How Bad Relationships Affect Children

There are consequences to the disorder that our culture and families have encountered.

Children are majorly affected by the downward spiral in morals and relationships.   Let’s review seven of these consequences.

Consequences for Children

1. Impaired development and lowered well-being
2. Depression
3. Ambivalence about family and love
4. Moral and spiritual difficulties
5. Violence and crime
6. Miseducation about sexuality
7. Abuse and exploitation

1. Impaired Development and Lowered Well-Being

Children are raised in a single-parent home have less of an advantage than those in a no abusive, two-parent home.

They are affected spiritually, financially, psychologically, more likely to drop out of high school, become delinquents, and become single parents themselves.

A high percentage of adolescent patients at substance abuse centers came from a single parent home.

Children from such homes tend to have less self-confidence or self-discipline, have more difficultly to be dependable and have a hard time setting and keeping goals.

Many adult children of divorce commonly say “when my parents broke up, my childhood died.”

The absence of a father in the home makes the children become the ‘junior partner’ to their mother’s emotional needs and help take care of the family in place of their father.

This stops the child’s normal development and places a heavy burden on his or her shoulders.


2. Depression

Divorce is the greatest cause of depression in a young person.

A study of 34 countries showed that suicide rates were associated with the increased divorce rates.  This was especially true for the boys.

Yet, children from a secured home that succumbed to constant conflict and destructive arguments between the parents were angry and depressed.

In addition, the parent’s disunity caused their children to bear the brunt as one parent takes their anger against the other out on the children.

For instance, an angry mother may tell a child in her disappointment, “You’re lazy, just like your father.


3. Ambivalence about Family and Love

Brothers and sisters may mimic the serious tension between their parents and act more aggressive towards one another or their peers.

When parents reduce their involvement in their children after a divorce whether financially, emotionally or in disciplining them, the children may feel less love from their parents.

Sons and daughters of divorce frequently report feeling less affection for their parents.

Many children of divorce may see the emotional closeness they have with their parents as a burden.

Divorce can also place a pall over the brothers and sister’s relationship.  When adults experience the break up of their family, they may view their childhood with negativity and report a less fond memory for it and their siblings.

A child of divorce or a single parent can lose the sweet image of having an intact family of their own.

Divorce can leave the children believing that stable relationships are not possible.

A bad relationship between parents will cause the children to have a bad image of their own gender or the other that haunts them throughout their lives.

These feelings intensifies when they reach the marrying age.

Dr. Judith Wallerstein says that they may experience anxiety about relationships which may become part of their personalities.

Children who do not have good role models, especially children of divorce, are afraid of confrontations, loss, loneliness and abandonment.

A child who over bonded with one particular parent which was broken up after the divorce may have a fear of closeness later in life due to the prospect they may lose them.

This anxiety over commitment issues will immobilize many, especially men even though they have a natural desire to have a secure marriage.


4. Moral and Spiritual Difficulties

Parents who separate can also divide their children in other ways.

In a strong family, parents work hard to create one consistent moral code and create a home culture where the child can feel comfortable and comforted.

This is not the case for children who come from a divorced home.

Because a child will go from one house to the next, he or she may live between two worlds or more if there are stepparents.  When the child is too much like one parent, this may seem like disloyalty to the other parent or offend and hurt them.

This is related to a child losing family traditions, neighbors, and friends due to having to relocate or others not being able to relate the same way to the now fractured family.

A parent’s absence after divorce can be a stumbling block to a child understanding God’s nature and His love and truth as our Heavenly Father.

God is viewed as a loving and faithful Father by Christians in the parable the Prodigal Son which rest on the premise of having a positive experience through a parents’ constant presence and their unity.

“I’ve made progress,” reports a young man in his mid-30s whose parents split up when he was small and who barely knew his father. “At first I just got angry and cynical when I heard about ‘God the Father’ in church. Then I gave up the anger and just went blank, especially when it was time to pray.

“Now I am starting to understand who Heavenly Father is through my experiences with my own baby boy.”


5. Violence and Crime

Abel killing his brother Cain in the Biblical account foreshadows the family breakdown we experience today and the rise in crime.

Children from single-parent homes are more likely to have anti-social behavior.

Children of divorce are more likely to exhibit destructive behavior such as crimes, drug use which motivate the crimes and become prison inmates.


6. Miseducation about Sexuality

Our society with loose sexually licentious standards harms the youth and society at large.

Many societies are concerned about unwed teenagers because the young are less equipped to cope with the fallout of physical relations with the opposite sex than adults are.

Three out of four adults disapprove of teenagers engaging in sex before marriage, but they may have a standard for adults.

Majority believe that it is acceptable for adults to engage in such behavior before marriage themselves.  This contradictory standard of adults accepting sex outside marriage makes it hard to enforce a different standard for teenagers.

Is it better to set a guideline for sex outside of marriage according to age if waiting for marriage a holy union is not strong enough?

Age being the only reason to make a teenager wait for sex leaves negative ramifications that happen for older sexually active adults is no different, such as heart break, teenagers will surpass this standard when tempted.

Of course, children do not follow rules so much as they follow the example of those older than they are.

Younger children will pick up the teenagers’ seductive moves when they watch their elders’ favorite rap artist or actress.

Young boys may mimic the older brothers’ exploitation of women and sexually harass their classmates without a second thought.

When children see the celebration of adults having sex outside of marriage or the beautification of it, this diverts the youth from choosing to marry and receive the benefits of waiting for their spouse.

When young people no longer view sex as a part of a marital relationship, then the whole institution of marriage loses its uniqueness and value.

Many have heard their aunts or grandmothers protest, “Why buy the cow when the milk is free?”

When sex is easily available, it may partly explain why most hate the idea of marriage in a sexually permissive society.

When sex is easily available without the responsibilities a relationship or marriage brings, it is easy to see why people would want to go the easier route.

When a society no longer honors marriage and chastity, it does not have any basis to guide children to wait for a lasting, successful love and protect them from the hurt of no marital sexual relationships.

There is a natural urge for physical union to be part of a marital companionship which is a need that can be fulfilled only in a marriage.

Despite this, we have become a society that has forgotten this principle when it is easy to come by.


7. Abuse and Exploitation

A permissive sexual attitude and the combination of single parent homes can spell disaster for children.

When children are raised by mothers who have live-in boyfriends or stepfathers not related to them, they are twenty times more likely to be physically or sexually abused than those who are raised by their fathers within an intact marriage.

During the launch of the sexual revolution, child abuse skyrocketed.

This all began when Lucifer exploited his position as Eve’s teacher and protector.

It is wrongly believed that allowing men to have free access to sex to release any sexual frustrations does not have any evidence in the present world.

One factor is that teenage pregnancy and sexual disease as the fruit of encounters not between boys and girls, but girls and older men.

The majority of pregnant girls in the United States began their sexual activity as a result of being raped or seduced by men 27 years old on average.

Even worse, when it is acceptable for people to satisfy their sexual appetites freely even in educated levels through the world becoming one community through social media and transportation, child pornography and child prostitution has exploded.

This is the darkest part of the satanic underside of “sexual freedom” outside of God.

Over a half million impoverished pre-teen and teen girls in Brazil alone have been victims of wealthy adult clients.

