(December 18, 2017 at 10:36 am)It_Was_me Wrote: Now that I have your attention, time to address the elephant in the room. I have always just wondered why religion is so interested in controlling what people do with their bodies. I mean, how is masturbating or watching porn such a bad thing? Where does this concept stem from? Things like this to me just give more evidence that religion is more of a mechanism for control. I know in some religious circles watching porn or touching yourself is highly frowned upon and you will be treated like you just murdered hundreds of people.
What's the motive behind all this control?
It has many origins, not a single one, and it developed over time not as a single thought.
Off the top of my head...
1. Mysogyny. Scripture makes clear that women are to be treated as property. Which scripture? Pretty much all of them.
2. Wealth. Celibacy is simply a means of ensuring that the priests have no progeny to whom they may will their effects and thus dilute the churches wealth.
3. Control. Taking ownership of the most physical act one can do with another is a level of mind control that is difficult to fathom.
4. Subverting the basic humanity of the gullible. If one can somehow exercise control over the most basic of human urges, one can do and claim anything and get away with it.
Start with those basics, embed them into a doctrine, and now one has a religion which controls it's followers. Then it gets worse. Having imposed these simple doctrines, new "thinkers" arise who add to it and embellish it and so forth. It is about politics, control, wealth and power over the unwitting believers. Nothing more.
