Many sexual conflicts facing our modern society are a direct result of religious and moral thinking which drive our policy makers’ concerns for public and mental health as well as strike directly at what Americans have settled on a “right” way of approaching sex. Paradoxically, the Greeks who form the foundations of our Western European Civilization were both polytheistic and sex positive. Possibly the most palpable reason for the wide schism between the ancient Greeks and modern Americans is the violent and extreme separation of religious thinking from scientific discovery. Consequently, as increasingly large factions of our population are marginalized due to a decidedly ascetic sexual directive, it would seem useful to establish links between cognitive science and a rational spirituality that support alternative ways we can view sex, gender and sexuality with ethical thought and action. This paper then, is about exploring definitions and meanings for sex that reflects its role as a biological imperative from that of a spiritual nemesis by which to drive an ethical stance. No single attempt will definitively resolve all issues around this toxic topic, but perhaps with the assistance of different attitudes toward both gender/sexuality and spirituality/conscience, we can outline a course that sensitively connects present theory on gender and sexuality with physical, emotional and psychological realities which consciously reconcile sex with our personal spiritual perspectives.
My audience is for academics and non-academics, students, clergy, non-clergy to recognize a vital connection between ancient history, religion, the development Western European Culture and particularly as it affects American society and the American attitudes on diversity generally, but particularly where it pertains to sex. Though there are many published works around concepts that were triggered events beginning with the Alluvial Plain 5,000 years ago that bounced through a few incidents in global epochs and affected how we react authentically to ourselves and each other today.
The avoidance of this topic because the territory involved seems too vast is dangerous as we attempt to find the circuitry involved to solve issues facing us in modern concepts of public and mental health and brings us to why it is necessary to bridge the gap between our spiritual senses and scientific sensibilities and clarify society’s need to monitor the nature of our relationships, how we spend our money and who sleeps (or doesn’t) in our bed and for what purpose.
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