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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Re: Is General Goodness just a moral principle?
Message-ID: <2199@pucc-h>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 12:28:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.2199
Posted: Thu Aug 15 12:28:15 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 01:41:10 EDT
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Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
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From Rich Rosen (pyuxd!rlr):

> Is there something wrong with "getting hurt"?  Must we always seek the
> ultimate protective sure-thing environment?  Why?

There's a difference between 1) doing what you believe is right (not just
allowed, but right and best) and being hurt for doing it (as usual, the prime
examples are Jesus and many of the apostles and prophets) and 2) asking for
trouble by doing something that may be far from the best thing for you (though
nothing says it isn't allowed).

As to most of the rest of the discussion (unrestricted sex vs. marriage), it
becomes apparent that much of your (Rich's) views of marriage come from your
own observations of what was apparently not a very good marriage between your
parents, as per this:

> More people get married with unvoiced preconceptions and expectations of what
> the other partner is "supposed" to be (it worked like this in my parents'
> family, the Bible says that a spouse is supposed to do this...) than we could
> care to count.  And more of THEM wind up either in divorce or bitter twisted
> marriages as a result.

You're right that exceptions can fry a marriage (this was brought out in the
series I recently posted to net.singles from a seminar on Preparing for
Marriage), but haven't you ever known any good marriages?  Or is there some
reason you always emphasize the worst side of everything that most people
consider basically good?  Sure there are problems in marriage.  Sure people
should be warned about them -- but not in the spirit of throwing out the baby
with the bath water (i.e. implying [as you SEEM to] that marriage should be
tossed out entirely).  For that matter, the same could be said about being a
Christian; there are lots of problems along that road, but that doesn't mean
it isn't a good road.
 
> Christians have no monopoly on proper perspective about things like marriage.
> .... My point was that Jeff need not listen only to the Christian perspective
> on requirements about marriage, that ... a lot of assumptions are made within
> it.  I doubt that he wants to hear anything but that perspective, but that's
> his business, and his problem.  I'm just offering a different perspective
> from a different and perhaps less biased vantage point.

What good is there in the atheist's (hardly unbiased) perspective on marriage?
For example, a marriage "until we don't feel like it any more" is hardly a
marriage in the full sense of the word, because it does not provide the
secure commitment that "so long as we both shall live" does.  The idea of
staying married only so long as both feel like it implies that each partner
*has* to work at being good to the other or risk losing him/her, which
implies somewhat of a loss of freedom built right into the very fabric of
the arrangement.  The idea of staying married no matter what allows, and I
hope encourages, the partners to love each other because they want to, not
because they dare not do otherwise; i.e., lifelong commitment fosters fuller
human growth if the partners choose to grow.  Love given freely, by choice
(as in the second case) is far better than love given from fear of loss (as
in the first case); indeed, fear-based "love" probably couldn't be called
love at all.

Perhaps this "until we don't feel like it" isn't your particular approach
to marriage, but it is that of a fair number of people nowadays; I'm just
pointing out that while they may think they are freer by not committing
themselves for life, they're actually less free.

-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h!aeq
Faith is admitting that you ain't God.