i have a couple of thoughts on sex and religion running through my head and i`ve been trying to assemble them into something coherent all morning. i suppose the best place to start would be with my religious background.
my mother was a Methodist, not sure if that`s United or otherwise. at the time of my birth Trinidad was predominately Catholic and the best opportunities for school were at the parochial schools so my mother hedged her bets and had me baptised twice, once as a Methodist and once as a Catholic. Every weekend until i abandoned organised religion as a teen, i would go to mass on a Saturday night and to church with my mother on a Sunday morning.
i was as conscientious in church as i was in school, learned my catechism, learned all the bible stories, even at some point read the entire King James version of the bible for own edification and with everything else i`ve read it stuck. i made my First Communion at nine; which was early in those days; and became an altar boy soon after. i also managed to keep my saucy young ass out of the reach of errant priests until near adulthood and even then, that was my parish priest as opposed to any of those that interacted with on a daily basis. at age 14, i even seriously pondered joining the priesthood.
what`s the point of all this? i grew up in churches, literally and figuratively. i`m not unfamiliar with religion; specifically Christianity. and when i began questioning Christianity, i researched other religions as only a Type A personality can. and there is one fundamental similarity throughout; at some point, the karma; the basic ideals and principles thereof; gets superseded by the dogma. Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, almost any religion you can name, all the fundamental beliefs are good and then somewhere along the line, it becomes politicised and the entire thing become corrupted.
i could go into a short history of the bible here, but it would be anything but short and start too many other tangents, so i`ll soldier on. with all this strong religious grounding i didn`t have any hang ups about sex, i have my mother to thank for that too. she taught me it was natural and tried to provide me with as much factual information as she could.
i`ve said this before and i`ll say it again, what two consenting adults chose to do in the privacy of their own homes is their own damn business. as for the sanctity of marriage, the institution as we know it is only 600 years old, because before that the church refused to sanctify marriages because the act of procreation was sinful. funny how the dogma changes but the basic principle of Christianity hasn`t changed; Love one another, as I have loved you; unconditional love.
