The Creator never forced us (in stark contrast to forced health-insurance-purchase of Obamascare against who are unemployed or underemployed, thus poverty-stricken, and near bankruptcy) to live in this bitterly-cold part of the country year-round. Even wing-ed birds, flown south in instinctual military-like V-formation, were more savvy.
Speaking of birds, how many of us know what birds are chattering about? You would think that humans, with all their vast accumulated scientific knowledge by now, would have been able to decipher such. Who knows how or why airborne fowl know when to depart in pre-storm takeoff timing, and the uncanny navigational sense of direction such creatures display, and the assembly details of their V-formation flight?
Job 12:7 But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
Job 28:21 It is hid from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air.
Job 35:10 But none says, 'Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,
11 who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?'
12 There they cry out, but He does not answer, because of the pride of evil men.
13 Surely God does not hear an empty cry, nor does the Almighty regard it.
14 How much less when you say that you do not see Him, that the case is before Him, and you are waiting for him!
Psalm 104:10 You make springs gush out in the valleys; they flow between the hills,
11 they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 By them the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches.
13 From Your lofty abode You water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of Your work.
14 You do cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring out food from the earth,
15 and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart.
The first qualification of a genuine scientist is to observe the entities in the environment around him, and adequately-enough (with or without long complex Latin names or abstract polynomial mathematical equations) describe such.... like informing us about musically-chattering birds. That is acceptable.....in contrast to mindlessly-random-chance, fairy-tale-deception, special-effects-illusion, Big-Bang baloney.
Scripture verifies and interprets Scripture (with or without circular or non-circular reasoning)...by inclusion of and comparison to phenomena of nature themselves -- existent reality perceived with our visual, audible, and tactile human senses in association with our evaluating-brain cognition.
Oh, for flatlands Florida or cozy California....but all inconvenient to temporarily head for -- thanks to Obama/Pelosi and cohorts depriving should-be-honored elderly of a Cost-of-Living increase in monthly Social Security checks (something anti-vital-welfare affluent-jew Michael Medved and others of his goof-head immentality approve of in their presuming that the government-dependent are all tards for not gambling away [blasphemously-miscalled: "investing"] meager bill-paying monies to supposedly become pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by, independent-from-government, millionaire entrepreneurs ultimately getting financially wasted with Wall-Street-crash, nest-egg dissolutions.
Will such anti-subsidy GOP and other shipdits ever learn? The Devil's diehards want to defund the religious right every way they can, while chided-from-all-sides B.O. and diabolical-Jezebel Nazi Pelosi (to the delight of quirky-clownfaces sassy-lesbian-twit accusatress Rachel Maddow) have....with media-mantra profoundly-mislabeled: "stimulus" for them....given away hundred of billions of dollars to big banks, big investment companies, unionized-big-labor big-three automakers...and yet deprived seniors of mere COLA increases so they could have kept up with inflation, as they mock G.W. Bush with their libel-titled "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act".....while increasing pollution on Earth by the debilitating impositions of women on the High Court; repeal against the soldier-morale-protecting military ban against satanic-aggression, defiantly-livid, homogay perverts; appointing pro-abortion-homicide cabinet bureaucrats and czars; funding higher-"education" propagandist professors spewing out pseudo-academic/fake-scholar, anti-American-patriot, Marxist/socialistic, treasonous tripe for fat student-loans-supported endowment-funded salaries, etc.
Legislators who cannot tell the difference between the civil rights of negros integrated with whites in battle...in contrast to the inhuman wrongs and not rights of homoqueers dangerously infiltrated with normal sexually-oriented men in battle...are like imbeciles who cannot discriminate nor distinguish between prune pudding and diarrhea.
Hosea 4:3 Therefore the land mourns, and all who reside in it languish, and also the animals of the field, and the birds of the air; and even the fish of the sea are taken away.
Getting back to frigid seasonal Acts of God.
It probably was nice before the Worldwide Flood during Noah's time: a virtual tropical paradise, globally. The horrid asinine power-and-knowledge-craving acts of Eve and Adam then caused the consequential Acts of God to create a climactic inhospitality that not only insured fade-out demise of the dinosaurs, and caused the ice caps and severe storms to form and re-form all over the planet, but necessitated the wearing of God-tailored clothes (at least to start with) for the pathetic primal pair.
