The Fetishization of Sex as a Growth Strategy for Religions

<i>The fundamental moral principles of religions like Christianity, and also many others, are things like: everyone is born with equal rights; treat others as you would treat yourself; try to alleviate the suffering of others. </i><p>This is projection.<p>Secular thinkers conceive of ethics relationally. Kant's categorical imperative. The harm principle. It's all about how you affect other people -- you shouldn't do them harm, and perhaps on a good day, you should do them good. Beyond that, who cares?<p>This isn't a Christian way of thinking, though. To a Christian, the object of central importance is God. How he views things. How your actions show your love for him. The pursuit of righteousness, for its own sake, because it is important to Him.<p>This is not just my opinion, by the way. A central prayer in Judaism is the Shema (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael</a>): "Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is one,". And Jesus affirms this as the central and most important command, and expands it (Mk 12:19):<p><pre><code> "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment." </code></pre> The <i>central</i> commands of both religions don't say a thing about other people.<p>There are a lot of external, moral things we agree upon. But consider, for a moment, even the most famous set of rules, the ten commandments:<p><pre><code> 1. You shall have no other Gods 2. You shall make no artwork to be used as an idol 3. You shall not misuse God's name 4. You shall rest on the seventh day 5. Honor your father and mother 6. You shall not murder 7. You shall not commit adultery 8. You shall not steal 9. You shall not give false legal testimony 10. You shall not be jealous of your neighbor's things </code></pre> Think about those for a second. The secularist is right there with us on 6, 7, 8, and 9. Those are external, measurable, harm-related. But look at the rest of them! 1, 5 and 10 are purely internal; thought crimes, if you will. 2 and 3 are purely religious -- who are you hurting exactly if you break these? -- and 4 sounds like a good idea, but making it a commandment that bears the death penalty seems rather like overkill.<p>Is it that Christians are dumb for thinking these are important? No, it's that we <i>think about ethics differently than you</i>. To suppose Christianity approaches ethics like a secularist is to seriously misunderstand Christianity, and to project your own way of thinking onto it.

<i>&#62;&#62; The fundamental moral principles of religions like Christianity, and also many others, are things like: everyone is born with equal rights; treat others as you would treat yourself; try to alleviate the suffering of others.</i><p>The texts of most major religions glorify warfare, genocide, slavery, discrimination, and misogyny. Often, they glorify suffering itself.<p><i>&#62;&#62; If two people consent to engage parts of their bodies in various ways, that doesn’t seem to raise any ethical issues of its own.</i><p>Sex in modern Western society is wholly different than how it was thousands of years ago. Today we are radically more educated about the workings and consequences of sex, we have access to condoms and numerous other forms of birth control, and we are dramatically less likely to act violently as a result of sexual impulses and emotions. In addition, having a child is more of a personal lifestyle choice, rather than being a decision that affects the entire tribe or community.

Actually, there are tremendous practical reasons why a religion would include sexual ethics into its moral code.<p>Prime example: Fidelity within marriage (one of the Ten Commandments). People who cheat on their spouses not only do damage to their relationship, but also increase their own (and their spouse's) risk of being infected with a sexually transmitted disease.<p>Look at some of the sex-related stuff in Leviticus, like the prohibition on having sex while a woman has her period. Turns out, a woman is at greater risk of getting an STD during this time. So, like the Jewish dietary laws, this prohibition actually helped keep the Jewish people (relatively) healthy.<p>Or look at the religious rationale for prohibiting prostitution: It treats the prostitute (often a woman) as an object rather than a person with innate dignity, and even in cases where the prostitute is making a seemingly free choice to engage in the transaction, there are often hidden pressures (addiction, mental illness, a pimp) that affect her ability to make a truly free choice.<p>Those are just three small examples, but there are many others.

As a practicing Catholic, no offense, but you're way off base. The point of making things like sex, gluttony, etc taboo is that it's a pleasure that you're putting above God that detracts from the worship of him. In many western societies people tend to think "victimless crimes" are of no consequence. I'd also like to point out that you seem to be working off the assumption that there is no God. If in fact you were operating under the assumption that there is in fact a God or deity, etc. simply this higher order being commanding it is enough to follow his word.<p>I would also say that on a personal (non-religious) note, I (and many others) consider sex a highly personal and special act that becomes less so the more people it's done with. Valuing modesty isn't such a bad thing, and I believe that being select about who you have sex with makes it more valuable of a gift to share with someone.

This article is heavily based on what current (esp. western) religions are concerned with <i>now</i>.<p>Religions used to be concerned with lots of different things in the past. For example the supernatural world, like witches and the devil visiting a house, or disease caused by immorality or lack of religiousity. Modern Christianity mostly cares about sex, but in the middle ages, they were concerned with witches, a few hundred years ago they were opposed to democracy, equality before the law, or overthrowing Kings.<p><i>The fundamental moral principles of religions like Christianity, and also many others, are things like: everyone is born with equal rights</i><p>This has not always been the principle of Christianity. Back in the Day™ some people were born with more rights. Kings had the right to rule over commoners etc. It was a sin to disobey &#38; rebel against your King/Lord/Duke/etc. since they had a divine right to rule. Christianity has only recently (i.e. ~ 100 → 200 years) accepted this "equality" idea that the Enlightenment was about.

I believe some of the earliest religions were essentially sex cults that attempted to appease the gods and goddesses of fertility. More generally, the first shamans and priests were those who had acquired some insight into the workings of the natural world, yet, intentionally or not, shrouded them in mystique and ritual, creating barriers of entry to the knowledge they had discovered.<p>That sex is a particularly strong human motivator would drives religion's appeal to religion consumers while sex's role as a status differentiator would drive the appeal to religion producers. In short, I think the role of sex in religion is less a recent growth strategy than an ancient component that helps explain the religions we have today.

First, lets ignore the single most salient aspect (in a historical, biological and social sense) of sex, namely that it produces babies, and all that that implies. Then, pretend to be surprised that systems which have evolved to shape peoples behavior have had a lot to say about sex. Then lets notice that religions can grow by sexual reproduction of members.<p>Well done, sir. Well done, indeed.

The author seems to have forgotten that birth control is (mostly) a modern invention.

Why is this on hacker news...

Well religion is about control , and religion , in western society use to be a powerfull politic tool. The goal of religion is not to enlighten people about the "unseen world" but to control people's life and "morality", shame them (in case of christianity ) so they can go back to church and ask for forgiveness. Fetishization of sex is not a growth strategy for religion. Most religion growth has been acheive through violence and war.