Is fornication sinful?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No, I wouldn't say that its inherently sinful.

I'm surprised to see this response from you. Care to elaborate?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

No, I wouldn't say that its inherently sinful.

I'm surprised to see this response from you. Care to elaborate?

Well, I guess I'm of the opinion that 'fornication' is wrong when it takes the form of adultery or casual promiscuity, but, on the other hand, I think that if two people who, you know, actually love each other (or like each other, I dunno how one is to define 'love' as such in these situations), then I don't think sex outside of marriage is necessarily wrong.

The thing is, I'm not particularly well-versed in the Bible, or that knowledgeable about a lot of Christian teaching. I'll admit that. I mean, I occasionally go the Church, and I believe in God and the afterlife, but I recognise that a lot of what I do and believe in (not neccesarily on this issue, but more generally), could perhaps be argued to go against the grain of accepted Christian teaching (in my case, specifically Catholic teaching). I'm not expert on the Bible, so going from my gut I'd say extra-marital sex isn't always wrong.

Going onto a broader, and only somewhat tangentially connected point, I'm a big believer in the concept of purgatory, and, well, my own view is that I'll be spending a long time there when I die. I'm not a 'good' person (although I'd like to think I'm not a 'bad' person either), I'm a rather grey, flawed character; I occasionally attend Church and pray, but I often fail to obey Church teachings; I try to be pleasant and scrupulous in my direct dealings with others, but on occasion my behaviour falls well short of the standards set by Jesus or saints more generally. Sorry for going off track and wasting you're time listening to my rubbish, but yeah, sex outside of marriage is one of those issues where I'm, generally speaking, not sure, and thus lean towards the more lenient side of the debate (which, of course, is the side that is probably easier for me to hold to ).

All of this makes perfect sense and all, I'm just a little surprised that someone as hardline conservative as you on so many things holds this point of view. Interesting.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For what it's worth my actual, practical, other-people's-real-lives views on this issue are around where Ernest's, Cassius's, and Scott's are (never a group of posters I thought I'd say that about all at once!), for all that my tendency to frame things in terms of what would be the case in an ideal world or what's true for me personally makes me come across as significantly more conservative and hidebound about it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For what it's worth my actual, practical, other-people's-real-lives views on this issue are around where Ernest's, Cassius's, and Scott's are (never a group of posters I thought I'd say that about all at once!), for all that my tendency to frame things in terms of what would be the case in an ideal world or what's true for me personally makes me come across as significantly more conservative and hidebound about it.

Of all the issues to suddenly embrace practicality on, why this one?

I'm not so much embracing practicality as I am saying that those are my views when I do think in practical terms. I still prefer to think in ideal terms, on this as in pretty much everything else.

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Being sick of arguing with people about a subject that I find especially emotionally exhausting, for the most part. What I mean by 'practical terms' is 'what I can reasonably expect of the people around me who don't share all my views'.

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No. That was poorly worded. I apologize. I mean that my actual views haven't changed (and also that I'm personally uninterested enough in sex not to have the problem that Simfan is describing). I'm advocating letting myself be emotionally exhausted and not having to deal with this so much.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For what it's worth my actual, practical, other-people's-real-lives views on this issue are around where Ernest's, Cassius's, and Scott's are (never a group of posters I thought I'd say that about all at once!), for all that my tendency to frame things in terms of what would be the case in an ideal world or what's true for me personally makes me come across as significantly more conservative and hidebound about it.

Of all the issues to suddenly embrace practicality on, why this one?

I'm not so much embracing practicality as I am saying that those are my views when I do think in practical terms. I still prefer to think in ideal terms, on this as in pretty much everything else.

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Being sick of arguing with people about a subject that I find especially emotionally exhausting, for the most part. What I mean by 'practical terms' is 'what I can reasonably expect of the people around me who don't share all my views'.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

No. That was poorly worded. I apologize. I mean that my actual views haven't changed (and also that I'm personally uninterested enough in sex not to have the problem that Simfan is describing). I'm advocating letting myself be emotionally exhausted and not having to deal with this so much.

Fair enough. I was under the impression from that previous post you were arguing that fornication is not sinful, which I can now is not what you're arguing. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm arguing that it's not sinful enough to be worth kamikazeing my social relationships over (independent of aggravating factors, like if there was dishonesty involved or a friendship was somehow built on an understanding of these things that turned out not to be true). That's all.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Again, my impression is that the Pauline epistles are more or less explicit in holding that believing Jews will be saved, and that the vast majority of fundies believe this.

Yeah, I've always been confused as to why this is a point of controversy even among people with limited, conservative soteriologies.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Ernest, how do you reconcile your view that it is not sinful with what is in the Bible?

Furthermore I feel abstinence shows a certain maturity- after all, isn't self-denial and restraint part of maturity? For the same reason one would not eat a cake if you were trying to lose weight, or even on any occasion.

Simple, I don't have to reconcile that because that's not my view.  My view is not that fornication is not sinful, but that relationships that under our legal system are today considered fornication would not be considered fornication but a form of marriage back when not all marriages were sanctified by either the state or a church.

If I was dating someone, how would this be construed as marriage?

I believe Ernest may be referring to common-law marriage in the sense of long-term cohabitation, the sort a couple might settle into if they 'don't believe in' or are apathetic about legal marriage, or are of the same sex in a jurisdiction or religion where that's not recognized, or some other situation of that kind.