Jeremiah 15:3 I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, says the LORD: the sword to slay, the dogs to tear, and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
Jeremiah 16:4 They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried; they shall be as dung [or feces] on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.
Ezekiel 39:17 As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, 'Assemble and come, gather from all sides to the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast upon the mountains of Israel [Armageddon], and you shall eat flesh and drink blood.
Revelation 19:17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in midheaven, "Come, gather for the great supper of God,
18 to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great."
19 And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Him who sits upon the horse and against His army.
20 And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who in his presence had worked the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with brimstone.
21 And the rest were slain by the sword of Him who sits upon the horse, the sword that issues from His mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
There's more to come:
Zephaniah 1:3 I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will overthrow the wicked; I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth," says the LORD.
Second Peter 3:5 They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago, and an earth formed out of water and by means of water,
6 through which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is [metaphorically] as [though clearly NOT equal to, being that God can numerically count] a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slow about His promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise [that's THE Understatement of the Year!], and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.
11 Being that all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will be dissolved with fire!
E=mass x speed-of-light-squared. Matter and energy are quite interchangeable. Remember the nuclear Bomb. Anti-matter could exist.
Futuristic soothsayers at NOVA and the History Channel should pay attention to the previous prophetic info, instead of drifting off into Mayan-voodoo hocus-pocus hieroglyphics and weird poetic jibberish of Nostradamus.
Clothes. We can't live without them. Not only at North and South pole and nearby, and venturing out into space, but for a lot of other purposes at most times in practically every situation and expression of human endeavor.
Genesis 2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons [sort of like g-strings bikini shorts, I guess].
Genesis 3:10 And he said, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
Genesis 3:11 He said, "Who told you that you were naked? ["Told" you? Why did God say THAT? No one "told" anyone anything, as far as I am aware]. Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
Genesis 3:21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins [from dead animals?], and clothed them. [Perhaps they did not initially know how to dress themselves, nor the purpose for the weird-but-kinky new skins]
It even seems that wearing clothes is normally the thing to legally do nowadays and in the near and distant past -- even when both genders of humans are grouped together without adverse environmental factors affecting them:
Second Chronicles 28:15 And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all that were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on asses, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.
Proverbs 31:21 She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.
Ezekiel 9:2 And wow, six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, every man with his weapon for slaughter in his hand, and with them was a man clothed in linen, with a writing case at his side [maybe an attache case having a laptop computer inside?]. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar.
Ezekiel 9:3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherubim on which it rested to the threshold of the house; and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his side.
Ezekiel 9:11 And wow, the man clothed in linen, with the writing case at his side, brought back word, saying, "I have done as you did command me."
Ezekiel 16:6 And when I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live,
Ezekiel 16:7 and grow up like a plant of the field.' And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full maidenhood; your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare [so exquisitely lovely in her clothes-free "altogether" barity!].
Ezekiel 16:8 When I passed by you again and looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yea, I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord GOD, and you became mine.
Ezekiel 16:9 Then I bathed you with water and washed off your [yucky] blood from you, and anointed you with [Johnson's Baby?] oil.
Ezekiel 16:10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with leather, I swathed you in fine linen and covered you with silk [how Vogue!].
Mark 1:6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a leather girdle around his waist [styles and fashion change!], and ate locusts and wild honey [yum!].
Mark 5:15 And they came to Jesus, and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the man who had had the legion; and they were afraid.
Luke 8:35 Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.
[There are a lot of partially-insane crazy people roaming around during warm weather....deliberately self-exposed and senselessly flaunting needless mopheadedness, naked-armed sleeveslessness, nude-legged slackslessness, and open-toe soxlessness....for whatever air-conditioning-and-shade-available doctrines-of-demons excuses and irrationalizations.]
Second Corinthians 5:4 For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Isaiah 20:3 the LORD said, "As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot [Where? When? Did the cops arrest him for indecent-exposure lewd-conduct streaking?] for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Ethiopia,
Isaiah 20:4 so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians captives and the Ethiopians exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered [another great idea for a husband to try with his wife-or-concubine spouse in private when married to her!], to the shame of Egypt.
