Although anonymity is present we should also remember our words are not meant for gossiping or sharing intimate information about our spouses. It comes across as disrespectful and arrogant.
Many chapters of Wisdom of Sirach come to mind.
Help me understand the deal with porn.
- Thread starter Luna Novem
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Although anonymity is present we should also remember our words are not meant for gossiping or sharing intimate information about our spouses. It comes across as disrespectful and arrogant.
Many chapters of Wisdom of Sirach come to mind.
Agreed.
Excellent, I'm grateful for your comment and reference to section to read
This thread has a very good discussion, but I think one point that gets lost on the porn subject is the same mistake I see men make all the time.
Porn is just a fancy word for whoring. Don't call it porn. Call it internet whoring, online whores, whore stars of the internet, etc. Use biblical language and suddenly the acceptability and discretion of "porn" melts away. If pornhub was named whorehub huge numbers of men, especially Christian men, would suddenly realize they are engaging in whoring which is a major sin (for many, many reasons) that leads straight to hell.
As a man, you don't watch porn for the same reason you don't buy hookers. Lusting after whores with your eyes is not much different to God than actually purchasing that whore for yourself.
Language has power. Biblical language is hardwired into the Christian mind after thousands of years to the point where people think whore is a swear word, when in fact it is the word that best conveys the meaning from ancient Hebrew.
www.etymonline.com
It's derived from an old word the Germanics who conquered Rome used; it has the greatest connection to the original intent of the authors of the Bible, which is why the oldest English translations of the Bible use the word whore, whoredom, whoremonger, etc.
Porn is just whores, whores lead to hell, there are no exceptions. Purchasing sex directly with money is absolutely revolting to God, it is far easier for God to forgive unwed lovers who copulate out of desire, than someone who sees sex as just another avenue to obtain or be obtained with money.
Once a sin gets mixed in with money, its sinfulness is amplified immeasurably, thus whoring is exceptionally dangerous and "porn" doubly so due to it's misleading name designed to lull men into a false sense of security. "It's free!" As men indirectly fund an industry that looks for poor, or broken, women to whore their souls into, men unwittingly whoremonger their own souls in exchange for cheap masturbation. It's 100% evil and should be banned the same way normal whoring is banned everywhere but Nevada.
Porn is just a fancy word for whoring. Don't call it porn. Call it internet whoring, online whores, whore stars of the internet, etc. Use biblical language and suddenly the acceptability and discretion of "porn" melts away. If pornhub was named whorehub huge numbers of men, especially Christian men, would suddenly realize they are engaging in whoring which is a major sin (for many, many reasons) that leads straight to hell.
As a man, you don't watch porn for the same reason you don't buy hookers. Lusting after whores with your eyes is not much different to God than actually purchasing that whore for yourself.
Language has power. Biblical language is hardwired into the Christian mind after thousands of years to the point where people think whore is a swear word, when in fact it is the word that best conveys the meaning from ancient Hebrew.
whore | Search Online Etymology Dictionary
The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. It is professional enough to satisfy academic standards, but accessible enough to be used by anyone.
www.etymonline.com
It's derived from an old word the Germanics who conquered Rome used; it has the greatest connection to the original intent of the authors of the Bible, which is why the oldest English translations of the Bible use the word whore, whoredom, whoremonger, etc.
Porn is just whores, whores lead to hell, there are no exceptions. Purchasing sex directly with money is absolutely revolting to God, it is far easier for God to forgive unwed lovers who copulate out of desire, than someone who sees sex as just another avenue to obtain or be obtained with money.
Once a sin gets mixed in with money, its sinfulness is amplified immeasurably, thus whoring is exceptionally dangerous and "porn" doubly so due to it's misleading name designed to lull men into a false sense of security. "It's free!" As men indirectly fund an industry that looks for poor, or broken, women to whore their souls into, men unwittingly whoremonger their own souls in exchange for cheap masturbation. It's 100% evil and should be banned the same way normal whoring is banned everywhere but Nevada.
You're mincing words a bit and then building an argument based on a false equivalency. Pornography is not the same as whoring, and it's not equivalent to lust either. It means a graphic depiction intended to sexually arouse.
I could almost give you the legal definition from memory. I was on a federal grand jury for over a year, and we heard a bunch of child pornography cases. Every single time they'd read us the definition of what pornography was, because defining terms is a necessary part of debate and right judgment.
