Mrstickball is all for elucidating the fine lines and complexities of the human existence.

akuma:

Let me ask you this one: How long have you been abstinent in a stable, loving relationship with a very attractive woman? I'm talking about from Day-1 of meeting said person to doing the deed.

I'd love to hear every argument about how it's not possible, because it is. It's a simple argument of will over want. It's the same way people don't do other activities that are not beneficial to their life.

You are assuming that sex is an inherently bad thing and that it is inherently good to be abstinent and that anyone who doesn't follow that is a whore.

You can argue that almost anything is possible. How is that a good argument for saying abstinence is an effective policy? That's like saying Prohibition was a good idea because it is possible for people to not drink alcohol. The reasoning is weak at best.

This isn't the 1950's. Not to mention over 15% (and growing) of the country is atheist or agnostic. So why is a Judeo-Christian moral code appropriate for everyone? Why is providing children with information and allowing them to make an informed choice a bad thing?

Concerning prohibition, you really aren't arguing if the root issue of the prohibition - if drinking was actually bad - is indeed bad.

Is drinking bad? Is divorce bad? Is smoking bad? Is robbery bad?

If Judeo-Christian moral code isn't appropriate for everyone, then what is the atheist/agnostic code of conduct, and how does it effect the other side of the fence?

I never said educating kids with good information is wrong. I merely said abstenence is right. A balanced approach does include proper information about safe sex, but also includes information about the benefits of abstenence as well.

In the case of sex, I'd liken it to drinking. There's a right and wrong way to do it. The argument your trying to make is that those of the pro-abstenence belief think that all sex is wrong. It's not. We argue that the right way to sex is inside of a stable, married, relationship. And the statistics show that abstenence until marriage has an effect on divorce, among other hazards.

Also, you never answered my question about sex and relationships.

Interesting that you should bring up prohibition. 

Let's suppose for the moment, for the sake of argument, abstinence is indeed a shining example of all that's good and right in the world. 

What was the problem with prohibition?  The fact that it did NOT solve the problem (drinking) while at the same time it created other problems like huge growth of organized crime and general disregard for the law. 

Similarly, strongly abstinence-focused education does NOT solve the problem of premarital sex, while at the same time it makes kids less knowledgeable about how to practise safe sex and the realistic risks involved, thereby increasing STDs, pregnancy, etc.  ("Reefer madness" style propaganda is counterproductive IMO because kids are not retards.  Being taught blatantly stupid information only makes them disregard it, and they're likely to disregard other, more sensible warnings.) 

You may have a more reasonable approach in mind but in that case you should not be supporting the current form of abstinence education. 

I'm not saying that they can't teach abstinence, but an abstinence only education is just plain ludicrous. Not to mention you are painting everything as black and white.

Why is smoking inherently bad? IT has disadvantages, but that doesn't make it inherently bad.

In some cases, divorce is a good thing. If your husband is cheating on you, abusing you, and violent with you, then divorce is a great thing.

If you are in a relationship where you no longer love each other and you don't have any children who will be affected by the divorce, why stay together? I think it is more dishonest with yourself to not acknowledge your feelings in those circumstances.

I really don't even see where you are going with your argument as we essentially agree that both sides are worth presenting. But you are mischaracterizing the debate. I haven't seen any sex education programs that teach about birth control that don't also talk about abstinence. The opposite is incredibly common, where they teach about abstinence and don't talk about using protection.

The statistics also show that atheists have a lower divorce rate than religious people, does that mean that you are going to be an atheist?

The atheist moral code is a personal one, not one read from a book. Just because its not written down doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Also you go on about how dangerous sex before marriage is when the only real dangers (unwanted pregnancys and STIs) are caused by people not being properly protected. There are huge links between abstinence only education and both of those things. Also abstinence only education has been proven to not actually increase abstinence.
So basically all it does in the end is make the problems worse because the people having sex aren't doing it safely.

Actually, I made no mention of the hazards of sex being unwanted pregnancies and STI's - although they are obvious. I was referring to the increases of divorce among those that have sex before marriage. I can pull up the case studies that prove it, but the statistics usually show that abstenence lowers divorce rates by decent margins.

School isn't going to change what kids learn from the mass media, and that's full of sex (even when not blatant). Teachers can't even make some kids shut up in class, how are they going to affect what is to them some far fetched code of behaviour.

Personally I think a lot of kids nowadays are oversexed and it would do them good to just damn wait a bit longer (though not necessarily until marriage, plus some people marry late or never). But you can't force people into that.

Whether it's a stupid choice to have sex at all, or a stupid choice to have sex without protection, plenty will make that choice. I don't care about religions' moral codes, but to me it seems plenty more beneficial both for the relevant people and to society to let those teens shape up their lives without an STD or them becoming parents at the age (there's plenty of time for that later).

It is absolutely fine to teach abstinence, and hopefully glamour down the sex topic. Some kids also get peer pressured into it, which is the dumbest thing. Making it taboo and taking away the education about how to prevent unwanted consequences doesn't help one bit though.