Is masturbation evil?

July 29th, 2007 • 1 comment chatter, confusion

Culled from the 1% (up from 0%, mind you) of reading worthy links I see on Digg everyday, someone posted on Yahoo Answers asking if masturbation is bad for you and if they were going to hell. This is an obvious hoax but if it’s not, “wow” is all I have to say.

Written from a fear-of-God perspective, it’s interesting to see the responses given to this question. While very few recognized this as a hoax, most respondents said masturbation is OK, obviously. However, it’s interesting to note the Christian responses:

Easy big fella. Its as natural as breathing which means God knew we would do it when he made us. So lighten up and enjoy your special moments alone. All the rest of us do.

Last I checked, my parents “made” me, not some perverse godhead.

john you are fine that is a natural reaction to discovering yourself and god does not judge you by the bad things you do you are rewarded by the good things you do so relax.

(God does judge the bad things you do, it’s called “sin” and in this case, it’s most likely fueled by lust.)

Lol its ok, masturbate is not a sin in christan view and its a normal part of life, i started masturbate when i was…um 14 and i often get disgusted with my self but any ways, its normal, ever one has the experanice in their life time, even your church’s pastor, they just dont ever talk about it

“we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15-16 NKJV).

Wow. Let me explain. I’m 27 and everyone I know has masterbated @ some point in your life. No you will not be condemed to hell and yes you are completely normal so you will not have to worry about having a abnormal life or girlfriend or whatever. Women as well as men find that masturbating is a sense of relief and a whole lot safer than having sex with someone every time the urge strikes. YOu are very normal dear and theres nothing to worry about.

I guess those three haven’t read their Bibles in quite a while:

Gen.38:9-10
And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.

God wants you to have as much sex as humanly possible but only to procreate and only with the person you’re married to, if you believe in that sort of thing. I read this Yahoo Answer twice before I even wrote this post up and I’m utterly flabbergasted by the sheer amount of fear portrayed. This kid — tossing aside the fact that it’s probably a hoax — is scared out of his wits about doing something that I’m pretty sure everyone does or has done in their lifetime. He’s terrified of being plummeted to Hell for a sin less noteworthy than the lascivious activities being played out by the big evangelists around the country.

Personally, I’m more worried about the atrocious spelling kids these days think is acceptable than what’s going to happen to me if I decide to rub one out.

Who were the Kenites?

May 22nd, 2007 • 26 comments christianity, confusion

Just who are the Kenites? Getting a concise answer is actually very difficult. I was proposed this question during a discussion between a Christian and myself. Amazingly, the Bible offers little to no help at all and this is one of the few pieces of literature they’re ever mentioned by name. Being a non-theist I wanted to know a little bit about their origin in history and if they were ever a significant force in the world. Well, to answer the latter question up front, not really. I also wanted to find out why this particular person thought they were the spawn of my dear Satan.

So I started out on finding out about who the Kenites might be and where they’re from. The Kenites were a small tribe of Palestine but where they came from before that is practically unknown so I will stick with this viewpoint. They were a tribe of southern Judah and Palestine that were assimilated, by the revered King David, into the tribe of Judah. This helped seal their fate as “children of God”. This is where there is some controversy between Christian thought. According to Scripture, they’re a peaceful people whom are typically related to — or synonymous with — the Midianites. The Midianites were always held in a lofty light, having been peace-loving and Moses’ father-in-law Jethro was a Midianite (with some speculation that Moses was also a Midianite). This said, if Moses were a Midianite and if Kenites were another name for those from Midian, Moses would not be an evil and vile person would he? The latter part of that sentence brings me to the over-the-top and bizarre counterpoint to everything stated in Scripture: Kenites are the spawn of Satan. Yep, they’re descendants of Cain and thus, the world-bound demon spawn of Satan and all that is evil. This is the sole view of one right-wing, crazy, and seemingly racist “preacher” Arnold Murray of his own cult church the Shepherd’s Chapel. Before I even began wanting to believe a Christian this crazy could be believed, I consulted a reverend’s wife who just happens to be my sister. She confirmed what I’d read about his insane views of Orthodoxy and Christianity in general. Going off what he espouses to be Gospel, I tried to understand the etymology of the word Kenite in both Hebrew and English and why he would think what he says. The Hebrew translation of the word kenite would be Qayin which is the name Cain in early Hebraic text. As is the word Kajin and the Greek would be Kain. OK, so Murray might be onto something with the transliteration of the name but the word kenite itself also translates to “smith” so they could have been metalsmiths and not some blight upon the world.