Isaiah 58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke [possibly-deep strip-dancing meaning?], to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Ezekiel 16:39 And I will give you into the hand of your lovers, and they shall throw down your vaulted chamber and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes [a great idea for husbands to do to their spouses] and take your fair jewels, and leave you naked and bare [another cool idea for private family-album nude-photography modeling with digital camera or self-developing Polaroid film].
Ezekiel 18:5 If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right--
Ezekiel 18:6 if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel [or substitute your own local geographical area], does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity,
Ezekiel 18:7 does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment,
Ezekiel 18:8 does not lend at interest or take any increase [listen up, you B.O.-bailed-out banks!], withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between human and human,
Ezekiel 18:9 walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances -- he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 23:29 and they shall deal with you in hatred, and take away all the fruit of your labor, and leave you naked and bare [if you do get into bondage with your voluntary worse-half, make sure you don't suffocate her with mouth-and-nose restraints and stay around to eventually unbind her to let her relieve herself in the lavatory], and the nakedness of your harlotry shall be uncovered.
Hosea 2:2 Plead with your mother, plead....for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband....that she put away her harlotry from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts;
Hosea 2:3 lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born [hmmmm - THAT birthday-suit suggestion sounds like something any red-blooded guy would LOVE to do to his wife or concubine!], and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a parched land, and slay her with thirst [but not do that to his faithful and chaste beloved wife or concubine!].
Hosea 2:4 Upon her children also I will have no pity, because they are children of harlotry.
Micah 1:8 For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked [Holy Exhibitionism! Where and under what circumstances did you plan to do that, Micah?]; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.
Matthew 25:36 I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you visited Me, I was in prison and you came to Me.'
Matthew 25:38 And when did we see You a stranger and welcome You, or naked and clothe You?
Matthew 25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome Me, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'
Matthew 25:44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?'
Second Corinthians 5:1 For we know that if the earthly "tent" we live in is destroyed, we have a "building" from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Second Corinthians 5:2 Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling,
Second Corinthians 5:3 so that by putting it on we may not be found naked.
First Timothy 2:8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling;
First Timothy 2:9 also that women should adorn themselves [or let their husbands help them] modestly and sensibly in decent apparel, not with broided hair [get that, you negroid women?] or gold or pearls or costly attire...
Revelation 3:17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Revelation 3:18 Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may be rich, and white garments to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen [great bedroom suggestion!], and salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
Revelation 16:15 Wow, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments that he may not go naked and be seen exposed [again, a great marital suggestion for bedroom couples]!
Revelation 17:16 And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire [remember the nude lineup - gassed in the crematoriums of Dachau, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald?]...
As open-minded, non-prejudiced/non-biased scientists -- who will not deny any kind of actual and real evidence of anything we are aware of that actually exists, including The HOLY BIBLE -- it is obvious that human aversion to general public nudity (reinforced by civil statutes and law-enforcement officers and judicial courts) could have and probably have been influenced by the contents of Holy Scripture -- and clearly not an out-of-the-blue concoction of non-realistic, head-up-the-rectum, wild-chance-mutational, never-never-land, evolutionary hypothesis.
But how does clothing accentuate and/or hamper sexual erotica, enjoyment, and species reproduction?
How does clothing affect one's heterosexually-oriented desire to acquire a spouse for mating, one's strategic and tactical procedures for so doing, and one's mutual marital confirmations regarding the persons selected?
Remember the Divine prediction and command:
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea [swimming faster than any human] and over the birds of the air [with their non-intelligible chirping and V-formation-flight navigational instinct] and over every living thing that moves upon the earth [like dogs and bats which can hear higher frequencies than humans]."
Genesis 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth [does that mean zero-population-"growth" crusades?].
Genesis 9:7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply in it [so much for spermicides, condoms, and abortion-homicide murder]."
So multiplication of the ancient Sumerians, Phoenicians, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Chinese, Aztecs and Incas, Aboringines - along with their culture and writings, happened.
