Author: Artisanal Toad

Feminism and Bible Translation

Artisanal Toad24 Comments
One central point about the Bible that must be understood is that God does not change. When one sees something in Scripture that looks like God has changed, look for the change somewhere else because by His own testimony, God does not change.
The post about Status had a good example of an issue that drives feminists crazy.
A virgin has no agency. She is married to any eligible man who takes her virginity, whether she consents to marriage or not (Genesis 2:24). She may be forced into a marriage she does not desire and does not consent to by her father, as a free woman, or she may be denied marriage by her father (1st Corinthians 7:36-38). She may be sold into permanent slavery by her father to be the concubine of a free man (a slave-wife) or the wife of another slave (Exodus 21:7-11). She may be raped into marriage, against her will and over her objections (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). She may voluntarily enter into a marriage without her father’s knowledge and in the day he hears of it, he may allow it, or he may annul the marriage if he so desires (Exodus 22:16-17).
Feminist churchians can’t tolerate what God’s Word actually says (or doesn’t say) so they constantly work to redefine words and change the meaning of things to fit their agenda. Notice that 1st Corinthians 7:36-38 was cited in the paragraph about virgins. Let’s look at it from the NASB:
36 But if any man thinks that he is acting unbecomingly toward his virgin daughter, if she is past her youth, and if it must be so, let him do what he wishes, he does not sin; let[a] her marry. 37 But he who stands firm in his heart,[b] being under no constraint, but has authority[c] over his own will, and has decided this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin daughter, he will do well. 38 So then both he who gives his own virgin daughter in marriage does well, and he who does not give her in marriage will do better.
a: Lit. them
b: Lit. having no necessity
c: Lit. pertaining to
The NASB translates it in the way it has traditionally been translated, as instruction to the father of the virgin who is under his authority. One of the reasons I like the original NASB is the translators additions to the text are in italics. As you can see, the word “daughter” doesn’t appear in the original text. And, as is apparent, the word translated in the NASB as “let her marry” (gameitōsan) literally means “let them marry”. That was all it took for the feminists to swing into action and completely change the translation to attack the authority of the father and the status of the virgin.
The issue here is one of authority and that is exactly the reason feminists hate this passage. The text refers to “the virgin” and the man making the decisions about “the virgin” and her marriage must have the authority to make such a decision. Who has authority over “the virgin”? Only the father (before a betrothal) or the betrothed husband after the vows are made. There can be no-one else with authority over her.
It should also be noted (again) that the virgin has no agency, her consent to the marriage is not required and her father has the authority to give her to the man he chooses. Contrary to modern ideas about betrothal and marriage, the virgin did not have the authority to “break off the engagement” after her father and her husband agreed to the betrothal any more than she had the authority to divorce her husband after he married her.
With that in mind, observe the way 1st Corinthians 7:36-38 translated in the Berean Study Bible (BSB):
36However, if someone thinks he is acting inappropriately toward his betrothed, and if she is beyond her youth and they ought to marry, let him do as he wishes; he is not sinning; they should get married. 37But the man who is firmly established in his heart and under no constraint, with control over his will and resolve in his heart not to marry the virgin, he will do well. 38So then, he who marries the virgin does well, but he who does not marry her does even better.
The BSB has this text translated as instruction to the man who is betrothed to the virgin. To betroth a woman is to take a vow to marry her after the betrothal period and any other requirements are complete. From the time of betrothal, even though he will not marry (penetrate) her until the betrothal requirements are complete, the woman is his wife (c.f. Deuteronomy 22:23-24) and she is no longer an eligible virgin. She is a betrothed virgin and no other man may marry her.
Observe what Numbers 30:2 has to say about a man making a vow.
“If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or takes an oath to bind himself with a binding obligation, he shall not violate his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”
Likewise observe what Deuteronomy 23:21 says about a vow to the Lord:
“When you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay to pay it, for it would be sin in you, and the LORD your God will surely require it of you.”
Then consider that according to the translation of the BSB, Paul is speaking to the man who is a betrothed to a virgin who is now “past her youth”. While she was betrothed to this man she could not even contemplate any other man and she waited. Now she is past her youth. Some might call the idea of abandoning her at this point “adding insult to injury”.
While it would be easy to argue textual analysis, I won’t because that’s just the kind of argument feminist churchians love. An argument that avoids the real issue.
The claim Paul was instructing men that they could violate their vow and abandon their wife and is preposterous. In fact, translating the instruction that way has Paul directly contradicting himself, because in verses 26-27 of their own translation he said:
“26Because of the present crisis, I think it is good for a man to remain as he is. 27 Are you committed to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you free of commitment? Do not look for a wife.” (Emphasis added)
We cannot possibly have Paul stating that if a man is committed to a wife he is not to seek to be released and then ten verses later have him saying that if the man feels like it he can violate his vows and abandon the wife he committed to with his betrothal vows. Look at the summation of that instruction as translated by the BSB:
So then, he who marries the virgin does well, but he who does not marry her does even better.
The BSB has Paul saying that the man who keeps his vows and marries his wife does well, but the man who violates his vows and abandons his wife does even better. Preposterous.
Let’s contrast that twaddle with the NASB:
So then both he who gives his own virgin daughter in marriage does well, and he who does not give her in marriage will do better.
The NASB translation is completely in line with the thrust of Paul’s message that it’s better not to get married in order to focus on the things of the Lord rather than the things of the world, as well as his statement that it’s better to remain as you are. There are no vows being violated in this translation and Paul’s instruction reflects the father’s God-given authority over his daughter.
Given that God does not change and God’s Law requires that when a man makes a vow he must keep his word and honor his vow, Paul could not possibly have been giving men permission to violate their vows and abandon their wives. Yet, that leaves us with what the text is actually talking about, which is a New Testament reinforcement of the authority of the fathers over their daughters and points to the fact that the virgin has no agency. That, to feminists, is anathema.
Feminism is cancer.

Status Explains Everything

Artisanal Toad10 Comments
One of the things you simply won’t hear in a church today is any discussion of status, which results in complete incoherence of doctrine when it comes to explaining how The Law impacts a Christian. What is most often said is “We are no longer under the Law, we are under Grace” and it’s left at that. Which leaves even the extraordinary Christian completely confused and ignorant. And, of course, open to every opinion that comes along.

The Status of a Woman Matters

The status of a virgin woman is not the same as that of a married woman, which is not the same as the status of a woman no longer bound in marriage. The virgin is under the authority of her father, the wife is under the authority of her husband and the woman no longer bound is on her own and will be held responsible for her own decisions. To be even more clear:
A virgin has no agency. She is married to any eligible man who takes her virginity, whether she consents to marriage or not (Genesis 2:24). She may be forced into a marriage she does not desire and does not consent to by her father, as a free woman, or she may be denied marriage by her father (1st Corinthians 7:36-38). She may be sold into permanent slavery by her father to be the concubine of a free man (a slave-wife) or the wife of another slave (Exodus 21:7-11). She may be raped into marriage, against her will and over her objections (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). She may voluntarily enter into a marriage without her father’s knowledge and in the day he hears of it, he may allow it, or he may annul the marriage if he so desires (Exodus 22:16-17).
A wife has no agency. She is under the complete authority of her husband, who shall rule over her (Genesis 3:16). Any agreement or vow, even a vow to the Lord, is subject to review by her husband who can either say nothing and allow it to stand, or he can forbid it in the day he hears of it. Everything, including the rash words from her lips that have binding obligations are subject to his review. And if her husband forbids it, God will forgive her for her husband has forbidden it (Numbers 30). She is to submit to the authority of her husband in everything, in the same way she is required to submit to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22-24). In the same way that a servant is to obey their master, she is required to submit to her husband, without a word, even if he is not obedient to God’s word (1st Peter 3:1-6).
A non-virgin not bound in marriage has agency. She is responsible for her own agreements and vows and will be bound by them (Numbers 30:9). She is free to marry whomever she desires, but only another Christian (1st Corinthians 7:39), which means she cannot be raped into marriage: she must consent to marriage before sexual intercourse makes her married. There is nothing in Scripture that forbids such a woman from having sexual relations with any man she is eligible to marry and if she does not consent to marry, she will not be married. There is nothing in Scripture that forbids such a woman from working as a prostitute if she chooses.
All of this is the result of status and the same issue applies to men as well as women when it comes to God’s Law.

Status And God’s Law

It is written that one is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness and speaking to Christians the Apostle Paul said that we have been purchased with a price. Thus, the status of Christians is that of slaves to their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. It isn’t that the Law no longer applies, it’s that the Law very much applies to your Master and He has to deal with you.
Look at the example of the first Adam. We know from Scripture that Eve was the first to eat the fruit of which God commanded them not to eat. Yet, sin did not enter the world until Adam listened to the voice of his wife and ate of the fruit. Why is that? Because Eve was completely under the umbrella of Adam’s authority and thus Adam’s righteousness.
Christ paid the price for sin, once for all. He paid a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay, and thus we have the choice of remaining in our trespasses and sin or becoming one of His slaves according to the Law of the Bondservant. For those who choose to become one of His slaves, the purchase price of His blood is applied to us. As one of His slaves, we are imputed with His righteousness and our names are written in the Book of Life. Because He paid the price for sin by being executed as an innocent man, God can forgive us of our sins, but only if we are one of His slaves.
According to the testimony of Christ, the Law of God will not in any way be changed, nor will it pass away until all things are complete (Matthew 5:17-19). According to the Law, the Law cannot be added to or subtracted from, which means it cannot be changed (Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32). Because by His own testimony, God does not change and God does not expect us to understand that. His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts.
Thus, there is the Great White Thrown judgment by the Lord God, in which all those whose names are not written in the Book of Life will be judged. There is also the judgment of the Bema Seat, in which the Master will judge His own slaves, rewarding them for their good work and punishing them for their disobedience. Ignorance is no excuse:

And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few.

Consider parable of the talents and the parable of the ten virgins. All of the servants were slaves of the Master and while two were rewarded for their good service, one had what was given to him taken away and was bound, beaten and thrown into the outer darkness. Does that mean he was thrown into hell? No, it doesn’t. His name was written in the Book of Life and he received eternal life, but he was punished by his Master.
Consider also that all of the virgins were Christians, their lamps were lit with the oil (Holy Spirit) but only five of them had that extra flask of oil. In fact, at the end, the foolish virgins had the same burning lamps and the same extra oil they had purchased. So what was the difference? The wise virgins had been walking with Christ day by day, doing what they could and they filled themselves with the Spirit. The foolish virgins got their “fire insurance” but they were not walking with Christ day by day and did not fill themselves with the Holy Spirit as they were commanded. And when the Bridegroom said “I don’t know you” that was subjective. Objectively He knew who they were because they were His, but subjectively they had not walked with Him and developed a close personal relationship. The wise virgins were rewarded with a seat at the wedding feast, the foolish virgins were not. They were not punished, but neither were they rewarded the way the wise virgins were.
And nowhere does Scripture say that the virgins were the brides of Christ or that the Church is the Bride of Christ, because Scripture clearly says that the Bride of Christ is the New City of Jerusalem.

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

It Is Not God Who Changed, It Is The Status Of Christians

This is the paradox of why Paul could say “All things are lawful for me, but not all are beneficial.” As the slave of Christ, anything he did that was in accordance with the will of his Master was lawful for him, but that is an extremely nuanced statement which is seemingly contradicted by other statements Paul made. Keep in mind that Paul was a lawyer, a Pharisee of Pharisees who studied under one of the finest and he had an incredible mind. As the Apostle Peter said, some of Paul’s statements are hard to understand.
Consider that it is forbidden to add to the Law or to subtract from the Law, but a Master has the authority to set the regulations in His own house and command His slaves. A husband has the authority to set the regulations in his own house and command his wife and children. In both cases they shall answer to God for their behavior and actions, but it is not given to either the slave or the family to judge in such matters.
The question might be asked, are Christians ever commanded not to do something they had the right to do under the Law? Yes, that is a fact. Christian men are forbidden to have sex with prostitutes, something they had the right to do under the Law because it was not forbidden. Christian men are forbidden to divorce their Christian wives for any reason, while under the Law they had the right to divorce her for adultery. And Christians are forbidden to marry anyone other than another Christian. None of these things are forbidden under the Law, but they are forbidden to Christians.
Some go the other way and claim that unless something was forbidden in the New Testament, the Law no longer applies. Which is ridiculous, because bestiality is not mentioned anywhere in the New Testament. Are we to believe this is now permitted? As the Apostle Paul put it, “May it never be!”
In forbidding some things to Christians that were not forbidden by the Law, was Christ adding to the Law? No, they are regulations that apply only to Christians, not to everyone, therefore they are not adding to the Law. Consider Ephesians 5:18, which is a command to Christians and only to Christians. Why is there a command to be “filled” with the Spirit when we know that upon becoming one of Christ’s slaves, we receive the Holy Spirit? That can only mean that receiving the Holy Spirit is not the same thing as being filled with the Holy Spirit. And why do we hear much about not becoming drunk but we seldom if ever hear about the command to be filled with the Spirit?
What about the things the Law requires that are no longer required of Christians? Is that subtracting from the Law? No, same answer, but here we get into the more complicated areas. The Law is often divided into the civil law, the ceremonial law and the moral law. The Civil Law is no longer applicable because the Nation of Israel no longer exists as God founded it and the Ceremonial Law no longer exists because there is no more temple and even if there was, the veil was torn in two.
What we see from the New Testament is that the moral law is still very much in effect for Christians and obedience to that portion of the Law is required. Paul provided some interesting guidance on this with his list of violations in Galatians 5:19-21 and a list of violators in 1st Corinthians 6:9-11. And in both cases Paul is adamant that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. And yet, the lists are not inclusive because if adultery and child sacrifice and male homosexuality are still forbidden, then bestiality and having sex with a woman who is menstruating is also still forbidden even though there is no mention of them in the New Testament.
If one looks carefully at those lists and matches the list of violations with the list of violators, things get very interesting and we should consider the words of Jesus:

“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
“And He was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem. And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.”

Evidently, the so-called “fire insurance” is not what many think it is, because as it is written, “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God“ (1st John 3:9). Notice that word “practice” in that. We know that Christians can and do sin, but what this passage is referring to is the continued practice of sinning. Someone might commit adultery, but the adulterer is one who practices the sin of adultery, refusing to stop.

The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

Jesus is the Word made flesh. There is also something else God said that we need to understand:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

While the astute reader might observe that this is the passage in which the Lord God said He had two wives at the same time, that is not the focus of this passage. He said “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Remember that as Paul stated, Gentiles are the branch that was grafted into the root stock of Israel and the only way God can forgive iniquity and remember sin no more is through the propitiating work of Christ. Thus, it is Christians who have the New Covenant and God writes His Law on their hearts.

Does The New Covenant Mean God Has Changed?

No, God cannot change. The New Covenant is due to the sacrifice of Christ, which changed our status with regard to God and His Law. In the same way that a virgin’s status changes when she is married and a married woman’s status changes when she is no longer bound in marriage, our status as Christians changed when we chose to become the slaves of Christ.
The Bible is specific that violations of the Law are sin. Roman’s 4:15 and 5:13 spell it out. Where there is no Law there is no violation and without a violation there is no sin imputed. That is for everyone in the entire world. However, for Christians there is another aspect of sin. Romans 14:23 says that which is not of faith is sin and James 4:17 says that if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that is sin. These are issues of conscience which are due to the fact that Christians have received the helper, the indwelling Holy Spirit and because God has written His Law on their hearts.
Thus, while violations of the Law are sin to everyone, an individual’s conscience can be violated by actions or the failure to take action and be in sin, even though that action or lack of action would not be a sin to anyone else.

Are We To Judge Others?

Yes and no. This is another issue that is frequently the cause of division and consternation within the church. Individually we are told over and over again not to judge one another and judging those who are not Christians is forbidden. We are told that one day we will even judge angels, but for now, we are commanded not to individually judge others.
Corporately as the body of believers (the local congregation) we are commanded to judge the “so called brother” who is in sin and if they do not repent we are to cast them out of our fellowship. The basic instruction was from Christ:

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Notice that Jesus used the word “sin” which means a violation of the Law, because only a violation of the Law is a sin for everyone. The Apostle Paul said

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

So, corporately we are to judge those who claim to be Christians. Yet, we are also told not to judge in certain areas that would otherwise be violations of the Law:

Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

And again:

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

The only way this apparent dichotomy can be resolved is to look two issues. First is individual judgment versus corporate judgment, the second is to look at violations of the Law that are sin to everyone versus violations of conscience which are only a sin to the individual. And even though the vast majority might have their conscience violated by something or another, they are not to judge the one who does not have a conscience issue with whatever it is.
It is also true that some things are arguable and wisdom is called for, but let’s take a look at the history of the church and keep in mind, the Nicolaitans won. Consider the “Seven Deadly Sins”
  • Lust
  • Gluttony
  • Greed
  • Sloth
  • Wrath
  • Envy
  • Pride
Notice how each of these “deadly sins” is rather normative and subject to interpretation? They are ALL sins of conscience and tailor-made for the control of a population by their leaders, or for the control of others by popular opinion. No matter what the situation, it’s covered by one of these and in much the same way racism, homophobia and abuse are subjectively defined today by the SJW’s, this list was subjectively defined at times as a tool of power and control.
At the same time, it’s an excellent list for personal contemplation within the process of sanctification and corresponds to the church’s list of the seven Christian virtues:
  • Chastity
  • Temperance
  • Charity
  • Diligence
  • Patience
  • Kindness
  • Humility
In the same way as the “deadly sins” it is also possible to utilize a subjective judgment of a supposed lack of these virtues as a way of controlling groups and individuals. Notice that nowhere in that list of virtues is obeying the Will of the Father, which is the definition of what it means to be Christlike. Notice also that each of the virtues listed is also an issue of conscience and completely subjective to the individual and the situation.
These are things which are to be judged by individuals for their own behavior, not something that the body of believers is to judge with respect to an individual.
These points of judgment also depend on the status of the individual because what might be sin for one might not be sin for another. The virgin is married to the eligible man who takes her virginity. The married woman commits the sin of adultery if she has intercourse with any man other than her husband. The woman no longer bound in marriage is free to have sex with any man she is eligible to marry because sexual intercourse is the way a marriage begins. However, the woman no longer bound is not bound again in marriage unless and until she consents to marriage.
Those who are not slaves of Christ are under the Law and will be convicted and condemned by the Law. Those who are slaves of Christ are under their Master and while some portions of the Law still apply to them, it does so because it is His will as their Master. Which means that the right of a husband to divorce his wife according the the Law, for adultery (as Jesus taught) is not a right that the slaves of Christ have. In becoming His slave, they entered into His house and became subject to His regulations.
God did not change, our status did.
And as far as God is concerned, Status Is Important.

