A Secular Lifestyle is superior, and often more moral than a Religious one.

I would like to apologize to the Pro and those watching this debate. I was locked out of the site for about a week due to an internet explorer error. I've had to download Firefox to get back in, so hopefully everything is straight now. I will begin with my opponent's last point, that of the harm of porn. Feminist activist Gail Dines wites: "Every group that has fought for liberation understands that media images are part and parcel of the systematic dehumanisation of an oppressed group . . . The more porn images filter into mainstream culture, the more girls and women are stripped of full human status and reduced to sex objects. This has a terrible effect on girls' sexual identity because it robs them of their own sexual desire (1)." If you'll forgive me a long quote, the facts reported by the Guardian are of particular interest: "As a result of her research, Dines believes that pornography is driving men to commit particular acts of violence towards women. "I am not saying that a man reads porn and goes out to rape," she says, "but what I do know is that porn gives permission to its consumers to treat women as they are treated in porn." In a recent study, 80% of men said that the one sex act they would most like to perform is to ejaculate on a woman's face; in 2007, a comment stream on the website Jezebel.com included a number of women who said that, on a first date, they had, to their surprise, experienced their sexual partner ejaculating on their faces without asking. "Sexual assault centres in US colleges have said that more women are reporting anal rape, which Dines attributes directly to the normalisation of such practices in pornography. "The more porn sexualises violence against women, the more it normalises and legitimises sexually abusive behaviour. Men learn about sex from porn, and in porn nothing is too painful or degrading for women." Dines also says that what she calls "childified porn" has significantly increased in popularity in recent years, with almost 14m internet searches for "teen sex" in 2006, an increase of more than 60% since 2004. There are legal sites that feature hardcore images of extremely young-looking women being penetrated by older men, with disclaimers stating all the models are 18 and over. Dines is clear that regular exposure to such material has an effect of breaking down the taboo about having sex with children. "She recently interviewed a number of men in prison who had committed rape against children. All were habitual users of child pornography. "What they said to me was they got bored with 'regular' porn and wanted something fresh. They were horrified at the idea of sex with a prepubescent child initially but within six months they had all raped a child (1)." Feminist Warrior Naomi Wolf writes: "In many more traditional cultures, it is not prudery that leads them to discourage men from looking at pornography. It is, rather, because these cultures understand male sexuality and what it takes to keep men and women turned on to one another over time—to help men, in particular, to, as the Old Testament puts it, "rejoice with the wife of thy youth; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times." These cultures urge men not to look at porn because they know that a powerful erotic bond between parents is a key element of a strong family (2)." Porn is degrading and harmful to both men and women, normalizing violence and dehumanizing women. Porn also exacts a heavy emotional toll on men and women alike, robbing them of the intimacy and fulfillment of real sexual relationships. The Pro takes issue with my use of the term true Christian and my definition that such a one is guided by the Spirit of God. However, the Bible itself affirms this point: "He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life (3)." Orthodox Archpriest Paul O'Callaghan expresses the essence of true Christianity as follows: "So if Christianity is not a "religion of rules;' then what is it? What is the true spirit of Christianity? Let me share what I believe are a few characteristics of the true Christian spirit. "First of all, Christianity is a religion of the heart. This is what the New Covenant is all about. Jeremiah prophesied about it in this way: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel — not like the one I made when I brought them out of Egypt. I will put my laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts; I will be their God and they will be my people. None of them will teach their neighbor, saying, ‘Know the Lord,' for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest" (see Jer. 31:31-34). "So New Covenant religion Christianity — is a religion of the heart, in which we know the Lord in our hearts, have his law written in our hearts, and desire to serve him freely from our hearts. It is not a set of dead written rules that we must obey. "Secondly true Christianity is a positive religion. It affirms that when God created his world, he said, "It is good." Its two commandments are positive: "Love God" and "Love your neighbor:" Christianity does not look around the world and say "this is good, but this is bad" It sees that all is good — it is only the misuse of human freedom in the abuse of things that is bad. So alcohol, sex, the body, money, television, and music are all good things. It is only the abuse of these things that is bad — drunkenness, pornography, compulsive gambling, etc. Even drugs marijuana, cocaine, heroin — all have good uses for medical and other reasons. It's only the abuse of them for pleasure that is wrong. The true spirit of Christianity is positive: it upholds the goodness of God's world. "Lastly, Christianity is a religion of Spirit. True Christianity means having the Holy Spirit of God living within you. It means His Spirit is active in your spirit to guide you to what is true and good. Now this does not imply that we are to simply be guided by our feelings or whims; we must come to recognize the genuine voice of the spirit within. In this regard, the written Word of God must be our standard of discernment. In other words, the inner leading of the Spirit will always be in full harmony with the Spirit-inspired Word. Nonetheless, the practice of Christianity is not an attempt to attain God's favor by fulfilling a "written code"; it is an outflowing of the life-giving Spirit's presence within (see 2 Cor. 3:6). "In conclusion, then, we can say that Christianity is a religion that begins on the inside with faith in the heart — not with a list of rules on the outside. Being a true Christian means that you desire to live all your life in faithfulness to God, because His Spirit is in your heart and His law is written there (4)." Unfortunately, I've run out of space. Briefly, homosexual practice as it was known then is categorically different from what we know now. In gay rape and gay marriage, the mechanics are the same, but these are obviously dramatically different practices. Homosexual practice condemned by the Bible is rape, prostitution, and man-child sex, not loving affirming relationships between equals. I rescind my argument about atheistic judgmentalism. This was an invalid point and I should not have brought it up. Thanks and sorry again for missing the last round. (1) http://www.guardian.co.uk... (2) http://nymag.com... (3) http://bible.cc... (4)http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org...