Dear Niuwa,
I would like to write about your idea about sex, quoted below and found in the current discussion with the root topic: "Discuss Sex at this Forum."
You wrote there: "in China, many parents think that sex is forbidden before their children are marry, I don't think so ,because it is a phenomena in nature,it's necessary in our lives. and I agree with MR Zhang!"
I hope you will all think carefully about this. "What you sow is what you reap." Don't go down this path if you value a good life for your own and future generations. It has been tried before in history, and in the pastthirty or forty years in the West, and it still doesn't work! The resultsare being reaped in many ways here now. Why not learn from the West's mistakes? Why go down the same old path again and learn the hard way?
Look well at who is encouraging you to be "wild and free" and "natural" and "do what feels good". You will see that, as usual, they have motives that benefit themselves. You are being encouraged by ads and articles and movies and so on, to indulge any and all passions and desires, with no controls. This leads to trouble for individuals, families and civilization.
I would also like to share these thoughts: our bodies are physical, and a part of nature. But we are different from animals because we are not bound by instincts. Instinct protects animals. It also keeps them captives of nature. We are not protected by instincts, but we are also not captives of nature. We have free will.
If we didn't have free will and our marvellous higher quality of intellect we would not have been able to discover how to overcome laws of nature. No animal can do this. Although our physical selves are part of nature, our inner selves are not, because we can go beyond nature. Here are some examples of how we have broken the iron-bound laws of nature to do things that no animal can ever do:
* we are able to fly faster than sound. * we can travel deep in the oceans in submarines * we can escape from our solar system to explore the moon and planets and the universe. * we can communicate instantly around the world. * we can send our voices or moving pictures of ourselves around the world.
These are a few things already possible because we can overcome laws of nature. Even our sun and all the stars and planets are not able to break the laws of nature. There is a part of ourselves that is outside the laws of nature. This is totally remarkable capacity. It makes us more than animals. More even than a mighty sun. We should not be made proud by this.We need to be more wise and careful because of this unusual capacity.Our level of being may exist on other planets, but we are the only ones on this planet who are able to overcome the laws of nature. We need to respectourselves, and to live with dignity, human understanding and wisdom.
Animals are captives of their instincts. They are also not able to understand beyond what their senses tell them. Humans have a higher capacity of thought. It is a marvellous capacity. Baha'u'llah said: "The reality of man is his thought."
We are not just part of "the phenomena in nature." This freedom from instinct and our higher power of thought is "a two-edged sword." Animals' instincts protect them from serious mistakes. We aren't bound by them, so they can't protect us. We need to use our high mental capacities to protect ourselves. Wonderful free will allows us to discover but it also allows us to misuse our freedom. That is why we humans have laws for our protection.
One of the greatest laws has always been the law of marriage. It has been found through the ages to be necessary to protect all of us. Laws such as this make life happier, healthier, and civilizations to flourish. The laws are not to make a more miserable life.
Marriage is a binding promise. This promise ensures a child will know who its father is.
This promise binds parents and children to each other, so that parents are willing to sacrifice to nurture their children wisely and lovingly over the long period of time needed until maturity. Animals' maturing periods are much shorter, and what they need to be taught is much more restricted, yetmany animals restrict themselves to one mate and rear their young well and lovingly.
Birth control needed to restrict family size is not perfect. Abortion is apotentially physically damaging, and usually a sorrowful business, particularly for the woman. Hormones can cause health problems to either male or female, depending on which is making the sacrifice of using them. The best way to avoid abortion, hormone use, the aborting of human life early on, sexually transmitted diseases (STD's,) or children who needing adoption or being exposed is to practise the wise law of celibacy before marriage and faithfulness in marriage.
A child who doesn't know, or have a strong relationship with both of its parents is wounded inside as an adult, and doesn't mature as it could have. One parent families here have proven this to be true for both sexes. Oneparent families are usually the results of divorce. Sex before marriage, often excused as experimenting to find the right person, has been found here in solid investigations, to increase the liklihood of divorce.
A child who isn't lovingly raised by both parents, when grown won't be likely to lovingly assist parents in their old age. We will all suffer from this, sooner or later. It is happening in North America now whereold and feeble parents are sent to institutions often enough.
A person who doesn't know his ancestry is cut off from family roots. This causes lack of confidence and inner stability which cuts down on success andhappiness.
Marriage is a promise that a woman will not be left pregnant and abandoned.
It is a promise of fidelity, so that sexually transmitted diseases will not be brought to each other from outside, or to infect their babies, as happens with AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Sexually transmitted diseases don't only make life miserable, or make you insane if untreated, or kill you like AIDS can. They also can damage male and female fertility, so that children can't be conceived when finally desired.
One who follows their animal desires helps with the destruction of civilization. Civilization is based on healthy, well raised children, strong families, trust and fidelity between mates. If too many people act to destroy this strong network, civilizations begin to fail.
Rejection of old laws is considered "freedom". What it really is, --is anarchy.
If you value an ever-advancing civilization then use your excellent brainpower to assess what will truly bring it. Don't be governed by passion and desire. Enjoy sex, but enjoy it in its rightful place.
Warmly, and with all good wishes, Mary
