Do you expect an apology from any future non-virgin girlfriend/boyfriend?

[waterbear]

Care to expand on that? Cause you know, I could dish out quite a bit of dough for an in-depth personality report but heck if I can get one free from the world famous Dr. Waterbear I'll gladly leap at the chance. Why don't you tell me all about my filthy flea-bitten sin-ridden personality and your flawless superior value set?

You know, it's like someone said in the philosophy forum--You can't make an argument against dating non-virgins without saying in one form or another, "I'm better than them."

I haven't stated that it's possible to stereotype a virgin or non-virgin by personality. Nor have a stated that it's possible to stereotype a virgin or non-virgin by values. I have stated that I think marriage should be life-long and that can have nasty consequences with non-virgins. I'll add that I see marriage, as one of its core, as a sexual commitment, from what I've said earlier should be life-long (had to make it sexual in some way, otherwise it'd just be a friendship). So I suppose it is true that under my paradigm I'm better suited for marriage than a non-virgin, and someone who's never looked at porn nor had sex would be better suited for marriage than I. As most people don't use this paradigm, virgin or non-virgin, I'm "better than them" in some way that's irrelevant. I'd hope I'm better at following my paradigms than most, and I would assume most people follow their paradigms better than most, so I'd assume this property would be true for most understandings anyone holds.

Again I'll remind you that a lot of people consider themselves virgins because they have been forgiven their past mistakes. You can ask "have you ever had sex?" and she might say "no" because since she became a new creature in Christ, she hasn't. To get the response you're after you would have to ask "before you were saved, did any man's body enter the one you have now?" ...And just the mere fact that you would have to specify "before you were saved" should indicate to you how significant the answer would be to God.

And I've asked that before. Does God consider it significant if someone can make you laugh? Is God going to consider significant the limitations you place on a spouse you choose - after all He loves all Christians.

 

[Carri20]

Once again you fail to provide and argument that doesn't say in some form or another, "I'm better than nonvirgins" or actually let me revise that to say "Nonvirgins aren't good enough for me." But maybe the truth is the other way around. A person who has been forgiven of sexual sin and granted a second chance by God Almighty Himself deserves a marriage partner who will look at them not as they were before, but as they are now in Christ. I said something similar in another thread and I'll say it here--you sir just do not measure up.

Or in other words, you may reject a nonvirgin based on sins that have been forgiven, but at the same time there are plenty of nonvirgins who would reject you based on sins you obviously have never repented of.

 

[waterbear]

You shouldn't ask why someone refuses to date you though - that's their discretion. I've said before, my views on dating non-virgins wouldn't change if fornication weren't noted as a Biblical sin. Willingness to forgive is NOT related to accepting someone into a marital relationship (or even sustaining a martial relationship in the case of adultry).

 

[MrDude]

waterbear and carri should hook up. They're obviously hiding romantic and sexual tension with these hate filled posts.

 

[london boy]

I wouldn't expect an apology because we are both sinners and who am I to demand an apology when I have sinned too.

 

[Marissa]

I wouldn't expect an apology, because they haven't sinned against me. They've sinned against themselves and God.

I'm no where in the picture.

 

[Carri20]

waterbear and carri should hook up. They're obviously hiding romantic and sexual tension with these hate filled posts.

Don't make be retch on your good shoes.

Maybe virgins with attitude problems and pride issues just aren't good enough for me. Seriously though I deserve better. I'm actually quite choosy about who I date.

Willingness to forgive is NOT related to accepting someone into a marital relationship (or even sustaining a martial relationship in the case of adultry).

It most certainly is in your case. Forgiveness goes hand-in-hand with forgetting, or letting go, as God himself demonstrates. If you haven't let go, then you haven't forgiven, and if you haven't forgiven, God may not forgive you. That's something you'll have to either repent of or suffer from.

So again, while you reject nonvirgins based on sins that have been forgiven, there are plenty of nonvirgins who would reject you based on sins you haven't even repented of.

As we've seen earlier, the Bible is clear that love keeps no record of wrongs. As a Christian you are COMMANDED to love your brothers and sisters in Christ, which means that you don't hold their pasts against them. That's a requirement. If a nonvirgin were to show interest in you and you reject her based on her past, you are not showing love towards her as commanded by God. Quite the opposite. Satan is the one who keeps the record of sin and tries to hold it against us. Your "value set" is not only ungodly, it's more along the lines of Satanic. You're eating out of the devil's hand, and he's using you to try to hurt and destroy people of God.

