible scholarship. They don't pander to piety. They are taught by scholars who are familiar with what German- and English-speaking scholarship has been saying about the Bible over the past three hundred years. ...
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the "historical-critical" method. It is completely different from the "devotional" approach to the Bible one learns in church. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)

In the article God and Sex you have an overview of the facts presented in Coogan's book. Not exactly revolutionary. Of course, he says those viewpoints were kind of nasty, especially for women and homosexuals, but everyone is entitled to his/her private opinions. He does express the view that the Bible should not be applied literally and he is against cherry picking biblical evidence for the conclusions one wants to draw. As any serious scholar, he draws a line between facts and opinions; he does not conflate them. It is mostly Bible exegesis, informed by some historical-critical approach, as in the authorship of the Pauline epistles, the population of Jerusalem in David's time, while archaeological evidence becomes prominent in his book only in respect to Jewish polytheism and God's wives. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

By "not exactly revolutionary" I mean: if you did read your Bible attentively, this book won't be a real surprise. Coogan cannot invent Bible verses which aren't therein. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Reopening the discussion through editing the article

I thought that the mainstream character of God and Sex (read the article for the abstract of the book) was already settled. Coogan is mainstream as a reputed scholar who does accurate and reliable scholarly work. I never implied that he would be a guru, priest or a religious authority to whom Catholics have to listen. I have read my Bible very attentively and I know that Coogan does real historical-critical analysis of the Bible, i.e. he renders the viewpoints of the Bible authors as the viewpoints of the Bible authors (I used the plural since he *proves* that the Bible is not always coherent when it discusses human sexuality, e.g. upon the brother-sister intercourse, which is seen sometimes as legitimate and at other times as illegitimate by different Bible authors -- this can be easily verified if you have a copy of the Bible and know at which verses to look). Naturally, he has his own viewpoint about the teachings of the Bible and does not make it a secret -- can he be blamed for that? He does not conflate his own opinions with the different views exposed by different authors of the Bible. In fact, he does not even conflate the views of different Bible authors, as if the Bible would have a monolithic unity. In doing that he does not depart one jot from the critical-historical method.

So, Coogan is not an authority upon what Catholics have to do, he is a very different kind of authority, namely a scientist of high international reputation, who contributed to numerous and important scholarly works about the Bible. In fact, I don't even agree with all what he says, e.g. with his attack on Finkelstein and Silberman's Bible Unearthed published in the Biblical Archeology Review. But scientists have a right to disagree with other scientists, since the nature of science lies in academical discussions from scholarly journals, i.e. in a dialogue among peers. One cannot do science without criticism. But in matters of what the Bible really says, I trust Coogan, in matters of how the Bible was copied I trust Bart Ehrman, in matters of the actual history of the Levant I trust Finkelstein and Silberman, since each of them has a different specialism. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Demonstrably false statement

"In current times, members of the Abrahamic religions sanction monogamous and committed heterosexual relationships within marriage." is demonstrably false: Silvio Berlusconi is a Christian and he does not buy the monogamous relationship stuff. Busted! Besides, there are homosexual Christians and Jews. The Bishop of Stockholm is a lesbian, so her church sanctions lesbian relationships. This is why I will remove it from the article. Besides, it is not verifiable, per WP:VER. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

How did Berlusconi get himself promoted to spokesperson for all Christians?

I said he is "a Christian" not "the Christian". You see, in order to prove that the sentence "all Christians believe in monogamous and committed heterosexual relationships" is false, it is enough to show that one Christian does not believe in that. It's falsification 101, perhaps you want to read the article about falsifiability. E.g. Christopher Columbus, a Catholic, was not sanctified because he was not married to his lover. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

While the heterosexual clearly falls, all require monogamous except Muslim.