Virgins are chosen by adult men to protect themselves from sexually transmitted disease and are then discarded once they become infected.

Thousands of social media feed these perverse appetites.

The most innocent and vulnerable are cast into the mouths of their elders who are the very ones who are to cherish and protect them.


Return for Tomorrow's Post:  Facets of Marriage Education


This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on sex and marriage.

The First Love Triangle Was Between...

The original love triangle was between Adam, Eve and the tempter Lucifer.


The corruption which took place in the first family, set the dynamics that wreak havoc in male and female relations to this day.

One of the most agonizing symptoms of the first love triangle is for one’s partner to be attracted to someone else and succumb to infidelity.

The premise of one being torn between two lovers fills many classic literature and films worldwide.

The story of the duchess Anna Karenina all the way to the film “Casablanca” as well as soap operas and many blues and love songs mimic the realities of being betrayed by a lover.

The original Godly family was destroyed by the first illicit sexual encounter.

In this relationship, you can see various attributes of abuse and betrayals.

Since Lucifer was very wise about God’s plan and was thousands if not millions of years older, this was the first sexual abuse by a trusted elder.

Since Adam and Eve were God’s children, they betrayed the parent’s trust and commandment.  Lucifer was a servant to King and rebelled against Him by seducing and taking away the King’s children.

Adam and Eve were the first dysfunctional family.

We may believe that dysfunction we see in today's society was brought into the family by the ‘free love’ movement of the 1960s, but humanity began in this unfortunate way.

Even though the Bible uses metaphors and hidden messages to convey the Fall of humanity, many great cultural narratives, suggest that more than just an illicit sexual relation happened between the first human couple.

Genesis shows that the woman fell under the sway of the Tempter.  She yields to his seduction and then she instigates this betrayal to her betrothed.

This pattern and other deceptive games that may occur in relationships was established from the beginning of humanity.

Christianity also alludes to a double treachery.  Not only do Adam and Eve betray each other, but they betray the Creator.

By disregarding God’s warning and concern, Adam and Eve, and Lucifer initiate sex and parenthood outside of God’s blessing and participation.

This is a heartbreaking scenario which still plays out in many families ever since.

In some depictions of the Fall, the Tempter is depicted as a servant and friend to God.

He has been trusted, but he refuses to respect his Lord’s children because he was jealous of God’s love for them.

He sought revenge by getting God’s children to follow him instead of God through tricking the children into a premature and illicit affair.

Thus, the first children were seduced by their elder and their Parent’s friend.

This is the origin of the tragedy of sexual abuse of children by their caregivers, relatives and even clergymen.

This is also the foundation for those who use sex as a weapon and a way to gain illicit power.


Another Kind of Adultery

If we take the story of our first ancestors tragedy, we can see the basis of many legendary tales.

We can compare God to a King and the woman as His bride or Queen.  Therefore, God was to be her central focus of love and loyalty.

 Thus, when the servant seduces the queen this becomes an adulterous act that betrays the King.

The European story Tristan and Isolde, the heroic Tristan, the beloved of the king, arrives to take Princess Isolde as his wife.

However, the young man and maiden take a love potion and cannot resist their passion for each other. Unfortunately, Tristan and Isolde run off together in betrayal of the king.

Similarly, the British legend of King Arthur revolved around the theme adultery between the King’s first knight, Lancelot, and his Queen.

This one act of treachery brings down the Utopian Camelot.

Folk religions around the world tell of a parallel conflict triad.

Greek myths are full of infidelities.

Oedipus Rex involves not only mortals, but a foretold incident of incest: the son kills his father to win the love of his mother.  Reverend Moon has suggested just this kind of dynamic behind the fatal dysfunction of the first family.

Adam, Eve, and Lucifer all chose to evade the moral challenge before them and misused love.

As the elder Lucifer was to attend to the immature children of God.

His position called to have unconditional love and obedience.  He knew that as Adam and Eve grew that they were destined to receive a special divine love and have authority beyond what he as a servant could ever possess.

He had the moral challenge to be content with his role.

Lucifer could look to have eternal praise and gratitude from his beloved King after he was a good caregiver to the prince and princess and they matured to assume their rightful position as God‘s heirs and Lucifer’s masters.

This duty asked for him to be humble to those who were presumably younger and less experienced than himself.

Also, the royal offspring themselves would have paid him unending respect and admiration as well as their countless descendants.

Instead, Lucifer was not able to trust and remain faithful to his lord or His children.

As he could only focus on his own situation and not see Adam and Eve from God’s point of view, it looked unfair in his eyes.  Therefore, he decided to turn away from God’s guidance and steal the affection of the young girl in order to soothe his own hurt feelings and feeling alone.

Eve, who was lonely as Adam learned about the creation, she was very flattered to have his attention and over time, lost interest in her fiance in favor of the elder more fascinating mentor.

Once Eve replaced Lucifer as her god, he believed that if he could seduce the girl he could possess all her love and beauty for himself.

At the same time he could act out revenge to his ‘unjust’ Creator by stealing the Heavenly Father’s most precious treasure, thus destroying His whole purpose for creating the universe.

As a final nail in the coffin he placed God in a deep grave and he humiliated his would-be master by degrading him through the Fall and become his rival.

Eve gave too much of her heart to the charming elder.

Once Eve succumb to his seduction, she was ridden with extreme guilt and realized that the act was wrong and that her lover had taken advantage of her.

To add to her painful feelings, she had deeply betrayed her loving Father and her mate and violated her own purpose.

Out of desperation and to ease her guilt and fear, she went to Adam for comfort, therefore re-enacting the same selfish act of seduction which Lucifer used to trap and destroy Eve.  Adam also abandoned His Father’s will for the allure of his fiancee’s premature love.


Disastrous Template

These corrupted relationships that happened at the beginning of humanity, explains why infidelity and promiscuous sex has such a hold to enslave humanity to this moment.

Because humanity inherited this fallen history, a relational template so deeply embedded
within the human psyche and soul, people are inclined towards it as second nature.

Reverend Moon teaches that this adulterous relationship in the beginnings of human ancestral family life has set a pattern for the profound and pervasive disorder of love that we have witnessed ever since.

Freud had a sense of this when he proposed that the family tensions which arise from the ‘Oedipus complex’ were based on some primordial event that caused the disorder of  family love.

Research shows that infidelity is indeed passed on from generation to generation: One study found that eight out of ten cheating spouses also had a parent that did the same.

The study may find more such cases because the parent may have kept their indiscretion secret.

Adam and Eve’s mistake implied more than just an act of infidelity.

This act was the remote source of all the destructive patterns of interactions between males and females which plague our society today.

For example, Lucifer and Eve both refused to use their resources of unselfish love and remain faithful to whom they were responsible and entertained their infatuations instead.

Instead, they sought to please their immediate gratification and comforting embrace of the opposite sex.

This plays out in sexual involvements in contemporary society today.

 

Males act like Peter Pan and flee responsibilities in favor of maternal acceptance from girlfriends and gain reassurance through sexual conquests, thus escaping paternal rules and requirements.

Women and girls do the same when they overly indulge in the intoxicant of sex and promise and romance and use the closest male audience.