Stop trying to separate all people into herds of "virgins" and "nonvirgins". The sooner you start seeing them all as born-again Christians, the better for you.

 

[MrDude]

So carri20, lemme just ask you something.

Say you're dating some nice, genuinly Christian guy. But let's say one of this guys vices is women. Now, he cheats on you. With two girls at once. And then you find out. He says he's sorry, and he really is, but he's still gonna have that particular vice to always deal with. Are you saying you're not going to break up with him?

 

[Arikereba]

So carri20, lemme just ask you something.

Say you're dating some nice, genuinly Christian guy. But let's say one of this guys vices is women. Now, he cheats on you. With two girls at once. And then you find out. He says he's sorry, and he really is, but he's still gonna have that particular vice to always deal with. Are you saying you're not going to break up with him?

My apologies for intruding, but it seems like the situations are completely different--insofar as one is completely focused on the past, and the other also involves what's going to happen in the future.

It's a sore button for me because in my last breakup, I had to say over and over again, "I DO forgive you. I just don't trust you to act decently to me."

Sometimes we do need to keep enough of a record of wrongs to protect ourselves. But someone can have had sex in the past without that being an indicator of anything in the future.

 

[waterbear]

I'll try a different approach. Sin is what offends God, thus sin should not be engaged in out of respect to God. Wrongness is something you personally would rather avoid. For example, if you believe in living debt free, a mortgage is wrong. Nothing todo with sin. I believe in life-long marriage, thus dating a non-virgin is wrong. Nothing todo with sin.

As I mentioned earlier, the realm where wrongness (opposed to sin) applies is this realm of the senses. It maintains a good record of everything you do through consequences - any action has consequences associated with it. Memories are a consequence, having exposed yourself to someone has a consequence in both of your memories (there are typically other consequences, but those vary). Our memories are part of who we are in this world of the senses and impact how we act. As I see it, one should marry someone for everything they are, including all those memories.

As memories objectively exist, they are valid discriminators (I'd argue subjective existence is also sufficient, but this approach seems somehow less subjective ). Discriminators are used to pick one person out of almost a billion possible people for a mate - millions of which are excellent Christians. Any of these excellent Christians who happens to be single makes for a Biblically-approved marriage, however you need to decide on ONE of them. This is the role of discriminators. Discriminators may also be used to decide between celibacy or marriage as both of those states are Biblically-approved. Thus, in addition to sin, discriminators rely on wrongness, things one would personally rather avoid in this life.

I can see two types of people claiming they don't use discriminators - those who claim to act "from the heart" (a) or "by the advise of God" (b). In the case of (a) they are simply using discriminators which aren't conciously defined - much like me only being attractive to certain physical characteristics, but I'm unable to exactly identify these characteristics and create a well-defined communication of what I find physically attractive. In the case of (b), it is their interpretation of signs from God which are discriminators. The (b) people often end up being wrong in which case they acknowledge their role in identifying God's will.

 

[waterbear]

My apologies for intruding, but it seems like the situations are completely different--insofar as one is completely focused on the past, and the other also involves what's going to happen in the future.

It's a sore button for me because in my last breakup, I had to say over and over again, "I DO forgive you. I just don't trust you to act decently to me."

Sometimes we do need to keep enough of a record of wrongs to protect ourselves. But someone can have had sex in the past without that being an indicator of anything in the future.

The past & the models/paradigms used to interpret it are our indicators of future states. From my point of view, if a state transition is reversible, it's not worthy of that much concern. Thus if adultry is OK if it is somehow knowable to me that the person will never commit adultry again, then adultry has no lasting effects, and is not worthy of my concern even if it were to happen again. Under this paradigm, when the action happens and it's frequency are typically unimportant - all that matters is that it happened or didn't happen. Following this:

1 - I think adultry is wrong.
2 - I don't think reoccurring adultry is any more wrong than a singular instance of adultry.
3 - Thus, that adultry may happen is no different than that it has happened.
4 - Thus the wrongness is inherent to the act, which is consensual sex with someone aside from the spouse.
5 - Thus adultry is no more wrong than fornication.
6 - Per 1), fornication should be treated as adultry.

