Because some of us never get the chance.

Lou

Thanks Lou. Envy as a rationale for sinfulness. Unfortunately, close to the truth.

Michael Uebel, do you think this concerns possession? Did this only concern the middling class?

Although this is much later, Icelandic women chose and rejected husbands. This may have been common in Northern Europe.

I agree: in one breath - that's terrible; but in the mind - I wish it had been me (lucky devil).

Lou

Because of unity principle, the two become one, and separation and division of the "one" leave us with "broken halves". Man and woman, through the marriage act (whatever form it takes) are united holistically at all levels (physical, relational, emotional, intellectual, psychological, spiritual, resources, energetic, sharing life, etc.) including sexual. Some people may not care about it, but I doubt we can build a family holding adultery as a value and as an open option. The sin word need to be defined. If we go by one traditional root of it in religious sense (for ex. Hamartia = to miss the mark), one angle of sin meaning is that we are missing the perfect original model. Everything that doesn't follow the model of commitment in marriage, also in the sexual area, is in a faulty situation or following a faulty model that brings negative consequences. Somebody can ask, if we are married and avoid adultery does it mean that we are having a perfect situation? Overwhelmingly, from the religious point of view, all of our life areas have been affected by sin (hamartia), so attaining the perfect model is kind of impossible, we have moments or seasons of "perfection". Then? Why try? Even as faulty as it may be in our try and error life process, valuing and choosing the original creationist model, from the religious point of view, brings way more benefits and happiness than the adultery model. If you don't believe it, just ask your children. Will they prefer you having an affair, or to be loving and faithful to your wife, their mother? Sometimes things are so simple that even children knows it, but we want to complicate it in order to justify our choices and escape guilt. I speak from experience, my parents divorced when I was 3 years old because of the adultery of my father and the alcohol he drank. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, and daily I've seen my mom not being able to recover from such a life trauma. Also, the adultery model consequences put me to experience the trauma of growing up fatherless. Strengthen character? Sensitivity? Understanding? Do we not have more healthier ways to fulfill these goals? Adultery model it is not an option for me and my children.

Now, I agree that harming somebody in any way it is also wrong, not just the adultery, and it is also viewed religiously as a "hamartia".

Pride, judgment, and hypocrisy of religious people should not erase the value of the original model.

Sometimes the model is discardet because people are grossly misrepresent it throng their way of expression and communication, especially the religious people. They consider themselves moral superior, but we are all human. Once a wise teacher pointed that what is inside of peoples hearts is as important as the outside; that's why often some or more of us come across like hypocrites. Compassion and love is what we need, even we encounter people with opposite values and ideas. Living out your life in a way that is helping you and others is the best way to communicate it, just religious words won't do it, changed heart and life will do.

Julien Ghitescue,

you are correct in this but it references one form of marriage only, the union of two people and creating thereby an idealised and ideal situation. The marriage of two people seems to have mainly come from Europe not the Middle East for example where polygamy was more normal. In Hebrew middle class marriages concubinage was normal, expected and excepted. The creation of sacred unions tends to mainly concern social and political factors.

Your idealised version also involves female passivity and the encouragement of the same in males. The sexual promisuity of women always causes deeper and stronger reactions, even when constructed on choice.

Males certainly have tended not to allign themselves with this ideal.

Where the adultery of women is concerned property and paternity issues were involved.

Julien,

The last figure you quote is Jesus, I believe. But his remark, or the one assigned to him on marriage , is ludicrously idealistic. He was it is claimed celibate so should he have been listened to? Are not most who hold the position you originally detailed, or held, celibate too?

Thank you Mr. Wilkin for your reply, I appreciate your openness and your reasons and questions can be considered for further discussion. In the same time, I didn't heard in all my life of a woman that was married and loved her husband, and in the same time saying that she is not an idealist, and that her husband can go ahead and have affairs. Also I haven't seen any man that love his wife that in the same time didn't care if she will have an affair. If we may observe, study, and contrast loyal couples marriages, polygamy, and adultery, we may be able to find who are the "lucky winners". Life is a great teacher, we don't need a doctorate to understand what is good for us in life. :)

Julien agreed,

Contrary to your assertions I certainly have, one in which the matter was openly discussed and agreed to with both parties. But indeed you now offer love as a contractual rationale. Love in a relationship can be viewed as allowing the couple what they desire, although this involves liberality.

Lou, your concerns are less with right and wrong but opportunity and the rights and wrongs of pursuing opportunities. An ugly man may reasonably have fewer opportunities than a good looking man and a poor man than a wealthy one, and one can suggest the same for a woman, but is it as simple as that? But again should morality of any kind be based on opportunity or differences in biological need?