They do this at the cost of fully maturing into daughters of God.

Because the first couple introduced the disorder of love, this led to another phenomenon - the allure of ‘forbidden love’.

There is an insidious attraction to people who are off-limits or out of reach: another woman’s husband, the sister’s boyfriend, the blossoming daughter, celibate priest, ‘bad boy’, the same-sex friend.

A syndrome that has men honoring the purity of a woman, but at the same time pursue the fallen, loose woman at the bar or have a provocative mistress on the side.


Distorted Gender Relations

Psychologist David Kasbow also sees as Reverend Moon has the negative male-female ‘war of the sexes’ played out in the Genesis story.

He describes the three characters, Lucifer, Adam and Eve, involved are the archetypes of masculine and feminine forms of irresponsibility, exploitative on one hand and the foolishly naive and yielding on the other hand.


Predatory type

Lucifer plays the Don Juan, Playboy role surrounded by the compliant Playboy Bunnies.  He is the immature man who uses and discards the opposite sex in order to prove his worth.

Another dynamic is the man who dominates other men through conquering and winning their women.

This is almost like a parasite, a rapist and the vampire who feeds off of what other people possess.  The Eveic figure is the seductress who uses her sex to dominate men for money, security.  She may be thought of as a man-eater.

Lilith is another myth, the first wife of Adam is portrayed as a demonic feminine.

He is under the influence of the foxy counterpart of the male ‘wolf’, the Siren, Samson’s Delilah.

She is the woman who keeps a list of boy toys for her amusement and delight to show off her power by stealing men from other women.  The incestuous father, the pedophile and the aging man who takes on a younger trophy wife.

Lucifer was the trusted teacher and parental figure who preys on the fresh, virginal individual of the opposite sex in order to compensate for his own failures, frustrations and inner deadness.

Christian writer Sarah Hinckley says the virgin is so attractive to the worldly one because of the “lightness of heart that is the companion of sexual innocence”.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: The Impact of Sex Without Commitment 


This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

Relationships Need True Love to Work

Without true love, men and woman cannot trust each other. They use each other to serve themselves.

—Sun Myung Moon

Sexual union is the crowning glory of marital love.

When a couple unites through sex, this symbolizes the mingling of the hearts, blood and lives of the two partners.

This is God’s delight as well.

Before the Fall, sex was not seen as dirty or something shameful.  God would be a part of the marriage couple’s pleasurable, sacred lovemaking.

But history has provided evidence of people having difficulty disciplining their sexuality and remain faithful to their partners.

Lovers who are not committed to one another can leave behind unwanted children, diseases, adults who prey on children who are not theirs in the relationship and so on.

It is all too easy for the body to subjugate the mind, for instinct to override conscience in the arena of sex.

Some attribute this to an individual’s childhood trauma and learning.

Others blame social conditioning based on the struggle of power in relationships.  Still others have sought to explain this behavior in light of early social patterns by tracing back to the earliest communities.

Some religious traditions and psychologies look to ancient myths, legends and stories that tell of the origins of human suffering through a human Fall.

These myths are respected and thought of as revealing of profound inner truths that are too deep and not easy to convey, thus are shown through powerful images and narratives.


“Myths are facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter,” asserts anthropologist Joseph Campbell.


The tale of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis in the Bible quickly comes to mind.

The Qur’an also has a counterpart story.

Reverend Moon found the root of sexual immorality and the secret of all human suffering and self-destructiveness.

These traits are tied up with the reason why it is easy to misuse love and why societies are witnessing harmful relationship patterns between men and women throughout history.

What is this secret revealed in the story of Adam and Eve?

How does the abuse of sexuality between individuals and relationships impact society?


The Human Downfall

The Bible states that the first man and woman brought evil and suffering into the world.

At that time, they enjoyed everything in Heaven on Earth freely.  But God gave them one warning: do not eat a certain fruit.

The Bible states that a crafty serpent (the Qur’an is a vengeful angel) who tempted the women with the promise that if she delve into the fruit she would gain wisdom and divine likeness to God.  He made it seem that God was keeping this power from humanity and keeping it to Himself, hence bringing a word contrary to God.

After this, she saw that the fruit was good to eat for her and ate it.

Further in the story, Eve gave the fruit to Adam.  As the snake promised, they both gained wisdom.  But by eating the fruit which God warned them against eating, it brought shame and guilt upon the man and woman so they hid themselves from God.

They first covered their sexual parts.

In every drawing or account of the Fall of Adam and Eve, it has the man and woman covering their sexual organs.

When a person makes a mistake, they cover their transgressions.  The fact that the couple covered their sexual organs, shows that their mistake was in these lower parts.

This is similar to when two people are caught in fornication or adultery

When this story first circulated, this was probably transparent to the audiences then.  In the Middle East, they understand the euphemism of ‘eating of fruit’ to mean sexual relations.

Also, the expression, ‘to know’ someone as in having sexual relations with another.

Thus the Tree of Knowledge takes on sexual connotations as well. 

Many who speak of having sex outside of marriage or in immature relations promise that they will become mature and experienced.

People still expect this from sex.

When sex is violated in this way, they bear foretold consequences from their deeds: painful childbirth, distrust and tension between men and women, not able to grow and mature in love any further, and a profound separation from God who is the source of love and life.

The Hebrew tale of Paradise Lost, written by Milton brought in a sexual counterpart, and early writings of Jewish and Christian clergy did as well, In the historical perspective, according to scholars makes the Biblical account unmistakable: the tree, snake and the women’s name and other features alludes to the widespread practice of temple prostitution and the story was a deliberate parody to denounce it.

These writings place a sexual sin at the core of all human disorder and misery.

Other myths imply the same detail.  A Shinto myth has a god and his wife engage improperly in conjugal love.  They may call it incest.  Then they correctly give birth to the islands of Japan.  The goddess dies and a misfortune befalls their first son and daughter. Kojiki 4.1-6.1

Hindu and Buddhist text also tell their tale tying the origins of suffering to sexual indiscretions.

The Greek myth of Pandora tells of a woman who betrays her promise to her immortal fiance and opens a box which releases all kinds of suffering into the world.

This box can easily symbolize a woman’s sexual parts which are opened by another instead of her husband.


Ambivalence towards sexuality

Intuitively, there is a link between sexuality and the origins of human evil.  This forms the basis of the mixed messages within certain religions regarding sex.

The chosen people of Israel had a distinguished mark of circumcision.  This is a mutilation of the male organ which was involved in the Fall.

Christians and Buddhist favor celibacy as their path to sanctification and enlightenment.

Sex is a sacred gift which has become degraded and dangerous.

In the context of wider society, sexuality is honored.  For instance, poetry and songs celebrate its goodness and maligned on the other or the vulgar ways people refer to it when expressing hate and aggression.


Subtle Ramifications

The substance of these sacred narratives is the content of contemporary life.

People indulge in sex without being mature or involved in marriage.  This brings on more heartbreak and distortion about true love.

The most ironic consequence of thinking about casual sex is that people are blind to these very consequences.

Thus, the supreme and sacred power of sexual love with all of its intrinsic psychological and emotional, moral and spiritual, relational, social and lineal ramifications comes to be reduced to merely a pleasurable physical activity, like eating or sleeping. 