 

[Tink]

Waterbear,
I respect your right to not marry a non-virgin, and I've even held my hands from typing as you've basically attacked the values and personalities of non-virgins... According to you, I'm not a virgin. According to God, I am. I'll take His word over yours.

Moreover, I fornicated BEFORE I knew Jesus and wasn't aware that it was a sin against Him. However, I know now and I also know that adultery is a sin. I will never commit either one of them. The fornication I commited is GONE, FORGIVEN, FORGOTTEN. By the blood of Jesus. Doesn't that count for anything with you? GOD says I'm clean. Who are you to argue that I'm not? (Or that any other person isn't, for that matter.) The more you type, the more damage you do to others. I'm praying for you. I pray that you will seek to have God's love for people, His forgetfulness, no matter the sin. I understand that you don't have to be involved with people that hurt you, and that's fine, but please stop insisting that non-virgins are unclean just because you say so....

In His love,
Tink

 

[rebel_conservative]

Waterbear,
I respect your right to not marry a non-virgin, and I've even held my hands from typing as you've basically attacked the values and personalities of non-virgins... According to you, I'm not a virgin. According to God, I am. I'll take His word over yours.

Moreover, I fornicated BEFORE I knew Jesus and wasn't aware that it was a sin against Him. However, I know now and I also know that adultery is a sin. I will never commit either one of them. The fornication I commited is GONE, FORGIVEN, FORGOTTEN. By the blood of Jesus. Doesn't that count for anything with you? GOD says I'm clean. Who are you to argue that I'm not? (Or that any other person isn't, for that matter.) The more you type, the more damage you do to others. I'm praying for you. I pray that you will seek to have God's love for people, His forgetfulness, no matter the sin. I understand that you don't have to be involved with people that hurt you, and that's fine, but please stop insisting that non-virgins are unclean just because you say so....

great post pithy, yet polite I am not sure I could be so polite, that is why I did not post. I am a virgin, but I am with you on this

waterbear - says the Lord's prayer with me...

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
(For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.)
Amen.

why will Jesus forgive you your sins against Him, if you do not forgive others of their sins against you?

 

[waterbear]

Waterbear,
I respect your right to not marry a non-virgin, and I've even held my hands from typing as you've basically attacked the values and personalities of non-virgins... According to you, I'm not a virgin. According to God, I am. I'll take His word over yours.

Moreover, I fornicated BEFORE I knew Jesus and wasn't aware that it was a sin against Him. However, I know now and I also know that adultery is a sin. I will never commit either one of them. The fornication I commited is GONE, FORGIVEN, FORGOTTEN. By the blood of Jesus. Doesn't that count for anything with you? GOD says I'm clean. Who are you to argue that I'm not? (Or that any other person isn't, for that matter.) The more you type, the more damage you do to others. I'm praying for you. I pray that you will seek to have God's love for people, His forgetfulness, no matter the sin. I understand that you don't have to be involved with people that hurt you, and that's fine, but please stop insisting that non-virgins are unclean just because you say so....

In His love,
Tink

I've addressed this by the separation of "wrong" from "sin" - "wrongness" is a necessary discriminator that functions within bounds of what's moral behavior. Notions of "wrongness" is what decides on a single spouse out of 1 million eligible Christians. What's continuing is this insistance that fornication only treated as a sin, rather than something which may be subjectively decided as wrong as thus used as a discriminator.

The curious thing about this insistance of fornication as only as sin is that as long as something wrong also offends God, it's consequences shall be removed. Whereas any wrongness which doesn't offend God (which must exist for necessary discretion), the consequences may be acknowledged. This makes sin not worthy of any concern, since it alone apparently escapes causing anything which may be viewed as significiant.

As for how this comes off to other people, I've looked at porn in the past. One can easily construct a paradigm where me having done that is worse than someone having fornicated. I don't mind if someone refuses to date me because of anything in my past (well I may try to change their mind, but it's still their right to create their own discriminators). When you accept the discretion of others, it no longer has much emotional impact

 

[rebel_conservative]

I've addressed this by the separation of "wrong" from "sin" - "wrongness" is a necessary discriminator that functions within bounds of what's moral behavior. Notions of "wrongness" is what decides on a single spouse out of 1 million eligible Christians. What's continuing is this instance that fornication only treated as a sin, rather than something which may be subjectively decided as wrong as thus used as a discriminator.