I don't think so. And if you were brought up in the church at all, or in a strict home, "porn" is actually a pretty bad word, I'd say worse than "whoring" which we just don't use that much today. Maybe that's your point, to bring it back into common parlance for effect? Ok, but it's just a word. The underlying issues are still the same, the instincts and hormones of men are not going to be different just because you use a different word. I predict zero men would "suddenly realize" anything just because the vocab changes. They already realize what they are doing is wrong.
In terms of consequences, I'd say the latter is more egregious. If David had lusted over Bathsheba but not sought her out, things might have gone differently. "And if all of this had been too little, I would have given you even more".
But the root issue is that we act without regard to God's will for us - knowing that he has our best interests in mind, but taking matters into our own hands to get what we want.
If banning prostitution worked, you wouldn't have to use a qualifier like "normal" to describe it
But that's another conversation.
Contemporary legal definitions are irrelevant. It's only the eternal spiritual definitions that matter when it comes to salvation of the soul.
This is false and easily proven wrong by simply saying the words out loud in general public. The reaction you'll get is immediate and people start getting defensive almost right away, proof that the word whore caries more power.
Do you not understand what the Master taught, "He who lusts with his eyes has committed adultery in his heart?" The fact that David lusted for Bathsheba was all it took. Once the lust occurs, God knows the man will committee to sex if he can do so. Thus to God, there is little difference between lusting and actual sex. In king David's case, being an all powerful king, it was easy to satisfy his desires.
If banning prostitution worked, you wouldn't have to use a qualifier like "normal" to describe it
Correct - there is a difference between visual whoring and normal whoring, but the distinction is mostly legal and not spiritual. God is not mocked or fooled. God knows exactly well that men who fantasize over whores would gladly take the chance to sex them if they were given the chance. Thus if we can agree that physical whoring is wrong, it takes little logic to realize visual whoring is nearly as bad.
In this way Satan can get souls for cheap - he doesn't even need a real live woman to tempt men into hell, he can just present God with the evidence easily and quickly.
"Look at how much these men lust for whores, what proof more do you need that their souls belong to me?"
I fear modern porn may have condemned an immeasurable amount of men's souls to hell - pray for God's mercy.
You're mincing words a bit and then building an argument based on a false equivalency. Pornography is not the same as whoring, and it's not equivalent to lust either. It means a graphic depiction intended to sexually arouse.
I could almost give you the legal definition from memory. I was on a federal grand jury for over a year, and we heard a bunch of child pornography cases. Every single time they'd read us the definition of what pornography was, because defining terms is a necessary part of debate and right judgment.
I don't think so. And if you were brought up in the church at all, or in a strict home, "porn" is actually a pretty bad word, I'd say worse than "whoring" which we just don't use that much today. Maybe that's your point, to bring it back into common parlance for effect? Ok, but it's just a word. The underlying issues are still the same, the instincts and hormones of men are not going to be different just because you use a different word. I predict zero men would "suddenly realize" anything just because the vocab changes. They already realize what they are doing is wrong.
In terms of consequences, I'd say the latter is more egregious. If David had lusted over Bathsheba but not sought her out, things might have gone differently. "And if all of this had been too little, I would have given you even more".
But the root issue is that we act without regard to God's will for us - knowing that he has our best interests in mind, but taking matters into our own hands to get what we want.
If banning prostitution worked, you wouldn't have to use a qualifier like "normal" to describe it
It's whoring from a distance. Recorded.
Exactly. This is evidenced by the fact that young women have been known to wear shirts that say "porn star" on them - imagine them wearing clothes that say "whore". Or that fact that being seen as looking like a porn star may be seen as desirable to impressionable young women, but they wouldn't take as a compliment being told that they look like a whore.
The language used to describe these whores - "porn star", "adult model" - gives off the impression that it is desirable, or at the minimum acceptable. True, to people that grow up in a family that is not "strict" or Christian, but still.
I don't have any proof, so it's entirely my opinion, but I would think the vast majority of people that have ever lived would not have distinguished a difference between a whore and a whore happens to have an audience (or perhaps having an audience would have been even more looked down upon, as I said in a previous post, back then even the harlots were covered up).
As a teen I genuinely believed that the people in porn were prostitutes, and was shocked when I found out otherwise (legally, at least). That was around the time when the mainstream media began to glamorize it - I remember some interview on Fox when I was in high school with a very popular well-known whore. The takeaway was supposed to be that they're smart and "empowered". I knew girls that wanted to do that, and guys that thought it was a token of their manhood to date someone like that. Imagine them feeling that way about a whore!