And fundamentalist Mormon cults, the Family International and so on, including all Jews and Christians who indulge in extramarital affairs and/or polyamory although that's not their official dogma. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

This is cute organization. "Abrahamic." It is the first article I have seen which tried to lump half of humanity under one section. Judeo-Christian makes a bit more sense and can generalize to monogamous from that. Student7 (talk) 12:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

No, you cannot generalize from official dogma of mainstream Christianity to the behavior of all Christians. Humans don't work like that. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Besides the Bible not only that it approves of polygynous marriages, but it also regulates the rights of the first wife and of the first born male inside polygynous marriages. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but we are discussing today, not 3,000 years ago. Most mainstream Jewish and Christian religions favor monogamy. Yes, there are tiny exceptions (LDS renegades, for example). But tiny exceptions do not eliminate the fact that most Christians and Jews favor monogamy.

To allow trivial exceptions to dictate everything would prevent clear statements about anything on Wikipedia. Student7 (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, granted, no fringe movements are representative for mainstream religion. But its is a fact that in Romania 99.04% of the people are Christian according to the 2002 census, yet men usually want to get a lot of women in their bed (the more, the better), and unmarried cohabitation is frequent (3.8% of the population according to that census, while the real number of such relationships has been estimated to about 4.6% source). 81% of the Romanians have trust in the institution of marriage (source). These would mean that about 17-18% of the Romanian Christians do not have trust in marriage, although their official dogma is that marriage is sacred. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure where we are going with this, if anywhere. Orthodox Christians have spokespersons for their religion. The definition of "religion" does not state: "something that all practitioners believe and practice." Rather more like, "something that most adherents have trouble with and would like to practice and subscribe to, but is for some, always out of their reach, and for many, sometimes out of their reach."

Religion is not a matter of voting. Adherents can, and often do, vote with their feet. Teens and twenty-years olds usually walk out when they are using drugs, alcohol and sex. Romanians have teens and problems like anyone else.

There is no indication that any Romanian that practices cohabitation is also practicing a religion. Any religion. I am surprised that the cohabitation figures are so low. But what does that have to do with Christian Orthodox teaching? Student7 (talk) 20:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

About how many people involved in cohabitation are Christians, do the maths, it's not so complicated. You will get a minimum percentage of people involved in cohabitation, since less than 1% of the Romanians aren't Christian. 4.6-1=3.6. So, at least 3.6% of the Romanians are Christian and involved in cohabitation.

The demonstrably false sentence was not about the Abrahamic religions as such, but about the members (i.e. believers) of Abrahamic religions, i.e. about their real behavior and preferences as flesh and blood people. Of course, I agree, most of the theology produced by the Abrahamic religions in the past two thousand years sanctions marriage, but you cannot generalize this to the preferences of their members. There are pro-choice Catholics, although their official dogma is pro-life. You cannot generalize the viewpoint of the Pope to the preferences of all Catholics. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

If you are saying that the sentence "All Christians believe..." cannot be used, I agree. This is too general. But if you are saying that each and every Christian must be shown to not exhibit anti-Christian behavior, that is untrue. Both Orthodox and Catholics have an extremely lucid statement of belief, Catechism and canon law, that describes what a believer must believe in or do or both. These two groups constitute 3/4 of all Christians. A editor may say that the "Catholic church believes..." or the "Catholic Church teaches..." or even (I don't know why) "Adherents must believe..." That they don't, is quite beside the point. Like saying that jaywalking is okay in NYC because some people do it! Or, "not all people follow the law." That is true, but beside the point of a statement of fact. Jaywalking is still illegal, no matter how many people do it. Student7 (talk) 22:23, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You fail to notice the diversity of beliefs inside churches: the pro-choice Catholics are pro-choice theologically, not merely practicing it. They are advocating it as the norm for the Catholic Church. Of course, they are a dissident minority in that Church, but they still think they have to change things from inside, not by voting with their feet. There are believers who disagree with the norms proclaimed by the priests of their faith, as a matter of theology, not as a matter of being unable to fulfill religious duties. As an Adventist I used prostitutes, because I read conflicting views upon this issue in the Bible, and the Bible is the ultimate authority in matter of faith for all Adventists. So, if God could not make his mind up about the use of prostitutes, I felt that I was free to use prostitutes as a matter of theology (true belief), not as a matter of indulging in sins. The Old Testament makes it perfectly clear that it is ok to use prostitutes and Jesus never wanted to change a jot of the Old Testament. Therefore Saint Paul merely planted a contradiction in the Bible in respect to the use of prostitutes. He was clearly in minority among the Bible authors, that is why I disobeyed St. Paul and sided with the authors of the Old Testament. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I have just looked 1 Cor. 6:16 in the Nestle Alland: it seems that it is apocryphal, therefore there is no such thing as a biblical prohibition of the use of prostitutes, speaking of the original manuscripts of the Bible, i.e. of what Paul actually wrote. Such prohibition is only present in P11 and P46. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

