Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality Read Online Free Page A

for a little longer. When you tell your children, the light stays on for several hours. You get into bed with your spouse and tell her about your button and she tells you about hers, and you both enjoy some lovemaking before the light gets too dim. Sure you have work to do, a lawn to mow, books to read, projects to complete, but ultimately, the button rules.
    Years go by, and you get good at managing your button. Indeed, your button stays lit for days at a time with only the occasional push, because you are so skilled at working button praise into every conversation. Others are not as good at maintaining their button and they have family problems or physical problems. “Press your button. Talk to others,” you urge. But they aren’t as diligent as you and you see them pay the price. It saddens you that others don’t take responsibility for their button and then complain that they are sick or in pain.
    One day you meet a person who has no button yet seems perfectly healthy. “Where is your button?” you ask. “I threw it away decades ago. I have no idea where it is.” This forthright and unhesitant answer shocks you, then creates a twinge of panic. First, you think, “He is in grave danger of some horrible illness or accident.” Then another thought occurs. “Maybebuttons aren’t necessary?” You toss that thought out. What is life worth if you don’t have a button? You would feel emptiness, a true sense of loss. Even if someone could live without it, you can only imagine how miserable and lonely their life must be.
    Occasionally, you hear that some of the richest or most successful people do not have buttons. Some people are even encouraging children to throw away their buttons. It terrorizes you to think that one of your children might stop pushing her button and come down with some terrible disease or disability. As a result, you redouble your efforts, telling more people about the joys of the button.
    Even so, you find that your button does not glow as long as it used to. You continue faithfully pressing because you know that the warm comfort of a glowing button surpasses all understanding.
Buttons in Your Life
    While the button premise may seem ridiculous, it resembles many religious practices. For example, you may know Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs or believers of any number of other religions that use prayer beads. Others clutch their Bibles and display them prominently at work, in their home or in their car. They may display religious symbols in their homes, their lawns and their webpage; others wear crosses, crucifixes or pendants. But it is not just prayer beads, Bibles or a prayer rug; religious people have almost identical beliefs to our button example. They believe that prayer prevents evil, heals illness, gives guidance and much more. They believe that going to church, mass or prayer meeting keeps their soul pure and clean. They believe that reading the Bible or religious material keeps evil thoughts at bay. Each of these is nothing more than a way to press the button. Praying presses the button. Reading the Bible, going to church, praying on a prayer rug, singing a hymn, all are ways to press the button and keep evil, illness or other problems at bay and ensure a reward in the afterlife.
    It is the totality of the beliefs represented by these tokens that creates a deep dependency in the religious adherent. Tokens are just a reminder of the underlying belief. The token reinforces the belief and the belief reinforces the token. In our simple example, the belief in the inevitability of disease or accident was the driving belief behind the token. Without that belief, there would be no need for a token.
    Religion has used tokens for thousands of years to reinforce beliefs. They are powerful psychological tools. They make soldiers feel invincible before battle, give mothers a sense of supernatural protection for their children and convince people god cured them of a disease.
    But tokens are