Incidentally, I've been referring to them as whores for years, even before becoming a Christian, and been corrected by both males and females. They either chastised me outright, or "pretended" to not know what I was talking about.
Language is powerful. All the policing of language and editing of the dictionary that's been going on recently is proof of that.
Law is not irrelevant, but as recent history very eloquently shows, it is eminently open to manipulation, especially in a so-called "democratic" society. In fact, most proponents of sexual immorality typically do not care about the philosophical/spiritual aspect and concentrate all their efforts on judicial activism, whose goal is to obtain various sorts of legal permissions for sexual immorality (permissions which are called "rights" by everyone, but that's a complete misnomer. A "right" refers to something which is right and proper, and is about justice and fairness).
Indeed, but that's hardly sufficient. In fact, most of corrupted legal activity today consists in accepting total absurdities (like "Porn is a free-speech issue", "the man/woman distinction is arbitrary and societal etc") and then being very careful and rigorous about irrelevant details. Straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel, as our Lord would say.
The great (French) lawyer and modern law historian Eric Delcroix has written that in today's corrupt West, the usual activity of professional judges consist in doing exactly what all their training has taught them to absolutely avoid. Miss the point in a dissertation in Law school and you will fail the exam, but if you fail to miss the point in a case involving privileged groups and new "rights" you're in deep trouble and you will be persecuted by the media and pression groups.
I am surprised to see such a nonsensical cliché defended by an user labelling himself "Orthodox" (and therefore Christian).
Sorry to correct you on that one, but instinct and hormones are not the reason some male CHOOSES to visit a certain kind of website or buy a certain kind of book/movie.
An instinct is not the reason someone CHOOSES to satisfy it. It is even less the reason someone chooses highly artificial visual helpers to achieve that goal.
And hormones are a biological phenomenon accompanying arousal among other things. If you claim they actually cause arousal you 1) need to prove it and 2) still need to find what causes hormones and hormonal activity.
@NotaBene calls himself Protestant, not Orthodox.
Apologies for the slip, too late to edit my post now unfortunately.
Words that don't correspond to reality acts like wizard spells. But rewriting morality and, cultural values. Call things by their true names and like mathematics proper results can happen. Confucianism calls this the "Rectification of Names"
Rectification of names - Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
The reason Newton was able to formulate his mathematics is by corresponding them to true and accurate observations.
Or inversely, to call things by their false name will ensure the opposite.Words that don't correspond to reality acts like wizard spells. But rewriting morality and, cultural values. Call things by their true names and like mathematics proper results can happen. Confucianism calls this the "Rectification of Names"
Rectification of names - Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
infogalactic.com
From the link:
"This basic yet powerful precept has served as a means for the toppling and reforming of dynasties. In today's society, the rectification of names is being used popularly with government decisions."
Not to get too conspiratorial - as I admit I'm prone to getting - but it makes perfect sense, in the context of this thread, that to call these whores by a false, glamorized, "positive sounding" name had a massive impact and contributed to the upheaval of society.
I'm thinking back to the early 2000s, when I was a teen. It could have to do with being a teen as opposed to a child, but at some point I noticed that everything was being sexualized, almost as if "they" (not that I knew at the time there was such thing as "they") wanted everyone to exist in a constant state of lust.
These whores were not just getting interviewed on prime time television - their images were being plastered in mainstream stores at the mall, they were being used in ad campaigns for various products, voice acting in video games, appearances in music videos. It was a precursor of how nowadays rainbow coalition themes are forced onto everyone nonstop, unless one takes extra precautions to avoid. Actually, it's also a direct precursor to the normalization of the rainbow coalition, in my opinion. Acceptance of degeneracy breeds degeneracy.
Perhaps I have too high an opinion of people, but had it been made clear that whores were being used as a replacement of actual models, I like to think that as a society we wouldn't be where we are now.
I'd like to imagine sexuality as fire. Dangerous but useful and beneficial in the right circumstances like how fire provides light and heat for various uses. The situation with sexual promiscuity is that it functions like a fire with no barriers. Hence it begins to consume all around them with all the God given fuel that we all have that fuels it.
As this phenomenon overstimulates our senses. It also dulls our senses of pleasure(as proven by the website yourbrainonporn.com) and consumes the energy budget given to this phenomenon. Our sensual experience paradoxically gets weakened.