If we look to the philosophies advocated by Catholics, like monks, scholastics and mainstream theologians, we find a very broad diversity of viewpoints: Platonism, Aristotelianism, realism, conceptualism, nominalism, neo-Platonism, hermetism, Christian cabala, empiricism, falsificationism and so on. E.g., the Big Bang theory was championed by a Catholic priest. So, it is highly misleading to assume philosophical unanimity inside a church. The same applies to theological unanimity: tradition is, as Gadamer says, the collection of successful innovations of the past. What is today mainstream theology appeared from a clash of theologies in the past. The same applies to theology seen in a synchronic perspective: today's theologians compete for shaping the mainstream theology of the future. With the exception of dogmas, everything else is open to discussion. Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose give the image that Catholic monks were allowed to discuss and advocate any idea, as long as it was not damaging for the Pope or the Catholic Church. With these exceptions, Catholics have freedom of speech and freedom of thinking what they please. The same applies to other confessions: as long as believers do not pose a threat to their church, they may advocate any theology they wish. Just because one believes that his/her place is inside his/her church, it does not mean that he/she would have to remain blind to the theological debates of today and of the past centuries. One is allowed to shop theological insights from theologians belonging to other churches. Membership of a church does not imply unanimity of mind. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

There may well be a "Jaywalking Society" in NYC. They are certainly free to debate whether people may walk against the light or in the middle of the street. They will still be ticketed today if they try to practice this and are caught. There is freedom to think. Freedom to act is restrained, not by vague "opinion" among Catholics and Orthodox, but by canon law. Various Protestants groups have some immutable laws themselves. Nevertheless, I can say "In NYC Jaywalking is illegal." It can be discussed. It just can't be practiced. This is often true in the traditional religions as well. Pro-choice can be discussed but it is a non-starter unless the proponent is prepared to prove that the pre-natal infant has no soul and no rights in the church. This is impossible to "prove" in light of other dogma. Therefore we can say that the Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches are pro-life. There may be "debates." But so what? Student7 (talk) 23:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

The understanding that "today's theologians compete for shaping the mainstream theology of the future" is philosophically true for the Protestant theologians. Catholic theologians, however, compete for shaping the mainstream theology of the Catholic Church in the future. The definition and distinctive quality of the Catholic Church is that it has a centralised and uniform orthodoxy. It is therefore possible to say what the Catholic Church does and does not sanction, with absolute impunity, irrespective of dissenting views within the church. What the Pope has declared ex cathedra, is the official doctrine of the church.

The same notion of centralised theology is true for some individual Protestant denominations, if they have declared it to be so in their own dogma, and in those cases it is similarly possible to state authoritatively that the policy of that church is a particular one, despite dissenting views from within.

This should not be revolutionary. It is quite possible to say, even of a democratic government elected by fewer than 33% of the nation, that the national policy is determined by that Government. The internal dissenting views in that nation (and even in that government!) are completely irrelevant to this statement of empirical fact.