But with clothing on, how could Solomon observe and sensuously enjoy the following of his own bride in the seclusion of his secret sex room?
Song of Solomon 2:14 Oh my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see YOUR face, let me hear YOUR voice [not the impudent sexually-harassing voice of some competitive-against-men sexist-feminist female-human news anchor or reporter on TV or from the pulpit], for YOUR voice is sweet, and your YOUR is attractive.
Song of Solomon 3:4 Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held HIM [not some john off the street], and would not let him go until I had brought HIM into my mother's house [not some illegal-brothel massage parlor or hotel/motel room], and into the chamber of her who conceived me.
Song of Solomon 8:2 I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. I would give you "spiced wine" to drink, the "juice of my pomegranates."
Song of Solomon 7:1 How graceful are YOUR footsteps in sandals, royal maiden! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.
2 YOUR navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies.
3 YOUR two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
4 YOUR neck is like an ivory tower. YOUR eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim. YOUR nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus.
5 YOUR head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks [i.e. loosened long hair] are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses.
6 How fair and pleasant YOU are, loved one, delectable maiden!
7 YOU are stately as a palm tree, and YOUR breasts are like its clusters.
8 I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. Oh, may YOUR breasts [not the boobies of some street-walking broad] be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of YOUR breath like apples [it is starting to get hot and heavy here!....but only starting to],
9 and YOUR kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth of sleepers.
10 I am MY beloved's [not for other lust-seeking surfers on the internet], and his desire is for ME [not for other-gal porn models in nude dance bars, art museums, in porn magazines, and R-to-XXX-rated websites].
11 Come, MY beloved, let us go forth into the fields [get out of town to honeymoon], and lodge ["Take It Home" - We Don't Want To See You Both Having Sex in Public Together] in the villages;
12 let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom [let's see what you look like under your clothes]. There I will give you my love.
13 The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all "choice fruits" [under our clothes], new as well as old, which I have laid up for you [not as a public-prostitute whore], MY beloved.
Get lustfully aroused by such literary prose? Want to masturbate because of it? Of course not - unless you're some kind of a whack-job nutcase loony-tune.
Why didn't the Bible come with pictorial illustrations, drawings, paintings, sculptures, .jpg photos (especially sharp-resolution true-color ones), plus both .wmv and .mpg videoclips of such?
And that is the problem with porno imagery:
(1) The imagined substitutionary replacement of the human sex models in porn with oneself is non-realistic, fornicative or adulterous in reality, and does not result in actual live-person romance, relationships, nor reproduced offspring.
(2) It is licentiousness which causes lust incited by lasciviousness-based lust....illogically and senselessly wasteful of quite-limited human sexual resources.
(3) It is not something legally seen nor usually seen in general public view, but rather is hidden and covert activity in private.
(4) It leads to spouse-disappointing wife-or-concubine non-fulfillment.
(5) The self-sodomizing masturbational abuse resulting from lustful porn perusals eventually lead to erectile-dysfunctional impotency if repeated often enough and over a long enough period of time, and will most likely result in enlarged and/or cancerous prostate plus inconvenient incontinency of overly-frequent or uncontrollable urination in later life.
Actually, the Bible is a great Sex-Education Manual [as you can readily agree by the "man-i-fold" "rigid" "insertions" and comments "deeply" embedded into "moist and relaxed" Bible verses above!].
Simply mentioning above-cited references to nudity, clothing, lack of clothing, removal of clothing, description of bare body parts (particularly of females), and so on in and throughout Scripture gives curious and investigative humans ideas and plans of action...even when such is in the context of sinfully-aberrant sexual misconduct recorded throughout Scripture.
For example, a husband (or prospective husband) reading the following might wonder if the LORD has appointed him to pull off his now-girlfriend's panties when married to her to expose and carefully explore her (hairy?) pussy and related crotch area point-blank:
Isaiah 3:16 (RSV) The LORD said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet;
Isaiah 3:17 the Lord will smite with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will lay bare their secret parts.
To give another example.