This also paradoxically gives rise to greater asexuality as the fuel that would have fueled such a phenomenon is consumed beyond replenishment:
Asexuality: The ascent of the 'invisible' sexual orientation
Long in the shadows, asexuality is finally becoming increasingly visible. It could help young people find themselves and their identities, and change the way we think about sexuality.
www.bbc.com
In marriage this fire is far less all-consuming and likewise would consume less fuel and in addition the fact God has designed such a phenomenon to be enjoyed in such a context would allow easier and better replenishment. This allows sexuality to be more sustainable comparatively in marriage in terms of enjoyment and so on. As compared to the constant sensation-seeking without limits that must continually grow to sustain itself.
This is why perversion gets sought after. Because of the promise of that fuel that fuels that all-consuming fire. But it is never enough.
Ironically our Lord himself likely has the sharpest senses and the greatest sensual experiences out of us all. Because of his avoidance of sin.
In regards to the opposite. Its obvious we cannot live without fire. Modern technology wouldn't be possible, neither would the various uses that allow us to live and not die. Fire needs to be at certain strength to be useful too.
What is evident how sin is akin to cancer or parasite that needs to consume Good. Sexual lust and gluttony wouldn't exist without piggyback off of otherwise good inclinations whilst consuming those formerly good inclinations until it brings death.
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I never said it was, but it's a necessary beginning for meaningful discussion, especially if people have a different definition of words in mind and throw them around. Christians do this all the time, using words to sound smart but being unable to define them. I'm very guilty of this, but I'm starting to notice it more.
Even use a word like "forgiveness" and most people can't define it. This is strange to me considering how important a concept it is biblically, and how often we use the word.
In any case I did not find it helpful to equate "pornography" with "whoring". I'm sure there are similarities (and maybe a good point somewhere), but I don't like equating things without a careful analysis of each word.
Granted, I only brought up the legal thing because of my experience on the grand jury, and how they were very careful to define words so that we could make right judgments. I was not making a commentary about the legal system. If I was, I'd tell you how I got OFF the grand jury
This is a huge topic by itself, one I'm very interested in lately. The Greek word epithumia means a desire, lust, longing, urge, passion. These are not bad things to have - everyone has them, and I believe everyone has the same ones, deep down at a base level, which is why God appeals to them all over scripture to motivate us.
So I'd contend that "instincts", or more precisely our God-given desires, are the underlying reasons we choose to do anything. Of course that doesn't mean that all choices are good, but that's another topic.
This is an example of what I was saying above. Growing up we just used "hormones" as a word to mean "the sum total of sexual urges in a person". But I should not have used it without clarifying.
Rob Banks
Pelican
So we did not live without modern technology for millennia?
Do you think it is mere coincidence that this age of atheism and immorality just "happens to coincide" with the age of technological development?
Christianity is the reason for technological development. Technological development is the rising water that raises all boats. What you see today is no longer technological development, but technological hoarding and corruption. That's why it seems like technology has seemed to be "frozen" for a few years now; it's just incremental changes instead of seismic shifts that generally favor decentralization like 3D printing was. And that's when they're actually improving on the tech. For the most part, they're just trying to shift technology to a more centralized form, so I don't really consider something like moving to the "cloud" as a technological development, but a lateral technological shift to centralized control.
All technological development, on the other hand, always initially favor the commoners before they get (((regulated))) to hell.
Rob Banks
Pelican
If this were really true, then I would have to become anti-Christian.
I don't think this is true.
Maybe certain Protestant sects are the driving force behind technological development, but not Christianity as a whole.
I doubt Christ would have advocated for manipulating the Earth and our environement -- God's creations -- to the point they are beyond recognition, simply for our own convenience and comfort.
I think we're just gonna have to agree to disagree, though. I don't expect to convince you to see things the way I do, and I don't intend to get into a debate.
Why are you, a Christian married man, arguing (defending) pornography as not modern day whoredom?
Whoredom is the practice of harlotry (Family Bible edition 1977).
Harlotry is coarse or ribald speech and/or action - obscenity and vulgarity of an unprincipled or immoral woman (Webster’s third international unabridged dictionary 1976).
Is sexual immorality not just satisfying the flesh?
Does it have to be said: no married Christian man should want his wife to perform in harlotry (“slut” behaviour that defiles the marriage bed). And no married Christian women practicing in sexual immorality should be “training other women to be better wives.”
Sounds like secular behaviour.