Kevin Bennett ekv (talk) 01:09, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, an organization has a viewpoint, provided that it has a central (and a local) hierarchy and designated spokespersons. However, it is misleading to assume that all believers share such official viewpoint. About Catholic theology who had it right: Thomas Acquinas, Doctor of the Church, Aristotelian, or Pope John Paul II, who was an existentialist? Unless this is settled by official dogma, they may both be right inside the same church. If they're both right, they're in competition with each other. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:52, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Everyone is agreed that not all persons believe in anything anywhere about anything, even though they may belong to an organization who espouses a credo. That is agreed.

What doesn't seem to be agreed is that we can say definitively that "the Catholic church teaches/preaches/believes that..." when there is, indeed, canon law to that effect. (and also Orthodox and certain other Protestant groups). Not every person who is a Catholic does believe x. But if x has the standing of a canon or catechism, we can definitely say that the "Catholic Church believes x" even though Joe Doakes does not. His opinion is irrelevant to the Catholic Church (and others, as mentioned). More importantly, even if 99% of Catholics do not believe in x, and x has the standing of Church teaching, we can still say "The Catholic Church believes x." I wouldn't be surprised if someone (like yourself) were to qualify an article that said that with poll results. But it would still be the teaching (belief) of the Church, nonetheless. That is the way a top-down church works. Like a business with a boss! Student7 (talk) 22:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I did not oppose such idea. Again, the discussion was about the phrase "In current times, members of the Abrahamic religions sanction monogamous and committed heterosexual relationships within marriage." You may very well say that most Abrahamic religious leaders sanction these, but it is false that the members of the Abrahamic religions sanction these. You are entitled to say that the Catholic church sanctions marriage, but the idea that all Catholics sanction marriage is simply false, since Berlusconi is a Catholic and does not do it. My two cents are that the majority of Christians sanctions serial monogamy, but not pure monogamy. That majority would probably consist of adulterers by Jesus' definition. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:10, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Can we try to clear up one thing? Religions does not equal leaders does not equal members. None of them equal each other.

The bulk of Christian and Jewish religions (not "leaders" not "members") believes in monogamous relationships. This article does not concern itself with what "members" believe in unless they vote on credo periodically. Most don't. "Members" are free to choose whatever religion they wish. Most accept the credo. Most do not follow it. Religions hold people to a higher standard than they can follow. That is the nature of religion. If it were easy to follow, why bother with formalities? Go to church to be patted on the head?

It is the leaders job to announce/remind people of the credo. If they "vote" on credo, I suppose there is a new one to announce. But the religion is not the sum total of the members nor the leaders. It is not mathematics. It is religion.

We report official dogma here, not the aberrations. Student7 (talk) 23:55, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed about reporting official dogma. However, the discussed sentence remains false anyway you look at it, since it applied to members, not to official dogma. You have misunderstood my point. You are free to include in the article the official stance of the Catholic Church, but that phrase remains deleted since it did not discuss official dogma, but members' preferences. "The members of the Abrahamic religions" can be interpreted as "all members of the Abrahamic religions" and I have deleted such phrase because it was patently false. How difficult it is to understand that I have properly removed demonstrably false affirmations from the article? I did not add to the article anything about the official dogma of the Catholics or of any other Abrahamic religion. I simply noticed that a statement about the preferences of all members of the Abrahamic religions is false, and we may all agree that it is false, so it will remain deleted from the article, since it did not discuss official dogma. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It is incorrect to state that a religion teaches something it does not teach.

It would be okay to state the truth: that the Chritian and Jewish religions teach monogamy. It would be okay to state that x% of their members are divorced, or whatever. But saying that one person is not monogamous and therefore since 100% aren't, therefore "the religion" isn't, is untrue. If you can come up with reliable figures on percentage (or whatever) that are divorced (if that is your point), I think we can construct a correct sentence or two. Student7 (talk) 13:14, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I did not say that. I said that at least one Christian is not monogamous, therefore it is false that all Christians are monogamous. I have removed the false sentence which said that all Christians behave monogamously. That was my point. I was not discussing what religion teaches, I was discussing the obvious falsity of a sentence, as the reason for deleting it from the article. I agree that most of the Christian teachings side with monogamy (though not all the Christian teachings, since there are churches who learned to be tolerant in respect to unmarried cohabitation, even if this concerns their bishops, who may happen to be lesbians). Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:52, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Sex and Daoism (or Taoism)

