TeamManager,
>I am shocked with your kind of selective reading, reasoning
>and understanding.
Please don't be shocked but instead give me an explanation of the following verses as it would be more beneficial to me...
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32. I should like you to be free of anxieties."An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord.
33. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife'
34. and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
35. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.
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>>St Augustine also took it a step further and connected
>>sex with guilt, all this from the view and intepretation
>>of the "original sin" that has been passed down to all
>>generations.
>
>Where did you get this one from?
You don't know much about St Augustine's role in promoting celibacy do you? Where did I get it from? LOL, try any encyclopaedia and then get back to me if you fail to find any info.
Do you know who said this..."Nothing is so powerful in drawing the spirit of a man downwards as the caresses of a woman." Take a wild guess...or google the quote and a certain name will pop up.
I also read this on a thesis...
"In the fourth century, Augustine helped revive many of Plato's five-hundred year-old concepts on the unnatural union of the human body and the soul in efforts to down-play the importance of sensual pleasure. Augustine, who sowed some wild oats before he settled down to ordinary day-to-day sainthood, is credited with merging his Manichaeanistic good v. evil leanings with Plato's worldview to give the Christian world a negative attitude toward the human body specifically and sex in general.
"Much of the guilt, repression, shame, and frustration sprouted in the Catholic perception of sex and bodily function can be traced back to Augustine, not to the Scriptures which tell us that the body is a gift from God."
source:
http://www.arthurstreet.com/celibacy1993.html