I enjoy explaining Christianity to people, but we must address one topic at a time.
The current topic of discssion is the relative benefits of differing viewpoints as they apply to the sexual health of our society. When this discussion is finished, I would be happy to discuss the death penalty in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Regarding "jumping to conclusions":

Demonstrating causality is not necessary to validate a null hypothesis. My null hypothesis was:

"Premarital Sex and Cohabitation are no better than waiting until after marraige for sex and cohabitation. " I

think I supported my null hypothesis rather well. If I have jumped to any conclusions, please state them specifically, show that I have "jumped" and I will retract the conclusion in question.

And jumping to unwarranted conclusions about causality -- conclusions that are just so convenient for you (imagine SNL's Church Lady saying that). If people with unhappy marriages tend to get divorced, then those who remain married will be happy, thus suggesting a false causality of marriage causing happiness and divorce causing unhappiness. Charles Darwin's principle of natural selection has implications in the social realm as well as the biological realm.

It is not accurate to state or imply that cohabitation prior to marriage improves the stability of the marriage. Research indicates that it has no positive effect. In fact some research indicates that cohabitation is actually a destabilizing factor in marriage. Cohabitation also tends to be more violent. Therefore it is at least as good, if not better to wait for marriage to live together.

It is also significant to note that cohabitation, the least binding of any living arrangement is the most violent. This weakens your argument that forcing a binding marriage breeds violence since marriages, with their inherent property of being more binding, are less violent than cohabitation. I recognize this is not conclusive by any means and relies heavily on inference. Nevertheless it weakens your argument.

It is also not accurate that premarital sex is a stabilizing factor in marriage. Research indicates that people who have multiple sex partners before marriage have a tendency to have multiple sex partners after marriage. And he wasn’t talking polygamy! :). Other researchers correlate premarital sex with higher divorce rate. So, although it sounds good in theory, the statistics indicate that experimenting with sex prior to marriage does nothing to improve marriage.

It is also not accurate to imply that making a marriage last requires “impossibly perfect judgement” is not accurate either. There is little if any evidence to support that viewpoint. There is, however, ample evidence to support the fact that marriage counseling, conflict resolution training, and commitment to achieving a good marriage have a significant stabilizing effect on marriage. Success in marriage involves who you choose to be more than who you choose to marry. Also if the judgement required to make marriage last is “impossibly perfect”, then why is the divorce rate only 50%. If the judgement required to choose the right mate the first time was so hard, shouldn’t it be closer to 90% or at least 75%. One out of every two couples, using your premise, exercises “impossibly perfect judgement”. You may say that the divorce rate cannot be used to infer the number of marriages that last a lifetime. I wholeheartedly agree with that point. The only reason I use the divorce rate is because I was unable to find any statistics on what percent of marriages last for the lifetime of one of the partners. I say one because no marriage lasts the lifetime of both partners, since the marriage is over as soon as one of the partners dies. If you can find such statistics and refute this portion of my argument, then I will concede, but only on this line of thought, regarding this particular argument, not in principle.

To deal with some misconceptions, the Orthodox Protestant Christian standpoint on sex is that is for pleasure and reproduction. This is in accordance with Biblical teachings. The purpose of reproduction can be found in Genesis. The purpose for pleasure can be found in The Song of Solomon, which makes for some interesting reading no matter who one thinks wrote the Bible.

I recognize that you still have one pillar of your argument that appears irrefutable. And it very well may be irrefutable, but that is irrelevant because I have no wish to refute it. Sexual restrictions on hormone-laden teenagers do provide motivation for marrying young. In fact a study by Barnes which indicates that Baptists have a higher divorce rate than the American average (about 10% higher, in fact) speculates that this motivation to marry young could be a contributing factor.

So why do I appear to concede my point on this issue so easily. Am I weak? No. Am I dumb? No. Do I lack the intellect to deceptively beat around the bush of truth and make tons of other excuses for this? Probably, but I could still try.

No, I am not in the business of lying about facts. But in view of my honesty please give my answer in this situation an honest and fair consideration.

Christianity doesn’t “work” in pieces. With Jesus, it is all or nothing. That is why so many Christians behave so deplorably. They want to have the good time religious feelings without the hard work that goes into following Jesus’ teachings. They want to believe that they are “ok” without doing the hard work of being “ok”.

Teenagers who marry young are obeying the letter of the law. They are avoiding “sexual immorality” by getting married to satisfy their carnal lusts (which we all have, me too). The problem is, if they do this without responsibly considering their preparedness for marriage, they are violating the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law in the Bible boils down to “Love God with all your being, Love your neighbor as yourself”.

By getting married to satisfy their carnal desires, they are not loving their partner. They are loving themselves because they are trying to satisfy their desires without considering the repercussions of getting married too early.

So, they have obeyed part of the letter of the law, but they have forsaken the entire spirit of the law by acting selfishly and irresponsibly.