If a man or woman wonders how a flaccid and limpid penis could ever become rigid enough long enough ("long" not meaning extension of length but instead length of duration), both adult and even pre-adult humans discover how when pondering the ideas of nudity, clothing, lack of clothing, removal of clothing, description of body parts, etc. found in The Bible....AND....experimental (legitimate) application (by a married man-with-woman) of inference revealed in:
Deuteronomy 25:11 When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts [really groovy idea!],
Deuteronomy 25:12 then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall have no pity [THAT part NOT groovy at ALL!].
If anything can get a typical man's penis erect, it is application of the previous verse - whether involving hands or mouth (with a penis-preparatory penis-in-vagina-destined course of action inferred by):
Leviticus 15:18 If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening.
Song of Solomon 2:3 As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Song of Solomon 5:1 I come to my garden, my sister, MY bride, I gather my myrrh with MY spice, I eat MY honeycomb with MY honey, I drink MY wine with MY milk. Eat, friends, and drink: drink deeply, lovers!
Jeremiah 2:25 Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, 'It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers, and after them I will go.'
They don't call them homo erectus for nothing.
Finally, it is absolutely amazing and remarkable how the adequate wearing of clothes (by both genders, but particular for and of women and girls) results in greater sensuous appreciation of even the finer points of subtle nudity when such nudity is eventually exposed in solitary marital contexts....while exposure to more and more porn of greater and greater severity results in desensitization, boredom, and increasing lack of erotic appreciation...eventually resulting in presuming all sex and all related to sex is "dirty" or "obscene" and thus non-"suitable" reading material for small children...causing prudish frigidity, feminist sexism, homosexuality, quickie-and-guilty episodes of incomplete and interrupted promiscuity, covert and expensive shenanigans with masseuse and escort harlots or "medical"/"health" equivalents, infestation with venereal diseases of permanent types, and a lot more negative ramifications.
There are at least three types of agnostics:
(1) Those who say that they do not know if a particular religious assertion is true or false, but who do not want to find out, nor be given any further information about it, nor want to believe it true - even if they got "definitive-enough" proof that it was true
(2) Those who say that they do not know if a particular religious assertion is true or false, but are willing to accept logical information pertaining to it as to whether or not the assertion is true, and will believe the assertion if substantial-enough info (congruent with their five senses) provided them is enough to convince them that the assertion is, in fact, true
(3) Those who say that they do not know if a particular religious assertion is true or false, but engage in an intensive search to discover if the assertion is, in fact, true or false - because they simply cannot be at ease nor rest until they find out, and hate non-resolved loose ends.
Notice that I did not even consider atheists - in stark contrast to agnostics - because it should be clear to the reader (as it is to yours truly) that atheists have already presumptuously (and usually dishonestly, in defiant and rebellious self-deception) claimed that they do not believe what is obvious and should be plainly obvious . . . and having said that, they are verifiably first-class fools (as it states in Psalm 10:4, Psalm 14:1, and Psalm 53:1).
And what is "plainly obvious and should be plain obvious?"
Everything in our surrounding environment (and which is perceived and analyzed by our mutual common human deductive reasoning) has obviously been created by some Higher Power or Being or Group of Beings (and please grant me the liberty to understandably capitalize the generic titles of said Creator or Creators).
Clearly, we ourselves did not create basic and natural resources and natural phenomena around us, nor did our parents, nor did their parents, nor did any of their lifeform ancestors. Such statement is, of course, an assumption rather than a presumption of non-disprovable belief or faith.
For the most part, the named identity or identities of such Creator or Creators (and much of His or Their intentions) has not been audibly proclaimed nor inscribed nor written in alpha-numeric lettering nor symbols on most of what has been created in nature (although exceptions have been recorded, as in the case of that which is at least is alleged to have happened according to:
Exodus 31:18 And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the Finger of God.
Numbers 7:89 And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the LORD, he heard the Voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim; and It spoke to him.
Deuteronomy 9:10 And the LORD gave me the two tables of stone written with the Finger of God; and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.
Matthew 3:17 and wow, a Voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
Matthew 17:5 He was still speaking, when wow, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a Voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him."
Mark 1:11 and a Voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."
Mark 9:7 And a cloud overshadowed them, and a Voice came out of the cloud, "This is my beloved Son; listen to Him."
Luke 3:22 and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a Voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."
