Socialism

How should Christian women respond to their men looking at other women? Part 2

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chrisPinestaringatlakergirl

In part 1 of this series, we established that men look, and many women get jealous, hurt or angry. In part 2 we will explore biological evidence and Biblical examples to show why men look at other women.

As believers in Christ, we understand that we all have a sin nature. But we also have a God given nature. In the Garden of Eden, before Adam and Eve ever sinned, God gave Adam a distinct and different male nature and he gave Eve a distinct and different female nature. He literally built Eve for Adam, and he made her nature almost completely the opposite of his.

Adam was built to lead, and God gave him dominion over the Garden, and had him name all the animals before Eve was ever made. God made a man’s mind to systemize, he made a woman’s mind to empathize.

So the question is – is man’s natural inclination to look at a variety of attractive women (even when he is in a committed relationship) a corruption of the nature God gave him in the Garden of Eden? All the ladies are saying “of course God never meant for a man to be attracted to more than one woman”.

Biological Evidence of man’s attraction mechanism

“the average man’s brain is sexually stimulated by visual cues and is built for variety…

Using functional MRI scans, researchers examined the brains of young men as they looked at pictures of beautiful women. They found that feminine beauty affects a man’s brain at a very primal level – similar to what a hungry person gets from a good meal or addict gets from a fix. One of the researchers said, “This is hard core circuitry. This is not a conditioned response.” Another concluded, “Men apparently cannot do anything about their pleasurable feelings [in the presence of beauty]”

Dr. Walt Larimore, MD – pg. 99 “His Brain, Her Brain”

MalelBrain

Even some Christian writers who take the “men just need to be trained to look away” approach admit this:

“Men’s sex drives are completely different from women’s sex drives…They really are primarily visual. If a man sees a pretty woman, his body automatically starts to respond, in the same way that if you were to walk in the front door, even if you weren’t hungry, and you smelled chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven, your mouth would start to water, whether you really wanted them or not. Even if you weren’t seeking it out, you respond. There’s nothing wrong with that…

If he’s noticing that a woman is attractive, and then he’s pulling his eyes away, he’s only being tempted. He’s not sinning. He hasn’t decided to do anything; in fact, he’s decided to turn from the temptation, which is exactly what he should be doing…

if your husband looks at other women, or comments on them, that’s hurtful…Tell him how you feel. Tell him you understand the temptation to look, but that he promised to love you and you alone. You’re worth it. And he has no right to look at anyone other than you. None of this “all men do it” garbage. We all are tempted towards sin; but we do not have to give into it.”

-Sheila Wray Gregoire

http://tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2011/03/husband-looks-at-other-women/

But as you can see from the last statement above, while the writer acknowledges man’s biological inclination to look, she sees it as part of his sin nature and a temptation he must be trained to pull “his eyes away” from.

Shelia then goes on to say that “he promised to love you and you alone…and he has no right to look at anyone else other than you.”

I could point to many more sources, and research , both from a biological standpoint, as well as psychological standpoint about man’s physical sexual attraction mechanisms, as well as his being wired for variety, but you get the point.

Biblical Examples of Man’s sexual nature

So at this point all the Christian ladies, and many Christian men are saying –“so what, man is naturally inclined to look at multiple women, but it’s part of his sin nature, and not part of God’s original design. Men just need to be trained to suppress, and flee from their sinful desire for variety – problem solved.”

But what about so many of the Patriarchs having more than one wife?

Abraham – the man of faith, the father of Jewish people, had multiple “concubines” (Genesis 25:6)

Jacob – The father of the twelve tribes of Israel, had all these sons through a combination of four wives (two free wives, two slave wives). The names of these twelve tribes are inscribed on the City of God for all time.