Should a woman in a polygamous marraige be considered unfaithful? Yes if the contract specifies faithfulness?

Because it is contrary to the teachings of the God.

As is stated by Jesus, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Of course no one in the crowd with stones qualified. Human beings are quick to judge. Religious literature is very old and may not reflect the mores of the society. Condemnation and shaming have seldom been useful. Each person will have to live with the consequences of their own behaviors

We can't say what we will do until given the chance and, at the same time, knowing we can get away with it - for always.

Lou

Isam,

My point exactly. The god has no problem with violence, but ah, adultery, that is another matter. Priorities, I suggest.

لانه يؤدي الى تميزق وحدة المجتمع ويشتت الوحدة الاجتماعية ...فضلاً عن ذلك انه ينشر البغاء داخل المجتمع ويفتت العقد الاجتماعي العائلي القائم على وحدة الدم

Mr. Wilkin,

I can state that violence it is a sin, and is and can be more damaging than adultery. Now that Jesus appeared on the scene of discussion, he promoted, taught, and demonstrated the love of the enemies and condemned violence of any sort, no matter of the purpose for it. There are scholars that interpreted religious contradictions different than the main stream. Depending on the region and culture, anthropologically and religiously we have a large spectrum of views. Usually, people tend to make gods in their own image, an imperfect image; after the world view and interpretations are formed, people will act on it. I read some viewpoints that brought some light for me into the matter you mentioned, I will add it bellow.

https://reknew.org/book/crucifixion-warrior-god/

https://reknew.org/book/the-myth-of-a-christian-religion/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoD3TNfDxfo

I can share more of my personal life experience into the subject if you are interested in, if we can find another more personal and private way to communicate. :)

I don't mind, Julien. I have had many experiences in life.

But my question in the end concerns what people see as sin, and the possibility of uncertainty and confusion, why they use the term sin.

Raed Rahim Khuder. I made an attempt in Arabic. Not my best effort. This is the English:

The idea of the unity of the father is simply patriarchic nonsense. The world does not collapse because of adultery or anything else. I think you've read this somewhere or been told these things as a boy and believed it.

أبوي. العالم لا ينهار بسبب الزنا أو أي شيء آخر. أعتقد أنك قرأت هذا في مكان ما أو قيل لك هذه الأشياء عندما كنت صبيًا وصدقتها.

Srini Vasan,

That story in the Gospels may be redaction, so although marvellous may not be true.

Hillil is the man to go to. I am sure Jesus used some of his words.

Mr. Wilkin, so good to continue our discussion. :)

The world sin was passed to the people in cultural, relational, social, and religious contexts and experiences. Can be misused, and misunderstood, also can be also distorted from it's original purpose. So, I agree it can create confusion and uncertainty. If we don't use the word sin, we can semantically set it aside, adultery and violence that you mention, are still the real damage in the people's lives. So, the point of discussion (of religious and non-religious people) will be good to be focused on how we can avoid such negative outcomes, and use all the "strategies", solutions, or wisdom (from any religious or not religious sources) to improve our lives and relationships. It has also to do with our life purpose, past-present-future, who we are-what we live for, and what and who shaped it and form it.

I will like to learn more from your life experience, I am always fascinated by people and their life story. You can reach me initially by email at: [email protected] , and we can see which way and time works best for us to connect.

Connect on here, Julien. Messages are sent through people's profiles.

The point about use of sin is that its used to control behaviour not to understand it. Nor to understand those who desire to effect control. Already here some contributors seem to believe that chaos, societal and family, will accompany adultery and much else unless rigid controls of people are made. This can be viewed as the tool of the powerful.

Sex is a natural act so therefore why in any of its forms is it made unnatural. I noted similar laws within Hinduism and Islam on these matters, but viewed these alongside contradictions-concubinage and polygamy for example. Agan monogamy seems to be a European trait. Also much of the morality around these matters may come from Roman culture in which marraige was protected as a legal transaction by the state.

But in all the three examples above proscriptions mainly concerned the behaviour of women not men. Also the sacredness of marrage seems connected to the middle class or well to do.

Mr. Wilkin,

It seems that your approach consider human beings origins in "raw" evolution, so no wonder immorality or morality are subjective for you. That view leads that the sex is not a gift to enjoy in the secure context of marriage, it is just an "animal" impulse that we can use it like eating food, in any context. But even what food do we eat makes a difference in our health. I consider that the world and people are the masterpiece of a Creator, I can see the intelligent design at every corner in nature and in people. In your view, maybe the negative forces are just the people (scientific view, that has it's limits), in the spiritual view, out there exists free will agents (human, and "angelic", besides the Creator) that can have good, neutral, or evil bended purposes. The Designer knows how the invention works at the best parameters and in the best conditions (even now we live in an imperfect context), that is why spiritual mind people are following guidance in different areas. I also agree that it can be distorted by people, and it is very confusing and many damages, even crimes, were made by religious people in the name of the Creator, because the people took it and abused with it control. The loving and caring message of the Creator was lost many times, buried under the twists of religion.

