And of course the nastier versions of christianity, where all of us are bad and inadequate and only the abitrary, capricious favor of the Biggest of all Daddies can save us from hell, are pretty much the type of this kind of abusive upbringing…

And then they tell the audience that, even if they don’t adhere to the organization and its Seven Promises, they owe this to God anyway because of all the nifty perks He bestows on men. Noblesse oblige, indeed.

Really? No Devil’s Advocacy? No questioning of whether safe words are adequate, or whether BDSM women are setting themselves up to be raped? Wow. I’m wholly surprised. Honestly.

If their partners take advantage of them and don’t respect the safe word as initially agreed upon, it’s rape; it’s assault, pure and simple. And like all other rape, it is clearly not the victim’s fault.

I can’t even bring myself to play the Devil’s Advocate on that point.

Really? No Devil’s Advocacy? No questioning of whether safe words are adequate, or whether BDSM women are setting themselves up to be raped? Wow. I’m wholly surprised. Honestly.

I think the same way about people who decide to order their lives according to the Biblical model for family relations: as long as there’s a basic level of respect from all parties, and everyone agrees that human rights are inviolate, it’s all good.

The moment a man (or woman) starts abusing that trust, he’s failed both his family and his God. His spouse should take action, which might include leaving the marriage for good.

In her book “Remaking Love,� Barbara Ehrenreich did that with Beverly LaHaye’s marriage manual and “The Story of O.� They were virtually indistinguishable from each other.

I’m not suprised

Using the web would be more accessible and using something as “old fashion” as a frame set one could link actual active sites, and articles for a side by side comparision of CDD and BDSM.

Given enough play I wonder how certain persons would react. and in the ewwwwww corner as I was thinking about this on my way home today I kind of though BillO would get a rise out of it.

Religion is not merely Judeo-Christianity. Stalinism was based on religion, despite any claim to atheism it might have had. An infallible dictator, marshaling the forces of justice and right for the good of Communism? That doesn’t sound familiar? I’m sorry, but any system of understanding that establishes the idea of absolute truth via dictate is a religion.

Now, there is a such thing as dementia in a single person, as well as insanity. But as to widespread doctrine, ideologies from which evil has transpired in our history can be reduced to singular ideology, backed by seemingly omnipotent force, and controlled via propaganda. Tell me that that is not an adequate definition of religion, and state the reasons why.

Awesomely put. There is no reason for religion, unless you have a fear of the afterlife, whcih, okay, have at feeling better about what awaits you, but your religion is not truth. No. Back away from the stupid.

I can’t put it more succinctly. Religion says that there is always absolute truth, beyond reason and external evidence, and I cannot believe that. Ethics, rationality, dialectic, all of these provide mechanisms for discerning truth, but as to one person’s opinion, which is what each book of the Bible can only purport to be, no. That is not absolute truth.

then let’s just recognize that Paul managed to take a step in the right direction and then build on that in light of our experiences and the way our understanding of the world has developed.

Okay, lets just assume that Paul did … they why on earth would any of his writings have any relevancy? Why should people pay ANY attention to what is said therein at all? If we have grown beyond Paul’s “start” as a society, then why the fuck pay any attention to any religious text that includes such.

I am NEVER going to understand the cherry-picking approach of christians of any ilk. If your religion has holy prescriptions of behaviour, rooted in the devine, what gives any one proclamation any more or less strength than any other? If you adhere to some piece of scripture but not another, when each has equality validity being biblical proclamations, then you’re not being a christian, you’re making moral and ethical decisions from a rationa secular perspective.

The moment you’ve gone to making your decisions about which sections to follow yourself and which to not, and which are merely steps and which are the whole enchilada, then you’ve surpassed your religion.

Basically, the advocates would tell them, “The marriage is already broken. Vows have already been severed. But not by you. Therefore, you have every right to leave.”