We have already agreed that Christians do not always act like they should. In reality Christians never “act” like it. The standard is perfection Ebonmuse. None of us meet that. But, as you said “we can hold it up as an ideal to strive for”.

If you want to discuss my logic behind defending a moral system that I admit is unattainable, we can do so, however it will lead to topics far divergent from this one.

If you want any sources for the studies or statistics that I speak of, ask and you shall receive. I don’t include them because my time is short and I am very bad at xhtml.

Satan decides to challenge Jesus to a typing contest, then he sabotages Jesus' keyboard so that some of the letters don't work very well. On the day of the contest, God the Father acts as the referee and Satan and Jesus go to work. They type and type for days and finally satan starts to pull ahead. Just as the contest is almost over and Satan is about to claim the victory, the power goes out and the screens of Jesus' and Satan's computers go blank. Satan is understandably devastated because all of his hard work was lost. Worse, he looks over and sees Jesus printing out the final copy of his document after the power comes back on.

Satan looks to God the Father and says, that's not fair, how is it that my computer erased all my data and Jesus' didn't. You must have cheated for him!

God replies: Haven't you heard, Satan, Jesus Saves!

Ebonmuse:

I am still working on yor reply.

We have strayed far on a tangent, and I don't want to misuse this space to discuss something that is somewhat unrelated to the article above. Soooo… If you want me to stop this tangent, just say the word (as I believe this is your website, am I correct?).

Yes, this is my site. Please, don't worry about going off on tangents; I'm enjoying this discussion and I wouldn't shut down a productive conversation just because it was expanding to include more subjects. In any case, this post indirectly concerned sexual ethics, so I think this is still on topic.

You appear to object to what people do in the name of Christianity more than Christianity itsself. I say this because most of your responses deal with the poor behavior of prominent Christians and Christian organizations, whereas when it comes down to the basic moral principles of Christianity, you seem to be in agreement. Is this an accurate observation?

No, it is not accurate. While the poor behavior of some prominent Christians is deplorable, my principal objection is not to the people who dismiss the Bible's rules, but the ones who actually believe in them, try to follow them and demand their enactment. Those are by far the more dangerous people.

As I said, I think the Bible's teachings on sexual ethics are highly unrealistic. They would work well for a race of beings that could realistically abide by them, but humans are not such beings. By demanding impossibly perfect judgment in selecting one's partner, putting people under pressure to make that selection as early as possible, and discouraging separation as a means of resolving the inevitable mistakes, Christianity only ensures the creation of far more misery and unhappiness than would otherwise be the case.

And more than that, I think these rules are just irrational. There is no good reason to expect that everyone will only have sex with one person in the course of their lives or to use sex solely for procreation, or to think that this is the sole ideal we should strive towards. If you are behaving responsibly and harming no one, there is no wrongdoing.

I will add that the latter part of your previous post, about helping people who don't achieve the standard, is the teaching of the Bible as well.

That depends on whether we mean the same thing by help. I didn't mean that we should just encourage people who fall short to try harder next time. I meant that we should provide realistic alternatives in the form of the distribution and education of birth control, and the availability of safe and legal abortion as a last resort, so that people who choose not to follow the unrealistic abstinence-only model still have the tools to act responsibly.

You have condemned Christianity based on an incomplete understanding of it. No orthodox Christian believes it is right to kill homosexuals. No orthodox Christian believes that childbirth is the only way to salvation for women. If you are interested in gaining a more complete knowledge of the orthodox Christian viewpoint on homosexuality or women's issues. I will gladly share, but I doubt you came here to hear a sermon (you kind of got one anyway, though. Sorry, it's all those sundays in church) :)

That hellfire thing is an exception, though. You hit the nail on the head with that one. Then again, I don't think anyone ever claimed that God was snuggly soft. I sure don't. If it makes you feel any better, I don't want anyone to go to hell and am sick to my stomach at the thought.

We have strayed far on a tangent, and I don't want to misuse this space to discuss something that is somewhat unrelated to the article above. Soooo... If you want me to stop this tangent, just say the word (as I believe this is your website, am I correct?).

With that said, You appear to object to what people do in the name of Christianity more than Christianity itsself. I say this because most of your responses deal with the poor behavior of prominent Christians and Christian organizations, whereas when it comes down to the basic moral principles of Christianity, you seem to be in agreement. Is this an accurate observation?

I will add that the latter part of your previous post, about helping people who don't achieve the standard, is the teaching of the Bible as well. The Christian belief system is set up so that we love one another and help, not judge, those who fall short.

Here are some relevant passages from the Bible

Regarding helping people do better next time:

Galatians 6:1-5

On the general love and humility Christians are called to demonstrate:

Colossians 3:12-14

Jesus' famous denoncement of judgement:

Matthew 7:1-5