Why is sex a sin?

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Apparently, yes. It seems that having consensual sex between two men was worse than raping a virgin/single woman, as the former deserved the death penalty and the latter didn't, according to Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 22, but then, I suppose consent had no meaning back then rather the concept of heterosexual marriage.

Exactly. If God didn't want us to enjoy it, why would he have given us that particular organ?

Though that argument of logic tends to get ignored by those determined to keep us ashamed and in the dark about our bodies and about love and enjoyment of life...

For reproduction only and the joyment of sex seem to have been seen as carnal and mundane, for some reason circumcision practices to men and to women have taken place.


well, there are some ultra-conservatives fundies that seem to believe that sex is carnal and sinful if not for the solely reason of bringing a baby.

The bible was probably written way before the female g-spot and clitoris was ever found in the belief that men enjoy sex more than women, etc.

I'm not stating any facts here, just an opinion

I couldn't agree with you more about the evils of that. What really sucks though, and humanity has only changed so much, a lot of people are just really ignorant and really dumb - they tend to be the reason why no rules set in place can really better the world because, they'll obey any rule but can't grasp the intent behind it.

When I talk about the things that are worth while though, I'm mostly speaking of the Ten Commandments, some of the broader things Jesus laid out in terms of how to view life and ourselves (though, John 6:39 still makes me close the book, not sure I'll ever get around that one). I do find myself trying to imagine what it would be like if the church patriarchs, or even Moses said "Here, I have a bunch of rules that you should follow, I thought them out and this would make the world a better place" - most likely reaction people would go from talking amongst themselves to giving him (in unison) the deer-in-the-headlights look, shrug it off at about the same time, and go right back to talking amongst themselves about whatever conversation he/they so rudely interrupted. Most people really don't care. The bible in many of its stories repeatedly say that about human nature. It talks about how a lot of people were even following Jesus because they were saying amongst eachother "Hey, this guy can make food appear!" and they were really just about getting freebees out of him. Most people don't get it, are simple, are out for themselves, and of course you'll have narcissistic and unbalanced people trying to use the bible and holy-rolling as a means to say they're better than everyone else, you'll have people like Laura Schlessinger who'd tell a lady to kick her honor-roll daugher out of the house because her soccer coach caught her and some of the teammates smoking a joint in the woods; its profoundly stupid and profoundly out of context because its like what you said - missing the forest for the trees.

The trouble we have though is these same people latch on to anything the same way, they latch on to liberalism the same way, they latch on to atheism the same way. I would love to think that genetic changes will somehow breed that out of humanity but even that's a lot to hope for and possibly, if everything is divinely inspired, if God talking to Moses and Jesus the living word of God is true - that would put it in an entirely different context; that these people are a test, both to us and as well their condition is a test for them to overcome. Regardless I don't hate them, its not their fault in many cases because I think its more genetic and I think they literally can't see things the same way. Still, they do a lot of damage, regardless of how we look at it.

I think, although I can't at this moment remember where I read it, that the extensive medical works of Hildegarde von Bingen (11th century) mention the clitoris. Still post-Bibilical, but earlier than you might think. Of course, not everything she wrote was accurate by modern medical standards - like most medieval scientists, she based her medical opinions on Aristotle, who thought a woman was basically a male who'd failed to develop properly. And Hildegarde was a nun with, one presumes, a purely theoretical interest.

Actually, until the 19C, it was widely acknowledged that women were more highly sexed beings. However, that was seen as a bad thing, because it meant poor innocent men constantly had to be on their guard against us! It was the Victorians who decided women were 'naturally' pure sexless beings. Not that either view is particularly constructive...and we're still suffering the fallout of both ways of thinking.

Well hypersexuality often does lead to promiscuityu and in the absence of paternity tests, female promiscuity was seen as a threat to the social order and for a very good reason. What specifically do you mean by men being "on guard" against women? Against them being unfaithful?

There is no logic to this because it is based on religion and since when has religion made sense

I think that you are on the right track except men knew that women enjoyed it but either
A. Could not be bothered giving pleasure, so banned it outside marrige
B. If they tried and couldnt give a woman pleasure it made them look bad, so they banned before marriage cos lets face it what woman in her right mind would spend the rest of her life with a dud root (for you linguistically challenged Americans root = f**k)

And as for the sex only within marriage crap, whats that bit in the Old Test where the girls jump their dying father. So sex outside marriage is bad but sex inside the family is ok

No.

No one's even attempted this one

My answer is "why not?" It was incidental. There have been and are plenty of cities with extremely seedy neighborhoods that haven't been burnt to cinders out of the wrath of God.

In short, you're indulging in observational selection.

I believe it is only the Catholic church that regards sex for recreational purposes as immoral. My denomination (PCUSA) encourages the use of contraceptives when a couple does not wish to have children (or does not want more children, as the case may be). But extramarital and premarital sex are still frowned upon, as are homosexual relations.

It's quite simple.

Take a survey of the strength of people's sexual appetites.

Observe correlation with dipshittery.

Even homosexual relations are becoming more accepted by the PCUSA (although there's still contention, it's far less outright opposition than other churches)

At the very least, for my church, we tend to place less emphasis on the book of Leviticus (I don't even remember hearing a scripture reading from it at church in my lifetime, and I attend nearly every week)... More often the message is taken from the Gospels where Jesus is far more concerned with things other than the book of Leviticus. Yes, He did say "I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill", but He also said that "you should love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind" and "you shall love your neighbor as yourself", indicating that those two lines are way more important than the book of Leviticus. Also, when some townspeople caught a woman committing adultery, which according to Exodus warrants a penalty of stoning to death, Jesus said "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Elsewhere, Jesus also mentions that "even the prostitutes and tax gatherers are entering the kingdom of Heaven".

I, a practicing christian, am still disappointed to this day in people that can't shake the thought that Christianity isn't about stopping the homosexuals or such sex related laws...

This