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Dear Questioning,
I would guess that your parents divorced, which is a great cause of confusion
and anger in young people. It also appears that there is a difference between
your mom and your dad about religion, and that makes it hard for a young
person, with torn loyalties, cynicism, and anger. In addition, you are
of an age where life experiences and decisions frequently influence one
to change one's beliefs to better accommodate one's actions.
Nevertheless, let's stand back and look at things as objectively as possible:
If there is a God, and this God has spoken and shown the way to happiness
and eternal life, we want to know it.
If, instead, everything is up for grabs
(ultimately to the strongest person), then we are on our own and can do
what we like, no matter how destructive it is to ourselves and others.
Even the concept that something hurts someone, self, or others, means that
there is something that is good for us, and something that is bad. It is
easy to see short term good and bad, but longer term is more difficult.
That is why all cultures since the beginning of time have had law codes
that included basic morality, which included sexual morality. Not even
the ancient Romans taught that sex outside of marriage was OK, even though
they practiced it.
You say you believe in a higher power. A higher power is either the highest
power of all, which all people everywhere have, called God, or it is one
of many powers higher than us, and therefore not God, but a spirit, either
a good or evil spirit.
Since God is by definition the Highest Power, He is also
a Person, since to be a person is higher than not to be a person. A person
means a being with rational mind and free will, which are higher than beings
with no mind and no will. Of course, God is a Person in a far different
way than we are, but He is a Person, not an unthinking, unwilling 'strongest
force'.
There
is a very, very good book called Handbook
of Christian Apologetics by
Peter Kreeft, which will lead you through all your own objections to
religion, expressed even better than you can express them, and showing
how the wisest through the ages, from Aristotle to Plato, to Judaism
and Christianity and even the great pagan religions, answer the questions.
You are certainly old enough to read it, and you can find it on
Amazon.
As for your questions about sex:
Sexual morality reflects the meaning
and purpose of sexuality, which is closely tied to the meaning and purpose
of life itself. As we can see, on even the basic level, sex and babies
are connected, and we know that babies need a mother and a father (this
has been psychologically and scientifically proven, regardless of the
current propaganda), and that babies need a stable environment of an
intact family in which they can grow up and mature in security.
No one knows she is going to
marry another until the day it happens. We can have commitments that we
want or desire to make,
but the commitments have to be made. Many, many children are put
in the fragile nest of uncommitted couples. (There
is no such thing as 100% effective birth control, so every marital act
outside of marriage risks a baby's family security).
It is like putting
a baby in an unfenced front yard.
Many babies are killed by abortion when the unmarried but committed partner
decides he is not going to stick around for a child.
Aside from the baby aspect, extramarital sex is wrong (whether
outside of or before marriage) because it is a lie and it is contrary
to our good and to our nature. Sex entrusts the life force and one's
most unique possession, our own genetic code, to another. It
expresses total self-giving, but the uncommitted are not really giving
themselves, not over any period of time other than right that moment. They are
giving their bodies so that they can receive pleasure which means they
are using each other. No person should ever be used. A person is an end,
not a means, which means that sex should be for you as a whole person,
not just for your pleasure or for a temporary time, but for you
- with your
fertility and with your whole life, and
- with protection for your unique
contribution to the human genetic endowment.
Fornication and adultery are contrary to our good and our nature because:
- God said so, and He made us, so He knows; and
- We bond in sex, (the hormonal
effects on bonding are amazing), seeing the person more positively, and
women even incorporate bits of men's biochemistry into our immune system.
Women with multiple sexual partners are doing something medically
harmful and harmful to their future bonding, even on the brain chemical
level. There is lots of new literature out there about these things.
Each breakup leaves a person with less ability to give herself wholeheartedly
in the bond of marriage which, remember, is the bond that children
need, and, moreover, is the bond that we deep down really yearn for and believe
in.
- Because we know are made for the eternal happiness of love. We all
want to love and be loved, for ourselves, forever. Nobody wants to be
one of a series of rejects or trials.
That makes people instruments:
tools in the search for the self's satisfaction. Not a plan for happiness
for anyone. For more information about these things, go to:
Try to forgive your Mom, Dad, and teacher and take these matters directly
to the God you don't quite believe in. Give him a chance.
Ask him to show
you that He is real and loves you. He will.
Mary Ann
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