Sells, I suspect a significant proportion of "christians" in Australia would not agree with "It is certainly not the case, as in Islam and Mormonism, that scripture is beamed down to earth from God.". Most of the churches I've ever had anything to do with hold that the bible is the inspired word of God, perfect etc. They might not like a comparison with Islam or Mormonism.

Timkins, certainly appears that monogamous relationships work best for people with my cultural background. I've seen indicators that other approaches work well in other cultures but not studied the topic in depth. We are to some extent the product of the cultures we grow up in. I do wander how much harm the focus on monogamy does to some people and relationships. I can think of a lot worse things than infidelity that people do to each other in relationships that we seem to treat much less seriously. Good points you make about the medical aspects.

Di, to pick up on the driving metaphore.
- A saturday afternoon watching people driving cars on telly generally involves high powered race cars on a race track rather than suburban run abouts in normal traffic.
- If we see anything of the building and maintenance of the car it is a short summary, with most of the viewing time being devoted to the racing (and a bit to tyre changes in pit lane).
- The drivers are generally more skilled than average.
- Most of while quietly dreamin of owning a super car still choose to buy something a bit more realistic.
- Most viewers know that the race cars cost a lot to operate and are difficult to keep running.
- Most people can go without watching cars race with no problem but enjoy it from time to time. A small number of others get addicted.
- Some people don't approve of car racing and would like to see it banned. Some of them probably watch the races when they think nobody knows and feel guilty for doing so.

R0bert

RObert
I am sure you are right about “most Christians” thinking that the bible was beamed down from God intact. Again I get on to my old hobby horse; this is a very modern notion that could only be derived from the sort of God who was imagined by a people who could only see the world in terms of cause and effect. Once the turn to nature and its explanation in terms of cause and effect had happened it was applied to theology as well. So we get god as supernatural consciousness magically communicating his will via a strange mixture of texts that include history, poetry, hymns, legends, myths, national stories and look all too human. Strange way for a thinking being to communicate his will! Again we must try to look beyond or context and begin to see how the early church understood its texts. How did it decide which books were in and which out? Why was the gospel of Thomas excluded and John included? There decisions were guided by an inherited ethos, which the church calls the Holy Spirit. There is not a lot of mystery in this, a board of directors do the same.

Luckily, theology is not democratic; it is not determined by how many people in the pews or out believe. It has been my continuing and sad experience that the level of theological education in the church is woeful.

Sell's I hope I don't find anything else pressing to add to this discussion before tomorrow night.

Totally agree with your last post.

Another aspect of this discussion which has been briefly touched on previously got me thinking some more on my way home from an art class tonight.

We were painting from the model in class. Certainly not something I would consider pornographic. I enjoy the learning and the challenge of trying to capture something of the model in paint but the process is very unsexy.

I remember the nude sculptures in St Peter's basillica and contrasted that to the approach taken to the human body (and art in general) in australian evangelical churches. Not very likely to see detailed anatomy up on the wall of the local baptist church.

Is what is in St Peter's art or porn? What about pictures of those same sculptures and paintings in the hands of a teenage boy?

What about the attire worn by the worship leaders at Hillsong (I channel flick sometimes) if viewed by someone from a culture requiring complete cover up for women?

What about those polished thigh high boots of Di's - fashion statement or porn? Hopefully there is nobody sick enough to want to watch DVD's of people wearing Safari suits.

The boundaries of what constitutes porn relate very much to the attitudes of the viewer.

R0bert

RObert
I think it is hard to find the boundary between porn and art. There is a painting by Gustave Courbet in the Musee D’Orsay that was hung only in private rooms and behind screens by its owners. Interestingly I had to do quite a search for it on the web. This is a very sexy painting. You are the art student, you tell me if this is porn or does it matter? http://windshoes.new21.org/art-gallery/courbet/17-origin.jpg

I find it interesting that there has been some embarrassment connected to the painting although it is included in the museum’s book. I think my point is that this painting is more sexy than most porn which you must agree is mostly very bad art. I have yet to see a painting of a couple engaged in coitus or indeed engaged in any sexual act. Why this is so, given the breaking down of almost all artistic boundaries in our time, escapes me but it does point to a reticence in these things. It is as if representation of sex borders on kitsch, like an over glorious sunset, it is just too much.

There is certainly in the tradition a crossover of the erotic and the religious. The Song of Solomon is about fleshly love but it is also used as an analogy of the relationship between humanity and God. All of the aspects of male/female relationship, love, passion, hatred, faithfulness, unfaithfulness are mirrored in that relationship. I have always thought it quaint that in the wedding liturgy marriage is compared to the relationship between God and His church, but you see the connection.

BTW the nude was introduced into Medieval painting via paintings of Adam and Eve, I guess before the nude was rediscovered in the Renaissance from the Greeks.

I am not sure the boundary is defined by the viewer. Courbet’s painting is a definite turn on, does that make it porn

Robert, after your post, I shall never navigate my way around the local roundabout again without a vision of.. pressing my brutal and relentless, stilleto heeled, toe capped steel leather (thigh high, natch!) boots down onto the hot sweaty brake that's just begging under my feet for forgiveness. I refuse, but ... I brake anyway. Just in time. Lucky I'm With Amiee. Sorry... is that porn or insurance? Regards,

R0bert, somewhere out there, there will be, I can assure you, someone sick enough to get off on people in safari suits. If you want sick, it's easy to find - my personal favourites are the people who want to be amputees, or the people who deliberately aim to get infected with AIDS. I tend to find this somewhat more reprehensible than looking at pictures of copulation. Your point about art in the hands of teenage boys is well made. Given the tendency of teenage boys to get an erection when travelling on the top deck of a bus, I think we must assume nearly everything can be a means of arousal for the poor creatures. But the real worry about porn is the awful prose it er, comes, with. When we moved into our present house, there were a couple of porn video covers left in the shed. I saved one in disbelief at the liner note style. "Antonio Passolini draws back the meat curtains to reveal the bizarre secrets and sacred rituals of the sisterhood of Sappho". Or better still, "For the first time in his illustrious career, Passolini forgoes plot and character study". Yeah, right.