Gideon – the judge, great warrior and one of only a few men in the Bible to meet God in physical form (as the Angel of God), “had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives.” (Judges 8:29-30)

David – “the man after God’s own heart”, had 18 wives. God scolded David for stealing a man’s wife (Bathsheba), and told him that he had given David his “master’s wives” and “and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these” (2 Samuel 12:8)

Notice I left out King Solomon. The reason for that is unlike Abraham, Jacob, Gideon and David, God condemned King Solomon for marrying many foreign wives who lead his heart astray. Also Solomon’s behavior was in fact, the “hording of wives” (having 700 wives and 300 concubines) which was condemned by God in Deuteronomy 17:17.

So in the Bible – we have Abraham, Jacob, Gideon and David, all great men of God, and if they had sinned by having more than one wife, if they had horded wives as Solomon did, then God would have said something, but he did not – as we said previously – God told David he gave him many wives!

Man’s polygynous nature (being drawn to more than one woman) is part of his original design by God

When we put together the fact that men are naturally wired for variety, and biologically conditioned to receive pleasure when seeing a variety of beautiful women – and we put that together with the fact that many great men of God had more than one wife we see a very different picture. Man’s wiring for a variety of women is actually part of the original design (before the fall) that God made man with.

The Adam and Eve argument

The argument that if God wired men for polygyny (to have the capacity for having multiple wives) then he would have gave Adam more than one wife does not hold water. If Adam’s monogamous relationship with Eve was meant to be God’s pattern for marriage, then we have two problems:

  1. Adam and Eve’s children had to marry each other – sibling marriage, something that God later condemned.   So did God mean for brothers and sisters to marry for all time, since brothers and sisters had to marry in the beginning?
  2. The second problem with the “God only gave Adam one wife, therefore that was his pattern for marriage” argument is that God pictures himself as a Polygamist husband in the book of Ezekiel when talking about his relationship with Israel and Judah:

“The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 2 “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; 3 and they played the harlot in Egypt. They played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and there their virgin bosom was handled. 4 Their names were Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister. And they became Mine, and they bore sons and daughters. And as for their names, Samaria is Oholah and Jerusalem is Oholibah… 36 Moreover, the Lord said to me, “Son of man, will you judge Oholah and Oholibah? Then declare to them their abominations. 37 For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands.”

Ezekiel 23:1-4 & 36-37(NASB)

MansPolygynousNature

So if men looking is not the problem, then what is?

God made man with the capacity for polygyny – that’s why men whether they are in a committed relationship or not, are drawn to beautiful women. Many men throughout history have chosen not act on their polygynous capacity, while many did choose to act on it. It is interesting to note from a historical standpoint, that Israel was still highly polygamous at the time of Christ, as the Romans had trouble enforcing their monogamy laws in nations like Israel (but eventually their monogamy laws did end polygamy in Israel).

So since God made man with a capacity for polygyny, then it is not sinful for him to be visually drawn to multiple women even after marriage.

And no it’s not lusting for a man (single or married) to be aroused by the site of beautiful women, other than his wife. Lust in Matthew 5:28 is talking about sexual covetousness, meaning a man thinking about trying to get a woman to actually have sex with him outside of marriage.

So the problem is not man’s polygynous nature (his being drawn to many women), but with woman’s jealousy, anger and insecurity.

Many people attack the polygamy of the Patriarchs noting the problems with jealousy between their wives – but they never even consider the fact that the wives jealousy was the sin, not their husband’s polygyny.

In the final part of this series about Christian men looking at other, we will explore how women should handle this issue of men looking at other women.

Click here to go to the final part of this series

How the social safety net encourages divorce

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woman falling into net

How could things like joint custody, child support, alimony and equal property division cause more divorce? The answer is this – if you make something easier to do, more people will do it.

Take health care for example, our current system often times makes people pay small copays when they go for medical care, and when they don’t feel the cost, they will go the doctor for the smallest reasons increasing crowding of medical facilities and taking away resources from people who truly need critical medical care. But when people are made to pay larger copays, it makes them think twice before they go to the doctor and this reduces overuse and frivolous use of medical facilities.

The same principle applies to divorce. Before the mid 1800’s and throughout most of human history women were considered the property of their husbands, along with their children. In the rare cases that a woman actually did secure a divorce from her husband, she left only with the clothes on her back, not her children, and not any property.