Luke 9:35 And a Voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to Him!"
John 5:37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness to me. His Voice you have never heard, His form you have never seen
John 12:28 Father, glorify your name." Then a Voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."
Not only that, but what the Creator or Creators have created is generally beneficial and accommodating to us human creatures (objects and conditions could have been made a lot worse), or is at least benign and harmless. What we frequently-insane and often-irresponsible beings do or do not do with or against such natural-resource created entities does not adversely alter nor degrade intrinsic value of what the Creator or Creators themselves created.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time; also He has put eternity into man's mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
"Can't find out what God has done?" About anything?
Well, maybe a few things, for part of the time, at least.
In my opinion, one of the distasteful things God has done, or at least allowed, is for a woman to be the wife of more than one husband during her lifetime.
Instances which come to mind are the cases of [childless?] Rahab (the God-fearing harlot of Jericho - who perhaps, but not assuredly, had previously had many male customers?); Tamar ([childless?] widow of Er and Onan, who prostituted her father-in-law and bore his child); Ruth (the Moabitess, [childless?] widow of Mahlon, who bore children with Boaz); Abigail ([childless?] widow of Nabal, who bore children to David); Gomer ([previously-childless?] prostitute wife of Hosea), and maybe others.
Such a multiple-husband phenomenon is rather noxious to me, although the entirety of Scripture (throughout the extent of the sacred-66 canonical books of both the Old and the New Testaments of The Holy Bible) gives both pros and cons pertaining about it (and, from my point of view, concerning such instead of regarding such):
Deuteronomy 24:1 When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,
Deuteronomy 24:2 and if she goes and becomes another man's wife,
Deuteronomy 24:3 and the latter husband dislikes her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife,
Deuteronomy 24:4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt upon the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
Deuteronomy 25:5 If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside the family to a stranger; her husband's brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.
Ruth 4:6 Then the next of kin [brother within the same family] said, "I cannot redeem [Ruth] for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption [which includes ownership of Ruth] yourself, for I cannot redeem it [nor her]."
First Samuel 18:20 Now Saul's daughter Michal [or "Michele"] loved David; and they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.
18:27 David got up and went, along with his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines; and David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, that he might become the king's son-in-law. And Saul gave him his daughter Michal for a wife.
19:11 That night Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, "If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed."
19:12 So Michal let David down through the window; and he fled away and escaped.
1Sa 19:13 Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats' hair at its head, and covered it with the clothes.
19:17 Saul said to Michal, "Why have you deceived me thus, and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?" And Michal answered Saul, "He said to me, 'Let me go; why should I kill you?'" [Thanks a lot, Michele - you misrepresentatively-slanderous liar]
25:44 Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Palti the son of Laish, who was of Gallim.
Second Samuel 3:13 And he said, "Good; I will make a covenant with you; but one thing I require of you; that is, you shall not see my face, unless you first bring Michal, Saul's daughter, when you come to see my face."
3:14 Then David sent messengers to Ishbosheth Saul's son, saying, "Give me my wife Michal, whom I betrothed at the price of a hundred foreskins of the Philistines."
3:15 And Ishbosheth sent, and took her from her husband Paltiel the son of Laish.
6:16 As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart.
6:20 And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, "How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants' maids, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!"
6:21 And David [who had worn an ephod while dancing] said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father, and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD - and I will make merry before the LORD.
6:23 And Michele [i.e. Michal] the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.
[ Maybe intermediate-husband Paltiel and Michele had had sex with each other before David got her back as his former wife? Perhaps that was involved in Davy not giving her any child to the day of her death? ]
Jeremiah 3:1 "If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the harlot with many lovers; and would you return to me?" says the LORD.
Malachi 2:16 "For I hate divorce," says the LORD the God of Israel, "and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless."
Matthew 5:31 "It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'
Matthew 5:32 But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 19:7 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?"
8 He said to them, "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery."
10 The disciples said to Him, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry."
11 But He said to them, "Not all men can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.
12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it."
Mark 10:2 And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"
4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away."
5 But Jesus said to them, "For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
6 But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'
7 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
8 and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh.
9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man pull apart."
10 And in the house the disciples asked Him again about this matter.
11 And He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her;
12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."
