Stifling Joy!

[Jenny A]

The Judeo-Christian god, especially the Christian one seems to be against many forms of harmless human enjoyment---sex being at the top of the list of things we oughtn't enjoy.

A few years ago I had the same sad but hilarious conversation with my mother twice. She called to warn me that men lose some sexual function as they get older (my step-father was about 75 at the time).

Carefully, and round about, with many euphemisms, she explains that after a certain age men don't get hard unless you touch "it". And that it's not really so bad, kinda nice, once you get used to it. (Clearly oral sex is out of the question)---And suddenly I felt sorry for my poor detached iceberg of a father.

Why is religious morality so bound up in sex? Unwanted pregnancy I get. Stifling pleasure I don't.

Modern Christians and Muslims have added wine and who knows what else to the bad list.

Bullshit.

what it is against is addiction to them.

For the love of no god. people are so stupid.

The amount of repression depends of the brand (or even the particular church). This is the religion that brought us the "sins" of onanism, i.e. masturbation, contraception, homosexuality, single sex, dancing, revealing clothing, etc. Do they all make sins of all those things? Nope. But some churches make sins of all of them. It goes back to the Old Testament. Ham got banished for seeing his father Noah naked. It continues through Jesus and Paul.