Still, are some heavy questions that need to be answered. The invisibility of such wonderful Creator, the felt passivity and distance from own creation, the suffering and inequalities in the created good but now a fallen world. But this does not interest you in this discussion; is it too "deep"? Or is just because we operate out of the concrete scientific data? Because the set up is based on your personal views, the conclusions will favor your answers from above. :) If you don't believe in the existence of a Creator, then anything else it is the product of people, so why do what other people are saying? Yes, any guidance from religion is just a human invention to control. On this set up I agree with you, you are right. Still, the internal compass of our "hearts" follow a true north always. Ask you heart, is it adultery fair? Does it bring long lasting good to the people involved in it, or just a momentary pleasure that in the end is just deceiving and destroying people's lives? I think we said a lot of words here, interviewing people that experience it, will give us a better image. And yes, I still believe adultery (and other harming spectrum of actions) is a sin, because the definition of sin from the Creator is: sin=harming yourself and others. It is wrong (=sin) to ignore the directions of the Designer. The purpose is to protect, not to control. People took the gift they received and turn it into controlling others. We've been designed with free will, that "design" fights agains any type control. This is why it requires a relationship.

Julien, you appear to speak for the Creator but it seems odd to me that you wish to impose so much baggage onto what he, she, it creates within ideals of human exceptionality and wonder.

The truth is I am not looking at this from a subjective point as I do not care sufficiently one way or the other and I am not sure what you believe my subjective point to be. If I have a point, it is the contradictions within the evaluation of adultery as a bad thing in line with the cultures determining it is a bad thing. And how a bad thing is distorted into a sin in people's eyes. Religious viewpoints are cultural or historical viewpoints and are therefore one amongst many viewpoints. That adultery harms seems reasonable but again conjectured within a specific absolute outlook based upon conceptions of design-as if humanbeings were adidas trainers.

So far I gather 'god said' is one argument.

You present the idealistic view based on the exceptionality of human beings contstucted on Catholic assumptions on human nature. A celibate base perhaps?

Others imply chaos will occur or does occur whenever an adulterous act occurs, if an adulterous act affects male privilege.

As adulerous acts have in the past been severely punished, and even perhaps in the present are, within environmernts of concubinage, male privilege seems the most employed argument.

Sex as an uncontrollable, potentially sinful process another. The arguments by and large are archaic, placing human situations within medieval architectual tropes of human behaviour.

Thanks Michael. Interesting stuff. Is it for both sexes. I thought I'd present material from Hinduism, but this could have come from Islam, aspects of Christianity and Judaism. In religious laws patriarchies rule:

Day and night woman must be kept in dependence by the males (of) their (families), and, if they attach themselves to sensual enjoyments, they must be kept under one's control. - Manusmriti

Her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth, and her sons protect her in old age; a woman is never fit for independence. - Manusmriti

When creating them Manu allotted to women a love of their bed, of their seat and of ornament, impure desires, wrath, dishonesty, malice, and bad conduct. - Manusmriti (Ancient Hindu Law)

Interesting stuff. Clearly written by a man.

And-

The Traditional View

Hindu law books are very severe against adultery, not only for moral reasons but also for social reasons. They consider that it would lead to confusion of castes, degradation of family values and social disorder. In olden days women from upper castes were barred from moving in society freely.

Literary evidence suggests that ancient Hindu society was not free from the problem of adultery. Historically, Hindu women attracted more condemnation and ostracization for adulterous relationships. The punishments were also severe in their case. An adulterous woman was called patita, meaning a fallen or abandoned woman, an outcast or a woman who fell from the grace of her husband (pati). Another epithet was kulata, meaning an unchaste woman or a woman who degraded the good name of the family (kula) and her husband.

The focus of adultery was on women as elsewhere the writer discusses male polygamy and if rich practically everything else. These extracts do not of course discuss situations but only the actions of women. https://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/h_extramarital.asp

Have you, Mr. Wilkin explored the psychological, emotional, and relational impact of adultery, beside the cultural and religious influences connected to it? What is your aim? Just proving that adultery in different contexts also have a cultural-religious constrain, is peripheral to the subject. It is like talking about why or not for example a murder can be considered a sin or not, without looking at the devastating action and consequences of it. What are you trying to find out, research? I know you mention it here and there, but can you please crystallize your quest.

I have done so, but strictly it is a discussion.

Why Julien place adultery and killings together?

Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak, I agree with you but all the evidence suggests that the women suffered by and large and a number of negative ideas were thrown on them such as offending the patriarchy. The point about adultery is that it sometimes causes grave pain and destruction privately and publicly but not always, there are reasons for adultery, and placing all in one basket is rediculous. Placing human behaviour within notions of sin is itself destructive.

Still not clear for me the purpose of the discussion.

The exceptions from the main stream, (even I never heard somebody considering adultery as a positive life event, except for the "cheater") doest make adultery "good", even is called or not as a sin.

If your purpose is to disagree with the religious communities about the way they use the word sin, and for what kind of actions the use it, I can't help you in the discussion as I am not consider myself a religious person at all. Whatever I had to say in the behalf of benefiting people against the adultery harm, I've said it already. Hope you find what you are looking for, I apologize for misunderstanding your question from the beginning.

Mohammad, do you think? I doubt it.

I do not know what you consider a true society but I suspect I would not like it or think much of it. Quite how can adultery, an act between two people in private, have such wide consequences? Nevertheless, the idea that society is structured upon the family is an eastern one that really bears little scrutiny. It creates stasis and conformity. Is that a bad thing? Well it limits all those who are part of such societies, making them automatons, without flexibility and abstract cognition. Or does it?

Are these patriarchal societies based on conformity? No one stands out except the wealthy? Perhaps.

I believe it is considered as a sin by reference to the institution of marriage which is intrinsically religious and more precisely monotheistic. I heard that in some cultures, a good wife is to sleep with all the future husband's friends to make sure she would be valid before marriage. That is a counter example of adultery as sin.

Stanley Wilkin

Julien,

Thanks, your comments have been helpful in the development of different views, although mainly one is coming through. Of course 'sin' is used in a religious context and not in any other although in the ancient world adultery was seen in social terms mainly without the moral context.

The ancient Athenians controlled wealthy married women due mainly to problems of parentage. They often lived lives as prisoners. The veil, etc, was seen in Athens for these wealthy women so that other men would not be attracted to them. I'm not sure sin was the go to word. The same impositions were on Assyrian wealthy married women, and could be found in North Africa within Christian groups there. The Egyptian elite had the same fear of adultery. In each case adultery largely referenced the behaviour of women, not men. In Athens for example some symposiums included prostitutes.

The subject is extensive surely?

I must add: Spartan women were independent and society did not fall, crash and disintegrate.

People survive adultery, also society may survive, but my question is: Does the society thriving or decaying.

One question for you that I have, now that this is just discussing, I hope you answer (I feel like we try to answer to your questions mr. Wilkin, but you are selective in which ones you answer back). What is your definition of a family? Is it necessary to have a family, or just sex is enough? :)

Your views tend to avoid the existence of truth, conveniently falling in relativism in the matter. If truth doesn't exist, then al the legislation system is unnecessary. Again you can do whatever, because it your own view, including adultery and again crime. I put them again together. Please explain your views about crime also. Is that a sin to you? Is crime also a relative matter to you?

Mr. Amor, and also Mr. Wilkin

your counter example to me looks like prostitution culturally "legalized".

Generally men, being in power, historically abused the women.

If you ask a women if she wants to have sex with the friends of her future husband before marriage, I doubt that is her desire. Does she have a choice? Adultery it is another category, where the loyalty and love of the husband for a wife (men are probably statistically more involved in adultery than women), or of the wife for the husband doesn't exist anymore, or it is seriously damaged. Another factor can be the low moral values in their lives.

When I grew up I worked for one year in a locomotives repairing garage, being the youngest among other mechanics, mostly all married. They said: "I will be so stupid to not have sex with any women I have chance to.". I doubt they will say that in the face of their wife and agree for their wives to do the same like them.

What do we see here? Even if we don't mention the word sin.

We see lack of love and commitment, injustice and inequality, and a lot of selfishness. That is what adultery promotes. Are you teaching your children boys or girls to marry, and then tell them (like in this discussion group): It is ok my child go ahed and do adultery. Will you teach them that?

Adultery is a sin as it is a transgression against the Law of God, which, psychoanalytically, is based on castration which is the inhibition of, limitations to, excessive enjoyment (jouissance) that can never be satisfied.

Jouissance. Lacan. Never seen it linked before to the Law of God and in Lacan is linked to the pleasure principle. Its a difficult notion and requires several interpretations. I think I can see your link to adultery by placing the latter in the forbidden but seems a primitive understanding in this context. Pleasure in Freud covers sexual activity and enjoyment, so Lacan could also, as a Freudian, have been itimising intellectual enjoyment for example.

Neither Freud nor Lacan were likely to have formed ideas within judgemental tropes.

Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, in her book on Samoa noted the guiltless sexual activity of the islanders. Does guilt come from monotheism, fed artificially into human minds?

Julien,

Your last statements I agree with. Why would I not? I simply see no reason to place human intentionality under 'sin' or prioritise sexual behaviour as seems to occur here.

Samoa of Margaret Mead it doesn't match the real Samoa's "sexual" culture, she grossly misrepresent it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOCYhmnx6o8

I am disappointed in this discussion that it have just one way Mr. Wilkin, you don't answer the questions I ask you.

So here it is, if crime is something that is relative and people should have no remorse, restriction, or consequences in choosing it, you lose all the credibility in this discussion, as it is clear that in that kind of society violence and destruction will rise.

If you will answer that crime is not acceptable, and that is the truth that crime is something that damage people, so it is wrong, bad, evil, sin, etc. (any word that fit), I will ask you on what base you state this? Where is your standard coming from? In this case you do follow a "law", a truth, and you cant be relativistic in the matter.

So, if you have a standard of considering crime something unacceptable because of destroying and taking away people's lives, we also can use the same standard to consider adultery as negative (wrong, bad, evil, sin, etc.), a destroying relationships and family action.

By definition adultery is something that involves a person that is married.

In the philosophy that you Mr. Wilkin displayed it is missing your concepts of marriage and what is a family, why form a family?

After you define what a family is, we can discuss finally how adultery affects it. If for you family are just people together in "cohabitation", I can see how adultery (that is a misused word in this case) have a relative place. If you don't want to state out what a family is, the discussion doesn't have a base to build on, we are just losing our time.

I defined my position on this. Using absolutes where adultery is concerned is not helpful. Try, please, and avoid involving other forms of behaviour as if all were the same. While I can understand the emotional violence that occurs in adultery it cannot be placed in the same understanding as actual violence. The violence of adultery is dependent on cultural positions and reception, not merely the act or acts alone.

If difficulties are placed within learning paradigms, pain is considerably lessened. If within paradigms of sin the pain is dealt with through punishment that stills discussion, thought and understanding. You do appear to connect emotional episodes with physical violence, and I wonder why.

The breakup of families can occur upon adultery by one partner or another. Nevertheless cultural understanding permeates the results of these actions and responses are liable to cultural determinants. The acts themselves become symbolic of other acts and invested with greater power.

On here that can be seen as involving a public arena where notions of behaviour are extrapolated back in time, occasion destruction to the polity, culture or religion. These are unrealistic outcomes and tend to serve special interests, usually religion. They do not reflect real relationships, the episodic nature of relationships in general. Destructive acts (as per your definition) do not occur outside of other acts, and do not embrace isolated experiences constructed upon external mythical forces.

Further.

Adultery exists within the unit as a couple unless your definition is legalistic. You seem to insist on one definition and again all other propositions put forward.

Your claim that unless you get the specific answers to questions you consider yourself as asking (in fact you are asking something else) this is all useless directs the question and its energies onto you, insisting indeed that only your perceptions of the issues are either confirmed or denied. The question was specific and concerned the nature of employing sin for any human behaviour. While indeed adultery can be destructive on families, it need not be. Families survive.

You ask me if i am only talking about co-habitation as if its lack of legal connection made the emotions in the unit more superficial. Does it? Is that not your perception?

I think you are asking about the nature of emotional pain. My answers are contained above although the psychoanalytical position of difficult past experiences I believe are consistent with the nature of that pain. Taking it back to the discussion: using sin merely cauterises the pain at best and connects it to public means of cartharsis which itself is destructive.

I have I believe answered everything but if you think not than maybe your questions have a different source.

According to the rules and regulations of any society, certain activities are often labeled as "accepted" and "normal" and activities outside those demarcations are considered unacceptable. Ancient societies were, unlike modern ones, based on systems of beliefs and accepted ways and manners of living commonly known as "religion". And religions usually work -- I think it is at least one aspect of them, an aspect which lead many philosophers to rebel against them, even religious philosophers (Spinoza, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc.) -- on the basis of "fear", that is to say it makes its followers adhere to certain rules set by an all-knowing and all-powerful God, and stresses that perversion from those standards will have ominous and terrible consequences for the perpetrators. This means that followers are warned based on fear of some horrible outcome, often characterized as being burned in fire or hell, or sometimes simply an unknown punishment awaiting those who transgress those divine rules.

If we look at this issue in a religious context, then the notion of "sin" relates to those transgressions and works as a warning of that same horrible outcome. Perversion of any kind of "accepted" and "safe" rules is usually considered as a sin, and sin itself has a psychological aspect which relates to that same basis of "fear" for the person, fear of some horrible consequence.