Questions and Objections, Part III, Sex With An Eligible Virgin = Marriage

Artisanal Toad32 Comments

More Objections

 

“If sex = marriage why does Deuteronomy 22:28-29 specifically state the virgin only becomes the wife if they are found out. In that vein why does it further state she shall be his wife because he humbled her. Why would God need to specify that if as you say she was his wife at the time of penetration? If she was already his wife God would not need to specify that she isn’t his wife until they are found out and he pays 50 shekels.”

 

We have three judgments that help us understand Genesis 2:24. Two of the judgments concerned the conflict of Law between Genesis 2:24 and Numbers 30:5. Does the father’s authority to forbid any agreement his daughter makes extend to her agreement to marry (have sex) which is then followed by intercourse? The answer is yes. But, what if she didn’t make any agreement? That was the point of having witnesses to the rape. As they say, “you can’t rape the willing.” This is what I wrote in the comments under “Righteous Prostitutes, Spreading Their Legs Free of Sin” on Dalrock’s blog:

 

The eligible virgin is married when she has sex. Because that’s what Genesis 2;24 says. God provided us with three judgments that explain this.
1) The first judgement is found at Exodus 22:16-17, the case of the virgin who is not betrothed (meaning she’s eligible to be married) who is seduced (she agreed to have sex) and the question is whether her father forbids her agreement to marry the guy. According to Numbers 30, as her father he has the authority to forbid any vow or agreement she makes in the day he hears of it. In the day he hears of it he can either say nothing and she’s bound by that vow or agreement, or he can forbid it. Exodus 22:16-17 explains how it works in either case. In verse 16 the father says nothing, they are married and her husband has to pay the bride price for his wife. In verse 17, the father forbids her agreement to marry, refusing to give her to the man who seduced her. They are not married and he has to pay the price for virgins.
2) The second judgment is found in Deuteronomy 22:23-27 and it concerns the case of the betrothed virgin who has sex. Because she is not an eligible virgin (she’s betrothed), sex with her (both willing and unwilling) does not create a marriage and the man who does it gets put to death for the crime of adultery. She may or may not be put to death depending on the circumstances.
3) The third judgment, found a bit later at verses 28-29, is the case of the eligible virgin (she is not betrothed) who is raped. If the rape is discovered (meaning it really was rape), she obviously didn’t make any agreement her father can forbid so she’s married to the man who took her virginity. Even though he raped her. Because when the eligible virgin has sex, she’s married to the man who got her virginity and quite obviously, her consent is not necessary.
Therefore, the correct exegesis of Genesis 2:24 is simple: the eligible virgin is married when she has sex, with or without her consent.

 

Your asked:

 

“Why would God need to specify that if as you say she was his wife at the time of penetration?”

 

First, notice what that passage does not say, which is anything about the virgin who says she was raped but the rape was not discovered (meaning there were no witnesses). It’s a he-said she-said issue. What happens then? The issue devolves to the authority of the father and it gets treated as a seduction (c.f. Exodus 22:16-17). Based on his decision she may or not be married. However, in the case of a rape that is discovered, she obviously made no agreement and there are witness to the fact she made no agreement, thus there is nothing for her father to forbid. She is married according to the standard of Genesis 2:24 because they had sex and the virgin’s consent or lack of consent is irrelevant because she has no agency.
You state:

 

If she was already his wife God would not need to specify that she isn’t his wife until they are found out and he pays 50 shekels.

 

The text does not say she is not his wife until he pays the 50 shekels, it says he must pay the fixed price of 50 shekels of silver AND she shall be his wife. They are married and that is the amount he owes her father. Look at the example of Jacob and Rachel. Jacob had to work for 7 years to marry Rachel. Did he have to wait for 7 years? No, he married Rachel and then he had to work for Laban for another 7 years. He was obligated to pay the bride price and he was married.
You also asked:

 

“why does it further state she shall be his wife because he humbled her?”

 

Actually, the original text does not say that. Look at the verse from the NASB:

 

then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.

 

Now, let’s just change the punctuation (which isn’t in the original text) and see what happens.

 

then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver and she shall become his wife. Because he has violated her, he cannot divorce her all his days.

 

There is no punctuation in the original text. The bias of the translators is at work here and that goes back all the way to Jerome, one of the men who claimed that marriage is by consent, not sex. Changing the punctuation changes the meaning completely. As is, the rape victim is being punished by being forced to marry her rapist. However, the text just as easily supports the point I have been making and the difference between the two was a decision some translators made.
Better yet, let’s remove the punctuation.

 

then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver and she shall become his wife because he has violated her he cannot divorce her all his days.

 

Where do you put the punctuation, and why? Do you want this to read that God requires rape victims be punished by being forced to marry their rapist? Hopefully not.
They are married because they met the requirements of Genesis 2:24. The man has to pay a high bride price and she shall be his wife (imperative- meaning she is his wife and nothing changes that). Because he has humbled her, he has his right to divorce her permanently taken away. Which means that regardless of her behavior, he can never divorce her, because he violated her, taking her against her will in front of witnesses.
Consider Exodus 21:22-25, which contains the concept of just punishment: “Let the punishment fit the crime.”

 

“you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”

 

He wanted her so bad that he raped her into marriage, violating her in front of witnesses, humiliating her, humbling her? How does the punishment fit the crime? First of all he’s going to pay more than double the Temple redemption price for her (the price for virgins) and second, he’s stuck with her all the days of his life no matter what she does. He wanted her? He’s got her now. For all his days. That’s letting the punishment fit the crime.
To claim (as does the Dalrock doctrine) that the community forced them to marry as punishment for raping her is to claim that God punishes rape victims for the “crime” of being raped. Not only does that slander the character of God, it is a direct conflict (an antinomy) with Exodus 21:22-25 and Genesis 2:24. In addition, it is a claim that the community has the authority to require a man marry a woman. No, in Genesis 2:24 the authority to marry was granted to “a man” and no-one else.
Again, this is a judgment that results from the conflict of law between Genesis 2:24 and Numbers 30:5. The question is whether the father’s authority to forbid his daughter’s marriage when she was seduced also applies when she is publicly raped. The answer is no, but there had to be witnesses that established the fact she was raped in deed rather than just in accusation. Because we all know that girls will cry “RAPE” if they find it in their best interest to do so.

The Linguistics Argument Against “Sex = Marriage”

AmicusC said:

 

it appears you argument hinges on cleave to the wife as the part regarding penetrative sex i am curious if u can identify why cleave = penetration especially as I don’t believe the bible requires penetrative sex with God yet asks us to cleave to him see for example Deuteronomy 13:4
4 Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
But I guess our definitions of kollao differ yours means penetrate mine means:
kollao, “to adhere to,” or “to join one’s self to.” This meaning is the reverse of the preceding. The Psalmist speaks of his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth (Psalms 137:6). We are told that a man should cleave unto his wife (Genesis 2:24;Matthew 19:5). It is said that Ruth clave unto her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:14), and that certain men clave unto Paul (Acts 17:34; compare Acts 4:23; 11:23 margin).
“Cleave” is also used in this sense to describe one’s adherence to principles. Paul admonished the Romans to cleave to that which is good (Romans 12:9).

 

In the Hebrew Scriptures the word “dabaq” is used 54 times and when used of human relationships it generally means to cling to without letting go, to be clung to tightly, to hold fast, to be committed to. Except for Genesis 2:24 and arguably, 1st Kings 11:2, where it means sex. However, there is a duality of meaning involved in those two passages. Within the context of marriage the act it refers to is sex, the meaning of the act is commitment on the part of the man.
When used in Genesis 2:24, describing the creation of marriage, keep in mind that the act of penetrative intercourse is a man’s commitment to marriage. Every time. Imagine a word that means clinging to without letting go, being clung to tightly and the kind of sex that is epitomized by a man who had a thousand wives. That’s the picture of a couple of newlyweds on their wedding night. And as used in Genesis 2:24, the word means the act of sex because that is the God-given wedding ceremony by which a man marries a woman. By that act the man gives his commitment to the marriage.
How do we know that is what the word means as it is specifically used in Genesis 2:24?
When Genesis 2:24 got translated into Greek the word “dabaq” was translated as the Greek word “kollao” and not surprisingly, just like the word “dabaq” the word “kollao” means to glue, to unite, to join; to knit together. When used of human relationships it confers the idea of faithfulness and loyalty. Notice the similarities with the Hebrew word “dabaq” and how they both demonstrate the man’s commitment to marriage every time he has intercourse. Because the act of marriage is sexual intercourse and by that act the man signifies his commitment to marriage.
The text of 1st Corinthians 6:16 says “Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” The word “kollao” (translated as “joins”) is used in this passage within the context of Genesis 2:24 to mean sex with a woman that results in becoming one flesh. The act of becoming one body (sexual intercourse) causes God to make the two one flesh (c.f. Matthew 19:5-6).
But, how do we know that in the context of marriage it means sex and not a commitment ceremony? Perhaps God is telling us not to marry prostitutes.
Why do men visit prostitutes? The hallmark of a prostitute is (and it always has been) that at some point the prostitute spreads her legs receptively to allow the man to penetrate her. Men visit prostitutes to have sex, but not just any sex. They visit prostitutes to have sex that will not result in marriage, because the one thing prostitutes don’t do is consent to be married to their customers. By definition, what prostitutes do not provide is faithfulness or loyalty because they are mercenary. As the old saying goes, “you don’t pay a prostitute to have sex with you, you pay her to leave when you’re done with her.”

 

Do men visit prostitutes for commitment, or sex?

 

The traditional argument of the church (after they adopted the consent model of creating marriage) was that the Hebrew word “dabaq” meant commitment and that meant a man had to commit to his wife in a public ceremony, which formed the marriage, then they had sex, which they claimed was the becoming one flesh part of Genesis 2:24. Or not. The church claimed that sex was immaterial to marriage because marriage was all about consent.

Understanding Translation

When we look at a specific word, we first look at all the other uses of that word and the context that word is used in. From that we get a sense of how the word should be translated (the meaning) in the verse in question. In the case of the word “dabaq” the word is only used twice within the context of a husband-wife relationship, in Genesis 2:24 and in 1st Kings 11:2. One might argue that Solomon loved being committed to his 700 wives and 300 concubines, but any reasonable observer would reach the conclusion that a much better translation is that Solomon loved having sex with them.
Why would that word be translated as commitment instead of sex in 1st Kings 11:2? Because tradition. Keep in mind that the man who did the first official translation of the Bible was Jerome and he is famous for his hatred of sex. In fact, it was his position that sex (even within marriage) and salvation were incompatible. Bible translators are resistant to change and give a great deal of weight to how any given meaning of a word has traditionally been translated. They are reluctant to make changes, especially if changing the meaning of a word results in a major doctrinal change.
So, do we go with the most reasonable interpretation and translate the word “dabaq” as used within the context of marriage in 1st Kings 11:2 as “sex”? If we do, that lends a great deal of weight to the argument that as used in Genesis 2:24 in the context of the creation of marriage the word means the act of sexual intercourse. Obviously, anyone defending the tradcon consent model of the creation of marriage (Dalrock’s Special Sauce ™ doctrine) will oppose defining “dabaq” as anything other than commitment because “commitment” supports their pre-existing beliefs.
But what happens when we see “dabaq” translated into Greek within that specific context (meaning the entire verse was translated) so we know what whatever “dabaq” means in Genesis 2:24 is exactly what “kollao” means in Genesis 2:24? Context is key when it comes to translation. Does the usage of the word “kollao” in the New Testament shed any light on the meaning of “dabaq” as it is used in Genesis 2:24? We look and again we see that within the specific context of Genesis 2:24 (Paul quoted part of the verse and kept the same structure so you can’t miss it), the word “kollao” was used to indicate sexual intercourse in such a way that it cannot be denied. There literally cannot be any confusion on this.
Do men go to prostitutes for commitment, or for sex?
Observing that, do we go with the translation by stoic hermit Jerome who hated sex and sexual pleasure, or do we go with the Apostolic translation of the word? This is an either-or choice with huge doctrinal implications because the meaning of the word “dabaq” in Genesis 2:24 has to be the same as the meaning of the word “kollao” in 1st Corinthians 6:16.
A = B and B = C, therefore A = C. It’s that simple.
That also means that the word “dabaq” certainly means “sex” as used in 1st Kings 11:2, not “commitment”.
Keep in mind that what I and others like me are able to do today in terms of Bible study was impossible just 30 years ago and at all times previous to that. I’m talking about databases that allow one to do word searches, quickly compare Scripture with Scripture, with cross references to concordances and the ability to drill down to the original languages with more cross references to lexicons and dictionaries. Perhaps nobody noticed until the last couple of years the connection between “dabaq” and “kollao” and the use of “kollao” in 1st Corinthians 6;16. Who cares? We know about it now.

The Early Church Went With Jerome’s Translation

The “Patristic Fathers” of the early church hated sex and sought to downplay any mention of sex, claiming that marriage was established by consent, not sex. The theologians who followed in their footsteps made the claim that because the other 53 times the word “dabaq” was used (and especially when used of human relationships) the word meant “commitment”, therefore it must mean “commitment” in Genesis 2:24.
The “interpretation” of that was “that’s the commitment ceremony in front of witnesses! The man and woman must consent to being married and have a ceremony first before they can have sex!” Which meant that the sex part of marriage was the “becoming one flesh” that came after the commitment ceremony.
Over the course of the next 1200 years the church developed the “teachings and traditions of the church” and claimed that their magic book of medieval opinions trumped Scripture. After all, they decided what Scripture was and only they could interpret it! The Pope is infallible!
For those who don’t care for the magic book of medieval opinions and prefer to go with what God said, the problem with Jerome’s interpretation is it won’t work for multiple reasons.
  1. We know that the word “dabaq” means the act of sex because of the Apostolic translation of the word in 1st Corinthians 6:16 and as it turns out, that was the perfect word to use in both Hebrew and Greek because the act of sexual intercourse is the man’s act that demonstrates his commitment to the marriage. The virgin has no agency and her commitment or lack of it is irrelevant.
  2. We know from Matthew 19 that Jesus said God makes the two one flesh, so the act of becoming one flesh is not something the man does, it’s something God does. Paul, in Ephesians 5:28-32 compared the one-flesh union of marriage with the one-body union of the Christian with Christ, making the point that they were both a great mystery. That means “they shall become one flesh” in Genesis 2:24 is referring to what God does as a result of the mans act of penetrating the woman, not the penetration itself.
  3. The “commitment” interpretation created antinomies with other portions of Scripture, which meant that the extra words “to be” had to be inserted into the text of Exodus 22:16 and the outcome of Deuteronomy 22:28-29 had to mean the rape victim was punished for being raped by being forced to marry her rapist. Which creates further antinomies with other passages.
  4. As we’ve seen, the meaning of the word “dabaq” as used in Genesis 2:24 is the same as the meaning of the word “kollao” as used in 1st Corinthians 6:16. Either they both mean “commitment ceremony” or they both mean “sex” but current doctrine has them defined as “commitment ceremony” in Genesis 2:24 and “sex” in 1st Corinthians 6:16. That is incorrect. Either the virgin is married when she first has sex, or there is no prohibition anywhere in Scripture that forbids Christian men from having sex with legitimate prostitutes. Which do you think the women of the church will choose?
The rest, as they say, is history.
On to the objections about polygyny in the next post.

Questions and Objections, Part II, The Word δὲ (de) and Linguistic Issues

Artisanal Toad2 Comments

But, What About The Word “But”?

 

If the sexual immorality being discussed has nothing to do with having sexual relations with a women 7:1 has literally no place in this chapter. Moreover if sexual immorality has nothing to do with having sex with a woman not you wife 7:2 would not start with a “but” if sex with women outside of marriage is not immoral then that first line has literally nothing to do with the rest of the chapter. But perhaps God just likes pointless statements.

 

First, we must differentiate between forbidden sexual activity and permitted sexual activity.
Forbidden sexual activity includes adultery, incest, forbidden relationships, male homosexuality, bestiality and even within marriage it includes sex during the proscribed period following childbirth and sex when the woman is menstruating. These are all forbidden to everyone as sexual immorality. In addition, for Christians, sex with prostitutes is forbidden in the New Testament as sexual immorality.
When the term “sexual immorality” is used in the New Testament (porneia), those things are what the word means. Unless some sexual act or relationship is forbidden, it is not sexual immorality.
Permitted sexual relations are those relations that were not forbidden. Because marriage begins with the act of sexual intercourse between a man and woman who are eligible to marry, there is no prohibition on such activity anywhere in Scripture. Sex begins marriage with the act of penetration and obviously such sex is marital sex if the woman is a virgin. If the woman is eligible to marry by not a virgin, she must consent to marry before the sex makes her married.
As to the objection about the word δὲ (de) that AmicusC sees translated as “but” in 1st Corinthians 7:2, there is a problem. The claim is that the use of the word “but” connects the “sex outside marriage” with “sexual immorality” as if “sex outside marriage” is a subset of “sexual immorality” but that’s the opposite of what the word means. It’s usage is that of an adversative particle. From the Wenstrom Bible Ministries word study on de:

 

It is one of the most commonly used Greek particles, used to connect one clause with another when it is felt that there is some contrast between them, though the contrast is often scarcely discernible.
Most common translations of “de”:
  1. “But” when a contrast is clearly implied.
  2. “And” when a simple connective is desired, without contrast;
  3. Frequently, it cannot be translated at all.
The New Thayers Greek-English Lexicon lists the following (pages 125-126):
1. Universally by way of opposition and distinction; it is added to statements opposed to a preceding statement; it opposes persons to persons or things previously mentioned or thought of, -either with strong emphasis; and often;-with a slight discrimination

 

In this case, the word “de” that is translated as the word “but” is used to expose a contrast; an opposition between two statements that is distinct. Sex with an (eligible) woman who is not your wife is permitted, but it is good not to do that. Opposed to that which is permitted is sexual immorality. How does sexual immorality get handled?