Luke 2:36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher; she was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years from her virginity
Luke 2:37 and as a widow till she was eighty-four. [That's the way! Good for her!] She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
John 4:15 The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water ["water"-insertion pleasure?], that I may not [erotically?] thirst, nor come here to draw."
16 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."
17 The woman answered him, "I have no husband." ["I'm single and sexually available?"] Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband';
18 for you have had five husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband; this you said truly."
19 The woman said to him, "Sir, [and she can readily now see that she should get off the suggestive sex-affair invite and quickly change the subject?] I perceive that you are a prophet.
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."
21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews [not antisemitic-against-Israelis so-called "palestinian" anti-Zionists].
23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship Him.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
25 The [ready-to-spiritually-convert] woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when He comes, He will show us all things."
26 Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."
27 Just then His disciples came. They marveled that He was talking with a woman [cute as she was?], but none said, "What do you wish?" or, "Why are you talking with her?"
Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brethren--for I am speaking to those who know the law--that the law is binding on a person only during his life?
2 Thus a married woman is bound by [divorce-allowing Mosaic?] law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the [questionable-morality Mosaic?] law regarding the husband.
3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that [divorce-allowing Mosaic?] law, and if she becomes married to another man she is not an adulteress [What a bummer].
4 Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another [a horrible multiple-husband illustration - in my opinion], to Him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit [Oh, come on] for God.
First Corinthians 7:10 To the married I give charge - not I, but the Lord - that the wife should not separate from her husband [that's more like it!]
11 (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) --and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
12 To the others I say - not the Lord - that if any brother has a wife who is a ["irreconcilable differences"] disbeliever [to whatever extent and in whatever ways], and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.
13 If any woman has a husband who is a ["irreconcilable differences"] disbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
14 For the disbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the disbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy.
15 But if the disbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to peace.
16 Wife, how do you know whether you will save your husband? Husband, how do you know whether you will save your wife? [Don't expect your husband-to-be or wife-to-be to change for the better or for the worse when married to them, nor expect to change them yourself]
First Corinthians 7:39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If the husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.
First Corinthians 7:40 But in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. [Yes!] And I think that I have the Spirit of God. [You sure do!]
Second Corinthians 6:14 Do not be mismated with disbelievers. [Watch out who your dating-service choices are, and be selective before meeting them for that first date - before seeing their enticing exposed body parts and getting touchy-feely with them] For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
Ephesians 5:24 As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything [included requests for private erotic posing and dancing, plus fellatio . . . without so-called "birth"-"control" but actually: pregnancy-prevention pills, and condoms] to their husbands.
Ephesians 5:33 however, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
First Timothy 5:11 But refuse to enroll younger-women widows; for when they grow wanton against Christ they desire to marry,
First Timothy 5:12 and so they incur condemnation for having violated their first pledge. [A couple of my favorite verses concerning this multiple-husband subject-matter issue]
So, WHO in a divorce proceeding, files for the divorce? Who then, in essence, "draws first blood?"
SHOULD an insubordinate sexist women - who has been extravagantly-spendy, and/or impenitently, irreparably, and impudently disobedient toward her husband and sadistically sexually frigid against him (perhaps causing him to become reactively abusive to certain extents in certain ways), be granted alimony and retirement benefits from the estranged husband by cowardly, godless, and similarly-sexist divorce-court judges?
Genesis 3:16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
Moreover, polygamous-like acquisition and permanent retention of non-legally-married concubines are a viable answer for deprived and estranged ex-husbands (IF - over the long run - such additional women are both affordable and reputationally convenient . . . especially when one or the other is unapproachable due to monthly menstrual periods or pregnancy or childbirth, has a headache or is sick, away on a lengthy vacation or business trip, etc.):
Titus 2:3 Bid the older women likewise to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good,
Titus 2:4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children,
Titus 2:5 to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited.
But which is no excuse for deadbeat dads:
First Timothy 5:8 If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than a disbeliever.
Genesis 4:19 And Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.
Such helps to prevent matriarchal woman from getting and having the domineering upper hand of depraved rulership over her helpless husband:
First Timothy 2:11 Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness.