In a secular line of thought, sins were created by sages of a society who saw the abnormal outcome of some activities -- e.g. marriage with one's sister or brother and its offspring (disabled or any kind of mentally or physically ill infants) -- and labeled them as sinful and abnormal acts. Those rules made up systems of beliefs.

Adultery is one of those notions. It is sexual activity taken place outside an accepted, religiously divine law. It is sinful because it is a perversion of those rules, and has psychological effects for people based on the same mechanism of "fear" of an unknown, horrible punishment, in order to prevent them from giving way to anarchy and problematic activities that unbalance the harmony of a society.

Some more general points: adultery is unacceptable (sin) because:

- It makes problems for those who live according to accepted laws of a harmonious society, such as sexual anarchy or promiscuity, divorces, anger and terror among individuals, etc.

- It can lead to physically or mentally (even both) ill offspring

- It can lead to an offspring who cannot be properly satisfied within the safe and secure space of a family, making them vulnerable to various psychological disorders and criminal acts

- It can even deprive a society of an institution known as "family", which is one of the most significant institutions of human society

Thanks, Mehrdad.

Adultery means betraying your spouse's unconditional love. God's love is unconditional. That's why that betrayal is a sin.

Do not quite get connection between god and spouse. Not all wives or husbands have unconditional love.

According to biblical theology on marriage, God Himself has established a connection between God's love and fidelity to men and the love and fidelity between spouses in marriage.

Hosea's married life is narrated in chapters 1 (biographical) and 3 (autobiographical). Chapter 2 –although it is oracular-, forms a homogeneous whole with the previous ones, since it uses the image of the conjugal union as a comparison to express the relations –of Covenant- between God and Israel, and the image of adultery and marital infidelity as expression of the. Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh.

This parallelism can be read bi-directionally. And it theologically explains adultery as sin (offense to God and spouse).

P.s. to my previous reply:

I find adultery a kind of "excess", that is to say any kind of excessive behavior, irrespective of religious or scientific evidence, is harmful and a source of evil. The religionist call many such behaviors "sin" and others can simply call them "perversion".

In most simple words, going to the extremes is always harmful, even in loving, even in morality; anything excessive can yield evil outcomes, sooner or later...

Mehrdad, I welcome any contribution but again I wish people would think a little more on the subject. To use words like 'perversion' is simply a misuse of the word , as is 'sin'. Such words if employed at all, should be used to describe truly horrendous events. There is a lack of balance here, which is cultural. Human behaviour cannot be determined by these doubtful categories, which owe their roots to community control of human behaviour. Openmindedness and a willingness to think beyond the diatribes of ancient books is a must.

"Openmindedness and a willingness to think beyond the diatribes of ancient books is a must"

I was trying to explain the origins of the sin. Today adultery damages trust between people. And that is why it is something negative, whether or not it is considered theologically as a "sin."

Mehrdad, I did not see your previous contribution. My apologies. You have indeed attempted to deepen the discourse then, again I apologise, somehow cheapened it by taking the behaviour out of context and beyond intellectual balance. This I understand is a mode of thinking amongst the monotheistic religions that tend to find sexuality more repugnant than violence and regard sexual autonomy as perversion and sinful but not violence. It is the hysteria of the celibate or observer to sexual acts. Homosexuality is a sin, amongst a host of others created several thousand years ago by an elite group who glorified in concubinage and other practices. Although adultery can be subject to condemnation it does not pass understanding on it and remember the adultery of men is less reflected upon, and of powerful men hardly at all.

I think a more considered understanding of sin is required outside of medieval tropes and prejudices.

Dear Mr. Stanley Wilkin,

Thanks for your consideration! I did know from the outset that you were trying to find a "modern" definition and go beyond conventional norms and ideals. This was why my first answer tried to be neutral and explain from both religious and secular camps! I do welcome this attempt of yours, and I think every century must try to do this reconsideration of prevalent and conventional issues and questions.

Yet one thing I don't understand is that if you're going to move beyond classical bounds, then why don't you change the form (or even content) of your question? Believe it or not, everyone who reads your current question on the headline will inevitably think of religion and medieval thought! What's more, atheists and agnostics might not even choose to contribute; these people are very helpful for your inquiry, much more than theologically-minded people who resort to the Scriptures. I think you're trying to go beyond the Scriptural thought, in the hope of a new way of thinking about issues religions label as "sin" for instance...

Thanks again. I do follow this discussion and hope I will grasp some new knowledge!

Sincerely

M. B.

Monserrat, although the marraige metaphors referencing the contract between god and Judea/Israel with the latter as the bride is common in the Old Testament references to god as both mother and woman (bride) are also common. The use of the feminine to refer to god (YHWH) may be connected to earlier periods when he was shown with a goddess.

