Monday, August 17, 2009

More Than A Body.

I read on notproud.com, an online confession site, about an atheist who was confessing his anger. The root of his anger, he claimed, was Christianity with its “stupid” teachings. What particularly irked this person was Jesus’ teaching on lust, or more specifically adultery. “If anyone has looked at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Being ignorant of how human beings function, the confessor described such a statement as being, among other things, “Unhuman.”

My first thought was, how can someone who sounds so dumb get it so right? Not looking at women with lust, and seeing them instead as human beings with value and worth far beyond their exterior is indeed “Unhuman.” In fact it’s supernatural. It is a supernatural gift, from God, given to those who believe in Jesus as trust Him for their daily walk. Based on simple observation of the men in our society, it’s easy to see that WITHOUT the Holy Spirit to guide them, many if not most men see women, real or fantasised as little more than a repository for their ejaculation. That is what’s considered normal by the writer of this post. And it’s not just him. In our society pornography is “normal” and accepted. Look at any magazine rack as you’re waiting in line at the grocery store and you’ll see that because sex has been removed from the context of a faithful relationship, all that is left for people to focus on is technique.

For men, fantasy relationships are often preferred over real ones. As C. S. Lewis said, “When these men say that they “want” a woman, a woman is exactly what they don’t want.” They are completely unable to relate to women in a real manner. A fantasy is as much as they can emotionally handle. What’s worse is that many women are willing to debase themselves in all manner of ways, simply in a desperate attempt to gain attention from men. And that too is NORMAL human behaviour because left to our original state, we use others and allow others to use us. We demean and destroy the true character and worth of other human beings, particularly women, for no other reason than to feed our lust.

Yes, this person was right-on about the teachings of Jesus coming from another dimension, a dimension of love, caring and respect - a dimension where those who are created in the very image of God are deemed to be worth more, far more than their external appeal.

6 comments:

PersonalFailure said...

Totally missing the point, dude. Yes, atheists agree that men should not be looking at women purely as objects of lust, and neither should women be doing the same to one another. (For that matter, homosexuals shouldn't be looking at members of their sex that way, either.)

What you are entirely missing, or ignoring, is that looking at your desired gender and thinking "ooh, yeah" is entirely human. That's just how we are, and it's not controllable. One can choose whether or not to act upon such a desire, but having the desire is not a choice.

Declaring that occasionally lusting is the same as actually going out and committing adultery is ridiculous. The goal, of course, is mind control. If I believed this bit of silliness, I would either spend all of my time trying to control my every passing thought, or I would be beholden to whomever says they can help me with this "problem".

For the record, my husband knows I think the occasional lustful thought about other men (ah, Naveen Andrews!), and I know he does the same with women. We're okay with it. He doesn't see women as bodies and I don't see men as bodies. And, neither one of us feels the need to apologize for being human.

Thesauros said...

Thank you. My point exactly.

EL said...

Hello, you recently left a comment on my blog entitled ‘Atheism is not a religion’. Your comment stated, "atheism is so a religion!" I have to ask you if you're not going to contribute in a civil way or give reasoning behind your comment please do not post one. I am looking for intelligent debate not unintelligible schoolyard comments. I do invite you back to actually read the post you commented on and essentially give the basis behind your comment. Thank you.

Link: http://idealisted.blogspot.com/2009/08/atheism-is-not-religion.html

Thesauros said...

Bugger off Demosthenes! I'm in a high mood today and I'm not going to allow the likes of you to interfre with my prosperity. So away with you - you swine. Be gone you cockroach and may you never cross the threshold of my palace again.

EL said...

If you were not looking for a response you should have not commented on my blog. Thank you for proving my point. Do grow up.

Thesauros said...

Oh really? Are those rules posted somewhere on your blog? I believe the space is reserved for something called "comments," not "discussion points."