Within Daoism (sometimes referred to as Taoism) is a very important aspect of this religion. It is commonly taught that procreation is the main goal of the lives of people, thus sex is very important. There are many deities and ritual practices that strictly have to do with sex. Some of these practices include having sex in various positions in specific settings to produce male or female heirs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.169.17.141 (talk) 07:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Challenged edit

Read for yourself: Michael Coogan at [2] does say what I said he says. I have rephrased his words, but I have kept his meaning. ~~Stating otherwise means calling me a liar, which is a personal attack.~~ Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Please be WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. Editor was criticizing material, not you, IMO. Student7 (talk) 17:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Assuming good faith should work both ways. That user has claimed that my edit was false and usually a man who publishes falsities is called a liar. In order to maintain the etiquette, I cancel the remark. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:26, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Quotes: "premarital sex by a woman was discouraged"; "Also, any child born to an unmarried woman would be fatherless--the Biblical term is "orphan"-- and so without either a male protector or any possibility of an inheritance, which was passed from father to son." Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:12, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Besides, if there was no requirement for men to avoid premarital and extramarital sex and since adultery, zoophilia and homosexuality were banned, how could they have premarital and extramarital sex, except by having it with women who were not married? It's logics 101. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:31, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

To make things clearer: it's Coogan who says that the Hebrew Bible has a word for such children, this is verifiable information from a reliable source; those children were defenseless and without property, this is what I meant by an inferior social position (property is part of one's social position); I did not say that they had a stigma, although if I remember well the Bible seems to support even such interpretation (referring to participation in cult rituals of the children born out of wedlock). It is true that Coogan does not make the later point, but neither did I. So, basically the source does say what it is purported to say. This is why I have restored the referenced information. Deleting referenced information often constitutes vandalism. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarification demanded

notice that this top-of-the-head interview with Coogan seems to disagree with Covenant, below, Exodus 22:16–17 which requires marriage. Maybe should be removed
— User:Student7

Prostitution was allowed, cf. God and Sex by Coogan (which is not top-off-the-head), so children born to prostitutes were considered orphans, also the father of a virgin was entitled to deny her such marriage, per the quoted Exodus verses, and intercourse with a woman who was no longer a virgin did not produce an obligation of marrying her. Adultery meant sleeping with the wife of another man. If a married man slept with an unbetrothed and unmarried woman, it did not constitute adultery. According to God and Sex, adultery meant breaching the property rights of a man over his own wives. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Even if we admit that those verses obliged men to marry virgins with whom they had sexual intercourse, in other places in the Hebrew Bible it is clear that there is nothing wrong with having sex with prostitutes. So, the Bible seems to have contradictory precepts (of course the prostitutes were no longer virgin). Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:17, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Entirely Rewritten?

I see nothing at all wrong with this article. In fact, I think it should be on the Good Article List."Selene Scott (talk) 18:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)"

the problem you all are having is the fact that the Bible does contradict itself and there's no way to change that. all that could be done is to name every contradiction to each rule, and that would make the article unreasonably long I think. I think the Article is Good and that someone should remove the Rewrite Entirely tag on it or you will wind up with a much worse or bias Article if someone should decide to take it upon themselves to rewrite it."Selene Scott (talk) 18:28, 31 July 2012 (UTC)"

These catchall articles are difficult to structure. Perhaps remove the "rewrite" tag and see if someone wants to say more about why it should be rewritten, giving specifics. Student7 (talk) 20:44, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Satanism

I erased the material because of small population. Another editor restored it saying there was from 10 to 20K in America and therefore worth retaining. 20k is .01% of the population. There must be thousands of religions with this small a population. Probably should set a threshold of 1 million which would still be only .3% or so. 3 million seems a bit low, as well.