The real costs of premature sexual relations on the personal and social level and the impact on God are largely overlooked.  Technology can take care of the unwanted pregnancy and sexual infections, but the damage it causes to the spirit are irreversible.


Return for Tomorrow's Post: The First Love Triangle Was Between..

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook, "Educating for True Love" written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon's philosophy on sex and marriage.

Effects Sex Before Marriage on a Person

We unfortunately live in a society where people no longer wait for the person they are to marry to have sex.  Those who do are ridiculed and thought of as abnormal.

God intended for the fruit of sex to be opened between two marriage partners.

God being of love, would also participate in this event and the children which are born from this activity.

Many young people do not know the devastation from becoming sexually involved too soon has on their mind, spirit and developmental growth.

Therefore, we have listed six effects having sex outside of a secure relationship has on a person.  We continue from our discussion yesterday: Sex Before Marriage Disrupts Growth of Heart and Character


3. Guilt, Regret and Diminished Sense of Worth

In Genesis, Adam and Eve experienced shame after they ate of the fruit which produced the Fall.

Since sexuality is linked to the conscience, it is no surprise that misdirected love commonly yields a harvest of guilt and loss of self-respect.

When people have used the most valuable part of their bodies to gain pleasure or love or security, they cannot but feel degraded, even if they are not conscious of the loss for some time. 

Many experienced teenagers say they regret losing their virginity the way they did.

Both old and young men say that they are haunted with guilt that what was just a pleasurable ride for them was a moving expression of love and commitment for their partner.

Females are more sensitive to how something sacred has been violated with premature sex.

They may feel shame for violating the more of their parent’s or their faith community.

Abortions add weight to the partner’s distress.  Infidelity within marriage creates its own guilt-ridden hell for the cheater.

Once the cheater wakes up to the devastation they have caused to the lives of their loved one, the self-reproach can be crushing.

One counselor compares this guilt to having killed someone while driving.

Self-forgiveness can be a formidable challenge.

When one looks at sexual attractiveness and prowess as the important reason to have a romantic connection with another, this makes one judge people based on looks and not on who they are.  This behavior creates anxiety in their relationships.

When one is concerned on how they can use another just for sex and not the whole person as a criteria for a relationship, this causes one to have fear that there are more attractive people or those who can perform better.

“Do I still look good enough, perform well enough, please you enough?”


This is tragic when adultery brings this insecurity to the one place that should be safe and secure, the marriage bed.

This undermines the ideal that your partner is unique and irreplaceable.

Jennifer, 30, explains her experience: “The acceptance, even encouragement of premarital sex makes it very difficult to sustain the fantasy that we are the sole
object of love.”

Victims of infidelity often feel they have been trashed.

With this lowered self-esteem, one may enter into other sexual involvements just to prove that they are still desirable.

This leads to even more self-disrespect.

Thus, a vicious cycle of reaching approval through sex, not able to attain this, and thereby compounding one’s desperate need.


4. Heartbreak and Destructive Behavior


All infatuations or romantic involvements of some duration are painful when they break up.

But the break up of emotional ties and expectations of where the relationship was going is intensified even more when sex is introduced.

Studies have highlighted the role of certain brain chemicals in sexual bonding.

Even in casual liaisons, sex acts like a powerful glue which has no easy way to release its grip.

Hearts that bond through sex are unlikely to disengage without being ripped apart in some way.

This trauma, for some, can resemble the pain of divorce.

Others are able to numb or deny the pain through alcohol or pills.

Many men have said that they are so afraid of being hurt like that again that they withhold their hearts even though they give their body to another for moments of pleasure.

This is why young people are indifferent to sexual activity which one commentator called, “oddly disengaged—emotionally cool while physically hot.”

The heartbreak that is incurred and the sense that one has given themselves completely and only received a little in return, not including the fallout of diseases and unwanted pregnancies, can cause young people who engage in sex prematurely to live in despair.

The rate of teen suicide has tripled in the past 30 years in the U.S.  This is ths same time period where teenage sexual activity rose sharply.

Statistics show that girls who lose their virginity are more prone to commit suicide than virgins.  Male peers are more likely to be involved in destructive behavior, such as running away from home, drug use and getting arrested.

The emotional explosion that comes when one is sexually betrayed can lead to extreme rage or lead to violence against former or new lovers.

Other emotions can be exhibited from the break-up of a sexual liaisons: stalking, assualt and homicide when jealous lovers become a daily even.  Countless people live in fear of retaliation by an ex-lover.


5. Spiritual Disorientation


Uncommitted sex encourages a distorted spiritual outlook.

Whether one belongs to a certain religion, one may still have a negative outlook.  First, premature sex gives one the belief in one’s own supremacy of his or her ego.

When one has multiple sex partners, it implies that the ego is the ultimate reality.  One may believe that others are just ‘accessories’ to use and do not deserve commitment just come and go.

When one gets involved in a sexual bond while at the same time remain aloof from any emotional ties reflects an attempt to split body and soul.  They choose to ‘have sex’ rather than to be with a whole-person union with another.

This buys into the fiction that one who lives in this way may believe that they are free to express oneself through the body and independent.

This kind of reality is unspiritual and denies the connectedness of spirit and flesh and also of oneself.

This view of reality causes one to be pessimistic about the possibility of being faithful.  It also gives the viewpoint of the unreliability of the universe.

Hebrew prophets pointed out that God was absolutely faithful through His covenant and commitment to His children.

Since, humans are made in God’s likeness, the we should and could be faithful to one another in a lasting relationship.

This is the reason adultery is tied to idolatry - betraying the covenant God and ‘having an affair’ with another god.  Jeremiah 3.6, Hosea 1.2

Moving from partner to partner displays a fickleness that is a far cry from the steadfast divine love and the dependability of the created world.

When one treats the mystery of sexuality as just a plaything is irreverent in the extreme.

Religious people use dishonesty to reconcile their own unprincipled sexual behavior with their religious doctrines and perceptions of God.

This only intensifies the disorientation and damage to the spirit.


6. Degradation of Love, Life and Lineage


If one cannot respect the power of sex which allows humans to take on a divine creativity, then they will view few things as sacred.

When sex is cheapened, it tends to lead to a tainted view of its extensions such as love, life and lineage.

These traditional components seem optional and are disregarded when inconvenient.

Love has been degraded so in the dating scene that love is hardly mentioned when discussing sex.

This represents an anemic definition of love where fickle feelings are the focus.

Even in today’s society, a child conceived outside of marriage is still viewed as a curse rather than a blessing.

This is evidence that life and lineage is cheapened through nonmarital sex.

Now unwanted pregnancies is seen as an inconvenience to be taken care of with an afternoon abortion appointment like it was a dentist appointment.

When love is trivialized then life and lineage is tied in with disrespect for the gravity of sexual relations further reinforcing a person’s disorientation of spiritually. Not taking sex seriously, removes one from the Heart of God.

Carson Daly stated that this lowers one’s self-esteem and the feeling that one has been used.  One feels self-contempt for being an user.

Then there is the embarrassment being sexually active outside of marriage can place one out of the circle of people who exhibit true integrity.

The uneasiness that comes from concealing one’s activities from family members and others.