 

“Because of [the temptations of] sexual immorality, let each wife have her own husband [having another man is sexual immorality] and let each husband have his own wife [having someone else’s wife or a man is sexual immorality].”

 

See the contrast? Yes, it’s permitted to bang the merry widow down the street, but it’s good not to do that. Sexual immorality is forbidden, it is sin, it is defined in the Law and includes the New Testament prohibition against sex with prostitutes. Paul speaks to the married and explains that they are to get their sexual needs met within their marriage in order that they not be tempted to commit sexual immorality.
That was the general rule to the married: Get your sexual needs met at home with your spouse. What followed in verses 3-7 is instruction on how to go about “having” their own spouse.
And, despite what I just wrote and what I know that means to most Christians, in my opinion if a man is going to have sex with a woman it needs to be within the bond of marriage, but according to God it does not have to be within marriage. For the sake of conscience I believe the question is one of motivation. Is the sex moving them toward marriage or is it merely for pleasure? I realize that everyone wants there to be a rule that says “no sex outside of marriage” but God chose not to do that. And lacking a prohibition it becomes a matter of conscience, an area in which we are commanded not to judge.
Do you trust God to be God, or will you try to correct God and attempt to find a prohibition that God chose not to make?
Then we come to verses 8-9, which is instruction to the widows. Paul says that it’s good if the widows don’t get married and place themselves under the authority of another husband, because if they get married they will be serving their new husband rather than the Lord, but it’s better to marry than to burn. Given what was said in verse 1 along with the totality of what the Bible does and does not say, it is reasonable to read this as saying
“Widows, it’s better if you don’t get remarried, but if you can’t be chaste… instead of finding a FWB relationship to take care of your sexual needs whenever you get horny, find a man and marry him.”
Given how women observably are (hypergamy + solopsism), that’s excellent instruction.

The Biblical Paradigm

Marriage begins with sex because that is the instruction of Genesis 2:24, which is the authority for marriage (the Law of Marriage) that Jesus quoted in Matthew 19. The wedding ceremony described in Genesis 2:24 is sexual intercourse, a simple ceremony that creates a marriage in God’s eyes for all times, for all places and for all people. Perfectly logical, considering that is what God said and because God designed women with a tamper-proof seal on their vagina that is designed to rupture and bleed in the first instance of intercourse. The hymen.
The standard of commitment in marriage is a dual-standard, one for men and another for women. Because men and women are not equal. Men commit to marriage, women are bound in marriage.
  • The man’s commitment is permanent (no divorce) but non-exclusive (polygyny allowed) to his wife.
  • The woman is bound both permanently and exclusively to her husband.
Adultery is the crime/sin of a married woman having sex with a man who is not her husband. Therefore adultery requires a married woman. Because a man is authorized to have more than one wife, the only way a husband can commit adultery is to have sex with another man’s wife.
All women are virgins when they marry and the exceptions prove the rule. Prior to marriage they are under their father’s authority. When they marry, the authority over them passes to the husband. See Numbers 30 for an explanation of that authority. Why is it this way? Because God said in Genesis 3:16“he shall rule over you.”
This was repeated in the New Testament with the instruction that wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, in everything, even if their husband is disobedient to the Word. They are to respect him. And in keeping with the command of Numbers 30 that fathers and husbands are to hold their daughters and wives accountable, we have the command in the New Testament that Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loves His church. Which takes us to Revelation 3;19: “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline, be zealous therefore and repent!” The context of these New Testament commands is Genesis 3:16, “he shall rule over you.”
God does not change.

The Modern Paradigm

Some perverts in the early church decided sex was evil wickedness and everyone should be chaste. They decided to throw out the Biblical dual-standard of sexual morality and marriage and replace them with a new (single) standard of morality that applied to both men and women alike. Over the course of hundreds of years these teachings were solidified into doctrine. Keep in mind that none of this is Biblical:
  • Virginity is the highest calling a woman can have.
  • Sexual desire and sexual pleasure are evil, sinful and wicked.
  • Marriage begins with consent by both parties, not sex.
  • Marriage must have the blessing of the church, in a public ceremony before witnesses.
  • Sex, even within marriage, is at best a necessary evil.
  • Sex outside marriage is the sin of fornication.
  • Sex before marriage is the sin of “pre-marital sex” or fornication.
  • The church has the authority to regulate the marital bed to prevent sexual sin.
  • Men and women are equal in all but authority within marriage.
  • Polygyny is sinful and forbidden.
  • Divorce was forbidden but the church could annul a marriage
This should all sound very familiar because the doctrine has remained remarkably unchanged for the past 1000 years (except for sex being evil and divorce). In adopting this doctrine, the church threw out the Bible’s instruction and replaced it with a combination of Pagan ethics, Stoic philosophy and Roman law. However, they felt it necessary to find a Biblical justification for their new beliefs, which often required significant feats of imaginative interpretation.
What modern Christians are almost completely unaware of is where their doctrines concerning sexual morality came from and the beliefs of the people that put them in place. It’s easy for me to respond to every objection you guys have, from Scripture, because I’m telling the truth about what the Bible actually teaches. You guys are trying to defend doctrines that are based on Pagan ethics, Stoic philosophy and Roman law, from the Bible. Which is why you’re finding zero support when it comes to refuting me.
Other objections and questions will be answered in the next post.

Questions and Objections, Part I, 1st Corinthians 7 and “Sex Outside Marriage”

Artisanal Toad6 Comments

Paradigm Determines Everything

Apparently we need to discuss 1st Corinthians 7 at length to deal with the assertion that it contains a prohibition on “sex outside marriage” and a prohibition on polygyny, which has come up in the comments. Before I begin I’d like to thank our commenters for making rational arguments based on Scripture. It’s quite refreshing after the recent kerfuffle on Dalrock’s blog.
We begin with the question of how we can know that something is sin. As Christians we know something is a sin from one of two ways.
  1. The Written Word: Romans 4:15 and 5:13 says Where there is no Law there is no violation and without a violation there is no sin imputed. Contrary to Dalrock’s lie about me, the New Testament instruction applies to the Christian just as much as the Law. Thus, the instruction in 1st Corinthians 6:15-16 that prohibits sex with prostitutes is binding and sex with prostitutes is a sin for all Christians. Those things prohibited in the Law are violations (and thus sin) for everyone.
  2. The Individual’s Conscience: Romans 14:23 says “that which is not of faith is sin” and James 4:17 says “The one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, that is sin to him.” These are issues of conscience and what may be sin for one is not a sin for another. Further, we are commanded (repeatedly) not to judge others in such matters.
One of the examples of an issue of conscience given in Romans 14 is keeping the Sabbath, which is commanded in the Decalogue. Yet, Paul states that one man honors one day, another honors another day and another man honors every day as the Lord’s day. Who are you to judge?
Another example is eating meat sacrificed to idols. In Numbers 25, the young women of Moab enticed the people to the feasts of Baal where they “ate and bowed down” to the Baals. Eating the meat sacrificed to the idols was part of the worship ceremony and constituted idolatry. A death-penalty offense. Paul said “Hey, it’s just a piece of wood or stone. What is that compared to Christ? Give thanks and eat.”
The only way an individual gets salvation is to become one of Christ’s slaves, which means they have a Master… a Lord. That slave is under His authority, not the authority of the Law. Because the Master paid the penalty for sin and was raised from the dead, His slaves are forgiven of their sins. His slaves were purchased for a price, which He paid with His blood. Which is why it is written

 

“if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

 

Look carefully at the words “Jesus as Lord” because the confession is that Jesus is your Lord. Your Master. Becoming a slave of Christ after being a slave to sin under the Law is a change of status and status is important. The status change to a slave is the essence of the New Covenant, a better covenant. And yet, the average and even above-average Christian today will look you in the eye and tell you that slavery is immoral and a sin.
That is the result of the individual’s paradigm refusing to allow them to accept the truth.

Modern Christians Do Not Have A Biblical Paradigm

How many have ever met a Christian who cast out a demon, much less seen it done? Not many, I’ll bet, but that was one of the things that Jesus and the Apostles did regularly. Do we no longer have demons around, or is it that we feel highly uncomfortable with even the idea of taking authority in the Name of the Lord and commanding a demon to be gone? The latter, I’m quite sure, based on numerous conversations over the years with Christians of all flavors.
What about healing people of sickness and disease? Raising people from the dead? Jesus and the apostles did so. How would the average Christian feel if a fellow-Christian encountered someone who was sick and said “In the name of the Lord Jesus, I command you be healed.” Again, based on experience, they’d be looking for a fast exit to get away from the lunatic who believed that “nutty” stuff that’s in the Bible.
The real question is whether God chose to heal that person or not. If He didn’t, it was not His will that the person be healed and the reason (from Scripture) would be one of the following:
  • The faith of the Christian was not be sufficient to exercise that power.
  • The faith of the sick person was not sufficient to be healed.
  • God wanted that the person continue in their illness, for His reasons.
  • For some other reason God chose not to heal them. He is Sovereign.
The average Christian would hear the words and see the failure and be convinced the individual was nuts… and look for a fast exit to get away from the nutty behavior. But even worse would be if God chose to heal the sick person. The average Christian who heard the words and saw it happen before their eyes? Mind blown, they’d run for cover, later to convince themselves that it didn’t happen. The memory would be suppressed.
What Christians have today is a paradigm that is shaped by the influence of the church’s opinions (frequently not from the Bible), the enlightenment that dethroned God and enthroned science, the theory of evolution (idolatry) and pervasive feminism (a degrading passion).

The Marriage Paradigm

How does marriage begin? Jesus knew and in Matthew 19, when the subject of the grounds for divorce was brought before Him, He quoted Genesis 2:24 as the authority on marriage. His further statement that “For the hardness of your hearts Moses permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way” provides us with one of the keys to understanding Genesis 2:24…. because according to Christ, what is not said is just as important as what was said.
Yet, today Christians believe that marriage is begun with a procedure that isn’t in the Bible and they reject what the Bible actually says about it. As evidenced by this discussion. The reason is the early church was invaded by people like Jerome (a stoic) and Augustine (a Manichean) who had a hatred of sex and claimed that even within marriage sexual pleasure was a sin. These men became thought leaders within the church and their influence was incredible. Augustine’s opinions on sexual morality formed the foundation of the Church’s teaching on sexual morality for over 1000 years and Jerome was tapped to make the official translation of the Bible.
These men believed that sexual desire and sexual pleasure were the epitome of evil wickedness, even in marriage. They believed it to be sinful and it was only tolerated in marriage because of the command to be fruitful and multiply. Still, even within marriage they believed sex to be sinful unless specifically for the purpose of procreation. Obviously if sex can be a minor sin (a venal sin) in marriage, any sex outside marriage is a mortal sin. Because sex was so sinful (they claimed) marriage did not begin with sex, it began with consent (Roman law). And polygyny? Obviously the only reason a man would want multiple wives was greater sexual access and sexual variety… for pleasure. Polygyny was therefore forbidden as sinful and contrary to the will of God.
Fast forward to today. I have been studying Biblical Sexual Morality for years and when I told the truth about what the Bible actually says on Dalrock’s blog, I was attacked, ridiculed, mocked and accused of starting my own religion. Why? Because if they admit that (as the Bible says) marriage begins when the eligible virgin has sex, then over 80% of the “Christian” in the church (including the men on Dalrock’s blog) are living in adultery because they purported to marry another man’s wife. They were not the man to get her virginity and they were OK with that because the church told them “sex doesn’t make you married.”
That is a tough pill to swallow and they reacted with outrage.
Out of that orgy of Christian tolerance and rational debate, Dalrock stated that 1st Corinthians 7 definitively instructs Christians that “sex outside marriage” is a sin in order to support his Special Sauce ™ doctrine of marriage. Underlying this assertion is the idea is that God got it wrong in Genesis 2:24 and having sex and becoming one flesh does not make one married, there has to be something more. Dalrock claims there has to be some Special Sauce ™ that makes a couple married. He claims God didn’t tell us what Special Sauce ™ consists of, but he’s sure it’s a requirement and without it God will not recognize a marriage.

Virgins and Non-Virgins, A Status Difference

Interestingly, Dalrock pointed to 1st Corinthians 6:16 and (correctly) made the point that when prostitutes have sex and become one flesh with their customers, they are not married to them. He used this point to incorrectly claim that because that happens with prostitutes, it means sexual intercourse and becoming one flesh with a virgin doesn’t make her married. His claim is incorrect because according to his logic, Adam and Eve were not married. However, in making the claim he pointed to the fact that an eligible non-virgin can choose to have sex while not choosing to consent to marriage. He refused to recognize the difference in status between an eligible virgin and an eligible non-virgin in order to support his doctrine.
Some claim that if an eligible non-virgin chooses to have sex she is likewise choosing to consent to marriage. 1st Corinthians 6:16 proves this is not the case, otherwise all prostitution would be adultery because the prostitute would be married to the first customer and committing adultery with all the rest. Why didn’t Paul simply tell the men not to commit adultery with the prostitutes? Because they were not married and not committing adultery. The fact an eligible non-virgin can choose to have sex without choosing to be married is proved by prostitutes.
The doctrine of Special Sauce ™ and “no sex outside marriage” go hand in hand, you can’t have one without the other. If “sex outside marriage” is a sin, it’s something that can be confessed and forgiven. If there is no Biblical requirement for the Special Sauce ™ because God got it right in Genesis 2:24, then the eligible virgin is married with the act of sex and God makes the two one flesh. If that’s the case (and it is) then over 80% of the couples in the church are living in adultery, which means something needs to be done about that situation. There are solutions, but they require admitting that the doctrine that has been traditionally taught is a lie.
That is the issue. This is not about “Toad claims you can bang women outside marriage and not be in sin!” but rather “How does marriage begin?” The “sex outside marriage” argument is and always has been a giant shaming exercise designed to attack anyone who pointed to the Bible’s clear instruction on how marriage begins. This is an example:
Commenter Gary Eden questioned why the major point (the eligible virgin is married with sex) was being avoided and instead all manner of side issues were being pursued.

 

That is the problem with this whole comment thread. You are all starting from the belief/tradition that prostitution is wrong; rather than going to scripture to determine what the opinion of God is on the matter. More interested in shaming AT than dealing with the truth.
No, rather than seek out the truth, we’ll associate all these arguments with prostitution in order to shame them and mock them for trying to reason things out.

 

That is, in fact, exactly what was happening. Dalrock’s response was that I write nutty things. Then he laid down a shaming attack on Gary Eden for questioning the narrative. Rather than refute the point about prostitutes (he tried and failed), he brands the truth as “nutty” and starts shaming:

 

My question to you is: Did you not notice these nutty things and are defending them in error? Or did you notice the nutty things and like them, which is why you are defending them?

 

There you have it: The search for the truth is “nutty” according to churchians.

1st Corinthians 7 and “Sex Outside Marriage”

Based on what the text says, 1st Corinthians 7:1-9 provides no prohibition on “sex outside marriage”, nor does it prohibit polygyny. We begin with the text (NASB), translators additions are in italic:

 

Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. 3 The husband must [a] fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husbanddoes; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wifedoes. 5 Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and [b] come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 But this I say by way of concession, not of command. 7[c] Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each man has his own gift from God, one in this manner, and another in that.
8 But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. 9 But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burnwith passion.
  • [a] 1 Corinthians 7:3Lit render
  • [b] 1 Corinthians 7:5Lit be
  • [c] 1 Corinthians 7:7One early ms reads For

 

In the previous post about the kerfuffle at Dalrocks blog, concerning the doctrine that 1st Corinthians 7 prohibited “sex outside marriage” I made my objection from the text, not based on what I want the text to say. What follows is a more complete explication than what was stated previously:
Paul specifically addressed sex outside marriage in 1st Corinthians 7:1.
“It Is Good Not To Touch A Woman”
The word translated as “touch” is the Greek word haptomai, which means “I fasten to; I lay hold of, touch, know carnally“ and Paul is obviously using the “know carnally” meaning in this passage. How do we know? The context of the instruction is sex and marriage.
The word translated into English as “woman” is “gynaikos“, a form of “guné“. This word is translated as either “wife” or “woman”, although more often it is translated as “woman”. Given the context of the instruction he gave immediately afterward, he is obviously not saying it is good not to have sex with your wife.
If the woman is not a wife, then obviously carnal knowledge of such a woman is, by definition, sex outside marriage. That is irrefutable.
In the previous chapter Paul explicitly forbid men from having sex with prostitutes and said such activity was sexual immorality. In addition, adultery (the sin of a married woman having sex with a man who is not her husband) was forbidden in the Law. So was incest and male homosexuality. These acts are known as “sexual immorality” because they are specifically forbidden in the Law. However, “sex outside marriage” between a man and woman who are eligible to marry is not prohibited anywhere else in Scripture and when Paul addressed the issue directly, all he had to say on the subject was (paraphrasing)
“It’s good to not do that.”
Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees and he knew exactly what God’s Law said and didn’t say. He knew that marriage begins with sex and sometimes… sex “outside marriage” is just sex that doesn’t result in marriage and it’s not sin. Why is it not a sin? Because its not prohibited. It might be a sin for the individual because they are convicted by their conscience that it is wrong, but it is not a sin for everyone because it is not prohibited.
Dalrock claimed I was using Romans 4:15 and 5:13 (where there is no Law there is no violation; and where there is no violation there is no sin imputed) to obviate the requirement for obedience to New Testament instruction, specifically his doctrine that 1st Corinthians 7 creates a prohibition on “sex outside marriage”. That is a lie, I have always acknowledged that New Testament instruction is binding on Christians and I teach that. The conflict is he sees a prohibition in 1st Corinthians 7 that supports his false doctrine, but the passage in question does not contain any such prohibition.
Rather than prohibit sexual activity “outside marriage” as Dalrock claims, Paul actually said “it is good to not have sex a woman who is not your wife”. Meaning, “yes, that is permitted, but it’s good not to do that.”
The major takeway is that if sex outside marriage were a sin then there is no way Paul could have said “it’s good not to do that” because the direct implication and logical conclusion of that statement is such activity is permitted. And guess what: Such activity was always permitted, including sex with prostitutes (Paul only prohibited that in the previous chapter of the same letter). Which supports the point that marriage begins when the eligible virgin has sex. The only conclusion we can draw from this statement in 1st Corinthians 7:1 is that nothing has changed, but “It is good not to do that.”
Obviously, some are not convinced, so let’s compare this to the rest of Scripture.

What Does A New Testament Prohibition Look Like?