Unfortunately, this has no basis in reality and must simply be viewed as the literary construction that it is.

Уважаемый Стэнли Уилкин я с вами согласно на 100%, но всё равно объязательно надо учитовать ментальные ценности каждого народа. Спасибо.

Mehrdad Bidgoli

You are right but I am trying to do both, or several things. My apologies for any misunderstandings.

I am attempting also to understand better the idea of sin which elsewhere I have suggested leads to a failure of understanding and even violence. Its allocation does tend to be gender based. I am not sure modern views as against traditional views exist.

In many early cultures open mindedness (whatever that means) was the rule but the growth in political and social institutions moved everyday life into cosmic concerns of good and bad.

Does the disruption and emotional pain that can accompany adultery cause it to be regarded as a sin? Pain is bad, therefore must have a 'bad' source.

Lalihon Mukhamedjanova ,

Lalihon Mukhamedjanova ..added a reply on January 7, 2021, as follows:

Уважаемый Стэнли Уилкин я с вами согласно на 100%, но всё равно объязательно надо учитовать ментальные ценности каждого народа. Спасибо.

Translation into English, as follows: " I am 100 per cent with you, but you still have to take into account the mental values of every nation. "

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SOURCE: Internet Artificially Intelligent Translator

The Internet dictionary defines the word "adulteration" as denoting " the action of

making something poorer in quality by the addition of another substance; use in a

sentence, 'we're working on a new diagnostic test to more rapidly monitor food

adulteration'." The connotations of "adulteration" are numerous but they all suggest impoverishment, diminution in quality, and contamination by the addition of a qualitative element of a lesser value that undermines that which is being adulterated. A painfully contemporary illustration is the novel COVID-19 virus which adulterates the healthy cells in the human body, and scientific research also shows, in the animalia kingdom, including wild bats, hogs, and domesticated pet dogs, cats, birds, and so forth. On a microscopic epidemiological level, adulteration denotes disease, infirmity, abnormality, degradation, and pathogenesis in a healthy organism. In terms of public health, "adulteration" is a force that motivates public health workers and hospitals technicians to scour away germs, microbes, bacteria, fungus, infectious agents, viruses, and other harmful microscopic pathogenic, parasitic, opportunistic infiltrators into the biospherical environment that adulterate it with harmful bugs. Adulterated matter, whether biological, physiological, bestial, human, visible or invisible, suggests sickness, not health; abnormality, not normality; disease, not wellness; death, not life.

My attitude is in general that it is not up to me - i.e. in any sense my business or right - to concern myself with many matters outside my family and (indeed) often even within my own family. If someone engages in homosexual activity, for example, that is THAT person's business. I add that I see in any case nothing "sinful" in the activity, but even if in my view it were, it is not up to me to criticise or interfere. In the case of damage/unhappiness caused by e.g. sexual assault the matter is different, as someone is likely to be harmed by another person. I am too old to interfere with my own body in such an instance, but would somehow seek to restrain the attacker, call out for help, phone the police, or whatever. That is because sexual assault is widely agreed to be a crime, and for good reason. But homosexuality between consenting partners offers to me no problem of a moral nature. Adultery is something I disapprove of, but for as long as I cannot in justice interfere in a relationship between two other people I do not think that it is up to me to express disapproval to the adulterer. That might depend, however, on my relationship with that person. Many supposedly sinful sexual acts can actually be defended if noone suffers, but if someone suffers at the hands of someone else the matter becomes the same as it is in any other situation in which A does harm to B. It would depend on the situation to what extent one might interfere.

Adultery is considered a sin punishable by most laws and religions because it harms social cohesion, disperses social relations, and leads to excessive sexual practices and other sins.

Over the centuries many popes and cardinals and clergy were sexually promiscuous.

When consenting adults are involved, I barely take notice.

Then compare this w/ the research I conduct about Catholic pedophilia is quite common involving vulnerable youth and some are raped repeatedly. Wonder what Jesus makes of this egregious sin?

And, Catholics tend to define sins into binary units: mortal and venial.

Rich

Oddly, there is barely any movement with this question as often sin and sex are mixed up, the assumption being that adultery equates to sin-/sex. The equating of sin and sex is by itself false and again bound up with monotheism or at least the priestly writers of the bible. Adultery is situational, not fixed, and therefore can provide damage or can provide happiness for both. All events provide understanding of oneself and others.

The change within or reshaping of sexual relations is commonly but wrongly seen as the reshaping of stasis and thereby to be feared.

The sexual act itself is not condemned, but the offense against charity that infringing the vows of loyalty and fidelity supposes ... now, if both are free and have no ties or any vow of fidelity to a third party (hence the "You will not desire the wife -or the husband I add- to another") I understand that there is no problem (God is love and sexuality has also been created by Him and, as such, something natural and desirable ... AND PLEASANT, of course !!).