Also please note that most of the "adherents" are transitory teen-aged boys attempting to annoy there parents/teachers, as the case may be. Few girls. When they grow up, they stop. Not really notable. Student7 (talk) 17:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

For anyone interested there's currently an RfC at WT:WikiProject Religion#RfC on weight given to religions that is related to the comment above (i.e. cutoff for small religions). ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas was a Doctor of the Church, but not a Church Father. He was simply born too late for that. Regardless to whatever he stated about masturbation, that was much later than the period discussed by the cited reliable sources. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Bibliography addition for section on Anglicanism

Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).Bates, S. (2004). A church at war: Anglicans and homosexuality. London: I.B. Tauris. Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).Vanderbeck, R., Andersson, J., Valentine, G., Sadgrove, J., Ward, K. (2011). Sexuality, Activism, and Witness in the Anglican Communion: The 2008 Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 101(3). Britajacobson (talk) 20:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Organization of the Page

I think that the way the article is organized is very distracting and not easy to follow. I suggest that the main points of each section should be bulleted out. Tessakirk (talk) 23:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions for add ins and clarification

I believe more information can be added about the Niddah and Mikvah in the Judaism section. A good way to give more concise information would be to add a portion about family purity laws. In addition, for the Quran section of the Islamic traditions, I do not understand what is meant by "believe men" and "believer women." If possible, some clarification could be useful for understanding what is meant by those phrases.Hfoust7 (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I think more information for the Mormon religion would be helpful to better understand that section of the page. I want to add more about women's sexuality and homosexuals in the Mormon church. I think that more information is needed in order to understand the religion's view on sexuality. Tessakirk (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

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Deuteronomic code

It appears clear to me that the consensus is to leave the Deuteronomic material (since the removal was contested and undoed by multiple editors). On the other hand, we could probably agree that it should ideally be supported by secondary sources too. Smatrah Invites us to discuss it here, but has not yet accepted to open this thread here despite multiple undo by other editors. I have reverted your deletion as well, please discuss it here before reinstating your removal, to avoid disruptive editing. —Paleo Neonate - 07:37, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

PaleoNeonate I have answered both on my talk page and original research board. That it is original reseRch so remove it as per Wikipedia guidelines. Sir Any senior editor do not have right to add original research if you want to add such disjointed bullet list of primary sources then allow also other pages to do so.you have readied deutronomic original research but have removed Islamic original research. A material such this disjointed bullet list was present on the islamic views on slavery which was removed by Eperoton by citing the same reason.Smatrah (talk) 07:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I have not removed any content, I restored the content you were deleting, which multiple editors agree should remain. Your material is another issue, but was removed in this edit. Restoring that is probably worth another discussion. The Quran is already there (primary sourced like the Deuteronomic, although the referencing style is clear). What you added appear to be the Hadith: if I look at it (i.e. here), it may be because I'm less used to these, but the referencing style seems unclear. We can request the input of other editors on if this should be included, as-is or in altered-form. I don't have a strong opinion about it personally. A question: why did you remove the Deuteronomic material after adding yours, which was not yet removed/contested? The claimed reason was that it was primary-sourced only, but so was your new material. Thanks, —Paleo Neonate - 08:21, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

paleoneonate issue is that why original research should be allowed to exist whether you add or i add when wikipedia guidelines and other pages do not allow.as for quran or hadith both are original research like deuotronomy . why we should discuss them separately.the point is that the primary sources in the form of disjointed bullet list are allowed or not?Smatrah (talk) 10:24, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Smatrah asked me to comment on this dispute. The Islam section clearly relies way too much on primary sources. Some of parts of it violate WP:PRIMARY more obviously than others, but it should be rewritten entirely based on non-primary sources. I'll tag it and put it on my to-do list.

