fornication is wrong

What is this, 1893? Seriously, who uses the word fornication anymore? You seem to confliate fornication (sex) and having feelings for someone else. This means your stance, the way you have framed the debate is that all sex is wrong. (see your title of the debate "fornication is wrong") This means that when two people have committed themselves to each other through the institution of marriage, they cannot have sex for means of procreation, which means, once the youth of today were to die off, the human species would no longer exist. Now you make the statement that your "religious upbringing has messed you up" and I am curious what you were taught through your religious upbringing. Here are a couple of things I have found through my studies of different religions. First, I'll start with christianity. According to Genesis: (Gen 1:26-31) Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." {27} So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. {28} God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." {29} Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. {30} And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food." And it was so. {31} God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day. This means that God made man in his own image, and the duty of the man and the woman is to "be fruitful and increase in number" In terms of islam, according to muslim-canada.org: "According to Islam, procreation is not the sole and only purpose of marriage. While procreation is a primary purpose, companionship and enjoyment of the spouse along with avoidance of unlawful or sinful relationships are also secondary purposes. These secondary purposes play their own important roles in the Islamic teachings which govern sexual relations. In other words, although procreation is definitely an aim, it is not an exclusive aim. Procreation is the major purpose, but nonetheless enjoyment and other purposes also play significant roles in married life as evidenced by the Islamic teachings which relate to sexual relations. Although the primary purpose of sex is procreation, the Qur'an does not forbid it when a woman reaches menopause. For example, in the Qur'an is the story is about the Prophet Zakariya a.s.(2) (Christian spelling -- Zakaria) [see Qur'an 19:1-15] who had fathered a child well into his old age. One verse in particular reads: "He [Zakariya] said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son, when my wife is barren and I have grown quite decrepit from old age?" [Qur'an 19:8] "He said: "So (it will be): thy Lord saith, "That is easy for Me: I did indeed create thee before, when thou hadst been nothing!" [Qur'an 19:9] " According to SFgate.com, the female orgasm brings one a closeness to god: "Let us open up a little, go deep and explore and probe further and say, ahh yes. Because it can also be very easily argued that the female orgasm is, quite simply, the Great Mystical Link, the hot divine thing that connects and communicates and interrelates between heaven and Earth, mind and body, soul and sky, dream state and anal bead, Astroglide and God. Maybe, in other words, the female orgasm doesn't need a purely biological purpose. Maybe it's about something more. Maybe it has -- dare we say it? -- a spiritual purpose. Vibrational. Transcendental. Gasp! Hide the children." These are three different religious interpretations that give value to the act of "fornication." I look foreward to your insight and "feelings."