Francisco, at one point Christianity was conceived of as including free love. At least by some.

My main interest in offering the question was to discover what people considered sin to be and why they believed the concept was necessary. I have pointed out the historical development of the concept and its absence in most early societies. Although many societies punished adultery it was for the problems that ensued within the community, not through the idea of sin. An ancient story of the delinquent wife of a pharoah and her lover being caught and thrown to crocodiles did not attempt to understand the event through sin but rather the affects on the dynasty and kingdom.

Sin proposes that a god is concerned with the minutia of human conduct and seeks to restrain and punish. It proposes that individual conduct damages the cosmos, encouraging chaos.

Thanks you, dear Stanley Wilkin...; from an anthropological point of view, its main root is the macho and patriarchal conception of almost all cultures (monotheists too ... and I'm talking about cultures): for this reason female adultery has always been condemned MUCH MORE; but the need to make sure that whoever inherited the throne, titles, lands or WHAT WAS, in fact was and is "your son and your blood" also affects this. In Spanish there is a rather crude and eloquent saying about it: "My daughter's children are my grandchildren; but my son's, they are or they are not."

Yes, Francisco, I remember from somewhere that the chances of one of your children being from another man is something of of the order of 2/10. That is for every 10 men, etc.

As an avid watcher of nature programmes there seems a clear connnection between animal and human behaviour. A large male baboon heavily chastising one of his harem for slipping away with another male baboon, dragging her back by force. The difference seems is that we create complex invisible pressures to hold wanton women and , less so, adventurous males in place. We use god, sin etc, because of our numbers, blocking off means of escape.

Strongly agree, dear Stanley Wilkin; To this end, remember - and I advise patient readers of this debate - the works of D. Morris: "The Naked Monkey", "The Naked Man" and "The Naked Woman". Thanks.

Francisco, read them all.

Strangely Sin as a route to punishment, for that is what it is the punishment for certain human behaviours, can be seen in the animal world. Like Sin it is about breaking patriarchal codes.

You can do it without sin and/or punishment by getting divorced and remarried!! Also, if you are not yet married, you date different men or women.

It is a sin in certain religions but not in all.

Zied well argued, but probably no ones listening. The idea of lashing people as a result as a single act or singular act is clearly immoral itself. I agree with your assessment and such matters as hard as they are to endure create character. But Zied, the responses are based on patriarchal understandings of life, the offense is more to the man, not a god.

The Qur'an places women within respected but passive achetypes, kept to the household and thereby fundamental to the umma but without clear individuality except through this expression. There is no autonomy. Adultery here is discussed with women, not men, in mind.

Stanley, as far as I know, the concept of adultery in Islam is proper to both to males and females.

It is, Zeid. But I was mainly focusing on some of the responses here that seem concerned about women's adultery. I, no doubt, could be wrong. I was, let me add, not saying either that the Qur'an does not provide equality to women-although it is onotological not through practice (that requires consideration as well as there is a public and private cleavage).

Amir's answer above raises pertinent points, as given the Qur'an's stance on divorce, if unhappy in a marriage a woman could get out of it with more ease than in Christian communities until recently. In the past a European woman's chances of a happy relationship might have required cheating, although a man was able to cheat with impunity.

Again, Islam functions on the family, usually the extended family, as the basic unit and therefore its destruction, or seeming destruction, causes concern. Adultery can destroy relationships but only if the relationship is already failing or/and if considered a sin by the community.

As I have already pointed out, selecting an act as a sin involves the use of punishment to absolve that sin.

Hi Stanley, monotheistic religions, among many many others, older or simultaneous, are patriarchal, sexist and misogynistic plus their notion of justice is equivocal. In that sense, Religions are like Man and share his/her features. However, the question above does not focus on these matters.

Cheers

Zeid, it does as monotheistic religions created the notion of sin.

Cherrs.

Zied,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3269416?seq=1

I agree with Mohammed Jaafar Ali Alatabe

Suppose the concept of adultery as sin flows in the Christian religion from the commendment - regarding coveting - https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/5-21.htm.

Islam similarly finds adultery a sin (except forsex with women as slaves and those taken as captive). https://www.islamweb.net/en/article/186409/fornication-and-adultery-major-sins-in-islam

Both as Zied note, approach the concept in a patriarchal context.

The "why" is irrelevant. As both are claimed as divine revelation, we can not be privy their origin. Suppose some meaning could be found in Mark's identification of the 2 greatest commandments, the 2nd of which is love thy neighbor as thyself. Again from the patriarchal side - if you love your neighbor, suppose you won't covet/pursue adulterous relationship with his wife.