Also, Daly speaks about the extreme difficulty of trying to break the vicious cycle of compulsive sexual behavior, and the self-hatred that comes after each sexual bond is broken.  Then the cycle begins all over again when one has to seduce another in order to revive one’s fading self-image.


Harvest of Selfishness

Though selfishness has an intuitive link to conflict and evil, it is the selfish abuse of sexuality that gives it its most virulent power.


Egoism and being absorbed into oneself is the very definition of immaturity.

When an individual grows up and builds character, then these selfish traits tend to fade.  The big question is why do so many people fail to fully grow up to the full human potential?

Why do some grow to such maturity while other have shallow hearts and small minds and are enslaved to bad habits showing immature behavior close to an animal.

Adam and Eve’s abuse of sexual love is the most critical cause of the original disruption of human growth in morals.

People throughout the ages believe that there is evil and self-destructiveness within every human heart.

This flaw pulls human godly nature down, making it impossible for one to grow fully into their God-like maturity impossible.

Anthropologist Richard Heinberg has observed: “People of every culture and age have insisted that . . . human nature is not natural at all because it has been distorted by some fundamental mistake or failure that has been perpetuated from generation to
generation.”


Reverend Moon defines this fundamental problem as descent from a poisoned lineage, a family tree rooted in self-centered love that bears only fruit of self-centered love.

The forbidden fruit was a metaphor for sexual love, which was ‘picked’ when it was immature and unripe.  This fruit was toxic in flesh and within the seed.

The first ancestors’ unprincipled liaison fundamentally disrupted the matrix of family life. 

“Humanity lost the standard of true parents, spouses, siblings and children,” explains Reverend Moon.

Opening the sexual fruit in its immature state which all humanity inherited hinders the capacity for us to give the truest love and blindness to the true reality of the heart and spirit.  Also, it gave rise to the extreme difficulty of the mind to lead the fallen body.

Catholics call this tendency original sin.  Buddhism attributes this enslavement to the senses.  Judaism calls it an evil inclination.

Freud deemed it the sexual instinct - the most unruly side of the root of the unconscious.

This inheritance, revolving around the heart and sexual desire, derailed moral and spiritual development.


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: Relationships Need True Love to Work

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious book, “Educating for True Love” written by a team of writers to explain Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s philosophy on love and marriage.

5 Myths About Sex Part II

We discussed the two myths of sex in the previous post, part 1 to the 5 Myths About Sex and debunked these wrongful ideas that can cause many immature and young people to indulge in the act with the wrong people and in situations and relationships which are not secure.

Now we continue the talk with the next three myths:


3. Is Sex a Natural Expression of Love?


The third flawed premise of sex is: Sex is a natural expression of love.
It is an instinct for those who indulge in romantic-based love to want to express this love through sex, even in no marital relations.

But, it is natural for true love to want the best for the one a person loves and the relationship.  In true love, one will avoid doing anything that will jeopardize either of these in any way, including refraining from delving into harmful activity.

People who love one another will sacrifice themselves to this end. 

The most authentic expression of love is to wait to pledge pleasurable sex and bonding which can have drawbacks only within the commitment of marriage.

When a man or woman anticipates opening such a precious gift from the one they love, they will be repelled by the idea of receiving something used by a prior lover.

It is not too late for those who have given away their virginity, they can recommit to their current or future loved one through a pledge of celibacy.

Would any woman really be so proud to accept an engagement ring that had been on the finger of five other girlfriends before her?

Most men would not take delight in having photos of their wife’s ex-husband laying around the house.

These expressions are an innate desire for exclusivity.

If people think that sex is a natural expression of love, then they should also believe that they should reserve this gift for one beloved who is special enough to be chosen as a lifetime mate.

Sex within Marriage Honors the Intrinsic Moral Aspects of Sexuality

4. Does Sex Promote Maturity?

The fourth falsehood is: Having sex only in marriage restricts growth and creates sexual inhibitions.

The sexual revolution brought on in the 60s made the idea that parents lived a stifling life confined within the walls of marriage and it was time to break through.

Many people can name a range of sexual experience and many partner as evidence that they have grown and  “exploring the farthest reaches of love and the self.”


Yet lifelong monogamy demands self-honesty and maturity than having an open relationship.  Yet, deeper adventures in loving will be experienced in a secure relationship.

When one invests in another person in such a way where they replenish and sustain a lasting love, is precisely the context that stretches every faculty and promotes the greatest personal growth.

It is too convenient for people to just run to a new partner instead of dealing with the deeper issues that real and enduring intimacy demands.

“It is easy to associate multiple sexual partners with personal change,” writes human potential philosopher George Leonard, but it is “far more likely to be associated with the avoidance of change.”


This may sound like a paradox, but one who continuously run from one relationship to the next before healing what is broken in the one before, will find they repeat the same patterns they experienced in the last relationship they tried to escape.

Physical intimacy within the love and commitment of marriage maintains the fundamental integrity of the body as an expression of the mind. It keeps the outer expression congruent with the deepest heart and conscience.

The body has its own symbolic language: a fist means hostility; a smile signifies good will. 

A misuse of the body’s language for example would be to use a smile to concel malice which would be deceptive.

In this same vein, sex between a couple represent the total union of their hearts, minds and lives.

Therefore, if sex is merely just to experience pleasure or an expression of warm feelings, then this would be considered a false message.

This kind of deceit goes against the moral maturity in a healthy relationship.

Finally, the issue of inhibitions is ironic.

Those who are involved in non-marital sex constantly speak of having performance anxiety, guilt, feeling cheap, fear of being compared to other partners, fear of unwanted pregnancy,  diseases and other experiences that complicate their sexual experience.

On the other hand, research shows that highly religious wives report the greatest number of orgasms.  This is a clear sign of freedom from neurotic inhibitions and guilt found in sex within an unsecure relationship.

Evidence shows that those who were virgins before getting married, had the greatest sexual satisfaction.

These married women have security within their marriage, trust and time to accommodate to their partners.

Those who are religious and waiting for sex within the bonds of marriage, find great meaning and freedom from the guilt that their faith provides.


5. Is Sex Liberating?


The fifth myth is: Having sex only within marriage oppresses women.


Some claim that ideals of purity and fidelity is only a piece of paper that protects men’s property rights over their women.

There is some truth to this exaggeration.  The thought that traditional morality is linked to male exploitation of women can be seen in history.

There has been a double standard for men and sex; chastity has almost universally been enforced for females but not for males.

Even though society says that women should stay pure, boys and men are free to indulge in free sex at the expense of girls and women.

Women pay the price fore any illicit liaisons through having a stigma attached to them or punishments such as having to endure pregnancies without the father.

Even though society view women differently in the context of sex, it is foolish to not follow the protective moral code for sexual ‘freedoms'.  It would be better just to clear this injustice to women.

It is unsafe for women to claim the ‘right’ to enjoy casual sex just to join the sexual ‘freedoms’ of men who exploit their partners and using sex for domination.

The timeless gold standard of sexual ethics—reserving sexual intimacy only for the spouse—recognizes the moral implications of sex and the deeper need for enduring love.

Women choose casual sex to stay equal to the wrongful lower standard for both genders than to succumb to the double standard placed upon women.

