Doyce points to an article on a broad survey of how different religions (in the case of Christianity, some of the larger denominations) feel about various sexual/conjugal issues.
It’s interesting reading, though the caveats at the top need to be seriously taken into account (almost to the point of making the comparison useless). Few religions/denominations are ideological monoliths as organizations, let alone as bodies of believers. That’s as true for Catholicism as Wicca. Then, too, some of the categories are multiple-choice-question broad — “abortion” and “divorce” and so forth can entail a wide array of activities and situations that would be judged by some quite differently.
- With the exception of masturbation, each of the factors received a 1 rating (“condemned”) by at least one faith group.
- With two exceptions (teen and extra-marital sex) each of the factors received at least a 4 rating (“morally acceptable in most cases”) by at least one faith group.
- The only factor over which most faith groups agreed was their near universal condemnation of extra-marital sex.
- With such massive differences of opinion, conflicts between faith groups over sexual matters will probably continue long into the future.
Well, as long as sex remains such an item of interest for most people.
That all said, if I were religion-shopping just based on the comparison, not surprisingly I’d probably end up in the Universalist-Unitarian camp.