Looking at the previous chapter, we see something that was previously permitted being prohibited: sex with prostitutes. In 1st Corinthians 6:12-20 we have a pristine example of a New Testament rule being put in place that definitely prohibits something that the Law did not prohibit. The instruction is clear and explicit, leaving no doubt what is being prohibited and to whom it applies. Observe the prohibition:

 

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! 16 Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” 17 But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the [j] immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a[k] temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from[l] God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

 

That is what a New Testament prohibition of something that was not forbidden by the Law looks like. Observe that it applies only to Christians and thus does not apply to those who are not one body with Christ, so it falls outside the prohibition on adding to or subtracting from the Law (Deut 4:2, 12:32). This is one of the “house rules” for slaves of Christ. Do we have any other examples of changes were made in the New Testament that prohibited actions that were permitted under the Law? As it happens, we do.
1st Corinthians 7:10-15 comes to mind.

 

10 But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not[d] leave her husband 11 (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not[e] divorce his wife.
12 But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not[f] divorce her. 13 And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not[g] send her husband away. 14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through[h] her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. 15 Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called[i] us[j] to peace. 16 For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
  • 1 Corinthians 7:10Lit depart from
  • 1 Corinthians 7:11Or leave his wife
  • 1 Corinthians 7:12Or leave her
  • 1 Corinthians 7:13Or leave her husband
  • 1 Corinthians 7:14Lit the brother
  • 1 Corinthians 7:15One early ms reads you
  • 1 Corinthians 7:15Lit in

 

That prohibition is very specific as to what is being prohibited (divorce) as well as who it applies (Christians) to and how it applies. The right of a husband (under the Law) to divorce his Christian wife for adultery does not exist for Christian men and unlike the Law, there is no exception for adultery. Interestingly, we see Paul being very clear that the instruction is not from him in his Apostolic authority, but from Christ.
Another example of a New Testament prohibition is found in 2nd Corinthians 6:14-18.

 

14 Do not be[a] bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 Or what harmony has Christ with[b] Belial, or[c] what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? 16 Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,
“I will dwell in them and walk among them;
And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
17 “Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord.
“And do not touch what is unclean;
And I will welcome you.
18 “And I will be a father to you,
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,”
Says the Lord Almighty.
  • 2 Corinthians 6:14Lit unequally yoked
  • 2 Corinthians 6:15Gr Beliar
  • 2 Corinthians 6:15Lit what part has a believer with an unbeliever

 

Again, another clear and specific prohibition that leaves no doubt who it applies to (Christians only), what is being prohibited (marriage to unbelievers) and why.
Notice also that Paul wrote each of these prohibitions.
Do we see anything in 1st Corinthians 7:1-9 that even approaches a clearly stated prohibition of something that has previously been permitted? No, just the opposite. What we see is Paul saying “It is good not to have sex with a woman who is not your wife.” A few verses later Paul said to the unmarried and widows “is good for them if they remain even as I (unmarried)” Is that a prohibition of marriage? Of course not. Neither was there a prohibition of “sex outside marriage” in verse one.

Digging A Bit Deeper

Paul addressed “outside of marriage” by saying “It is good not to have sex with a woman who is not your wife.” But, what kind of woman is he talking about and what kind of sex is he talking about?
  1. If the man and woman are not eligible to marry because the woman is already married, such as the man and woman Paul used as an example in Chapter 5 (he had his father’s wife), then obviously their union is the sin of adultery. Paul is not talking about that sort of woman because sex with her is forbidden.
  2. Paul is certainly not talking about sex with prostitutes because he forbid doing that in the previous chapter.
  3. If the woman is a virgin, they are married with that act and it is marriage sex, not “sex outside marriage”. If the woman is not a virgin, is eligible to marry and she consents to marry, they are married with that act and it is marriage sex, not “sex outside marriage”. Paul could be talking about this sort of sexual relationship because he thought it better if Christians didn’t marry in order that they might focus on the Lord. However, I doubt it.
  4. If the woman is not a virgin and eligible to marry, but the sex is more of a FWB relationship because neither one of them really want to get married, they are not in sin for having sex and the sex does not result in marriage because the woman did not consent to marry. I believe it is more likely Paul is talking about this situation when he said “It is good not to do that.”
Understand that we DO NOT KNOW what matters the people of Corinth wrote to Paul about, but what we do know is it concerned them enough that they wrote to him about it. His response was “It is good not to have sex with a woman who is not your wife.”
If Paul were prohibiting such activity, would he have made the statement “It is good not to do that” or would he have made an explicit, definite prohibition that specified who it applied to and why?
When we compare what he said in verse one to the three examples of New Testament prohibitions for Christians that took away their rights under the Law, the difference is obvious. Paul was not forbidding “sex outside of marriage” in any way, he simply said “It is good not to do that.” In observing that there are three prohibitions placed on Christians that took away their rights under the Law, we should understand that IF the Lord had instructed Paul to forbid “sex outside marriage” he would have done so. Yet, he did not.
Logically, the reason is obvious: Marriage begins with sex because a man marries a woman with the act of sex. To forbid “sex outside marriage” is to forbid marriage.
Further objections will be dealt with in the next post.

Dishonest Dalrock Thinks He Won

Artisanal Toad57 Comments

Dalrock’s True Color: Feminist Pink

Evidently this blog has made enough of an impact that Dalrock decided he had to do something about it. Or perhaps he just wanted a massive food fight on his blog. For whatever reason, Dalrock decided to do a takedown of what I write about, using a strawman argument he thought he could knock down.
It was not a debate or even a discussion. Dalrock already knew he couldn’t win the fight legitimately because the Bible is not on his side. So, he decided start the fight on his terms and used the theme of “it sounds nutty” in order to use shaming rhetoric, hand waving and the power of his bully pulpit. It’s true. To feminists, what the Bible says is nutty because feminism is opposed to God.
The question underlying all of it is simple:

 

Is the eligible virgin married when she has sex, even if she does not know that act makes her married?

 

The answer rests on the question of whether the virgin’s consent is required in order for her to be married.

 

Does the father have the authority to grant or withhold consent for his virgin daughter?

 

What does the Bible say? If the father can grant consent for her, then obviously she does not have agency to grant or withhold consent to marry. It must be understood that Dalrock is a feminist in practice, if not in belief, so he could not allow that question to be answered.
If Dalrock was correct in his doctrine, he should have been able to refute me easily. The problem is he isn’t correct and he can’t refute what the Bible clearly says by using the Bible. Dalrock’s argument was rhetorical, designed to sway the emotions and for the most part all he did was intentionally lie and engage in ad hominem. Commenter Gary Eden objected to all the ad hominem and the refusal to address what the Bible says. In this comment Dalrock responded and explained what he was really doing- attack me personally:

 

he still looks nutty, because he is writing nutty things.

 

In other words, Dalrock chose to take advantage of the ignorance and cultural conditioning of all his Dalrock bros and encourage the personal attacks rather than allow a rational debate to take place. In the end the “debate” touched the third rail of feminism (does the virgin have agency) and it had to end.

SJW = Churchian

Churchians are feminist SJW’s who dress their feminism up and hide behind the Bible. Or, they claim they do. As Vox Day explained in “SJW’s Always Lie”:
  1. Churchian’s Always Lie: Dalrock intentionally lied, over and over again.
  2. Churchian’s Always Double Down: When refuted, Dalrock doubled down.
  3. Churchian’s Always Project: Dalrock claimed I was doing what he actually did.
Dalrock’s action follows the classic SJW attack sequence that Vox explained in his book:
  1. Locate or Create a Violation of the Narrative.
  2. Point and Shriek.
  3. Isolate and Swarm.
  4. Reject and Transform.
  5. Press for Surrender.
  6. Appeal to Amenable Authority.
  7. Show Trial.
  8. Victory Parade.
My comments over the years and the complete inability of anyone to refute my argument has clearly been a violation of the narrative. Obviously I am not going to apologize or surrender and there isn’t any Amenable Authority to appeal to. Dalrock knows this. He created a post that combined point and shriek with isolate and swarm. He turned the multiple posts into a show trial.
But, the show trial didn’t turn out to be quite what he thought it would be.
Over 90% of the “argument” was lying about what I claim and ad hominem attacks, with very little attempt support their doctrine from Scripture. The centerpiece of Dalrocks theological argument was the claim that 1st Corinthians 7 is instruction that sex is only to take place within marriage and thus all sex “outside marriage” is a sin. But he can’t describe how marriage actually begins…
Dalrock claims that God didn’t provide us with a wedding ceremony. Then he doubled down and claimed that having sex and becoming one flesh doesn’t make a virgin married… because whores have sex and become one flesh with their customers and it doesn’t make them married.
According to that argument, either God got it wrong in Genesis 2:24 and Adam and Eve were not married because they didn’t have the Dalrock Special Sauce ™, or Adam and Eve were not married because Eve was a whore. For some reason Dalrock didn’t respond to that.

The Importance of Dalrock’s 1st Cor. 7 Argument

What Paul actually said in 1st Corinthians 7 is simple: Because of the ubiquitous temptations of sexual immorality, each wife is to have her own husband (not someone else’s husband- sexual immorality) and each husband is to have his own wife (not someone else’s wife- sexual immorality). They are to have sex whenever either of them wants sex and neither can say no to the other, except for those times set aside, by mutual agreement, for fasting and prayer. When the time set aside for fasting and prayer is over they are to come together again and have sex in order that they might not be tempted by the sexual immorality around them.
The text Dalrock refers to is instruction to the already married people concerning sex and it does not have anything to do with the creation of marriage. The problem with the Dalrock brigade is they skip over the first part of the instruction in their rush to judgment and miss the fact that Paul specifically addressed sex outside marriage in 1st Corinthians 7:1.

“It Is Good Not To Touch A Woman”

  • The word translated as “touch” is the Greek word haptomai, which means “I fasten to; I lay hold of, touch, know carnally“ and Paul is obviously using the “know carnally” meaning in this passage.
  • The word translated into English as “woman” is “gynaikos“, a form of “guné“. Given the context of the instruction he gave immediately afterward, he is obviously not saying it is good not to have sex with your wife.
  • If the woman is not a wife, then obviously carnal knowledge of such a woman is, by definition, sex outside marriage.
In the previous chapter Paul forbid men from having sex with prostitutes. Adultery, which is the sin of a married woman having sex with a man who is not her husband, was forbidden in the Law. So was incest and male homosexuality. These acts are known as “sexual immorality” because they are specifically forbidden. However, “sex outside marriage” is not prohibited and when Paul addressed the issue directly, all he had to say on the subject was (paraphrasing)
“It’s good to not do that.”
Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees and he knew exactly what God’s Law said and didn’t say. He knew that marriage begins with sex and sometimes… sex “outside marriage” is just sex that doesn’t result in marriage and it’s not sin.
Rather than prohibit sexual activity “outside marriage” as Dalrock claims, Paul actually said “it is good to not have sex a woman who is not your wife”. Meaning, “yes, that is permitted, but it’s good not to do that.”
As with his erroneous interpretation of Deuteronomy 23:17-18, Dalrock is claiming that 1st Corinthians 7:1-2 says something that it clearly does not say and can’t see that it actually says the opposite of what he claims.

The Show Trial Had To End

After two separate threads totaling more than 1400 comments, with several commenters asking why Toad wasn’t being refuted, it had to end. In order to get a violation of his blog rules, Dalrock asked this question:

 

If I follow your logic, raping a non betrothed virgin isn’t a sin then. Right?

 

Actually, he was intentionally not following my logic and he is incorrect, but it’s just one more example of Dalrock’s dishonesty. The subject is the rape of the non-betrothed virgin that creates her marriage to the man who raped her (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), but the issue is the agency of the virgin and whether her consent is required in order for her to be married. Obviously the virgin has no agency and her consent is not required.
What Dalrock did was ask a forked question. The classic example of a forked question is “Have you stopped beating your wife?” The question assumes wife-beating is or has been occurring. Dalrock’s question assumes that a rape cannot create a marriage, the community had to do so as part of the punishment for raping her. It was important for Dalrock to establish that some Special Sauce ™ makes a virgin married, not just the sex and becoming one flesh as described in Genesis 2:24 that makes a virgin married.
Thus, according to Dalrock’s Special Sauce ™ doctrinal view of Deuteronomy 22:28-29, marriage is a punishment and the rape victim is punished by being forced to marry her rapist. This is the level of ridiculousness they are forced to stoop to in order to justify their doctrines.
It was not clear whether Dalrock was putting on his pink vagina hat or not, so I asked for clarification before answering by changing the subject within the same issue of consent.

 

I think it safe to say that we should be able to agree that according to Scripture, the father has the right to give his daughter to the man *he* chooses for her regardless of her feelings about it. If you have an objection please let me know.
So, under that condition, is the man who gets her from her father in sin when he marries her? Just so we’re clear, he marries her with the act of penetrative sexual intercourse, against her will and over her objections.
Is that man in sin for marrying his wife?

 

Unlike the virgin who was raped into marriage, the subject of my question is a wife according to Dalrock’s doctrine, because she had the Special Sauce ™ in the form of her father giving her to her husband in a “public status” ceremony in front of witnesses. Dalrock claims marriage is a public status and therefore it requires some sort of Special Sauce ™ ceremony dictated by the particular culture. Obviously this girl had that because that particular culture lived under God’s Law and they said she was his wife.
So, is the husband in sin if he takes her by force? Lack of consent is the sine qua non of rape, so is her husband raping her? The question is whether her father has the authority to consent for her. If he does, it cannot be rape and more importantly it proves she does not have agency.
Is the virgin’s consent required in order for the sex to make her married?
According to the Bible, the answer is clearly no. Deut. 22:28-29 tells us that the virgin can be raped into marriage, which means her consent is not required. Therefore the idea that a virgin does not know that giving her virginity to some hawt boy will result in her being married is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether she knows or not, whether she consents or not, because her consent is not required.
Does a father have the authority to give his daughter in marriage to the man he chooses, against her will and over her objections? According to the Bible, the answer is clearly yes. Exodus 21:7-11 tells us that a father can sell his daughter into slavery to be a man’s concubine. Leviticus 19:29 limits that authority, with the prohibition on a father profaning his daughter by making her a prostitute.
Notice what Dalrock said in answer to the question:

 

All you’ve done is asked me the very question I asked you. But since you asked, yes, rape is a sin, and that would include raping a virgin.

 

Is Dalrock stupid? No, not at all. He knows very well that consent is the essential element in the crime of rape, he knows exactly what the Bible says and he carefully did not answer the question. He did not say that the man in question was raping his wife, he simply said that rape is a sin. I know that and he knows I know that. Dalrock gave the standard feminist answer about rape always being a sin and in so doing covered his ass, but he had reached the point he could not allow it to continue. Because feminism.
Dalrock banned me before I could respond and 1) call him out for not actually answering the question and 2) point to the real issue. Of course, I’d have also called him out for lying, once again, but that’s beside the point.
This page has the story of the big argument, condensed, with commentary. The post history is archived here and here.
Obviously it’s Dalrock’s blog and he has every right to ban anyone he wants. I’m not complaining, because what he did was establish a few facts once and for all:
  1. Dalrock and all his churchian bros together could not refute (on any point) the teaching of Scripture that I’ve been writing about for years.
  2. In two threads with a total of over 1400 comments, several points emerged.
☠ The fact Dalrock could not argue without resorting to lying and ad hominem attacks proves he cannot debate the issue.
☠ The fact that he got his ass handed to him every time he put forth any kind of Scriptural argument to refute me proves he is wrong and he knows it.
☠ The fact he banned me proves he couldn’t tolerate publicly losing the argument.
☠ Dalrock is a dishonest, feminist churchian who does not like or agree with what the Bible actually says and does not say.
There were several novel points that got raised during the course of the argument that I’ll address in later posts, notably the position of Evan P Turner that slaves cannot be wives and his logical deductions resulting from that position.

Addendum:

For years, all Dalrock has done is keep up a steady drumbeat of posts that essentially boil down to one thing: men are losing the cultural war against feminism. For years, Dalrock has offered no solutions to help men and churches deal with the problem of feminism. The Dalrock message is clear: Men are losing and there is no hope.
The truth is that the early church threw out the Bible’s teaching on sexual morality and replaced it with a combination of Pagan belief, Stoic philosophy and Roman law. These teachings are encapsulated by the following:
  • Sex is evil, don’t do it. However, because of the requirement of “be fruitful and multiply” sex is permitted within marriage, but only for the purposes of procreation. Obviously sex “outside of marriage” is forbidden. (pagan belief/stoic philosophy).
  • Marriage is established by consent, not sex (Roman law)
  • Marriage must be monogamous, polygyny is not permitted (Roman Law)
  • Men and women are held to the same standard of sexual morality (pagan belief)
This rejection of the Bible has resulted in two major problems. The first is the epidemic of adultery within the church. Solutions exist to solve this problem but the first step is to refute the lies and teach the truth.
The second problem impacts not just the church but the culture as well. The early church’s teaching that men and women are held to the same standard of sexual morality is to say that men and women are equal. Thus, the church is the creator of the moral foundation of feminism and feminism cannot be defeated within the church until that pernicious doctrine is rejected by the church.
In order to reject the the adultery within the church and the moral foundation of feminism, the church must teach and preach the standards of sexual morality that are contained within the Bible, not the lies they have been preaching and teaching for 1500 years. Men must accept the responsibility of the role they were given, by God and women must accept the role they were given, by God.
Men and women are not equal and they are not held to the same standards.

Consequences

Artisanal Toad23 Comments

 

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods,
“And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
“Horatius at the Bridge” by Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay.

 

While the words are stirring and many fantasize about going out “in a blaze of glory”, life rarely works out like that. Ignominious death tends to be the order of the day. In the poem, the bridge had to be torn down and someone had to buy time for that work to be done. Enter Horatius into the annals of history. Everyone gets that and occasionally someone has to hold off the enemy while the bridge is torn down in order to save the town. But what happens when it becomes obvious that it’s time to burn it all to the ground? While destroying a bridge in order to keep the invading army out of the town is one thing, what happens when the problem is the town itself? As was once allegedly said in Vietnam:

 

It was necessary to destroy the town in order to save the town.