12 I allow no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
15 Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with sobriety.
Genesis 25:6 But to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts, and while he was still living he sent them away from his son Isaac, eastward to the east country.
Deuteronomy 21:15 If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other disliked, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the disliked, and if the first-born son is hers that is disliked,
Deuteronomy 21:16 then on the day when he assigns his possessions as an inheritance to his sons, he may not treat the son of the loved as the first-born in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the first-born,
Deuteronomy 21:17 but he shall acknowledge the first-born, the son of the disliked, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the first issue of his strength; the right of the first-born is his.
Judges 8:30 Now Gideon had seventy sons, his own offspring, for he had many wives.
Judges 12:8 After him Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel.
Judges 12:9 He had thirty sons; and thirty daughters he gave in marriage outside his clan, and thirty daughters he brought in from outside for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.
First Samuel 1:2 [Elkanah] had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
First Samuel 30:5 David's two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel.
First Samuel 30:18 David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken; and David rescued his two wives.
Second Samuel 2:2 So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahinoam of Jezreel, and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel.
Second Samuel 5:13 And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron; and more sons and daughters were born to David.
First Chronicles 4:5 Ashhur, the father of Tekoa, had two wives, Helah and Naarah
Second Chronicles 24:1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem; his mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba.
Second Chronicles 24:2 And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.
Second Chronicles 24:3 Jehoiada got for him two wives, and he had sons and daughters.
Ecclesiastes 2:8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, man's delight.
First Timothy 3:2 Now a bishop (NOT every man) must be above reproach, the husband of one wife (not applicable to non-bishops), temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher
First Timothy 3:12 Let deacons (NOT every man) be the husband of one wife (not applicable to non-deacons), and let them manage their children and their households well
And what about our ["our?"] past-history harlots (i.e. incall and/or outcall, full-body/sensual exchange-massage masseuses and escorts) sexually utilized [to various quasi-fornicative or quasi-adulterous extents in various ways] for one-time or temporary sexual services?
Isaiah 57:8 Behind the door and the doorpost you have set up your symbol; for, deserting me, you have uncovered your bed, you have gone up to it, you have made it wide; and you have made a bargain for yourself with them, you have loved their bed, you have looked on nakedness.
Ezekiel 23:17 And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust; and after she was polluted by them, she turned from them in disgust.
Ezekiel 23:18 When she carried on her harlotry so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister.
Malachi 2:15 Has not the one God made and sustained for us the spirit of life? And what does he desire? Godly offspring. So take heed to yourselves, and let none be faithless to the wife of his youth.
Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be non-defiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.
One can easily see how important it is for teen gals to prepare for marriage before they get into their 20s:
Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply [i.e. by default: have sex!], and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."
Genesis 38:14 she put off her widow's garments, and put on a veil, wrapping herself up, and sat at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, and she had not been given to him in marriage.
Leviticus 27:1 The LORD said to Moses,
Leviticus 27:2 'Say to the people of Israel, "When a man makes a special vow of persons to the LORD at your valuation,
Leviticus 27:3 then your valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary.'"
Ruth 1:13 would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone forth against me."
First Timothy 5:14 [KJV, not RSV/NASV/NIV] So I would have younger women [Gr. ne(o)teras, NOT "widows" Gr. ch(e)ras] marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the enemy no cause to revile us.
First Corinthians 6:16 Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two shall become one flesh."
Matthew 22:28 In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her."
Matthew 22:29 But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
Matthew 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Mark 12:23 In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife."
Mark 12:24 Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?
Mark 12:25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Luke 20:33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife."
Luke 20:34 And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage;
Luke 20:35 but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage,
Luke 20:36 for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
Notice the exact and precise words of Jesus. He did not state that death of a spouse is equivalent to automatic divorce pertaining to severance of marital relationship in the hereafter (whether either or both spouses are in Heaven or Hell).
In fact:
Matthew 19:6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man pull apart."
Mark 10:9 What therefore God has joined together, let not man pull apart."
What will not be in the afterlife are sexually-oriented courtships and engagements, nor marital wedding ceremonies where daddy gives his daughter away as bride to some guy for matrimonial intentions.