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Are today's liberal views on sexuality compatible with spirituality?

We already know they are not compatible with religion but is there a trend to "modernize" religion to suit today's ideas about sexuality?

This depends of course on what faiths you speak of.

I'd love to hear your views!!

Sx is evil

Evil is sin

Sin is 4given

So Sx is in

nice play on words :

The big 3 of course -Christianity, Islam and Judaism....


You reading up on them before you post your answer?

Well according to most religions, sex aside from the purpose of procreation is a weakness of the flesh and one should at least try hard to overcome that weakness.

According to today's general views on sexuality, sex is healthy, lack of sex may lead to health problems so even if one is not in a committed relationship, there is nothing wrong with healthy sex (hope I don't have to state the obvious here like protected, respecting one's self blah blah blah).

So if someone is seeking to attain new heights of spirtuality, is it therefore necessary that they adapt to more fundamentalist ideals about sexuality? If they continue certain sexual practices while on a path to spirituality is that journey doomed? Are they a hypocrite?

Do most people that practice various religions ignore their religion's views/teaching about sexuality or do they tell themselves that those views/teachings don't apply today?

I've seen lots of people get "saved" and the make this complete lifestyle change, so drastic that the changes are rarely long term. They stop partying, stop dressing sexy, casual sex is out of the question because they are saving themselves for their spiritual mate. When they give up on those things they either stop their commitement to the church or they often continue to follow the church even tho they readopt their old lifestyle. Is that hypocritical?

Cool, so sex is my religion....let us now pray :

Nah It's just that those three faiths have conservative views on sexuality. And I'm not in the mood to go there today

So forget about them for now

How does your spiritual path affect your views of sexuality if at all. Are they completely compatible? Do you feel that your spirituality has an bearing on your sexuality? (and i know you're in a relationship, suppose you werent for the sake of this one..no easy outs lol).

my 'religion' invented Kama Sutra..

i don't like outs anyways!!!


Sexuality in this society is viewed as a negative because it's twisted and contorted in so many ways. from young ages, we're taught not to worry about sex and that it's for adults, yet it's thrown in your face on every level.

It's taken me close to 10 years to figure out how the sexuality of an individual can be link to there spirituality. The situation is indeed realtive to the individual, however I'd like to wager that a person who understands themself spiritually has a very good understanding of there sexuality and how they view themselves sexually.

This is perhaps the most sensitive aspect of any discussion dealing with religion. The question, however, is not so much whether there can be spirituality in sexuality. The question is how are we going to remarry the two.

One of the principal reasons why I have rejected all religions is because they are all, as I call them, bigoted, male-centred, murder cults. A couple in particular can be given the further label as sterility cults, as feminist writer Merlin Stone has done. Perhaps because Xianity has been spread thru all corners of the globe with the travels of the Euro is why the perceptions and prejudices regarding inter-gender relationships, sex and sensual pleasure appear to be universal. It is certain that since it is the patriarchal Euro who has written much of the history why most of us believe that the two are all but mutually exclusive terms and that it has always been like this. The reality is that in the West and for that matter in places where the people are influenced by Islamic and Hindu teachings, there is tremendous schizophrenia with regard to the question of sexuality which in turn, is inextricably tied in to some very ancient ideas regarding women.

What I’m saying is that to better answer the question of sex and spirituality, one must have a proper knowledge of what certain societies were like prior to the incursions of the ‘revealed’ religions of the West (Judaism, Xianity and Islam). The picture that emerges is quite different from what one would expect and very interesting.

Prior to the spread of patriarchy, many societies – including most of the societies Africans and Indians in the Diaspora can trace their ancestry – celebrated sex and sensual pleasure as yet another medium to understanding the divine. These were almost all agrarian cultures that were characterised by reverence for what is called the Divine Feminine principle. The rise of patriarchal cultures of the north ushered in the identification of shame and guilt with sex and sensuality. This phenomenon was tied in to peculiar Eurasian – which comprised of primarily nomadic, militarist tribes – cultural contempt for women on account of their perceived physical inferiority

The male-centred ascetic values of ancient Eurasian warrior-cultures diffused to Xianity via several channels and by the time the Church became a powerful entity in Europe, these values were entrenched in its outlook and from there was spread to every place where Xian missionaries imposed themselves. The asceticism that informed the thinking of early Xian devotees manifested themselves in the rejection of sex, which now became ‘tolerated’ only within the confines of marriage – and this is from the same Church that condemned and didn’t even participate in marriage ceremonies until the 9th C. Note also that Augustine believed that sex in or out of marriage was sinful. Hasn’t it ever struck anybody that all the obscene words and expressions in our lexicon are tied in one way or another to the sex act or to women? The most tabooed obscene word – c.u.n.t. – is a reference to the reproductive part of a woman, as most ppl know, and that words like cunning or ‘con’, which denotes deception, are related to that term and by extension, ancient views of women as the seductress, temptress, liar and the deceiver. However, what is even more interesting is that that term can be traced back to “K.u.n.t.i”, an ancient, powerful goddess.

“Spirituality” in the Western Xian sense came to be understood as involving rigid ascetic devotion in the form of meditation and penance. Sensuality was seen as something belonging to things worldly, carnal, and therefore, sinful. This belief is partly influenced by early Xianity’s borrowings from Greek philosophy, i.e. the ideas of Plato and Aristotle and their ideas of a binary opposition between form and matter, as well as from the pagan influence of Zoroastrian Persia.

Ancient agricultural-based cultures placed great emphasis upon the worship of the female because of her ability to bring forth new life whether it was in the form of a fruit, an animal or a child. As such the symbols, acts and expressions created denoting genitalia or involved elaborate festivals of nakedness and sex or the simulation of sex were in homage to the fecundity of women and the female of species. Hence the sexuality in today’s Carnival of Trinidad, Brazil and Cuba; they can and have been traced back to the fertility celebrations of Africa – including Egypt – which was and still is around the spring period. Hence the orgiastic agape rituals of the Hebrews who were still linked to ancient Great Mother worship until the rise of Levite Judaism.

So, yes, sex and spirituality are not separate. “Brushing” eh sinful. But to fully understand that you have to do some serious re-examination of much of the values and ideas you had about morality. Religious leaders today are adjusting their religious views somewhat, although as far as I see it is more a "looking the other way" as opposed to facing up to the inherent misogyny in the religions themselves. Much more needs to be done to dismantle the myths about sex, spirituality and what constitutes morality.

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Right click/save....I knew you would come and put it all in wonderful perspective I agree, it is more looking the other way because they are well aware that by taking a hard line they would simply lose devotees. I think its a shame though that there is so much conflict and guilt that I realize most people deal with by simply shoving it to the back of their minds.

I find it strange that adherents to the big 3 would believe that this wise all knowing God would bestow on his creations a natural urge so strong when that urge is sinful. Have you ever heard of The Garden of Earthly Delights? Its a tri panel painting by Bosch that depicts an orgy scene. Bosch was part of the Brethren of Free Spirit who believed that the physical world was Satan's terrain. They held periodic, ritualistic sexual orgies in order to purge themselves from the day to day cravings of the flesh and the rest of the time held themselves to "rigid moral standards". Crazy....

OFFTOPIC....

the funny thing about Bosch is he was a devout Christian. Most of his work has religious imagery and they arent the nicest -tho he shows the good side and the bad side in his tryptics (sp)... all he shows is human folly - constantly reminding us all "bad" deeds get punished and in the worst way.
and if Bosch painted it, that means it was a widely practiced ritual.
what many of us dont do nowadays is put rituals etc into context- it is the same reason you have fools raping virgins to cure STD's.