Pick-a-Pope #1 at Vatican City

[columbia]

Would a well adjusted human being choose a life of celibacy?

[Gaucho]

Probably not.

[Gaucho]

It's kinda cool that we can still vote, though.

[shafnutz05]

[SolidSnake]

Haha Pope Francis is awesome

[redwill]

I agree. So does the Bible...

1 Corinthians 7:1-4
Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations. But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

Why is it good to abstain from sexual relations?

[MRandall25]

I agree. So does the Bible...

1 Corinthians 7:1-4
Now regarding the questions you asked in your letter. Yes, it is good to abstain from sexual relations. But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.

The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife.

Why is it good to abstain from sexual relations?

I believe, in this context, it is referring to extramarital.

[redwill]

I don't think so. Consider the context (KJV):

Spoiler:

1 Corinthians 6:
13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

14 And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.

15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.

17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.

19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

I Corinthians 7:
1 Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

3 Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.

4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

[MRandall25]

Actually, that passage you quoted backs up my interpretation of it, IMO.

Source: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/a ... s2c2a6.htm

Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young.

Notice how the passage PFIDC quotes says "The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs." That right there goes completely against what you're interpreting the passage as.

The passage, as I read it and how the word fornication is defined by the Catholic Church, is saying people should abstain from sex outside of marriage, not altogether.

[redwill]

OK.

Paul would disagree with you, though.

[MRandall25]

I guess it depends on how you interpret "fornication".

All the definitions I have looked at it in the context of the Bible say it refers to sex outside of marriage and/or general sexual immorality.

Not really sure what you're getting at, though.

[PensFanInDC]

Redwill is correct.

This is one of those things that is very hard to understand and I don't claim to completely. Paul is speaking in a matter of eternity, a matter of what we (followed of Christ) are supposed to be and one day will be when we are one with the Father in heaven. Sex has 1 purpose; procreation. We are told to be fruitful and multiply so obviously sex is needed. Sex is also a gigantic doorway to immorality and Christ taught that it is better to cut off what makes you sin than to keep on sinning. In that way since the people of Corinth, to whom this letter was addressed, were rampant with sexual immorality Paul essentially told them it's best to 'cut off what makes them sin', ergo don't have sex. Since that is a rather absurd request to make of human beings (especially if we are to be fruitful and multiply) Paul says it's best to be married and monogamous.

[MRandall25]

Isn't that what I was basically saying? Don't have sex outside of marriage?

[PensFanInDC]

Isn't that what I was basically saying? Don't have sex outside of marriage?

Yes but Redwill was asking why the Scripture says it's better to not have sex at all, not just outside of marriage.