You can imagine that under these circumstances, most women would never leave their husbands for fear of losing their children and becoming destitute.

But in the mid 1800’s as the early women’s rights movements began to arise, women began to be able to actually get custody of their children, and in some cases even secure property and support from their soon to be ex-husbands.

To be sure many people had good intentions in trying to make divorce easier for women. They reasoned that it was in the best interests of the children to keep them with their mother, and that she would need to be financially supported in caring for them.

But until the 1960’s a man or woman would have to prove cause for divorce (most often infidelity or some other serious issue like abuse or abandonment).

Not only did the new no fault divorce laws help to encourage divorce, but the new war on poverty of the 1960’s also helped to encourage divorce. Single mothers could now apply for government assistance to help with their children.

So even if a woman was married to a man of meager means, she could take the child support from him, and then go to the government to make up the difference through food assistance or other programs. These programs only became more and more expansive throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s. It was only in the 1990’s when Bill Clinton was forced by a Republican congress to sign welfare reform that some of the expansion was rolled back a bit and halted.

Thanks to President Obama and our Great Recession, many of these welfare reforms have been softened or done away with all together.

The result is a society in which a woman can leave her husband at any time, for no reason and she can take half his property and force him to pay child support or alimony. If he does not make a lot of money, this same woman can depend on our social safety net to make up the difference.

It should come as no surprise then, that today 70% of divorces are filed by women. We have made it easier for them to do, so they do it. Most divorces do not occur because of infidelity or abuse(which would be Biblical reasons for divorce in my opinion), the vast majority(at least 80% or more) of divorces occur over irreconcilable differences like the couple growing apart, career issues, and disagreements about how to spend money.

In western society, the nuclear family is crumbling, and this is in larger part due to the reason that we subsidize divorce, and make it so easy.

As I have said before many times on this blog, feminism and one of its many children, easy divorce, will eventually come to an end one way or the other. It will either end before western culture collapses because people begin to see a direct correlation between the collapse of marriage and the family, and the financial stresses that broken families put on our society(through crime and poverty), or it will end because we run out of money and the governments collapse.

The Socialist Assault on Marriage

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RussianAssaultOnMarriage

It is no coincidence that socialists in American have been and continue to assault the institution of marriage. It should not surprise us that most people who support government take overs of business and health care also support gay marriage and oppose traditional marriage, including traditional gender roles.

The destruction of traditional marriage is a very old tenant in the Socialist handbook, just as organized religion is. Socialists want people to have their ultimate allegiance to the state. Loyalty to family, or to God threatens ultimate loyalty to the State. That is why Socialist states find every way they can to marginalize religion, and they encourage “free love” because they know free love ultimately builds dependency upon the state.

Socialists are succeeding in America with their goals. Both church attendance and marriage rates are down. Cohabitation rates are way up.

President Obama has led the Socialist charge since he became President in 2009. He or his justice department have tried to interfere in church hiring practices and he has tried to force Christian businesses and church organizations to pay for abortion coverage.

President Obama’s minions at every level of Government are trying to force gay marriage down the throats of Bible believing Christians. Christians are in fear of losing their businesses or being dragged into court if they refuse to participate in a gay wedding.

Our Socialist President loves creating more and more dependency, he gives out “free” cell phones and has massively expanded food stamp programs which discourage people from finding work.

But it all goes back to an assault on the family, and on traditional marriage, if we continue to lose our fight for traditional marriage and the traditional family unit, our nation will soon crumble.

I pray that all my Christian friends, and even those non-Christians who understand the importance of the traditional family unit, will stand together against this Socialist assault. We need to find candidates that will not be afraid of the word SOCIALIST – that is what President Obama is, that is what Harry Reid is. That is what many democrats are. We need to call it what it is!

We also need Christians and churches to get out of bed with the Socialists! So many Christians think that socialism is a good think because it supposedly helps the poor so they get in bed with the very people who are assaulting the family, God and religious freedom. Christians wake up!!!