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My first blog post for 5 months! Just shows what nonsense has been going on in my life in that time. My wife and I have split up and after an initial burst of celebrating freedom I am now back on the trail of trying to find out who the heck I am (if I am anything at all.)
God knows why I bought this book (he really does because according to this book God knows everything about relationships.) Straight into the top 5 of the worst books I've ever read due to the sheer amount of religious piffle contained therein.
There are a few tiny nuggets of wisdom (the sentences that don't mention God and Jesus in all honesty.) If you don't believe me (Oh you nonbeliever!) then let's dive straight in.
First off, this book is a bit sneaky. There is no mention of God on the back page, neither in the first two and half pages of the introduction, so any nonbeliever browsing through this book in their local library might think it worth picking up.
Indeed on the first page there is quite a useful question : Are you somebody who moved into the neighborhood a year ago and still hasn't made a single move to get to know their neighbors? Yes! Much to my chagrin.
Anyway on page three we start to get down to it : Let's just see what would happen in our hearts, minds, and lives if we would follow the stable, biblical model of relationships instead of following our own feelings or other people's examples. Instead of following our own feelings? Gosh.
Apparently, having a goal without God is pointless. Who'd have thought?
Neither can you win at relationships without God. An emotional connection or an intellectual connection with someone isn't enough.
As I said there are some genuinely useful bible quotes along the way. After all the bible is not all bad. Here is a good example (Proverbs 22:24-25):
"Don't befriend angry people or associate with hot-tempered people, or you will learn to be like them and endanger your soul." Having married my second wife I would tend to agree.
Anyway back to the nonsense : "If you have been dating someone who is not a believer or just isn't the kind of person that can help you move towards God, you should break it off. You could do the same for a friendship, business partner or any other unhelpful relationship."
Are you freaking serious? You should dump someone just because they're not making you more religious? What about their feelings? It's becoming obvious that this book doesn't care about peoples feelings. If you're a nonbeliever you deserve to be treated cruelly.
Here's a definition I like (joke) from the book.
Marriage is "the God-ordained sex chamber." Sex should obviously not happen outside a marriage (I am not talking about adultery.) Apparently, what's sometimes called "sexual freedom" isn't free at all. It's actually slavery to sex. We are all going to hell God dammit.
This one is sickly : "A loving parent-child relationship can launch a healthy well-rounded, Jesus-loving adult into the world."
Wow really. So now you're bringing kids into it. Don't you know that all humans are born nonbelievers? We should definitely not care about their feelings - until we've brainwashed them into becoming believers.
Another one : "Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never!" Poor prostitutes. Don't they deserve their own career? I am going off topic here but they are providing a service. And didn't Jesus kiss (or even fornicate with) Mary Magdalene who many have claimed to have been a prostitute?
Here are some healthy (just kidding) steps that you need to take RIGHT NOW to turn your sexuality over to God: (1) Ask a friend to monitor your online activity.
(2) Make your phone and computer passwords available to your spouse (or just 'someone') who hold you accountable at all times.
(3) Break up with your girlfriend because your sexual relationship does not honour God.
(4) Get rid of the Internet if it's too tempting for you (actually not a bad idea that one.)
But seriously, again you are told to break up with your girlfriend and given the wholly irresponsible advice of giving your passwords to 'someone'. I mean you couldn't make it up!
The rest of the book is quite derogatory towards women. Here are a few gems :
" Wives...submit to your husbands as to the Lord....For the husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything." Yes, you wives!
"The wife must respect her husband" - Actually I like this one!
"Men need honour and respect, support and sex from their husbands" - hold on, I like this one too!
"The wife should fulfill her husbands needs. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband."
"A wife must not leave her husband. But if she does leave him, let her remain single...It would be better for her to remain single."
"A married man has to think about her earthly responsibilities and how to please her husband. I am saying this for your benefit, not to place restrictions on you."
Seriously, when I told my wife that this is how she should treat me, she filed for annulment. You think I'm joking, but that's exactly what happened!! She told me that I am attacking her for her religion. Actually I wasn't. I was just telling her what she was supposed to be doing. Things that she had not been doing. She is very religious, a true believer, so why not follow the word of God? This is something I will never understand about most religious people. They don't actually follow the advice of their own Holy Book and that of Jesus. Hypocrites, almost all of them.
Rant over, because there is actually one piece of very good advice here:
"Women don't be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God." - Hallelujah! Finally something that makes sense to me. Just don't tell your wife or girlfriend as she is shopping for a new handbag, shoes, phone or earrings.
Unfortunately the book again takes a horrid twist now in the wrong direction with the usual 'you're going to hell' type stuff for very trivial matters : "Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. So if your eye - even your good eye - causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose on part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand (I assume we are talking about masturbation here) - even your stronger hand - causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away....Sexual immorality is a sin against your own body."
You know that this means that almost the entire male population of the world should be without a hand. Their good hand! And undoubtedly their good eye. Can you tell me of a Muslim man, for example, who never masturbates has never looked at a sexy woman? It's impossible I tell you. And there is nothing wrong with it either and to suggest otherwise is terrifying for the poor souls who read this kind of thing and take it literally.
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