 

There Are Always Consequences

Hubris is an amazing thing. We begin with some powerful men who decided their industrial nation needed a suitable workforce that would maintain it’s place in the grand order of things. The goal was a vast multitude of drones who would toil away in their factories doing mind-numbing repetitive work without complaint. Strikes were a major fear of the owners, the idea that their workers would rise up and demand more. Even more of a fear was the great boogie-man of overproduction. It’s not difficult to slow down or even shut down a factory in order to adjust to demand, but how does one shut down millions of people who are producing independently in their own homes?
The idea was if men were intellectually dumbed down and properly “socialized” they would be easier to control and happier as individuals. They would be socialized and standardized as compliant consumers, not independent producers. They could easily be distracted by entertainment and encouraged to conform to the thought leaders. They would follow the party line and even if they couldn’t, they’d find another party and hold to their socialization and conditioning.
John Taylor Gatto, an award-winning teacher in the New York City public schools for almost 30 years, detailed the history of the plan to dumb down the population in his magnum opus, The Underground History Of American Education. The book was available for free on Gatto’s website for years and a PDF copy can be found online in lots of places. In fact, given how freely The Underground History is available, you’re an idiot if you don’t get a copy and read it. Seriously, no review can do justice to that book. Anyone who has grown up in the Western World needs to read it in order to understand what was done to them by the school system.
The grand plan was gradually implemented and the population was dumbed down over a period of some fifty years. In a later collection of essays titled “Weapons Of Mass Instruction” Gatto further hammered home the point that the modern school system was designed not just to manipulate and change behavior, but to harm the intellectual development of children. Especially boys. The primary goal of the system is to produce standardized consumers, not individual producers.
The designers of this system were uniformly men and they created it for the purpose of controlling the population. They admitted as much and they wrote about their goals (repeatedly, at length) in no uncertain terms. It was a long, slow fight to take control, but eventually it was done. But there are always unintended consequences. By the early 1970s the system was finally in place… just in time to instruct all those young women going through college getting degrees in education. Because women were entering the workforce in droves. Naturally, one of the first work-spaces flooded by women was the public school system.

Women At Work

Several hundred years ago a secretary in a business enterprise was invariably male. The question might be posed, why did this traditionally male job become female? The reason is the nature of the information a secretary is exposed to. All too frequently a male secretary, after learning all he could about the business that employed him, went into business on his own to compete with his former employer. That was a problem that had to be solved. Women are far more submissive to authority and far less ambitious. They are willing to work for less pay as well. And, there are other benefits of having female secretaries, as attested to by the presence of a couch in any executive offices.
Schoolteachers, however, are not secretaries. They tend to function as unsupervised or mostly unsupervised managers of their own classroom, responsible for teaching their students. While a secretary is (as a rule) directly supervised and managed, schoolteachers are rather independent in comparison. And while there are innumerable examples in the media of one-room schoolhouses being run by a woman, the truth is it was mostly a job held by a man. Yes, there were many women who were schoolteachers, but they tended to get married and leave teaching to have children. Men tended not to be teachers for long either because their ambitions led them elsewhere, but schoolteachers were traditionally men.
One of the principle aims of the new system was to consolidate the schools and segregate the children first by age, then by class. Standardization was the key and docile workers were needed for the great industrial economy. This began with industrialized schools. At the critical elementary levels, women were preferred over men for the same reason women were preferred as secretaries. Because women are willing to take less pay and principally because many women wanted to only work part-time, the pay scale for teachers stagnated to the point of decline. Male teachers began to seek employment opportunities elsewhere. While the management was uniformly men (Principal and Vice-Principal), the institutional schools became more feminine.

The Tipping Point

Did those men have any idea that this would happen? Through control of the schools, feminist ideology gained control of the next generations and in addition to dumbing down the children, especially the boys, schools became “beta factories” that destroyed masculine dominance and confidence in boys, shaping and “socializing” them into more feminine and docile creatures.
The vast majority of the population has no idea how the school system operates and what its real objectives are. I’ve recommended Gatto’s “Underground History” book for years and I always know when someone actually reads it. Anger is the predictable response. They get angry when they learn what was done to them. Interestingly, the other response is complete rejection. A family member (who was at that time a high-school math teacher) read half of it and stopped. He told me Gatto was “obviously crazy” and the book was “complete nonsense” and he refused to read any more of it. That was over 20 years ago and he’s gradually changing his mind on this, but it was interesting. The facts are irrefutable, but the idea his chosen profession was actually injuring children was too much for him to bear so he rejected the facts in favor of his feelings.
While many point to the “feminized” classrooms and their influence on the development of boys, they don’t understand the nature of what they are seeing. The compulsory school system was focused on the destruction of individuality and intellect; the destruction of masculinity was simply a byproduct of that.

They Got What They Asked For

The primary consequence of putting women in charge of anything is masculine men will flee from a female dominated space. Being creatures of the herd, women are particularly susceptible to group-think in which a few dominant individuals steer them in any given direction. This has been consistently true in terms of politics as well as with respect to feminism.
Men and women are not the same, they are not equal and they never will be because that is how God created mankind. That is objective truth. Yet, the central thesis of feminism is to deny that. Any argument of equalism is an attack on men and it always has been.
It no longer matters. The population was dumbed down and not capable of rationally dissecting the arguments of feminism, or of rhetorically destroying it in the marketplace of ideas. Because women are more than 50% of the electorate, easily swayed by emotions and powerfully influenced by the fear of being shamed, feminist ideals became both law and public policy. This demanded the school system do a better job of “socializing” the boys with the express goal of destroying masculinity that threatened to dominate the “equal” girls.
A war on men developed that has reached the point that masculinity is now officially known as “toxic” and must be stamped out. And yet, while women are attracted to strong, masculine, dominant men, the system they don’t understand is working hard to destroy the boys and prevent any masculine dominance from developing in young men. The end result is women looking around and then asking “Where are all the men?”
Men have been dropping out in droves, sometimes in interesting ways. A recent survey found that over 20% of the young men between the ages of 20 and 29 were not employed and had not held a job in over a year. The survey specifically excluded students. When asked why they were not employed, a common response was “what’s the point?” Over 70% of men between the ages of 20 and 34 are currently unmarried. Perhaps if asked why, their response might also be “what’s the point?”

Inmates Running The Asylum

An MIT professor, Langdon Winner, makes a disturbing point in his book Autonomous Technology, which echoes Neil Postman’s conclusions in his book Technopoly: We’re screwed because a problem has been created for which there is no solution. In the following citation from Autonomous Technology, Winner states:

 

Society is composed of persons who cannot design, build, repair, or even operate most of the devices upon which their lives depend … people are confronted with extraordinary events and functions that are literally unintelligible to them. They are unable to give an adequate explanation of manmade phenomena in their immediate experience. They are unable to form a coherent, rational picture of the whole … all persons do, and indeed must, accept a great number of things on faith … their way of understanding is basically religious, rather than scientific … The plight of members of the technological society can be compared to that of a newborn child … [but] Citizens of the modern age in this respect are less fortunate than children. They never escape fundamental bewilderment in the face of the complex world their senses report …

 

A question arises… what happens when things break? A better question is what happens when things break and the trained, qualified men are not there to fix things? Can the average man get the job done? No.
Having dumbed down and feminized the men, how does one recover from systemic failure? With a system firmly cemented in place that will continue to inflict damage on each successive crop of children, how does the population escape from this?
The simple but sad answer is that it doesn’t.
Catherine Austin Fitts wrote a fascinating essay called “Narco Dollars For Beginners” that introduces one to the narco-dollar economy. Once one understands the narco-dollar economic model we have today the incredible level of corruption becomes understandable. How do we cure this problem? To end the laundering of narcotics profits through the economy would take down everything.
Consider the question of what really caused the 2008 financial crash… then consider that the real answer is the Mexican drug cartels pulled their money out of the system following the Wachovia Bank money laundering scandal. $378 Billion was laundered through Wachovia between 2004 and 2007, according to the DEA. When they dropped the hammer on their investigation they seized $110 million of “dirty money.” The cartels said “OK, if you want to be like that, you won’t get our money” and they stopped laundering their money through US banks. That dried up the liquidity in the system and caused the financial crash of 2008. Did you hear about this? No.
How many people were prosecuted for money laundering in an institutional operation that laundered $378 Billion dollars between 2004 and 2007? Not a single person. Wachovia bank was given a ridiculously small fine and after that was quickly acquired by Wells Fargo in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008. Remember Jeffery Skilling and Enron? What Enron did was completely insignificant compared to what Wachovia Bank did. Assuming a 5% profit on laundering the drug money, Wachovia made a profit of $4.725 Billion dollars a year for a total of $18.9 Billion dollars for that four year period. What was their fine? A paltry $160 Million dollars.
Did the media explain this? Not really. Not in the United States. This NBC story implies Wachovia Bank only laundered a few hundred million. However, when one looks at the foreign press, a much clearer picture of what happened emerges. And not a single individual was prosecuted. That’s a hell of a war on drugs, isn’t it?
Consider the question of what happened on 9/11. I’ve written about it before and when considered in light of the evidence, certain conclusions are inevitable. So, why did only one person consider the evidence, out of all those with the knowledge and training to ask the right questions? Read Gatto’s books and understand the true purpose of the educational system. Why did everyone ignore the critical evidence, the lack of rubble and debris, that was before their eyes the entire time? The population has been dumbed down.
We have experts like Sir Ken Robinson, who talk about education and reveals that it’s been proven: the school system kills creativity. It kills curiosity. He’s not shooting from the hip, he has studies that prove it. Yet, like every other person who calls for education reform, he seems to have no idea how the schools got the way they are.

Two Solutions

The school system we currently have is effectively unchangeable under our current political system. Gatto has demonstrated this conclusively and his only solution is to flee from it and homeschool children. Unfortunately, homeschooling children almost requires an intact family with both mother and father working together in the same home. Yes, there are examples of so-called “single mothers” homeschooling their children and the famous example of Arthur Robinson homeschooling his children, but these are exceptions that practically prove the rule.
The ongoing destruction of families by the divorce industry demands an approved and blessed public school system that will warehouse the children who are invariable given to the mother in the aftermath of the divorce. Homeschooling is out of the question. The fractured economy that has seen real wages stagnant for over 30 years now practically requires both mother and father to work in order for the family to purchase all the things they don’t need and can’t afford.
There are no political solutions, as we understand political solutions… because what everyone forgets (or never learned) is that war is simply an extension of politics by another means. There are a great many theories about how the US empire will end, but very few of them take into account the incredible frustration and anger that is building up among men. Especially men who have been abused by the system.
At this point there are only two ways to change the system. One requires an incredible, brutal, limited war on women for the purpose of terror. It would require a battalion-strength force of highly motivated killers who were trained to operate as independent teams of 5-7 men each. The goal would be simple: terrorize women into voluntarily removing themselves from the rolls of registered voters. Could it be done? Absolutely. If it was done it would completely change the character of the United States.
It’s also true that the likelihood of such a group being recruited and trained by someone with the funding to do it is extremely low. 600 men, all killers? Even if that could be accomplished, the odds of such an operation being mounted without being infiltrated and shut down by the US security apparatus (which is quite formidable) are extremely low. Which means the odds of this happening are approaching zero. Should we believe in rainbow-farting unicorns as well?
The second way is if a platoon-sized group of men decided the system can’t be fixed and the best thing to do is burn it. Burn it all to the ground and start over. Which, of course, sounds preposterous. How could a group of 30 men do that? As it turns out, the infrastructure is rather fragile and it would not be difficult.
It is a fact that a platoon-sized group of motivated men could take down the power grid in the US and when that happens, it’s TEOTWAWKI. Consider the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines that are suspended way up high with steel towers. A little thermite applied in the right spots will drop those towers and cut the power. Done correctly in a coordinated manner, the result is a rolling blackout. Hydroelectric and nuclear power plants can be isolated from the rest of the grid.
With no power the supply chain breaks down quickly because fuel isn’t pumped and trucks stop rolling. Which means the food on the shelves is all that’s available, and most stores are closed due to lack of power. With no power the pumps don’t fill water towers. How long does it take for the municipal water system to lose pressure?
With no food and no water the most well-armed civilian population on earth will go nuts. What always happens in conjunction with looting? Fires. Which will draw down the municipal water supplies right when the pumps are not replacing it. And all those guns? They’ll be getting used. Police will come under fire wherever they go. Will power company crews work in a war zone? Highly unlikely. Will truck drivers take their loads into a cauldron of looting and killing- even if something manages to get the fuel flowing? No. Who will unload the trucks?
With no power and the population going nuts, where do the police get fuel? Who feeds the police and their families? With so many incidents happening all at once the standard swarming tactics will not work. With police coming under fire just for showing their faces, how long will it be before they go home to protect their families?
Thirty men? That can be done. The system has generated more than enough men who have lost everything and are willing to cheerfully burn it all to the ground. Given the fragility of the infrastructure and supply chain along with the ease of making thermite, that’s a death sentence for the US.
Which one will happen? My vote is on #2 of the above scenarios. There will be no spoiling action, there will be no plan to save the US, it will be an action by a few to burn it to the ground.
Is that pessimistic? No, it’s reality. There are always consequences.

Strategy For Men of the West: Polygyny

Artisanal Toad29 Comments

The Mission Of Man

The Lord God said to man, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, take dominion over it.
That wasn’t a polite suggestion, it was a command. We have an interesting explanation of that, when following His teaching to the Pharisees in Matthew 19:3-9, the disciples said to Jesus “If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.” Jesus replied and said

 

“Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”

 

Eunuchs are men who are not physically capable of engaging in the act of marriage and to them the commandment “be fruitful and multiply” does not apply because they do not have the capacity to obey that command. The statement of the disciples that it was better not to marry is contradicted by the command to be fruitful and multiply. Jesus told them the only acceptable reason for a man avoid marriage and fatherhood was to become a “eunuch” (celibate) for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. And He was very careful to not make that a command, saying it was a statement only for those to whom it had been given.
In the early church there were some who believed that Christ was speaking literally in that passage and they castrated themselves. Origen (later declared to be a heretic) comes to mind as the primary example, but he was not the only one. There is now some argument as to whether Origen castrated himself, but there is no evidence to believe the testimony of men such as Eusebius was incorrect.

The Castration Of Origen
Jesus, responding to the statement by the Disciples that it was better not to marry, was reminding them of the obligation of the first command. Unless a man is choosing to be like Paul and not take a wife for the sake of having more time and energy to preach the Gospel, a man is still required to obey the command of be fruitful and multiply.

Marriage

Some will think I’m beating a dead horse with this, but it’s important. What is marriage? How does it start? What are the rules? How do we know this? Learn this and know it so you won’t be fooled.
Jesus cited Genesis 2:24 as the authority and definition of marriage. In Matthew 19:3-9, the Pharisees came to Jesus and asked Him what the grounds for divorce were. Their exact words were “can a man divorce his wife for any reason at all?” but the thrust of the question was the grounds for divorce.
Divorce was a procedure instituted by Moses and the relevant text is Deuteronomy 24:1

 

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house [emphasis added]

 

The question the Pharisees were really asking was what “indecency” meant. According to Moses, if a man found some “indecency” in his wife, before he thew her out of his house he had to give her a certificate of divorce and put it in her hand. The certificate of divorce was her second witness that she was not married and thus not committing adultery. Moses was responding to a situation in which men were discarding their wives, formalizing a situation that was already occurring. Instead of commanding that the men stop kicking their wives out of the home, he commanded that they do it in such way as to allow her to go on with life.
Note, however, that before one can divorce a woman one must first be married to her and Jesus quoted the authority on marriage for the Pharisees. First He quoted from Genesis 5:2 saying:

 

“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,

 

Then Jesus continued, quoting Genesis 2:24 saying:

 

‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’

 

And having quoted the authority on marriage, Jesus gave His teaching on the original standard of marriage regarding divorce:

 

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

 

In other words, the original standard contained no grounds for divorce. That triggered the Pharisees and they demanded to know why Moses commanded them to give the woman a certificate of divorce and send her away. Jesus responded and made His point, again:

 

“Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.” [emphasis added]

 

Notice that He said Moses “permitted” them to divorce their wives, but from the beginning it has not been this way. The standard of marriage has existed from the beginning and it did not allow divorce. Having made His point and completely reframed the issue, He finally answered the question of the Pharisees, which was what the meaning of the word “indecency” was (the grounds for divorce), in accordance to the permission Moses gave. Jesus continued and said:

 

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

 

This is one of the most contentious passages in the New Testament and is one of the most misquoted, but it isn’t the subject of this post. I covered it in depth here and less exhaustively in the last post. Divorce was a rather contentious issue during the time of Jesus and there were two schools of thought. The Rabbi Shammai and the Rabbi Hillel were leaders of the two opposing factions who had radically opposing views on the acceptable grounds for divorce. According to Shammai a man could only divorce his wife for serious infractions. Hillel, on the other hand, taught that a man could divorce his wife for any trivial reason such as burning his meals.
It was to address this contentious issue that Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24 as the authority to define how a marriage is initiated before giving His teaching on divorce: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Notice that the Pharisees made no objection to Jesus citing Genesis 2:24 as the authority on marriage, nor did they argue with His teaching. Not only did Jesus cite it as the authority for divorce but the Pharisees recognized it as such.
One of the critical insights Jesus provided was in verse 8, when He said

 

“Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.” [emphasis added]

 

All it takes is a brief glance at Genesis 2:24 to see that divorce was not mentioned. Understand that Genesis 2:24 is God’s grant of authority to the man to marry, but that grant of authority to marry contained no authority to end the marriage once it had begun. Likewise, there was no limit placed on the number of times a man may marry. It is these two points, both unstated, that inform us of what the commitment standard of marriage was designed to be. We know that because Jesus pointed it out for us.
  • The commitment of the man is permanent but non-exclusive.
  • The commitment of the woman is permanent and exclusive.
As to what Genesis 2:24 means, that has been covered repeatedly, most recently in Biblical Marriage. That is how marriage is begun from God’s perspective. There is, however, another perspective. It was observed a very long time ago that controlling a person’s expression of sexuality is to control the person. The church decided to use control of marriage to gain control of the nobility because marriage sat at the center of their multi-generational dynasties. Control of marriage gives control of families. Or, to put it another way:
When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.

