What I Wish I Would Have Known Before Watching P0rn

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1343144752' post='2458427']
Didn't you know, you aren't allowed to disagree with her. She's a regulator.
[/quote]



you're just making yourself look silly.

[BG45]

Never Mind.

Edited July 24, 2012 by BG45

[Lil Red]

n/m

[Winchester]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1343144752' post='2458427']
Didn't you know, you aren't allowed to disagree with her. She's a regulator.
[/quote]
[img]http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1942867215/image.jpg[/img]

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1343155207' post='2458472']
[img]http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1942867215/image.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

[img]http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/2047203726/the-best-of-the-bad-luck-brian-meme.jpg[/img]

[Socrates]

The fact that there is a lot of pornography and filth on the internet does not mean that the technology of the internet is itself somehow intrinsically evil, much less that Christians should avoid using the internet and other forms of modern media to spread the Gospel message.

Yes, I believe the internet does offer unique dangers in that it allows pornographic filth of the most disgusting kind to be easily and immediately accessed by anyone for free in a setting of complete privacy, without one worrying about who sees you walking in the dirty bookstore, or who sees dirty magazines lying around the house. But it simply does not follow that the technology is evil in itself and that no good use can possibly come out of it.

The internet is simply a technology which allows communication (good, bad, and ugly) to be transferred much more quickly, easily and efficiently than in the past, and is part of a trend which has been going on throughout the history of human civilization.

Long before the internet, the printing press allowed the quick dispersal of information and images among people, and a quick look at the local Barnes & Nobel shelves or magazine racks will tell you that much of what is out in print is not of a good and morally edifying nature.
Does the fact that 90% of what is currently published in print is filth and garbage prove that the technology of putting ink on paper is itself intrinsically bad, and that it is pointless for Christians to publish good book?
Of course not.

And a look at what's printed through the years will show that it's not simply the printing technology, but the culture and our spiritual that affects the content of what's out there. A hundred years ago, pornography in print form was not ubiquitous, socially-accepted, and easily available as it was in the years following the sexual revolution, even though the technology for printing it was in existence.

In fact, all mediums of human communication have their moral dangers, including the most basic, speech itself, which can so easily be abused and used for evil even without the aid of any technology.

As I said, modern media technology has its real dangers, and if you can't get on the internet without looking at porn, you should either avoid using it or get a fiddler. But to take a neo-Luddite stance and condemn all use of the technology does no good. Lots of people will use the internet and other modern media technology, whether devout Christians do or not.
If Christians simply withdraw from using this form of communications technology, it will simply be left entirely in the hands of the devil, and opportunities for evangelizing will be lost.

We could all probably waste less time with the internet, and we should not let it consume us, but neither should it be neglected for purposes of good.

[KnightofChrist]

The Internet is a tool and like any tool it can be used for good or evil (or posting nonsense from Willy Wonka to lol kitties). Christians running from or shunning themselves form such technological tools does nothing but allow evil to have exclusive use of the tool.

Edited July 24, 2012 by KnightofChrist

[Winchester]

[size=8]TEH INTERNET IS A SERIES OF TUBES[/size]

[4588686]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1343176925' post='2458588']
[size=8]TEH INTERNET IS A SERIES OF TUBES[/size]
[/quote]

The scientific name is 'vagina.'

[Amppax]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1343162938' post='2458516']
[img]http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/2047203726/the-best-of-the-bad-luck-brian-meme.jpg[/img]
[/quote]

Daww. Weren't you a cute one.

[Amory]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1343063688' post='2458138']
But most people watch pornography and most people don't totally fall apart because of it.
[/quote]

I'm not so sure about the first bit. There's a big difference between having watched it before and watching it habitually. The fact that someone looked at a [i]Playboy[/i] magazine once a year ago doesn't make that person someone who "looks at porn."