This means that women inherit men’s weakness, which separates the body from the true heart, and sex from responsibility and true love.

Despite popular belief, permissive sexual standards has not truly been liberating to women.

Females are now expected to want many sexual partners and males are expected to treat them as such.  Thus, women have denied their natural instinct of self-protection: Women are the ones who pay the heavy burden of the consequences of having sex outside a secure relationship.

Unwanted babies, and abortions and other liabilities plague only the women.  Even with the responsibility of contraception is placed mainly with the female.

Despite women being sexually independent and self-sufficient, they are still expected to still be feminine, soft, yielding and undemanding at the same time.

Because of this, women have to suppress their inclinations to be monogamous.  Research shows that even women who have sex outside of marriage, they desire less partners than their male counterparts.

It is almost universally the women partners who end up in the awkward position of trying to negotiate commitment in a sex-only relationship.

What is worse, that women play the part of wives by living together with a man.  They offer domestic services and sex without any emotional and material security which marriage provides.

Many women sadly play house with many partners and find out too late that time causes them to miss the experience of real marriage and motherhood.

After a certain age, finding a committed partnership becomes a more elusive goal for women while male peers often find younger, attractive women who are ready to marry them.

In addition, after age 28 or so, female fertility begins to decline rapidly.31 This is not the case for men.

In conclusion, these are the top myths about sex outside of a committed relationship is not freeing which have degraded not only many marriages, but also has brought society to a lower standard of love.

Photos courtesy of: freedigitalphotos.net


Return for Tomorrow’s Post: Sex Before Marriage Disrupts Growth of Heart, Character

This post was rewritten and derived from the religious textbook ‘Educating for True Love’ written by a team of writers explaining the philosophy of Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

The Love of a True Parent

What is a true parent?

Is there a nation where there are true parents, true families leading lives fully based on God's will?  Where did this position of humanity begin?

Imagine if Eve had resisted Lucifer's advances and then later did not tempt Adam. If they decided to live in accordance to God's will and waited until they had matured to eat of the fruit, what kind of individuals would they be?

The fruit, which was the sexual organs which bear the fruit of children, was not lethal when it was fully matured, but could cause death in its immaturity.  If they had waited until God's direction, been blessed by God into a pure marriage and never left the Garden of Eden or Heaven what would have happened?

They would have become perfect individuals who would have been God's external body.   

God is like the bone and Adam and Eve like the flesh. 

Did you know God has a mind and body?

If Adam and Eve had become perfect in God's true love, God becomes the internal parent and Adam and Eve would be the external parents, who become intertwined through love.

This union of God and human beings in love would have resulted in true parents.  

Without this unity in love, there cannot be a perfect person.  The results of not becoming true parents and severing our direct ties and lineage to God, is the world which we currently live today.

Sinless true ancestor and savior of humankind

What has history, this age and the future been searching for?  True parents connected to God's direct blood lineage.

If we are unable to meet true parents, then we cannot find true happiness in the course of history or in the universe.  A happiness that is eternal, not only experienced for moments.

What kind of people are people who are True Parents?

They symbolize the hope for all fallen people.  They bring hope because they have reversed the mistakes of the Fall and carry God's true blood lineage on the earth.  They symbolize what humanity can finally become.

They are the fruit of history, the center of the age, and the starting point for the future where human beings can connect God's direct blood lineage.

True Parents govern history.

Through True Parents, we can return to the new, original world.  We can finally subjugate Satan completely and eradicate him from this earth.

True Parents conquered Satan and finally liberated God and resolved His sorrow and suffering.

We should be grateful for this amazing grace with which we live together with True Parents and attend them and honor their commands.

The hope of humankind is to meet True Parents. 

You should meet the True Parents even though you must walk the path of death to lay the foundation to do so.

You walk the same bloody path with your own sweat and tears for you and your ancestors to return to the original position before the Fall.

Even if you may lose all of history and all of your descendants, once you meet True Parents, you will regain history and the future.  True Parents are such people.

No one can follow this path of restoring themselves and history without shedding tears.  

You should shed tears for God and True Parents.

You shed tears walking this thorny path until now in order to save humankind.  Reversing every fallen element in your family's history is not an easy task.

But how can we even think about restoring the world when we cannot conquer ourselves?

The world is composed of individuals and families, thus for world restoration, this is the beginning point, ourselves.

You should understand how amazing it is that I have come to this earth with the name of the True Parent. What are the most blessed words among all the words in the world?

For fallen people, the words True Parents are the words of greatest blessing, greater than regaining a nation or the world after it has been lost. You should know that these words are more precious than anything it heaven and earth.

Reverend Sun Myung Moon



Just imagine if you were raised by True Parents, without sin how radically different your experiences in life would have been being raised under God's complete protection and dominion.

Just the simple use of the words True Parents can command history.  The same as the power of Jesus' name.

Who can count the many saints, sages and good people of history who have had to walk this path of sacrifice in order to establish this phrase on the earth?

Up until now, the world consisted of just brothers and sisters fighting one another who have lost their true parents.

Even though the world is full of leaders and presidents, we are all just children who have lost their parents to teach the true way.

The name established on earth holds hope after going through the bloody strife, struggles and screaming is the name of True Parents.  Before there are True Parents, True Children must appear.

Do you think that you have become True Children before the True Parents or God?

That which is true does not change in the past, present or in the future.

Since God has worked throughout history to restore His children back to their unfallen state, it can be seen as a history to establish the True Parents.

Children need direction on earth, wouldn't it make sense that you would need parents that have God's direction, who cannot be attacked by Satan, to set a standard by which to follow?

From the time of Cain and Abel, who God had tried to reverse the Fall through Cain's offering and humbleness to his brother, but failed through murdering him, Heaven has been fulfilling the providence to realize these True Parents.

Whoever opposes or interferes with the fundamental providence to realize this purpose will be deserted in front of the heavenly principle and eventually perish.

The Messiah is the True Man who takes a bride and become True Parents.

This is what is meant in the Bible as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  We are therefore, to destined to become the true children.

When the Messiah comes to the earth, even though he comes as an individual, he is not just one person.  His value is such that he is the fruit of all the religions, the fruit of all hopes of humankind and the fruit of the love desired by all humankind.

The Messiah holds the key to all of the world's problems, false love and false lineage.  He bequeaths this knowledge and blood lineage to God's children in order to restore them back to their original position.

Everything connects to this fruit: the past, present and the future are connected to him; furthermore, the individual, family, tribe, nation and world are also connected to him as well as heaven and earth.

The Messiah must carry out the role of True Parent when he comes to the earth.

This was the main purpose for Jesus coming to earth - not to leave an example of how to be a True Son and a true brother, but to leave not only God's true blood lineage but how to be a True Father, True Husband and True Parent through his true marriage.

The Messiah is the Horizontal Father and God is the vertical Father.  He is the only vertical Father. Christianity says that Jesus was God, but this is not correct in the physical sense, but yes, Jesus acquired God's qualities and power, but he was not the same entity. Jesus is not the same spirit who created earth from the beginning.

There is only one vertical (spirit) Father, Jesus was to become the horizontal(earth) father.

