Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

Jesus Christ made it perfectly clear that the sexual union of man and woman
in marriage is a holy estate blessed by God.

Thus there is very much a spiritual component to human sexuality.

That spiritual component is the specific reason that our expressions of
sexuality must be in accordance with God's commandments.

   Some of my first thoughts.

   My feeling is sexuality without sprituality is a non-sequitor. 
   If ones spirit is in pain sexuality will be crippled or nonexistant.

   Alot of that come from my life and experience.  

   Peace,
   Allison

    I seem to recall reading once that sometime in the 1800's, there was at
    least one religious sect, possibly of a quasi-Christian character,
    formed in some town in Midwest America whose singular characteristic
    was a belief that a spiritual experience could be had from the
    ecstasies of the sexual experience.  Obviously, this sect didn't last
    long in the puritanical climate that prevailed in America at the time.
    In fact, it was one of the more bizarre of the multitude of religious
    sects that came into being at the time.  Its system was similar in idea
    to some of the charismatic sects that date back from that era that use
    other physical methods to enter into an ecstatic states to achieve a
    what they believe is a spiritual experience.  One thinks of the Four
    Square Gospel Church (commonly called the "Holy Rollers"), for
    instance.

    I also recall reading about a Jewish sect that briefly came into being
    in the 1500 or 1600's in Europe with a similar sexual-based spiritual
    experience program.

    Mike     

    Yes, Pat (.0), I believe so.  To me it is honoring that spark of God in
    each other and an act of thanksgiving to the Creator.
    
    Ro
    

    RE:  .3
    
    There was indeed a Jewish sect in the late Middle Ages that had many
    unusual practices, reputedly including the sexual.  They were a
    millenarian sect who believed that the Messiah had already arrived in
    the person of one Sabbatai Zvi.  I just read that a small group of
    Sabbateans still lives in Turkey, but I don't know anything about their
    lives or beliefs.
    
    There is an esoteric branch of Yoga that uses sexual union as a
    stimulus for spiritual growth.
    
    L
     

    re: .3
    
    Sabbatai Zvi!  That's the guy I was thinking of.  Thanks.  It's nice to
    know that I wasn't hallucinating or something.
    
    Mike

    Chapter 7 of Song of Songs (a really hot chapter of the Bible, if I do
    say so myself) contains the following passage:
    
    	You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters.
    	I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches.
    
    Maybe it's just me, but that passage always reminds me of that line in
    the song "The Joker" by the Steve Miller band--the one that goes
    "Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree".
    
    -- Mike

    RE: .7
    
    Hang around here Mike....we need your "insight".
    
    Marc H.

    Why thank you, Marc.  :-)
    
    -- Mike

    From the Boston Globe 11/19/92:
    
    One More Reason to Live
    -----------------------
    
    Visiting a parish in Rome, Pope John Paul II proclaimed that in heaven
    there is no sex, says Time magazine.  He said residents don't miss it
    because 'they are like the angels.'
    

>    One More Reason to Live

    This is an example of the over emphasis on sexual pleasure that seems
    to permeate in our society today. It seems that sexual pleasure is
    often considered the highest and best pleasure imaginable. I find this
    attitude sad. Why? Not because I don't consider sexual pleasure a good
    thing but because I see this emphasis on sex devaluing other pleasures.
    I expect that being with God will be immeasurably better than sex ever
    is.

    		Alfred

    If the Pope believes that heavenly ecstasy will be better than sexual
    pleasure, then perhaps we can call this his Big Bang Theory of the
    afterlife :-)
    
    (Then again, perhaps this explains the Pope's virginity.  When he goes
    to heaven, it won't matter anymore that he'll be missing out on the
    fun--unlike most of the rest of the souls there, he won't even *know*
    what he had been missing!)
    
    -- Mike

    It's part of the clique's routine to make Roman Catholic beliefs the
    object of ridicule, this time it's assisted by the Boston Globe.
    
    I suppose I'm supposed to support the party line here and not object,
    but I do.  This belief is not specifically Catholic but a widely held
    Christian belief:
    
    Jesus taught and 20 centuries of Christian teaching have taught that
    there is no sexual intercourse in Heaven because in Heaven we will have
    life eternal and the old order of birth and death does not exist in
    Heaven.  It's one of the few things we know with certainty about
    heaven.

    All the more reason to get laid as often as you can while you live here
    on earth.  :-)
    
    -- Mike

    Mike,
    
    Has anyone ever told you that you are outrageous.
    
    
    
    (but please don't stop on my account)
    
    
    Patricia

    Patricia, you flatter me.  :-)
    
    -- Mike