Edited July 25, 2012 by Amory

[Seven77]

[quote name='Era Might' timestamp='1343084468' post='2458266']

I did say what I have to say. I think Christians are part of the problem. They are as uncritical about media as the rest of society. Christians want to create "Christian media" rather than questioning the media. They question the CONTENT of the media (pornography, violent movies, etc.) but they don't question the media itself. People in a movie theater are in as much a trance as people in their home watching pornography. Electronic media is very different from, say, live theater, or liturgy. Pornography is just another aspect of a society that is flooded with images. The old Christian concept of "custody of the eyes" no longer exists in Western society. We have embarked on a society where everything is commercialized...the eye has to be constantly busy, constantly consuming new advertising, new media, new diversions. The modern flood of imagery has nothing to do with the old Christian culture of iconography. Christians today put a bunch of pixels on a computer screen and call it "online adoration." Personally I think that's blasphemous. But it's part and parcel with the online image worship of pornography. The old Christian iconography was something real, permanent, incarnational. Modern "icons" are pixels on a screen, fleeting, seductive, idolatrous.

I'm critical of Christians because they're supposed to be the salt of the earth. I could be critical of the ungodly, but what for? "[size=4][color=#000000][font='Times New Roman']For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?[/font][/color][color=#000000][font='Times New Roman'] For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ." (2Corinthians 2:15-17).[/font][/color]

[color=#000000][font='Times New Roman']If Christians have nothing to say except to be petty moralizers, they'll make a lot of noise, but their word falls on deaf ears. The world isn't listening. And neither are Christians themselves (one reason among others why Christianity has become irrelevant in Western society).[/font][/color][/size]

[/quote]

I think that you are onto something. Overstimulation of the bodily senses is the problem. Yes, online porn is evil. But can it be said that staring in front of the computer screen and looking at phatmass for hours at a time can also be sinful (not to the same degree of course)? Sometimes we need to shut the technology off. Icons are windows into heaven-- computers are not, even if you have a wallpaper image of an icon. Along these lines, won't it be a tragedy if books are completely replaced by e-books?

At the same time I think it would be very wrong to say that computers and other devices are intrinsically evil--- they are tools. Tools are to be taken up and put down. Even if they are used for good-- and let's not forget that it is essential for Christians to be using the technology that the rest of the world is using (what does it mean to be leaven in society?)--there is a limit.

I think that life is about balance, it's about the proper ordering of everything.

[Ice_nine]

e-books r amesome. Don't know a word? Just TOUCH IT. Insta-definition/etymology.

Some people thot the printing press was bad news and was going to ruin everything. Now we see printed material as something that's almost organic and/or authentic.

Silly humans

[Era Might]

[quote name='Seven77' timestamp='1343252316' post='2458833']At the same time I think it would be very wrong to say that computers and other devices are intrinsically evil--- they are tools. Tools are to be taken up and put down. Even if they are used for good-- and let's not forget that it is essential for Christians to be using the technology that the rest of the world is using (what does it mean to be leaven in society?)--there is a limit.[/quote]
I would say, first, that when I speak of modern media as an "evil," I don't mean "evil" in the sense that, say, matricide is an evil. I don't think moral categories are helpful here, or rather they break down on some level. Your explanation of computers as a "tool" is a perfect example. I don't think computers are a "tool" in the way that, say, a hammer is a tool. A hammer can be picked up or put down, but computers are a system which you are always logged into. When you go on Facebook, for example, the marketers behind the scenes are pulling strings that you don't even see. You're part of an unseen system. Facebook becomes part of your life, and seems innocent enough (who doesn't enjoy Facebook?), but Facebook is part of a vast operation designed to know more about you, influence your behavior, get you to do things (buy, etc.).

Supposing a computer is a "tool" in the same way a hammer is a tool, I still think moral categories break down here. For example, is a workman in Iran building an atomic bomb with his tools doing something evil? What about a workman in the United States doing the same thing? Now, I suppose you could frame this question in moral categories, but personally I think you would miss the point in that case. What's really at stake here is not whether either of them is doing something morally wrong, but that they themselves have become tools in a society where such weapons are even made, weapons beyond the scale of human needs or human goods, weapons that are more powerful than anyone or anything in society.

Modern media is an evil in the sense that death is an evil. Not because it can't have good uses, or because it can't be beautiful (death can be quite beautiful), but because it is not true to who we are as human beings. Because ultimately, life is the force on which human society and human good is based. Death is only useful because it gets us from here to there, which is essentially what modern media does. But we've seen what death does to human society, and we're now seeing what modern media does to it. I don't think either of them are ultimately improving humanity (the opposite: they're degrading it), though they certainly have success stories along the way.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Era Might