You should know that until the appearance of True Parents on this earth, there had been many tearful stories in the background that you cannot even imagine. I don't know how many tears I have shed without you knowing about it. Only God understands this. 


True Parents who do not have the trace of the fallen, sinful blood lineage, become the ancestors of humankind even though they are on the earth today.  Thus, you should attend True Parents just as you do your own.

True Parents come to the earth to restore human beings and make you into True Parents - little True Parents - of your own clan.  This is how the world will eventually be restored.

Where does true love begin?

True love begins from the True Parents.  Even though "husband" and "wife" are good words, there is no better words than that of True Parents.

Without the appearance of True Parents, there there is no true husband or wife that can appear in the fallen world.  We must understand this.


Why do we need True Parents?

Since the True Parents reversed the acts of the Fall by carrying God's direct blood lineage and following God's words, the connection to true love has been completed for the first time in history.

This connection to God's direct lineage and being is unprecedented in history and will not be repeated in the future.

There is only one set of True Parents, one origin.  Even though we are destined to become true parents, the first True Parents are the first ancestors of humankind and cannot be replaced.

It is the same as if they were the first Adam and Eve and those who connect to them fall in order after that.

The love that your mother and father are engaged in right now is not true love.

God's original ideal for the world is realized through the creation of True Parents.  

This is the place where we meet our lost parents, our lost true parents.

All the saints have fought to bring this foundation to earth.  There have been many junctures throughout history, but this is the most valuable one.

The Fall made human beings Satan's descendants. Therefore, we must reestablish the True Parents who are on the side of heaven and have God's descendants.

We must be fully reborn through connecting to the True Parents pure love. This is the only way that we will be recreated and become citizens of heaven on earth.

God absolutely needs the True Parents.  Many people of faith wonder why God could not just accomplish world restoration in one swipe.

Without the True Parents on earth, even the omnipotent God is unable to fulfill the providence of restoration of the world by Himself.   

Without True parents, the realm of the archangels cannot find value in their work to support the realization of God's will on earth.  You need True Parents to stand directly before God.

When you look at the history of humankind, you can see how God worked through major wars, suffering and such to lay a foundation for the sake of the world to receive the True Parents.

All the religions have been seeking such parents, the world and nations have been seeking True Parents.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: God is the God of Love This Post was rewritten and derived from the book Cheon Seon Gyeon Book Three, "True love", Chapter 2, Section 2

Why God Can't Punish Satan

There is a theological debate whether Satan existed from the very outset.  This has caused a big problem.

If Satan had always existed and was part of God's plan for creation, his existence defies and hinders God's providence of restoring the world of peace for thousands of years.

Who is the one to subjugate and eliminate him?

This is the true issue.  Christianity upholds that Jesus liquidates all the sins of the past and the future that was to come, but even Jesus lost his physical body to Satan even though he was able to resurrect and bring a foundation for spiritual salvation.

Yet, every human being since has still been born with the original sin in his blood lineage.  Who will be able to finally accuse the one who brought sin to earth?

If Satan was not part of the creation of a perfect being, then where did he come from?

Satan caused our original ancestors to fall away from the true purpose of God which was to develop heaven on earth from the outset.

If Satan was part of the creation, then there is no way to get rid of him and have complete salvation.  This would create dualism forever.  People thus conclude that a world with two opposing purposes would continue forever.  Fortunately, this is not the case.

The reasons for Satan's accusations

The original will for the ideal world of creation was never fulfilled due to the Fall. However, since God has absolute authority, even though the whole world might change, He can never change.

Even though the devil took Adam, Eve and all creation away from God, the Absolute Being must subjugate Satan, who was originally an archangel, naturally rather than by force. 

Although God exists, it is as if He does not when we witness the chaos in the world. He has to re-establish His absolute authority. God cannot strike first. The good God cannot strike the evil Satan. 

Why is it God is tied from taking out Satan in one stroke?

Because if He was to do so, that act would end up also extinguishing Adam, Eve and the creation who are linked to him.  Through Adam and Eve obeying Satan's will instead of God's, they became connected to Satan in blood ties.

Thus, destroying Satan also destroys the ideal sphere of love.  That would be against God's own principle.

This is why God is prevented from doing so.

As absolute Lord, He must absolutely fulfill His will and do as He says would do.  Despite Satan's arrogance, attacks and tenacious persecution, still the Lord endured throughout history in order to recover His established principles.

Nobody has known of this almighty God.

If God cannot destroy Satan, why did He allow Satan to infringe upon human beings?  Why did He let His children be sacrificed and crushed under Satan's foot?

Why doesn't He stop the suffering Satan causes humanity?

Why was God unable to exalt His full power to such an extent that humanity does not recognize His existence?

This is a serious question.  The truth is, because humanity did not follow Him, He had no people, no nation, no world which to govern freely.

Therefore, no one has qualified to officially be recognized by Him as a true individual, family nation or world.

If such an individual, family nation or world was established, then God would be able to directly strike the evil people, nations and world.

Before this time, because humanity suffered through following Satan's will, to work with humanity, He had to face Satan's accusations of His children and work indirectly through angels and central figures.

Only this way will lead to goodness, and only then will God have His authority.

Will you completely conquer Satan in your life?

Wasn't event he almighty King of Wisdom immobilized by Satan's accusations?

It is the same situation with the President.  If his citizens decided to march and demonstrate against his laws, can he just cut off their heads for their behavior?

Even the almighty God is unable to make this move.  Any government official found to be at fault, they would be fired in an instant.

This is why your actions should not leave any condition for Satan's accusation.
This is a matter of life and death.

How you develop that protection is extremely challenging problem in your life of faith.

Since the human race are connected to Satan's, lineage, false love and will, God cannot not be present during those circumstances.  This is the problem.

What did Satan take away from God in the beginning of human history?

Satan trampled on God's pure love and crushed God's true life, love and lineage.  We should always be aware of these facts and protect ourselves.

Satan was created originally as an archangel without any trace of the fall.

Satan goes to God and accuses Him, "You are the almighty, omnipotent, all-powerful God, even you have to solve all the problems according to the principles you set up even though I became evil.   Even though I became Satan and brought about the Fall, You must abide by the rules and principles which You set up.  Isn't this true?'

I am going to explain why we cannot proceed on our way without loving our enemy. 

It is very important for you to know this truth,

Although the archangel fell and accuses God, God must still observe the principles He has established because He is the absolute God.

No matter how the archangel behaves, God is compelled to rule over His creation according to His rules and principles He laid down.

Therefore, God is obliged to act in the same manner to the archangel before and after the Fall.  This is why Satan taunts God and tells Him, "You are supposed to love me until I'm perfected and beyond."

Adam was supposed to originally, command three archangels.  In turn, they were to obey and love him absolutely.

As long as the heavenly law demands absolute obedience and submission, Satan is not able to do as he pleases with the laws and principles.

Even though he does not absolutely obey and submit to God, he knows that eventually he has to follow the same principle

If Satan violates the principle and God's law, then He can remove him.

It would be the same as the president exercising his authority through the constitutional law.  If it is not in the constitution, the president is not able to act as he wishes.

The author of the Divine Principle, the Completed Testament, dealt with such serious issues such as the existence of God and why He did not eliminate Satan as soon as he fell.