Murray’s views are where he completely separates himself from Christian thought and his own bog of oddity. In fact, in apparent Christian form, he blasts any view other than his own:

Kenites

What about the use of the word Kenites? It is a Hebrew word that has only one meaning, “sons of Cain.” It does not mean Judah. The word Kenite cannot be translated Judah and is never used of Judah. Anyone saying that I use the word to describe Judah is not telling the truth; it would be a lie, because I have never said this.

Wow, someone got offended pretty easily. Now, we have to understand that he used the “original scriptures and documents” to formulate his propaganda orthodoxy. So why do many people translate the word so much differently than he? I think it’s because he’s insane and profoundly racist — based on other things told to me by members of the Shepherd’s Chapel.

With the brief history of the Kenites I’ve presented, why is there such a schism in Christianity over who they were? Since they’re almost solely mentioned only in the Bible, I’d figure it would be pretty cut and dry who they were. I simply chalk this up to another reason why Christianity is a bizarre cult that has no end. Rarely have I ever seen something so studied and laid before us with so many different opinions and ideas about the exact same source material.

Being nude is a loss of dignity?

May 6th, 2007 • 3 comments christianity, confusion, intolerance

As I was reading through my feeds tonight, I saw that Sean Prophet had posted up an interesting piece on a photograph of 18,000 nude participants in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square and how the Church sees it as a loss of human dignity. From a photographic standpoint, getting this many people together for a single shoot is simply amazing. I know from shoots I’ve been on in the past, getting one person (the model) to cooperate is difficult enough let alone another 17,999 people. But this is not what struck me as truly amazing.

Older people and clergymen see it as an offense against the Church itself and a deplorable act for people to be publicly seen nude. Gasp! I then remembered a quote from Genesis:

2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Adam and Eve were not shy about their nudity. It’s not like they were the only ones around either as God had just created beasts of the earth and beasts of the air just before he created Adam. Now, here’s Adam and Eve sitting around, stark naked in front of a whole host of animals and they do not care and I highly doubt the animals cared either. So is the Church saying it’s okay to be nude around animals but not other humans? The Bible is filled with passages of various people being very nude:

1 Samuel 18:1-4
The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. … Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

Isaiah 20:3-4
And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

Mark 14:51-52
And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

I randomly selected these three passages, there is no rhyme or reason to their order. According to the Bible, it’s quite alright to be naked if you want to be. It does not matter if it’s in front of men, slaves, or even prophets. So how is being nude a loss of dignity in any sense? Biblically, it’s okay. Societally in Mexico, it’s not okay it seems. So if the Bible is the word of God as scribed by men, aren’t the clergymen committing blasphemies by charging people with being less than dignified or ridiculing them by pointing fingers when they see someone naked? When did prudishness become bedfellows with the Church?

Historically, people were not so bothered about being nude around each other. In Rome, it was quite accepted and encouraged. This is true of much of ancient Italy itself from the Romans to the Spartans to the Cretes and Minoans. Native and Meso Americans were frequently nude in public religious rituals and elsewhere. I even think original baptisms as performed by John the Beloved required you to be nude as to cleanse not only the spirit but the entire body of past transgressions. Ben Franklin was even a proud supporter of “air baths” and nudism in general. So when did society deem being nude was deplorable? I have no idea really but I’m sure it had something to do with the Puritans and other fundamentalists.

And I thought her previous cards were confusing…

March 27th, 2007 • confusion, indexed, web

I love reading indexed. It’s fun seeing how Jessica Hagy can so easily reproduce popular media in the most simplistic of forms. Well, it’s usually pretty simplistic but not today. She went crazy again and made a complex and lovely representation of different emotions and made another web. This one’s full of some good puns (see EF as mentioned in the comments) and overall good fun.

Subscribe to her feed, you’ll laugh with each new one, I guarantee it.