The Bible sections are less objectionable at a glance because the paraphrase seems reasonably close and these sections make claims only about the text of the Bible, separately from discussions of Judaism and Christianity. However, that section should also be based on non-primary sources. I don't recall reading a RS on sexuality and the Bible, but I think it's safe to assume that sources on this topic aren't simply enumerations of rules. Eperoton (talk) 00:37, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

There are God and Sex by Michael Coogan and Unprotected Texts by Jennifer Wright Knust. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:13, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion

This article is a mess, and fast becoming a WP:COATRACK of uncited WP:OR and WP:PRIMARY. I suggest that it be limited to cited material from secondary and tertiary sources. That would entail taking an axe to a large part of the article, but as I said, it's an uncited mess of mostly primary OR, so that would be a good thing. Softlavender (talk) 01:52, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't object to some major trimming/stubbification of content with only primary sourcing. Eperoton (talk) 23:27, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Primary sources alone have the problem that we could not add any commentary, which should be supported by reliable secondary sources. Also, if the article was only a list of citations from primary sources, it would probably be considered an indiscriminate list or directory, which is also not acceptable. I agree that the current article is a mess. —Paleo Neonate - 05:18, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender, Eperoton, and PaleoNeonate: I've removed the lists for two reasons: first, prose is the default form of Wikipedia, and if we can't find sourcing to comment on things in a long list to the point where it can be weaved into the prose we shouldn't have it. Second, the vast majority of it is primary sourcing and it would be inappropriate to contain primary source lists from one religion and not others. If there is secondary and tertiary sourcing on the things contained here, we can add them into the text cited to them rather than directly to the respective scriptures. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:43, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that's a step in the right direction. Eperoton (talk) 22:27, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm not even sure where to start. What a mismash of interconnect and disconnected topics. Legacypac (talk) 20:38, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

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174.209.9.172

@174.209.9.172: In relation to this edit: I agree that a citation is needed. On the other hand, "everything exists": [3]. Groups have quote-mined, reinterpreted and sometimes altered scriptures to attempt to validate whatever ideology or point of view they may want to justify (including during the development of those old traditions, the selection of the canon, doctrinal debates at councils, etc). —Paleo Neonate – 21:49, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Split section

The Christianity section should be split out. It's very long and is extremely notable. I'm surprised this hasn't been done already. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs) 00:01, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Gay god section

I haven't seen any source of the sources in the section that calls Tu'er Shen gay god. I tried searching in Google I also didn't find any source that calls him gay god. SharabSalam (talk) 21:28, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Protestantism

Most protestant churches in Northern and Western europe and also some protestant churches in Nothern America and in Austraila/New Zealand have liberal views in sexuality. --178.11.6.228 (talk) 15:00, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Everything has to be sourced. You're not exempted. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:01, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

the passage to Protestantism in that article is incorrect and the opposite view is truth in most protestant churches in Northern and Western europe, in North America and in Australia/New Zealand. Most protestant churches today have a liberal view in sexuality --178.11.6.228 (talk) 15:03, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

So? Find WP:RS for your stance. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:04, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

--178.11.6.228 (talk) 15:12, 1 August 2020 (UTC) Here some more references:

Christianity on the sinful nature of sexual desire

@Pepperbeast: That's drawing a very long bow. Take it to the talk page

I wonder why the core of Christian views on sexuality is missing from the article. It is well-known that Christianity considers sexual drive to be inherently sinful. --Puszczanin (talk) 13:12, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

I've added this to expand our current materials. I think the issue is that not all Christina sects/denominations view sexual desire as "sinful" in the same way. We cannot call it a "core" belief. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks EvergreenFir. I agree. E James Bowman (talk) 05:58, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Hfoust7.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 23 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Swyellow, Daria Pyshnenko.

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^ Rev. Timothy F. Simpson Sex and the Liberal Christian: What the left-wing followers of Jesus think about the birds and the bees American Sexuality Magazine

[1] Rev. Timothy F. Simpson Sex and the Liberal Christian: What the left-wing followers of Jesus think about the birds and the bees American Sexuality Magazine

[1]