Modern Marriage

Modern marriage is a legal partnership defined as a monogamous relationship, governed by a mostly unwritten marriage contract and controlled by statutory law which can be dissolved for any reason or even no reason at all. The process of dissolving this marriage contract is called divorce and it converts the marriage contract to a divorce contract. Under current statutory law, legal practice and various other rules, women are significantly advantaged in any divorce proceeding. One of the best sources of real-world information about divorce and child custody is real-world divorce. This resource contains a state-by-state breakdown of the way divorce, alimony and child support actually works in that state. A must-read for every man.
NOTE: Don’t let the differences between states fool you. Louisiana, Arkansas and Arizona, for example, have a statutory “covenant marriage” on their books. According to the law, under such a marriage the divorcing party typically has to attend marriage counseling and then must prove the other spouse cheated, is a felon, a drug user, or something like that. Or, they have to live separately for a specified period of time.
Does it remove the no-fault divorce issue? No. All she has to do is move to another state, wait for the statutory period of time (often three to six months) to prove residency and file for a no-fault divorce under that state’s laws. Back home, under the terms of the Covenant Marriage, hubby can do nothing. Depending on the circumstances, choosing the correct state to file for divorce can make a tremendous difference in how much she receives from him. And if he’s high-income, the rewards of jurisdiction shopping will be significant.
The basic facts of modern marriage are that currently there is about a 42% divorce rate. Women still file about 70% of the divorces, but in the other 30% where the man files, a significant percentage of those divorces were caused by the wife manipulating her husband into filing for divorce. As of 2014, government records indicate that 93% of the individuals collecting child support and alimony are women. Which means that if the couple is in a state that does not award 50-50 custody as standard, 93% of the time the husband will not get primary custody of the children and he will be forced to pay child support. With no fault divorce this process can be initiated at any time for any reason or no reason at all and there is no defense against it once the process is begun.
Note that I said “The process of dissolving this marriage contract is called divorce and it converts the marriage contract to a divorce contract.” Getting a divorce does NOT end the marriage contract, it converts it into a divorce contract and allows the courts to force performance (almost always by the man) in accordance with its decisions for many, many years to come.
If there are children, the woman has the option of converting her “marriage provisioning model” into a “child-support provisioning model” at any time and there is nothing her husband can do to stop her. He will be separated from his children and ordered by the court to pay a certain amount each month. If he fails to do, the prosecutors office (consider the fact it is the prosecutors office handling this) can terminate his professional licenses, rescind his passport, drivers license, hunting, fishing and boating licenses and have him incarcerated for failure to pay what was ordered.
The woman sits back and the state takes care of this, utilizing their resources and the police power of the state to enforce the mandatory payments. If the man becomes more successful in the future, the woman can petition the court to order an increase in the amount the man pays, but it is very rare that a court will reduce the amount a man has to pay. In fact, courts sometimes “impute” a higher income than the man actually has, claiming he should be able to earn that amount, then calculate the required payments based on that “imputed” amount.
Again, read Real World Divorce in order to understand what Modern Marriage is all about. In the following links, I’m pointing to Christian blogger Dalrock. He does a masterful job of pointing to the problems and laying them out clearly. He provides no solutions, but when it comes to explaining what the real world problems are, he is the best.
“Child Support And The Threat Point” (Archive; PDF)

 

The overriding assumption of both conservatives and feminists is that husbands must be held in check, and that wives need tools to threaten their husbands to keep them at bay. Giving wives authority over their husbands is seen as not just good for the wife herself, but for the family and society as a whole.

 

“The Child Support Catastrophe” (Archive; PDF)

 

When the facade of “Its for the children!” is stripped away, child support is all about removing fathers from the lives of their children. If anyone has any doubt as to the true purpose of child support, they need only look at how it is enforced in practice.

 

“IntraSexual Competition And The Strong Independent Woman” (Archive; PDF)

 

[With respect to]… women’s intrasexual competition, what matters most is proving investment by a worthy man. In this sense the claim that “women are the gatekeepers of sex but men are the gatekeepers of commitment” is incomplete. More accurately men are the gatekeepers of investment, a category which includes commitment.

 

Domestic Abuse as a Power Play: Welcome to Duluth

In addition to the divorce issues, there is a “parallel track” of domestic abuse/violence litigation and prosecution that presumes the woman to be the victim, the man the perpetrator and generally requires the man to prove himself innocent. This can be initiated at any time by dialing 911 and in most jurisdictions the police are required to arrest the man. Under the Duluth model of domestic abuse, a man can be convicted of domestic abuse for requiring a family budget which limits the amount each of them can spend. One thing I must say about Dalrock, as cringe-worthy as I find his commenters, the man absolutely nails it when it comes to documenting things like the Duluth Model:
  • “All Roads Lead To Duluth” (Archive; PDF)
  • “Setting The Record Straight On Duluth” (Archive; PDF)
  • “Another Case of the Duluth Model Working As Designed” (Archive; PDF)
Then we have the situation where things get REAL for men.
From that, we have a tale of two responses.
First, we have (again) Dalrock, in “The Crazy Dictator” (Archive; PDF):

 

what should he have done differently given a violent and unstable wife? The only answer is to walk on eggshells and keep her from becoming unhappy, and focus on taking precautions to make it harder for her to use the domestic violence system against him. (emphasis added)

 

Then we have Vox Day at Alpha Game:

 

The solution is simple. It is very simple and it’s very effective. If a woman physically attacks you in a manner that indicates her serious intent to harm you, then you beat the living shit out of her. Beat her so badly, so painfully, that she fears for her life. (emphasis added)

 

Only an idiot would have any difficulty determining which is the superior solution. If it’s possible to save said marriage, which of these solutions will do so? Which of these solutions will cause the wife to respect her husband?

Why Would A Man Choose A Deal Like That?

As it turns out, this situation has produced the expected result: 70% of men between the ages of 20 and 34 are NOT MARRIED. Dr. Helen Smith wrote a book that observes and explains this phenomena called “Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood And The American Dream, And Why It Matters“.

 

American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going “on strike.” They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates.

 

It’s all so very simple, one would think. In fact, this is the impetus behind the MGTOW Cargo Cult. However, the desire to make men pay must find a way to make men pay.
Traditionally one could not get divorced unless one was married, an idea that goes all the way back to Moses. Given the extremely unequal treatment men receive in family court and the propensity of women to frivorce their husbands, a trend developed in which men began living with women but refusing to get married. (This is one of the reasons for the widespread use of domestic abuse/violence as a technique of control.) Faced with this situation in which men were not voluntarily submitting to marriage, courts began “deeming” a couple to be married if they lived together as husband and wife (shared a bed). Once the couple has been deemed to be married, the court proceeds with the divorce.
We see a further progression in this, in that the State of Alabama is in the process of removing any requirement for State sanction of marriages. On a popular level this is about the opposition to “gay marriage” but the reality is this will make all sexual relationships subject to being “deemed” to be a marriage, which can be followed by a court-supervised plundering. Expect to see other states follow suit. The truth is that since 1878, the Supreme Court has held (Meister v Moore) that Marriage is a “fundamental right” and laws requiring marriage licenses are “merely directory.” The term “directory” means that such a law is nothing more than a polite suggestion.

The Modern Marriage Solution

There is no point in listing all the problems with modern marriage because at the point of being dragged into court they don’t matter. Once in court, a divorce proceeding is very similar to being charged with some crime in Federal Court: 97% of the time you will lose. In a divorce proceeding you will lose 97% of the time for the “crime” of being in possession of a penis.
I leave it to others to dissect the various issues that cause women to file for divorce. Better is to lay out the solutions and why the solutions solve the problems.
First, maximize your potential and become fit to rule. That isn’t a requirement, it’s just very good advice. Following it will allow the man to solve problems before they become problems because as a rule, women do not desire to end a relationship with a man they are highly attracted to.
Second, ensure any woman you are courting is eligible to marry. It isn’t that difficult and the process itself is a compliance test for the woman that will give a good indication of whether she is actually attracted to you. If she’s a virgin the odds of divorce are around 5%, but if she’s not a virgin at least you know you’re not committing adultery.
If men did those two things the rate of divorce would plummet.
That’s where the standard marriage advice ends and it isn’t even “standard” advice. The problem with modern marriage is the structural problem of monogamy, which means an automatic monopoly for women. The marital standard of commitment designed by God called for a permanent but nonexclusive commitment on the part of the man and that critical design component is absent today.

Marital Structure Is The Critical Factor

Feminists understand that as a relationship structure, polygyny destroys feminism because by definition the structure highlights the fact that men and women are NOT equal. When one woman told her friends she was entering into a poly relationship, her friends went nuts. One of them thoughtfully summed up why “polygamy” was SO BAD:
Women automatically KNOW that the structure of a poly relationship allows the man to ‘next’ the women within the bounds of their relationship (it gives the man power and control). Women naturally compete but the only way they can compete for his attention is to give him what he wants: sweetness, attractiveness, submission and sexual availability (it “damages gender equality”). Nagging, withholding sex, fighting and passive aggressive bitchiness doesn’t get them anywhere because he can spend time with someone else (it “rips away” the things a SIW holds dear).
The husband has to be more aloof to manage relationships and the structure places him in a far more dominant position, which is attractive. It’s also provides immediate negative feedback when he slips and goes beta on them. Which helps keep him more attractively dominant and masculine. The collective attraction of the group validates their individual attraction to him (selection bias). The women can get their emotional needs met with each other, a group of friends who share a common interest in the success of the relationship. The opposition to such a relationship from outsiders creates an “us vs them” scenario, which draws them closer together.
And, no, the vast majority of men can’t do that. So what? Become the man who can if you want it. If you want a successful marriage and children, poly is the only thing left that doesn’t get automatically destroyed in family court. It has to be done carefully to avoid potential problems, but it’s not difficult. If a man can spin plates it’s just a matter of spinning said plates into a poly relationship. If they are attracted enough, they’ll do it. Once they realize they get more by sharing, not less, they don’t want to leave.
Women are always at the mercy of “the herd” of women who form their social circle of influence. Women need other women at an emotional level but the problem is the influential women in a wife’s life today are highly unlikely to be family members. They will be women who don’t have any interest in the wife having a successful marriage and in many cases they are opposed to it. With a polygynous marriage, women can have a self-contained “herd” within the marriage. Fellow-wives who are friends and share an interest in having a successful family.

Ask yourself: Why Does Everyone HATE Polygyny?

In a world in which we have the so-called “gay marriage” and all manner of BDSM D/s and DD/lg type relationships along with the tradcon mono-marriages, live-in arrangements, FWB relationships, casual sex and various mixtures of all that, why is it that polygyny is hated by everyone?
  • Modern churches will accept openly homosexual unions without blinking an eye.
  • Women with women? Yawn. Churches welcome them and love them.
  • Men with multiple women? What’s to see here?
  • People living together without being “married”? So what?
Nobody cares, but let a few Christian women marry one Christian man and settle down to get busy making babies… and everyone goes nuts. Churches that will welcome homosexuals and not let it bother them will get so uncomfortable with a poly marriage that they ask the poly folks to leave.
Satan desires to destroy families and he does this by causing all manner of marital conflict. His master-stoke was getting the church to throw out the Biblical standards of marriage and claim that monogamy was the only acceptable form of marriage. Not only that, but the church laid the “moral foundation” for feminism by claiming that men and women were held to equal standards of sexual morality. They did that 1500 years ago. 100 years ago women “won” suffrage and finally got the chance to completely screw everything up, which they promptly did.
Wizard’s First Rule states that “People will believe a lie because they either want it to be true or they fear it to be true. People are Stupid.”
The end result is there are a lot of rather sincerely wrong and misled Christians out there who believe the lie that God has a problem with polygyny. Nothing could be further from the truth, because it’s actually Satan who has a problem with polygyny. The reason is polygyny is the critical part of marriage that keeps the “monogamous” marriages working correctly.
People are stupid and they believe the lie even though there is nothing in the Bible to support it because they want it to be true. This is because of fear and envy on the part of the women and envy and jealousy on the part of the men. The real reason feminism hates polygyny is not only does polygyny destroy the belief that men and women are equal, but polygyny is far more beneficial to women than monogamy.
Given the declining number of attractive men, polygyny is more beneficial to women than monogamy because by grouping together they have the ability to get commitment from a quality man who would not be interested in any of them individually. With more wage-earners they have greater financial security. More help around the house means household chores get knocked out quickly, leaving more time for family. When children come the women are not alone and overwhelmed. So what if the man gets more sex with sexual variety? The women are the ones who win as long as he rules his family well.
With proper leadership, virtually every problem in modern marriage is mitigated by polygyny, for both men and women.

The Legal System

In the western world, polygyny is contrary to public policy, a throwback to the time when the church declared polygyny to be a sin. This means that a polygynous marriage cannot be recognized as a marriage or treated as a marriage in the eyes of the law, because the law has declared marriage to be a monogamous relationship. This only becomes a factor when someone (typically a woman) desires that the union be treated as a marriage in order to obtain some advantage or benefit.
NOTE: I believe a marriage should continue as it begins unless there is a specific problem that makes it necessary to change. If a man wants more than one wife he should round them up and marry them together at the same time. This, as opposed to the idea of marrying a woman in a traditional marriage in which she thinks she is his “one and only” (has a monopoly), then later deciding to add another wife simply because he wants variety. The issue is expectations, not morality.
As long as the marriage is successful and everyone is satisfied, they are invisible in the eyes of the law because it is public policy that what happens between consenting adults behind closed doors is private. However, a problem occurs when one of the wives decides she is dissatisfied and perhaps wants out of the marriage. She looks at all the advantages women have in monogamous marriages and wants the same advantages applied to her, so she looks for a way for the courts to legally dissolve her marriage under the same rules that are applied to legal marriages. In all likelihood she may not understand the issues involved.
It is not until this point that the court system (which includes the courts, attorneys, social services, counselors and others) gets the chance to crack this nut and as a rule it begins when one of the women goes to see an attorney.
As noted above, courts are in the habit of “deeming” a couple to be married because they live together and share a bed (living as husband and wife). In some jurisdictions the courts have engaged in a “divide and conquer” strategy with polygynous marriages, “deeming” them to be a marriage characterized by “separate concurrent monogamous relationships”. This occurs, as a rule, because the family does not all live under the same roof. This usually results from a couple being married for some time and for whatever reason, the husband adds another wife.
The beauty of the “separate concurrent monogamous relationships” doctrine is that it pits the women against each other. The first to file gets recognizes as the married partner, who (by definition) is the victim of her evil husband and deserves cash and prizes. The other woman is the “girlfriend” who gets nothing. Again, courts do not get the opportunity to review such arrangements unless and until the issue is placed before them, but this sort of ruling reverberates in the society and sows discord among women.

Understand The Environment, Do It Right

There is tremendous opposition to polygyny and if anyone wants to do this it must be done carefully in order to ensure that the entire structure isn’t destroyed later.
  • Round up the women first, then marry them as a group. Let there be no possibility of misunderstanding, establish that everyone is knowingly entering into a polygynous relationship from the beginning and with their signatures they acknowledge that fact.
  • Sign a written marital contract to govern the relationship. This contract will provide a written statement of the rights, responsibilities, duties and obligations of each party to the marriage. It will answer basic questions concerning the who, what, where, when and how of the relationship. The contract must be complete and well-written, so assistance in drafting the document or at least a review of the completed document by a good contract attorney is essential. I will be writing at least one post covering contract issues.
  • Cohabitation is required, meaning living in and sharing the same household. The centerpiece of this cohabitation requires the husband and all wives sharing the same bed. The rule is: “Nobody Gets Married To Sleep Alone.” This is the critical litmus test that definitively proves a polygynous marriage. Do the wives share the same bed with their husband?
  • When there are children, all wives are “mom” to all children with generally equal authority as “mom” with respect to all children. That goes a long way toward homogenizing the family and I’d even recommend wives induce lactation so all the women can nurse the babies. Which means that all the wives will bond with all the babies.
  • Consider wrapping it in kink. In theory, by virtue of the wives sharing the same bed with their husband the arrangement is already wrapped in kink, but implications can be made that shift the focus away from a patriarchal domination of the marriage by the husband to the wives pursuit of orgasms through kinky group sex. “Nobody gets married to sleep alone” establishes all anyone else needs to know. After that “Nobody’s Business But Ours” is a good policy, but there are occasions when wrapping the relationship in kink is an excellent defense against 3rd party interference.
If the above points are accomplished, it is impossible to apply the “separate, concurrent monogamous relationships” doctrine to the marriage. By any standard by which the man and any given woman are deemed to be married, the man is also married to the other wives and the wives are married to each other. This means that by definition, the union is a polygynous marriage in which the man is equally married to all wives at the same time. According to public policy a polygynous marriage cannot be recognized as a marriage, which precludes a divorce action. In effect, polygyny presents the court with a poison pill it cannot swallow.

