BC

It is difficult to know to what extent, and why, punishment works or fails because: A known percentage of inmates are released, commit new crimes, are...

Of course, I don't know all of what you've heard in your life. While "lust" is often given a negative spin, "lusty" (having an abundance of lust) usua...

The difference between prostitution, pornography, and dating-with-the-expectation-of-having-sex is plain. In prostitution, a provider offers sex to a ...

The pornography business is as exploitative as any unregulated, non-unionized, low-status work place is. Actors and other staff work long hours (get a...

It's not hard to imagine porn that helps women, and men, feel good about not only their genitalia, but their entire bodies as well: some would say tha...

Because you asked the question, what am I allowed, and because you think there is someone who allows or disallows, then the answer is quite simple: Yo...

I'm real good at discerning God's will -- trust me.

Indeed, how would we. This is "God talk"--not 'God talking' but people talking who believe in God, or who may believe in God, people who would like to...

Thanks for pulling that quote. I like to begin every day with a slice of Hitler on toast. When one considers the amount of propaganda we receive every...

Yes, this seems to be the case. Well said. A lot of us 'heady males' like to argue--I certainly do. And if that's our specialty, we probably come up s...

Unless we think Jesus had a trans-historical mind, transcended time and place--I don't see how it could be otherwise. Historical reductionism? If we s...

I don't think we have to call persuasion a physical force. Propaganda attempts to manipulate us with misinformation (wrong information, suggestions, l...

Like, El Shaddai?

Teleological for sure. No, and look it from one angle and it looks purely spiritual; look at from another angle and it seems like a revolution brewing...

I wondered about that too. I've never been too clear about principalities and powers. Evil has never seemed to need otherworldly sponsorship. This wor...

Reminiscent of Isaiah 61, The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent m...

More a revolution and an overthrowing of the establishment than a cataclysmic end of the world: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but again...

I wasn't trying to weasel out of an earlier statement. I still think that Jesus didn't preach asceticism and indifference, and that he didn't require ...

Thanks for that. In order to understand Christianity, it is necessary to "mind the gap" between the time of somebody identified as Jesus (Joshua) and ...

This isn't the thread to debate this--Jesus probably would prefer not to be evaluated in a porn thread--but I think a case can be made that he didn't ...

I don't think a person can have a blank-slate "lack of belief" unless he grew up in a society where religion was a non-issue (or didn't exist). For th...

Getting detached from the illusory domain of transient senses usually results in kitchen disasters, as it did just now.

Religious activity often does, and should involve pleasure — Bitter Crank Asceticism and sages cultivating indifference to pleasure is one of the vari...

It is certainly the case that I am jaded by my experiences. I say that porn is not exclusively directed toward the generation and satisfaction of the ...

You were looking for things that were not harmful but were immoral. It seems to me that swearing, atheism, apostasy, and polytheism are all harmless, ...

"all their free time", remember. Religious activity often does, and should involve pleasure--"taste and see that the Lord is good"--but not sexual ple...

two rhymed couplets works just fine. In line one, does 'born' reference birth, or being carried? In the first case, 'born' is the right word. In the s...

Very good! One edit suggestion, line 3, We are poised forlorn, with existence we now must deal

I have some dim, vague pre-conscious intuition that video games and porn might, possibly, lead to different outcomes. But... Activities that we enjoy ...

Since the human sexual drive has not changed recently (say, during the last 30,000 years) what has changed that has resulted in men (usually) watching...

Wayfarer, you know I'm a very stupid fellow and need things spelled out in excruciating detail. Do overcome your embarrassment and explain it.

I don't think I suggested that intelligent life in the cosmos was going to get wiped out -- just here. there is a theory, btw, that the reason we have...

No, no -- don't go away. We could strip you, tie you up, and subject you to various S&M procedures which you might find quite interesting.

Which is very interesting. Young people seem to develop various 'paraphilias' like BDSM so early on. It's remarkable. One would think BDSM, or the foo...

Odd how "broken record" still works as a metaphor when defective records haven't been repeating themselves for so many years. So, addiction is a very ...

Some other kinds of 'porn' on the internet: dog porn cat porn car porn house porn architecture porn art porn right wing porn (no such thing as left wi...

I can see the "married porn" videos now. Lawfully married husbands and wives arrive home after collecting one child from pre-school, taking another to...

Anon66, I'm all in favor of porn; I have never thought that its use produced negative outcomes. The only thing I was quibbling with you was that porn ...

The trend I mentioned was from the CDC in Atlanta, but it seems to depend on how the stats are reported. The graph I was looking at earlier included c...

Consequentialism is the hands-on winner here. If it works, it's good.

It's variously defined. Classic porn may be defined as: Porn produced before condoms began to appear regularly in pornographic productions (sometime i...

Of course, because many people don't have sex "with their friends". "Friends" are in one group, "sex partners" are in another group, and many people k...

Unless you have some sort of reference on research into the alleged connection, this is just idle speculation.

Porn consumers should have the same attitude towards pornography performers that Livia, the wife of Augustus, (I Claudius) had for the gladiators. Her...

Some people consider cursing to be immoral. Some people consider changing religion to be immoral. Some people consider polytheism to be immoral. Some ...

Where did this information come from and how was it obtained? The rate of increased diagnoses of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia has been slow but ...

A planet presently called earth will survive the expansion of the sun (as it ages towards senescence) and then its contraction. What will be left of t...

I love that book of the Bible, but it strikes me as a discordant note to the theme of God's purposeful and loving nature. Perhaps that is one of the f...

I've heard it "same shit, different toilet".

That Steven Colbert's verbal political cartoon could be thought homophobic is beyond absurdity. Thinking it so is imbecilic. The up-tight identity and...