MacFall
Agorist
- Nov 24, 2007
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Again I ask: so what? I guarantee you that many things that you do regularly with a perfectly clear conscience are not promoted in scripture.
Your analysis here misses an important point: after Adam and Eve sinned they were ashamed to be naked in a context in which it was perfectly proper for them to be so! Their shame was the result of their sin - it did not cause it. Nor was the shame the result of the conviction of their sin. Rather, it was a redirection of that conviction. Adam was certainly guilty over having disobeyed God, but when God asked him why he ran, he lied and blamed it on his nakedness. It was the first time in history, but certainly not the last, when people acknowledged shame at their failure, but failed to address its actual cause.
Picture, as an analogy, a child who goes into a dangerous place against his father's instructions. He spends the afternoon playing there, but eventually falls and gets hurt. When his father asks him that evening why he isn't his normal, cheerful self (perhaps even knowing the true reason all along), the kid says "I tripped and hurt myself playing today". What he says is true - he feels bad because he tripped and fell while he was playing. But he refuses to admit to his father (and possibly even to himself) that the ultimate cause of his feeling bad is that he went against his father's rules. Should he thereafter feel ashamed every time he plays?
Ultimately, all that this account says is that sin causes shame. It does not indicate in the slightest that Adam should have felt ashamed of his nakedness, any more than the fact that the Earth bore thorns and thistles after the fall indicates that people shouldn't have greenhouses. By the grace of God we can subdue our shame just as we can subdue nature's thorns.
The meaning is pretty clear to me: using alcohol to manipulate people into doing stupid stuff is wrong (note that, as Rev pointed out, "nakedness" in Hebrew can mean other things than the physical exposure of one's body). Do you not see a difference between casual, consensual nudity and getting someone drunk with the intention of humiliating him?
Because poor people could (and did) die of exposure from lack of or insufficient clothing before the invention of mass-textile production.
Also, if nudity is sinful in itself, then a poor person should make becoming clothed an immediate priority - it would be better for him to starve than to continue being naked, just as it would be better for him to starve than to steal bread.
I have considered the context you offered and found it to be incomplete, and so I have offered my own understanding which I believe refutes yours. Please consider the context I have offered and either integrate it into your interpretation of these scriptures, or show me how it is wrong or inapplicable.
Perhaps - but the fact that for many people, a casual attitude towards nudity results in much less temptation to lust, and that nudism in particular produces lower rates of marital infidelity and divorce (which goals - less lust and less adultery - would seem to me to be the entire purpose of modesty in the first place) is very pertinent. Because if that attitude, despite those facts, remains sinful, then it would appear that God prefers a condition wherein people are more likely to sin.
I hope that by realizing that it is your opinion (and considering that opinions are subjective), you may come to understand that there are other people for whom the experience of casual nudity is entirely different from your own: free from lust, and therefore, as far as I can find reason within scripture, not sinful.
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