The curious thing about this insistance of fornication as only as sin is that as long as something wrong also offends God, it's consequences shall be removed. Whereas any wrongness which doesn't offend God (which must exist for necessary discretion), the consequences may be acknowledged. This makes sin not worthy of any concern, since it alone apparently escapes causing anything which may be viewed as significiant.

As for how this comes off to other people, I've looked at porn in the past. One can easily construct a paradigm where me having done that is worse than someone having fornicated. I don't mind if someone refuses to date me because of anything in my past (well I may try to change their mind, but it's still their right to create their own discriminators). When you accept the discretion of others, it no longer has much emotional impact

...And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us...

 

[waterbear]

great post pithy, yet polite I am not sure I could be so polite, that is why I did not post. I am a virgin, but I am with you on this

waterbear - says the Lord's prayer with me...

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
(For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.)
Amen.

why will Jesus forgive you your sins against Him, if you do not forgive others of their sins against you?

This has nothing todo with forgiveness or sin.

 

[rebel_conservative]

This has nothing todo with forgiveness or sin.

erm... that is exactly what it is about... to make it clearer -

The New English Version (adopted by the C of E in 1977)

Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be your Name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
As we forgive those
Who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
And the glory are yours
Now and forever.
Amen

 

[Carri20]

Say you're dating some nice, genuinly Christian guy. But let's say one of this guys vices is women. Now, he cheats on you. With two girls at once. And then you find out. He says he's sorry, and he really is, but he's still gonna have that particular vice to always deal with. Are you saying you're not going to break up with him?

Yes I would break up with him, because I gave him a chance with me and he blew it. That's not the same as never giving him a chance at all. Also you're talking about current sin, not past sin that has been forgiven and erased. I've had sex before but does that mean sex is a vice for me? Certainly not. I can honestly say that in all the times I participated in sex, it was never my desire to do so, even before I was saved.

Arikereba stated it nicely:

...it seems like the situations are completely different--insofar as one is completely focused on the past, and the other also involves what's going to happen in the future.

 

[MrDude]

My apologies for intruding, but it seems like the situations are completely different--insofar as one is completely focused on the past, and the other also involves what's going to happen in the future.

It's a sore button for me because in my last breakup, I had to say over and over again, "I DO forgive you. I just don't trust you to act decently to me."

Sometimes we do need to keep enough of a record of wrongs to protect ourselves. But someone can have had sex in the past without that being an indicator of anything in the future.

Actually you're completely wrong, it's no different. I mean if the guy cheats, and asks forgiveness from his girlfriend, then it's in the past already. Even one second ago is considered the past.

Unless, you've got some crazy rule that something has to be so old to be considered past. So, sins that are committed a year or longer ago are ok to be forgiven and forgotten? But ones within the last year must still be remembered? Hmmm...

Seriously, I don't agree with a lot of what waterbear says, but he has every right to only be willing to marry a virgin, and he has every right to pick and choose the qualities he wants in an S/O. Anyone criticising him for that needs to take a step back and shut up.

 

[MrDude]

Yes I would break up with him, because I gave him a chance with me and he blew it. That's not the same as never giving him a chance at all. Also you're talking about current sin, not past sin that has been forgiven and erased. I've had sex before but does that mean sex is a vice for me? Certainly not. I can honestly say that in all the times I participated in sex, it was never my desire to do so, even before I was saved.

Arikereba stated it nicely:

I never said it was a vice for you. Quit putting words in my(and waterbears) mouth. I said it was a vice for the particular guy you were dating. And so let me get this straight...you HAVE to give someone at least one chance? But it's ok to not give him two?

And what about an ex-pedophile child rapist? Say he did it 5 years ago, and he's accepted Christ and been forgiven, are you gonna give him a chance? By your logic, you have to give him at least one chance. I mean it's all in the past right?

Seriously, there is NOTHING wrong with remembering what a person has done in the past. Our past and our history is what makes us who we are, even our sins. Whether or not you will admit it or understand it, there is a difference in the mindset of a virgin vs. a non-virgin, even if it's just a slight difference. You HAVE to learn a persons past to know there potential future.

For the record, I don't care if a person is a virgin or not, makes no difference to me. Hell, they could be an ex-porn star for all I care, but that doesn't mean people don't have the right to only be willing to marry a virgin.

A marriage partner is different than just a believer. The person you marry is one you will spend the rest of your life with. He/she will be more special than just another believer. You better make sure you pick the one you want.