Blowback

Not being able to view the arrangement as a marriage, the marriage contract becomes an enforceable cohabitation agreement. It has often been said that it’s now easier to get out of a marriage than a cell phone contract and it’s true. Family law is the Alice In Wonderland area of law in which agreements such as pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements can be discarded at will if the judge decides to do so. However, the lunacy of family law can’t be applied to a polygynous marriage because it isn’t a marriage in the eyes of the law and cannot be deemed to be a marriage because that is contrary to public policy.
This situation tends to anger the courts, especially the judges, because correctly structured and arranged a polygynous marriage either eliminates or severely limits their power to do as they wish, which quite often is to punish the man. Judges are offended and angered when they cannot do as they wish.
The marriage contract’s severance clause must specifically state the contract converts to an enforceable cohabitation agreement in the event a court of competent jurisdiction declares the union not to be a marriage, which means that (gasp!) everyone will still be required to perform according to the agreement. The agreement must be fair, but this does not prevent using an agreed-upon vesting schedule to determine what assets would accrue to individuals at what point in the marriage if someone decides to leave; or, if in the event of the death of the husband, the wives decided to end the marriage.
If one woman wants to leave and she has no children, she can leave and the conditions are determined by the contract, there is nothing for the court to determine. If she has children, the courts will have the authority to determine who gets custody. The standard of child custody determination is known as “best interests of the child”.
Question: Is it in the best interests of the child to preserve the status quo, living in the family home with their father and at least one wife who has been caring for the child all his/her life, or should they be forced to leave and live with only their mother? If the other wives have children, is it in the best interests of the child to be separated not just from their father and the other “mom”, but also separated from his/her siblings and required to leave the family home in order to live alone with their mother?
Obviously, if all the wives have children by the husband, the issue of separating siblings becomes a rather difficult point because courts are loath to separate siblings and it is the established doctrine of the family courts to not separate siblings absent extraordinary circumstances. If a wife wants to leave and there are siblings involved, then it’s very unlikely she will get custody of her children. It follows that she will be required to pay child support to the father of her children, a significant negative incentive to leaving.
Does anyone wonder why such an arrangement is viewed by the courts as evil, wicked and oppressive to women? It uses established doctrines that were designed to punish men to protect the children from harm by eliminating any reward for divorce.
Under this arrangement the incentives are aligned to reward staying in the marriage and penalize leaving the marriage. Which is as it should be. In any case of alleged domestic violence or abuse, the dynamic is not one of “he said – she said” because there are multiple women involved.
At the end of the day, in general the only way a marriage gets the attention of a court is if one party to the marriage brings it before the court. However, it is also true that a 3rd party can make domestic violence/abuse allegations and create problems. All of the above is part of a strategy that creates incentives, both positive and negative, for the parties to the marriage to work out any problems on their own. Barring egregious behavior, as long as all parties support the contract and relationship, the contract itself can be a solid defense against any 3rd party claims of domestic violence/abuse.
Keep in mind, as a polygynous relationship, you wrote your own rules (your contract) specifically because what you’re doing is so unusual. The contract has a fair and equitable procedure by which any of the women can leave the marriage. It provides checks and balances. In other words, it provides recourse and the individuals waive their rights in specific areas in order to obtain what they desire.
The Duluth model of abuse can be specifically waived as a matter of equitable contract and as long as all parties support the contract, no-one else has standing to challenge the contract itself. This situation changes if one of the parties to the contract screams abuse, but even at that point the contract is a significant mitigating factor and an affirmative defense if it specifically waives the so-called “abuse” in plain language. This is where having more than one woman in the household is invaluable in terms of testimony.
For those who object to this characterization, read this. Pay particular attention to what Justice Scalia said in the Smith case, because we aren’t just talking about contracts, we’re talking about fundamental rights.
In closing, note that all of this assumes the man is not interested in ending the marriage and destroying the family. Consider all the reasons why a man might want to divorce his wife, and observe that virtually all of them revolve around monogamy and are solved by polygyny.

When Being A Ruler Isn’t Enough

Artisanal Toad10 Comments
One of the game-haters recently asked a question that deserves a response.

 

Hey Toad go and see if those same women who mocked and laughed at me will submit to their husbands if they lost their jobs, status, wealth, power, good looks etc…go on I dare ya

 

His question concerns the attractive women who aren’t aware he exists (or have him automatically assigned to their friendzone). The tragic part is we have a man who is mocked and laughed at by the objects of his desire, but he rejects the one thing that could and probably would turn his life around. So, he asks, what happens when the husbands of these attractive women lose their jobs, status, wealth, power, good looks, etc.?
What he doesn’t say is important and the question demonstrates his false belief that the attractive women he’s interested in are only attracted to peripheral stuff and not the man. This is similar to asking women what they’re attracted to in men and being told that they like nice guys who are honest, kind, never cheat and always play fair. The women tell him he should “just be himself” and everything will be fine. But there’s something missing here.
Confident, masculine dominance was not on his list because he refuses to acknowledge that women are attracted to confident, dominant masculinity. Probably because those are words no-one would use to describe him. Neither does he want to acknowledge that a man can lose it all and still have the dominant, masculine confidence that women admire and are attracted to. And what does the study of game teach? It teaches masculine dominance.
When a man gets wiped out, if his woman was attracted to him she’ll probably stick around. If it was his status, wealth, power, good looks, etc., that she was really attracted to, then she probably won’t. And it’s to that point that I’ve been speaking when I counsel that a man needs to make sure the woman is attracted to him and not his wallet. Sure, the Dubai Porta-Potties exist, but whores have always existed.
However, sometimes relationships don’t work out even when everything is working.

David Was Fit To Rule, But Even He Had Problems

King David was a man’s man and he was the King. When we talk about “alpha” it doesn’t get any more alpha than David. He had wealth, fame, power, status, looks and the honor of men. He was anointed by God to be the King over Israel and Judah. King Saul gave David his daughter Michal as his wife after David single-handedly killed 100 Philistines and brought Saul their foreskins to prove he’d done it. When David’s position got bad and he had to flee from Saul, Michal sided with her husband and helped him escape. David made his escape into the country and men gathered to him because he was a leader of men, but his wife Michal stayed behind.
The Bible doesn’t explain why Saul did it, but while David was in the wilderness Saul gave his daughter Michal (David’s wife) to a man named Paltiel to be his wife. After Saul died David became King over Israel but Saul’s son Ishbothesh became king over Israel. David demanded that Michal be returned to him as a requirement before he would even listen to any messages from Ishbothesh. David was King over Judah when he was reunited with his wife Michal.
After the civil war was over and David had consolidated the Kingdom (becoming King over both Israel and Judah), he brought the ark of the covenant back and was singing and dancing before the Lord as it came into Jerusalem. When Michal saw David dancing before the Lord in a linen tunic, she despised him. Later, she mocked him. David’s response was to put he away. He provided for her but Scripture records that she had no children. She despised him. Another way of saying that is she held him in contempt.
I’ve had anklebiters claim that Michal was justified in despising her husband because David “violated” his marriage to her by taking multiple other wives and concubines while he was out fighting against her father. No, that was not only his right, but she had zero expectation of being his one and only because polygyny was common and her own father proved that. He certainly didn’t limit himself to one woman. The point is we will never know why Michal despised him in her heart, but she did. She held him in contempt. What did David do? “Next!” He put her away and never gave her any children. He provided for her, but she was cut off from that point on.

What If Your Wife Decides To Leave?

Like David, you go on with your life. That’s what David did, and that’s what you’ll have to do too. In a nutshell, the best and wisest thing a man can do is Let Her Go. No begging, no pleading, no bargaining. Let her go. We don’t see David trying to “repair the relationship” but at the same time we don’t see any record of Michal sincerely apologizing to David for her disrespect and dishonor. We don’t see any record of her repentance and David went on with his life.
The question is, how does that work? What does God have to say about this? What about the legal system and the man’s responsibilities? This will go to divorce court, so how does that work? Churchians get bent out of shape about what God has to say about divorce but 99% of them don’t understand at all. There is a status issue involved with divorce because Slaves have Masters and their Masters can require things that the Law does not require.
1. For those who are not Christians a wife is bound to her husband for as long as he lives, but if she commits adultery he may divorce her. The subject of divorce opens a can of worms because most have no idea what Scripture actually means. The central point of the instruction of Jesus in Matthew 5:31-32 (repeated in Matthew 19:9) is that God will not accept an illegitimate divorce. Consider what Jesus said in verse 32, which cannot mean what it appears to mean:

 

whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery

 

MOSES permitted a man to divorce his wife (Deuteronomy 24:1-4) and the divorced woman was thereby unbound from her husband and free to remarry another man (but could not ever return to her original husband). Was the legitimately divorced woman committing adultery when she remarried? No. Was the man who married her committing adultery? No. Why? Divorce was the official procedure by which the woman was unbound from her husband and thus able to legitimately marry another man without committing adultery. The certificate of divorce testified to the fact she was divorced and able to remarry.
JESUS taught that marital unfaithfulness (sexual immorality) was the only acceptable reason for divorce that God would honor and any woman who was divorced by her husband for any other reason was not legitimately divorced, she was still married. According to God’s Law, no woman has the authority to divorce her husband for any reason, so any so-called “divorce” by the woman is illegitimate.
GOD said that adultery requires a married woman (Leviticus 18:20; 20:10). According to Jesus, if the man divorces his wife for any reason other than (“except for”) adultery, the divorce is illegitimate, the woman is still his wife and if she has sex with another man she commits adultery. If a man marries such a woman who has been illegitimately divorced, he commits adultery. Because God will not accept an illegitimate divorce.
THEREFORE, if Jesus taught that marrying ANY and EVERY divorced woman caused a man to commit adultery, then Jesus was guilty of adding to or subtracting from the Law, which is a sin (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32). Since obviously Jesus didn’t sin, He can only have been referring to illegitimately divorced women in verse 32 above. Those who claim Jesus taught that a marriage to ANY and EVERY divorced woman is adultery are claiming Jesus sinned, was not a perfect sacrifice and could not have been the Messiah. Which means they are idiots.
2. For a Christian married to a Christian, Christ gave His instruction at 1st Corinthians 7:10-11. Wives are not to leave their husband (they have no authority to divorce), but if they do they are to remain single (chaste) or be reconciled to their husband. There are no grounds for a Christian wife to divorce her Christian husband no matter what he does and 1st Peter 3:1-2 is clear on this issue:

 

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

 

Christian husbands are forbidden to divorce their Christian wives for any reason with no exceptions. She might betray him, leave him and turn into a raging whore, walk into the courts of this world and “divorce” him, steal his children and alienate them from him, emotionally rape him, destroy him financially and use the police power of the State to force him to pay her for decades, possibly for life.
Those husbands who are under the Law have the right to divorce their wife if she commits adultery. The Risen Lord Jesus Christ issued a ruling for His slaves that require their marriage standard to be the original standard of Genesis 2:24, which means no divorce. As He said in Matthew 19, “what therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” The Christian man is married to his Christian wife for life, no exceptions, til death do they part.
Does this mean a wife can sentence her husband to celibacy by leaving him or refusing (in violation of the command at 1st Corinthians 7:3-5) to have sex with him? No, a man is authorized to have more than one wife and that has not changed. So what if she bails out? That’s on her head. She uses the legal system against you. That too is on her head. Do the best you can. You wifed it up, deal with it.
3. For a Christian married to an unbeliever, the rules are the same as if they were married to a believer, but if the unbeliever leaves them they are free. This instruction was given by Paul at 1st Corinthians 7:12-15 and it represents a ground-breaking new development in one area: a Christian woman can be freed from her marriage without being divorced for her adultery or by becoming a widow. Previously (under the Law) a woman could only be unbound (divorced) if she committed adultery. This instruction allows a Christian husband or wife to be unbound from their spouse if they are abandoned, which means (in the wife’s case) she was not at fault by committing adultery.

This raises a GIANT question.

The Christian wife is commanded not to separate from her husband (that prohibition includes emotional as well as physical separation), but if she does separate (for whatever reason) she is to remain single (chaste) or be reconciled to her husband (not her “ex-husband”). The Christian husband is commanded not to “aphiémi“ his wife (send his wife away, divorce her). For two married Christians, there is no divorce and there are no exceptions. But, what if one of the so-called “Christian” spouses abandons the other?
Is the one who leaves (in violation of Scripture) really a Christian?
This is only critical in the case of an abandoned woman because a man can have more than one wife. In the case of our modern “unintended” marriages in which the foolish virgin (who was lied to and told sex doesn’t make her married) gives her virginity to a man not understanding that with that act she marries him. If her father cannot forbid that marriage (he’s dead, unavailable or unwilling) and the man is a Christian, obviously that man cannot divorce her for her adultery (and it’s almost guaranteed she’s had sex with other men, which means she committed adultery).
Christian husbands are commanded to live with their wives in an understanding way (1st Peter 3:7), which requires that the Christian husband live with his wife. The husband is commanded in Ephesians 5:25-27 to love his wife as Christ loved His church. These are very serious commands that cut to the heart of Christian living.

 

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him

 

When this Christian woman who was married to that man when she gave him her virginity approaches him and he refuses to do his duty as her husband, where does that leave her? The question is whether that man is even a Christian. If he were a non-Christian he can give her a certificate of divorce for her adultery and she is no longer bound. However, can a Christian husband refuse to release her from her marriage to him and at the same time refuse to obey the commandments to live with her, love her and provide for her? No. He’s proving that he’s a liar when he claims to be a Christian and he’s abandoned her, which means she’s free.
And what about the Christian woman who is deceived by the feminist churchian rulers of her church and taught lies? She leaves her husband thinking she has grounds to do so and uses the court system to abuse him, causing great damage. If, in the day she learns she is wrong and returns to him in humble repentance, what if he refuses to reconcile himself to her? He is commanded to love her as Christ loved His church. Does Christ ever turn His back on a repentant sinner who comes to Him and asks for forgiveness? No.
The bottom line is that if you’re married you’re called to stay together, but the only person you have control over is you. If your spouse decides to destroy the marriage, they not only can but probably will. There is no magic bullet, no legal argument, no nothing. If they decide to thumb their nose at God, they will. Go on with your life.

Let Them Go

In the case of a wife who left, no good will come of trying to “win her back” because every effort will only make matters worse. The one exception is this: She must know that if she decides to return she may do so, but only in repentance.
In the case of a husband who left, a wife should sincerely ask him why he left and what she can do to change herself so that she’s pleasing to him. This might get a totally unacceptable and offensive response (to her) such as “lose weight and stop being a bitch” but in general, by the time a man has had it and he leaves, he’s done. I say the wife should do this because the vast majority would refuse. Of those who did, the vast majority would not change.
There are many who claim to be Christians but are uninterested in what God desires of them.
There are things a man can do to change the dynamic of his relationships, but it is not easy because:
The one who cares the least about the relationship will always have the most power over the relationship and within it.
This is wisdom that few can hear, but the truth of this can be observed in all walks of life. You must begin with the end in mind because some things can only be done or established in the beginning.

Begin With The End In Mind

It is often fatal to attempt to change the dynamic of a relationship after it is begun, so you should proceed as you began or end it. This requires knowledge and wisdom in order to know what is desired. You have heard it said that one should always consider the cost before you begin:

 

“For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’”

 

Answering the question of whether you have enough to pay the cost does not answer the question of whether it is a cost you are willing to pay or whether what you receive in return for that payment will be worth it. This is of critical importance when the subject is marriage. Did you study? Did you diligently seek wisdom? Have you not read that:

 

while I was still searching but not finding: I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.

 

Again, it is written

 

Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, for she is only a woman.

 

And yet the fools of this generation look for “the one” and expect her to be upright and virtuous while alone, for the fools do not understand what teacher also said:

 

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

 

Frame, Fitness Tests and Feminism

Artisanal Toad8 Comments

IT’S ALL ABOUT FRAME

In any relationship there is a balance of power and in general one person will be dominant and the other will submit to their dominance. In any given interaction between people the same dynamic tends to hold true. Dominance will be established over time by the individual (or group) who has the dominant frame. So, what is frame?
Frame is a specific interpretation of perceived reality and an individual’s frame is often determined by emotions rather than anything else. Think carefully about the words “perceived reality” and consider that an individual’s “perceived reality” does not require facts or even what we call reality.
What does this mean in the real world? Simply that how one looks at an issue determines how one feels about that issue. In the photo below we get two different frames (perspectives) of how to view the same physical act. Obviously it’s all in how you frame it.
Frame is also a matter of focus because the “frame” determines what is seen and what is not seen, which determines what is important and what is not important. How one frames anything will lead to a particular value judgment due to the emotional impact of the focus.

Fitness Testing and Frame

Women test for dominance and loyalty. By definition, a dominance test is a test to determine who has the strongest frame, because either the man enters the woman’s frame or she enters into his. Within that, the test is also a test for confidence because lack of confidence indicates a weak frame and a weak frame means a lack of confidence.
A frame is a particular view of perceived reality and that perception of reality doesn’t need to be established on facts, reason, experience or logic. For women, feelings are usually more important than anything else. Fitness testing takes many different forms and sometimes it isn’t an individual, it’s a group.

 

Once there was a professor who told dirty jokes in his class. The women decided he was a sexist pig and wanted to protest. They discussed it and decided the next time he started telling a dirty joke they’d all get up an leave the class.
Somehow the professor heard about their plan and at the next class he said “In Sweden a prostitute makes $2000 per night.” All the women stood up and started to leave the class. The professor shook his head and shouted “Hey! Ladies, there’s no need to hurry, the next scheduled flight to Sweden isn’t until day after tomorrow.”

 

Here is another example:

 

One evening an old farmer decided to walk down to his pond and look it over, as he hadn’t been there for a while. He grabbed a five gallon bucket so he could pick some fruit and bring it back. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. As he came closer he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the girls aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end. One of the women shouted “We’re not coming out until you leave!”
The old man frowned and said “I didn’t come down here to watch you girls swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked.” He held up the bucket. “I’m here to feed the alligator.”

 

While these are jokes, they illustrate the power of framing and the influence frame has on how an issue is perceived. In the first example, the professor didn’t argue about whether his statement was inappropriate. In fact, the protest the women planned was designed to not allow any argument in the matter. “He said something inappropriate and we walked out!” They were to be the judges of his behavior. Afterward, the fact they’d walked out would prove that whatever he said was inappropriate. The professor reframed their behavior completely: “I mentioned that prostitutes in Sweden made $2000 per night. They all got up and started leaving. I know they aren’t bigoted against sex workers so I can only conclude they immediately decided to go to Sweden.”
In the second example, the old farmer didn’t argue with them, he simply reframed the women’s view of the pond as being a place of safety to a place of danger. Which is more important, modesty or not getting eaten by an alligator? Notice that in these examples, perception is everything and the “facts” are subject to interpretation.
Another example of reframing is the argument of feminists about equal pay for equal work. Heartily agree that equal pay is a good thing and it’s horrible that white prostitutes make about three times as much as black prostitutes for the same work. They all do the same job and they’re all women, so there should be a law that sets the fees for prostitutes and guarantees that either the white prostitutes have to charge less or the black prostitutes have to charge more.
In this case, the feminist frame is one of equality and the false claim that men and women are equal and should be treated as interchangeable. The lie is exposed by shifting the view (frame) to the unequal pay between female white prostitutes and female black prostitutes. The funny part is the feminists will double down and claim it’s a matter of racism, not equality. Anything to avoid admitting their argument actually hurts women who desire to work and do a good job.
The subject might be equal pay, but the issue is the right to choose based on personal preferences and tastes, which is clearly demonstrated in the case of prostitutes.

Framing An Argument

The way an argument is framed will usually determine who gets to win the argument. Clarence Darrow was famous for saying that he would defend any case and win, regardless of the facts, if he got to decide the issue before the court. In other words, if he was allowed to frame the case, he’d win.
The argument about evolution is a good example. If evolution is argued from the frame of evidence (does the evidence support the general theory of evolution), in an evolution vs creation debate the creationists tend to win. That, by the way, isn’t opinion. The evolutionists will generally no longer debate the creationists. They would never admit the reason is because their lack of evidence for evolution is embarrassing when compared to the evidence for creationism, but it cannot be denied that creationists tend to win the debates, just like atheists get destroyed by the Christians.
Our recent commenter Jenny has been very helpful in this regard, so let’s look at her comment.

