NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/rec/nude/5640

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-17 | 2.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!waikato.ac.nz!bthoms
From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: rec.nude
Subject: Re: Christian nudists
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 Nov 92 13:29:22 +1300
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 39

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Lee Dronick) writes:

>
> Bibical tradition is a few thousan years old! New fangled religions! Give
> me that old time religion, Taoism. As to nudity being only a few decades
> old, get real. Clothing became compulsory due to Queen Victoria and her
> anal-retentive hang-ups. Nudity has been a lifestyle since day one or which
> ever day your God is supposed to have created "Man" If one was cold they
> wore something, if not they bared skin as necessary to be comfortable.
>
...
>
> It's been a long time since I read the bible but I remeber passages about
> homosexual practices. In my opinion (not humble) homosexuality is a God
> given since God is the ultimate source of all creation. Sorry to stray from
> the topic of nudity.

My opinion remains humble, and I certainly don't disagree with anything
Lee says, however, as a rather bumbling ancient history research student
in my spare time, naked people have existed for centuries, nudists haven't,
and homosexuals have existed as long as humanity, but gays/lesbians haven't.
My point, albeit obscure, is that you cannot treat literal texts referring
to ancient social phenomena to criticise or proscribe modern social
phenomena for which there is no equivalent. The best example is the modern
jurisprudence which starts to accept that "exposure" is not necessarily
"indecent", when (20 years ago) there would have been no question. Many
theologians argue that gay and lesbian relationships are not proscribed by
the Bible, because the (few) references there are refer to homosexuality
from a heterosexual social perspective, not a gay/lesbian one (i.e. the
basic social rules are different). Similarly (yes there is a point) some
churches condemn nudism on the basis of scripture, but since Jesus never
met a nudist (maybe as opposed to a naked person) in the first century AD,
the concepts need to be re-evaluated for a community where nudity is not
necessarily sexual, crude, suggestive or offensive. I would be more hopeful
if such churches handled re-thinking better. ...and, for the record, most
of the time, nudity is a normal social experience, but sometimes it feels
so good that it is spiritual!

Brent Thomson, Waikato, NZ