Bacon and Sex

[Sandra Craft]

Patheos has a fairly new blog, "Removing the Fig Leaf", about dealing the aftereffects of religion on sexuality.  I found this post by Neil Carter (also of "Godless in Dixie") interesting:  Bacon, Sex and Why Your Condemnation Doesn't Stick

I'm sure most of us who grew up religious got some version of this exchange after we left theism altogether.

In short, we simply want more sex (or sex of the wrong kind), and the Christian faith was cramping our style. That must really be why we left.

Are you sharp enough to notice that was a complete change of subject? Shouldn't our motivation for examining their claims be entirely beside the point?  Imagine this line of reasoning distilled down into a single conversation:

Them: You said you were a Christian for 20 years but now you're not. If your faith were real, how could you ever stop believing?

Me: Well, it finally dawned on me that the evidence for the claims of this religion doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny. I just don't see the evidence for...

Them: You just want to have more sex. How much time do you spend looking at porn each week, hmm? You want to cast off all restraint.

Me: But what does that have to do with whether or not people come back to life after they die, or whether or not invisible persons exist?

Them: You're only saying that because you want to get laid.

Me: ...

My answer to "how could you leave after being X for Y years?" is that I actually started thinking about it, rather than simply going thru the motions.  And it's thanks to reading the bible that I did start thinking -- the bible is right about a number of things, particularly the truth setting you free.

I also had a standard answer to "you just want to have more/wrong sex" -- that if all I wanted was to run wild and whoop it up, it would be easier to remain a Xtian and repent as needed.  As an atheist, I may have no fear of eternal consequences for bad behavior but I know there's little hope of escaping the here-and-now consequences (including a guilty conscience) and I have a hearty fear of those. 

But I think I like Neil's response better.  It wouldn't work on a Jew who keeps kosher, but otherwise is much shorter and to the point:

Who's to say that you're not rejecting Islam for reasons that are invalid? Maybe you just love bacon too much, and you can't let it go...

[Icarus]

There seems to be a disproportionate number of clerical types, particularly youth pastors, who get caught for banging 16 year old virginal (or not) Sunday school girls.  Affairs with the church secretary are also not unusual. Maybe it is just because I live in the deep south and southern Baptist preachers are hornier than their northern brethren. 

It is perfectly evident that humans are sexual creatures. If God did not want us to make whoopee then why did he build us that way?  Seems to me that it was a setup to satiate a divine but warped mind.

[Asmodean]

Seems to me that it was a setup to satiate a divine but warped mind.

Almost worthy of His Divine Grayness too... Almost.

[MadBomr101]

Getting laid by a women's volleyball team while eating a big plate of bacon is one of the things I still hope to accomplish before the good Lord takes me.

Praise him.