 

Toad- once again I don’t agree with your conclusions but I find your thought process very interesting and engaging. People can disagree without it being a “test.” But i believe men like you two react this way because of deep seeded insecurities which cause you to interpret everything as a challenge to your “manhood.” How’s that for a shit test?
Oh, and despite your “true word,” no one gives a shit if you eat a lobster, get a tattoo, or get laid before marriage, which is why I suspect you have at least done 2 of the 3, if not all 3. By not following all your “word” and just cheery picking, you reveal yourself as the weak, feeble and insecure people that you so clearly all. The strong (muscle) do not rule. The strong in mind rule them.
Most leaders and lawmakers throughout time were not the physically strongest. They were smart enough (mentally strong) to rule over those who were physically stronger and get them to do their bidding. Throughout time the physically strong have been submissive to the mentally strong. Which is why u hate educated women. By default it means collectively you weak minded people are submitting to them!

 

While it’s true that Jenny makes a factually deficient argument based almost solely on feminist rhetoric, the truth is she’s making a moral argument in which she’s confused. She thinks she’s pointing to a moral ontology when in fact she’s got a moral semantics problem.
Jenny presents a mish-mash of incoherent statements that she obviously feels strongly about and apparently she thinks this passes for an argument. First, she makes a declarative statement:

 

People can disagree without it being a “test.” But i believe men like you two react this way because of deep seeded insecurities which cause you to interpret everything as a challenge to your “manhood.”

 

Jenny’s argument was Snapper’s test with respect to how he chose to handle it. It was his test because he had to choose to either accept her frame and argue within her frame or reframe her argument and instead of arguing the semantics, argue the ontology. Or, he could have ignored her, not giving her any attention. His response to his test became his argument.
In this comment she’s reacting to my comments to Snapper, in which I described the earlier exchange she had with him as a shit test. My point to Snapper was that by arguing the details within her frame, he was conceding his frame to hers and she won. She claims she was making an argument and in truth she was. However, her argument was a test for Snapper that I labeled as a shit test for dominance, because it was. Jenny claims identifying it as such is a sign of “insecurity” because I’m fearful of losing my “manhood” to the mental strength that makes her a strong independent woman.
With any conflict we begin with a status quo that represents our system of beliefs, because we do not exist within a vacuum. When someone makes an argument that attacks that system of beliefs, such an attack is an argument on the part of the one making it and a test for the individual receiving it. How the attack is dealt with tends to establish who wins.
I chose not to respond to Jenny’s original comment because I don’t expect anyone to agree with me and I don’t even expect them to understand. She’s free to disagree and I’m free to ignore her. However, Jenny wanted me to engage so she again brought forth her argument. In doing so, she demonstrated she has no idea who she is talking to. She stated:

 

no one gives a shit if you eat a lobster, get a tattoo, or get laid before marriage, which is why I suspect you have at least done 2 of the 3, if not all 3. By not following all your “word” and just cherry picking, you reveal yourself as the weak, feeble and insecure people that you so clearly all.

 

At a philosophical level, I’m an ontological reductionist. That is, someone who deals with reality and tries to reduce everything to its basic essence in order to make it easy to understand. The simple reason is that virtually everyone has been lied to all their lives about practically everything and in order to get them to understand what the truth is, it has to be presented clearly and concisely.

The Frame Built by Crazy Aunt Andrea

Jenny’s argument is incoherent and that problem is compounded by the fact she’s apparently woefully ignorant of what the Bible actually says. In addition, Jenny does not know me in real life and has no clue how I live my life. Yet, she makes certain assumptions, claims she’s correct in her assumptions and on that basis claims I’m weak, feeble and insecure. Which is actually hilarious for everyone who knows me because my worst enemies would laugh at such an assertion.
As the regular readers here already know, I am a complete asshole and I truly don’t care what other people think. God, however, is a different matter because I do care what God thinks of my behavior. As I said, Jenny is obviously rather ignorant of what the Bible says, so let’s see how her assumptions play out. I have most certainly eaten lobster and will again, as well as crabs, shrimp, crawfish, clams, oysters and other seafood that are forbidden by the Law. However, Jenny has obviously never read Colossians 2:16 and since I’ve never written a post about this, I’ll quote it now.

 

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day

 

According to the Apostle Paul, the dietary laws (as well as keeping the Sabbath, the feasts and holy days) are specific issues that can be disregarded for Christians.
Then there’s the issue of “sex before marriage” and the regular readers are probably rolling on the floor with laughter at this one. Jenny, seriously, you probably think I’m a churchian, but you have no idea. Just as an example of the many posts I’ve done on this subject, take a look at these:
Marriage, Whores and Churchians (scroll down for the section on premarital sex)
It doesn’t stop there because practically everyone has been lied to all their lives about what the Bible actually says, so what about other issues like lesbians, prostitutes and having more than one wife?
Prostitutes And Lesbians Rugmunching isn’t a sin. Neither is prostitution.
Polygyny (more than one wife) Polygyny and the idiot arguments against it.
Polygyny & Female Competition Socially Imposed Monogamy hurts women.
Those are specific posts that provide a lot of detail. For a general outline on what the Bible actually says about sexual morality, see the page titled “Sexual Morality” in the blog header. According to the Bible I’ve never been married, so obviously all the sex I’ve ever had has been “before marriage” and about 99.99% of it was adultery. That’s according to what the Bible actually says. According to churchians I only did the premarital thing back when I was a heathen and the only time I committed adultery was with that one woman who didn’t tell me she was married until the 3rd or 4th time. And I dumped her for it.
Now that I understand what the Bible actually says about who I’m authorized to have sex with, I developed a process to deal with it. It’s resulted in some interesting conversations and even more interesting experiences, but the bottom line is if she’s attracted she’ll do it. If she’s not, she won’t and there’s no point for a man to continue talking to another man’s wife. That is what we call a compliance test.
As far as tattoos are concerned, there are specific prohibitions at Leviticus 19:27-28 against getting tattoos as well as “rounding off the side-growth” of the head or harming the edges of the beard. I don’t have any violations of this. It’s actually funny, back in the day I had the entire crew of unwashed heathens with me partying at the home of the country’s most famous tattoo artist. He inked the entire crew except for me. I never had any use for body graffiti.
So no, I’m not cherry-picking Scripture, which is probably why most Christians and practically all churchians hate what I write about. Witness the recent argument with Cybersith1- he objects that I’m calling the men out for their behavior. However, while the individual’s obedience to God will impact them at some point, their obedience or lack of obedience does not impact the truth of God’s existence or God’s requirements of mankind. I write for Christians who want to be obedient to the God they serve and it’s my desire to be a thorn in the flesh of those who claim to be Christians but don’t want to obey the God they claim to serve. I suppose every needs a hobby.
Churchians sing songs about their boyfriend Jesus and how they’re just worms who don’t deserve the grace they’ve been given. Really? Christ died for a pile of worms? That’s horseshit. Neither do I subscribe to the gospel of health, wealth and prosperity mixed up with the modern day dharma that is the churchian concept of love. Look at what Jesus actually said about being one of His followers:

 

34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

 

That’s not for the weak, feeble and insecure, which is why preachers don’t quote that passage, just like they don’t talk about the Phineas Priests.
Jenny might not like the fact that God made woman from man, for man, to be used by man in order to accomplish his mission, but that is the testimony of Scripture. Even worse, it does not matter whether the man is obedient to God or not, the woman is still commanded to submit to him. 1st Peter 3:1-2 says

 

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the Word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.

 

Jenny’s frame for this argument is that people who think for themselves are mentally strong (like her!) but men who believe the Bible (like me) are “weak, feeble and insecure.” It appears that her outlook is the same as that of the novelist Harry Harrison, who sees Christianity as a religion for slaves rather than the faith of slaves. Which is another case of semantics because everyone is a slave and the only freedom anyone has is the freedom of choosing one’s master.
All of which is incomprehensible to mindless churchians and those outside the church.

Only Two Sources For Law

Take all the philosophy and theology and everything else, boil it all down and we’re left with only two sources of authority. If God exists and He is the Creator of everything (He says He is) then He has the right to make the rules. And He did, which is what is known as “God’s Law”. But, if there is no God, then everyone is equal and the only way anyone’s ideas of right and wrong are applicable to others is if they can enforce them. This is the idea of “might makes right” and is known as “the Law of the Jungle”.
With that in mind, let’s continue with Jenny’s argument.

 

The strong (muscle) do not rule. The strong in mind rule them.

 

This is patently ridiculous because anyone with any perception at all knows that strength of mind or body is irrelevant when it comes to ruling. The powerful rule. They derive their power from a combination of economic, political and military force at their command. The biggest lie in America is the “American Dream” that you can grow up to be anything. No. Regardless of their character, the sons of the wealthy will sit on the boards of directors, reap the profits and exercise control. Those who were not born to privilege will (as a rule) serve the ones who were. The individual like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezzos and Mark Zuckerberg are the exceptions that prove the rule.

 

Most leaders and lawmakers throughout time were not the physically strongest. They were smart enough (mentally strong) to rule over those who were physically stronger and get them to do their bidding. Throughout time the physically strong have been submissive to the mentally strong. Which is why u hate educated women. By default it means collectively you weak minded people are submitting to them!

 

Jenny is attempting to claim that not only am I physically weak, feeble and insecure, I’m weak of mind and therefore I hate educated women. Given what she cited as her “argument”, it’s no surprise that her conclusion is what is known as a “non sequitur“.
Throughout history, the most common form of government has been a monarchy. As a rule, a monarchy was put in place when an exceptional man who was physically strong, intelligent and ambitious gathered a group of other strong men around him and took over an area by force. Conquest is the word we’re looking for and they gained the right to rule by force of arms. If that leader was wise and fit to rule, then the area he conquered prospered and he lived his life and passed on the franchise to his kids.
A system of nobility was thus established whereby the leader was the king, his stalwarts were nobles and his thugs and headbreakers became knights. The nobles possessed hereditary titles and their control of the productive assets and the people of their fife gave these individuals not only physical (military) power but also economic power as well. The combination of military and economic force gave these individuals political power. As time passed, economic power alone was able to generate political power and political power granted military power.
Case in point? Donald J. Trump. He leveraged his economic power into political power which gave him military power. How did he get his economic power? He inherited wealth and did a good job producing more.
And what was it that Trump said about women?
But what about all those strong, independent women? Where are the female rulers? Can we find any historical queens who became queen on their own merits, rather than inheriting the throne from their husband or father? There are some historical records of queens in various countries, some of them great ones. However, I know of none of them that didn’t get the throne handed to them by a relative and they only got it by virtue of being in the line of succession. Not by being mentally strong.
Being mentally strong is not enough for a man and especially not for a woman (although a woman can get a lot of mileage out of good looks and a mercenary attitude combined with high intelligence). Without a system that provides a mechanism for the mentally strong to exercise their economic, political and military power, their mental strength is useless. Without at least economic power (or inherited political and military power), mental strength doesn’t go any further than physical strength (although they work well together).
This, for example, is a mentally strong and independent woman who discovered that for all her mental strength, she wasn’t capable of refusing to submit to one overweight cop with an IQ of less than 100. And inside the jail? Mental strength is good but physical strength is far better. When it comes to the law of the jungle, might makes right and the idea that mentally strong women actually rule is a fantasy.
The fact is, only within a system of enforced morality in which right and wrong is firmly established by law (such as the one we have, which is founded on Christianity) do women get treated as anything other than cattle. Systems like that are put in place through the application of force, which requires strength. The brute strength of men, not women.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

Despite being incoherent, Jenny’s argument is actually a good one for churchians, but not for the reasons she thinks. It’s true that most churchian men are rather weak individuals who submit to their women. The reason is the feminist churchian system stomps the masculinity out of them as boys and young men and teaches them to be weak and repulsive to women. They are taught the toxic doctrines of “Servant Leadership” and “Mutual Submission” and encouraged to worship their women.
The modern churchian cannot handle real submission of wives in a monogamous marriage, much less submission in a polygynous marriage and the idea of a woman submitting to her husband’s physical discipline scares them to death. Interestingly, the women don’t have much of a problem with it once they figure out what is in it for them, but even mentioning any of that drives the men right over the edge. The only thing that causes worse meltdowns is the point that having sex with a virgin is to marry her. Which means that if he didn’t get her virginity when he married her, the wedding was a fraud and he’s living in adultery with another man’s wife. Oops!

Jenny:

This isn’t a churchian blog and I’m not a churchian. I’m a man who carefully studied the Bible and slowly pieced together what it says about sexual morality. I’m not an evangelist and I’m not here to tell you about Jesus, because you’ve either got him in your heart or you don’t. What I do here is explain what the Bible actually says about sexual morality.
Consider this:
  1. God is the Creator of mankind and He knows men and women better than anyone.
  2. As Creator, God has the right to order His creation as He sees fit.
  3. God gave His Law to man, in which He rewards obedience and punishes disobedience.
  4. God’s instruction on marriage is complete and satisfies the needs of men, women and children in the family.
  5. Each part of God’s marriage plan is necessary for the plan to work as intended.
  6. Modification to God’s plan by removing or adding parts has caused unmet needs.
  7. The vast majority of the marital problems today result from not following God’s plan.
  8. God’s original design is the only real solution to the marriage problems today.
  9. Only by understanding God’s original design can it be successfully implemented.
The logic of that syllogism is tight and if point #1 is accepted none of the other points can reasonably be questioned. As for the issue of whether there is a God, the atheists don’t have much confidence in themselves, for good reason: When they debate Christians they lose. As far as other religions such as islam, they get destroyed even worse than the atheists when they take on Christians. Islam is so incoherent, so easy to refute and so obviously inferior to Christianity that the default position of Muslims has been to kill anyone who left islam to become a Christian. However, whether you believe in God or not is irrelevant to me, as well as whether you are or are not a Christian. I teach what the Bible says about sexual morality. What you do with it is up to you.
Everything in the logical syllogism above is fine for most Christians until we get to the nitty-gritty of what God’s plan for marriage actually is. The simple truth is that God’s plan for marriage has been covered up and lied about for over 1500 years. I’ve written quite a bit about that and quoted definitive histories regarding the subject. The fact that the church threw out God’s plan for marriage and replaced it with a combination of pagan practice, stoic philosophy and Roman law is indisputable. The way that was done was by re-defining the meaning of words and telling lots of lies so the “new” plan fit. And they “interpreted” a lot of passages in a very self-serving fashion. Yet no-one ever questioned that Genesis 2:24 was the law of marriage that defines what marriage is, they simply claimed it meant something different and after more than a thousand years of killing anyone who disagreed with them (heretics), everyone believes it now.
If you were to read my debate with whysoserious? you’ll notice that when he couldn’t refute my argument concerning what the words of Genesis 2:24 really meant, he went through a steady progression of argument that devolved into saying that we really couldn’t know anything about marriage at all because Scripture doesn’t tell us what it is. Which is preposterous.
The information on this blog is a source of extreme embarrassment to churchians everywhere because they cannot refute it and it exposes their traditional teachings as a lie. Patriarchy? Movements like “quiverful” are a joke and they aren’t patriarchal because they don’t know what patriarchal is. They espouse a parody of patriarchy that places the wives in a very difficult position and when the women don’t measure up, they are blamed. But not the men.
You mentioned manhood being threatened. The truth is that the vast majority of feminist churchians are not comfortable with masculinity, are frightened of male dominance and in general are thoroughly feminized. The women find such men repulsive but are placed in a position whereby they are told to submit to a man they don’t respect because they’re required to. And, naturally, they rebel against that.
Perhaps you’re opposed to Christianity. If you wanted to embarrass Christians for their ignorance and unintended hypocrisy, it’s pretty easy because even the professional Christians don’t know what the Bible actually says about sexual morality. Go to the Sexual Morality page linked in the blog header, print that out and memorize it. Know what those verses say and how they fit together and with that, you’ll have all the ammunition you need to embarrass virtually any churchian you meet, using nothing but the information straight from the Bible. Keep in mind that they’re extremely sensitive to this because at least 80% of them are living in adultery. That can be fixed but first they have to acknowledge the truth. You are probably living in adultery too, but if you don’t believe in God, why would His rules on what constitutes adultery be an issue?
As an aside, do you know why “God damn you to hell” is a blasphemy? The reason is that God doesn’t damn anyone, they do it to themselves. Everyone has violated God’s Law and the penalty for that is death. God sent His only son on a suicide mission and then sat on His throne and watched His innocent son get crucified and die a horrible death in order that people like you and me could live, because with that act His Son paid the price for everyone. The unforgivable sin is to refuse to accept the free gift while you have the chance, to reject the sacrifice that Christ made. According to God, one day everyone will be judged and at that point it’s too late.
So, if you choose to reject God’s Word because you’re mentally strong, what’s a bit of adultery? Your body, your choice, right? Unintended pregnancy? Abort the little bastard! If God doesn’t exist and you’re mentally strong you can make up your own rules. And if anyone says you’re going to hell then you can agree (why argue about their fantasies?) and tell them you’re determined to enjoy the trip. Right? You go girl. YOLO!
Anyway, you’ll find that abusing misinformed churchians gets boring quickly and is actually pretty cruel and leaves you feeling depressed, because virtually all of these folks have been lied to all their lives. Genuinely, sincerely lied to by people they viewed as good and godly men who hold positions of authority, because these lies go back over 1500 years.
OTOH, maybe you’re a Christian of one flavor or another, but enough of a feminist that the Biblical truth I’m pointing at just rubs you the wrong way. If that’s the case you need to investigate this carefully and choose which side of the fence you want to be on. Straddling the fence doesn’t give you the benefits of being on either side and eventually you wind up with a sore crotch. Who needs that? There are far more pleasurable ways to get a sore crotch that God doesn’t have a problem with.
At the end of the day, though, the Bible is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. You don’t get a Savior without getting a Master who requires obedience. He made you and gave you a job to do, which is His right. As it is written, “Does the pot speak back to the potter?” Part and parcel of that is the fact that woman was created from man, for man, to be used by man as a helper to complete his mission. Later, in judgment, God said of women, “he shall rule over you.”
The only possible question is whether God changes. According to His testimony, the answer is no.
Again, I don’t expect you to agree with me, I don’t even expect you to understand.