In the book of Job, you may ask why God was so powerless.

I had to understand all this. How serious I was to do so! I have placed myself on the gallows and struggled for these truths at the risk of my life. We have to retrieve our original life. 

If you are not familiar with the Book of Job, Satan accused God that Job was a faithful servant because He gave him everything.

Satan challenged God that if He took everything away from Job and made him suffer that he would curse God in return.

God gave Satan everything he asked for and told him he could take Job's life.  Why would the almighty God respond to Satan?

God cannot respond with the same behavior as Satan because God is the essence of love for others.

God is the essence of truth. 

God does not try to subjugate Satan with His mysterious, creative power.  God makes Satan yield voluntarily to His will.

Satan has used promiscuous sex, selfishness and so on and brought ruin in the world in order to prevent the world from returning to God.

How many people indulge in incest in America?

A father left alone with his daughters will molest and sleep with his daughters.  Because of the degradation of morals, the father's brother sleeps with the mother or a son sleeps with his mother.

American's lifestyle is closer to that of the animals.  Therefore, Satan laughs at God and says, "How do you even think about having an ideal world or world of love under these circumstances?"

God abides by the law

What kind of being can you say God is?

God is like the mind of the universe; the universe is like His body. 

However, the devil has plagued this body.

Satan has stolen the powers of the heavens and thus also controls the universe.  What does God need to do in order to digest this problem?  God is unable to strike Satan with force.

The essential quality in the process of creating the universe was love.  Thus, God maintains that principle, even if there are those that violate it.

Therefore, God unceasingly maintains His original standard He set up for creating, for the sake of restoring the fallen universe back to its original purpose of love.

Thus, fulfilling the ideal of true love.  If He is unable to accomplish this, then He cannot regain His authority as the Absolute Being.

This point has been so frustrating for God.

The Fall established a wrongful bond of love centered on Satan who took the position of parents.  Much interpretations have been said about the fruit of good and evil.

The descendants of Adam and Eve have carried on Satan's love through blood ties.  Satan's life, false love and blood lineage has passed on through our ancestors unceasingly.  The only relationship of love that can pass sin through the blood line is a sexual relationship.

Thus, as long as the root of the fall, false love, is not rooted out, it remains.  

Satan is the enemy of love. 

Satan fractured God's dream for an ideal world of love.

The servant forcibly took away the King's daughter and violated her.  Thus, she lost her position as the Lord's daughter.

Thus she had to be driven out of the King's establishment.  This wrongful act was an derailment from the original track of the great principle of heaven and earth.  This fact cannot be denied.

God cannot achieve the original ideal of an ideal world, unless He is able to love the children of evil just as much or even more than His own children.

Satan asserts, "I have fallen and become who I am.  My lineage even revolts against you,. Yet, don't You God have to uphold the way of the heavenly law?"  This is where God is caught.

Satan accuses God further saying, Since You are the substance of truth, love and principles, You cannot change for any reason, although I am fallen, don't you have to practice Your own principles which You established?

"Therefore, as a Being of principle, You cannot bring your children to the original world without loving the fallen angel.  The plans you placed for the archangels before the Fall do not allow Your children to enter the heavenly kingdom unless they and You Yourself love me. Although I fell and caused many calamities, You should love me or else You cannot be the true God and Your son and daughter cannot be true children without loving me."

Return for Tomorrow's Post:  Leave No Condition for Satan's Attack

This post was rewritten and taken from the textbook, Cheon Seong Gyeong Book One True God, chapter 4 section 4

Your Parents Are Your False Parents

No matter how old some people get, they still carry the wounds of the occurrences that happened to them at home where they grew up.

Whether it was because their parents were not there for them, they suffered mental abuse that disabled their minds for life or they were physically abused or watched their parents' evil behavior, the wounds stay fresh all the way into adulthood.

What wrongs a parent does to a child, the damage can be difficult for the survival of a healthy mind to flourish in that environment.

Many abandon God, were not raised with morals, or follow the wrong path that was set forth by their parents.

How can God allow children to grow up in such a way?  There is a reason.

If we look back to the beginning of human history, at the very first parents who carried the life and spirit of God within them, then take a look at their family, there the mystery of the why the world is the way it is today can be answered.

Humanity severing their ties with God in the beginning is the cause of all human suffering.

True Parents is a term that has appeared for the first time.

For God's will to be realized, a world of peace, true parents must come, and reverse the mistakes of fallen parents.

You find True Parents from a position of having thought about it.  This term has never appeared in history and is appearing for the first time.

A revolution does not compare with this fact.  The time that the True Parents live on the earth is a miraculous and great event, unprecedented in history.

The fact that you know the words True Parents and say the word 'true' means they have appeared with the love that surpasses the love of all the billions of parents who have come and passed away until now.

True Parents have been long awaited since the first parents of humankind who had spirit (Bible states that God breathed life into Adam).  Yet, had turned away from God in the Garden of Eden.

True Parents' love cannot come into existence more than once.  They have returned in the Last Days, the Completed Testament Age, and reversed the mistake of the fallen first parents.

They have the name 'true' because they have such a standard.

Their love relationship has the highest standard.

Satan knew that once the price was paid in the course of history through countless people of faith and saints shedding blood, sweat and tears to bring True Parents to the earth, he would be completely defeated.

Satan throughout history has been trying to prevent that time from coming.

Jesus was sent to not just be a true example of a brother and Son, but a True Parent along with his True Family that carried the unfallen blood lineage of God.

Lucifer as the false parent (since Adam and Eve believed in his word instead of God), has tried to prevent this through sacrificing countless people making them pay a price of blood by any means.

Satan has tried to uphold this philosophy through sacrificing believers who tried to uphold this philosophy and follow the path as individuals, family, nation and world.

We should truly recognize how terrible the price in blood was paid by our ancestors who were sacrificed.  Countless brothers and sister who sought only goodness, who dreamed of a world of peace and pursued the way of truth and the path to the True Parents.

The appearance of True Parents is the greatest news in human history.

Where do you have to go to find an Utopian world?  You must go through the realm of family love.  Without reaching that level, you have no place else to go.

The way was opened from which to go back and forth between spirit and the physical world over a bridge of love.  The Principle explains that these two are distinct realms as God created them.  How can we make them one?

This is only possible through true love.  The only way they become one is when humans reach spiritual maturity.  Then, when they embrace, saying, "Oh, you are my partner," true love appears at the center of that couple.

When positively charged love appears in perfection, negatively charged love is bound to appear immediately. When positively charged love comes down to negatively charged love and they engage, they determine the standard of true love. Then it is complete.

When true love appears, everything follows automatically. 

True love is the only element that works for everything.

This is how this world will be converted into an Utopian sphere.

So, where does true love start?

It starts from True Parents.

This is the gospel of all the gospels. Although there are good words and phrases in the world, and husband and wife are good words, there is no news better than the arrival of the True Parents.

A true husband and wife will not appear in the fallen world without True Parents appearing first spreading their message of truth.

They will not just appear in history.  The True Family is the result of experiencing the deepest sorrow of all sorrows, enduring the hardest of all hardships and paying the highest blood and sacrifice of all such payments through the course of history.

This is such a miserable indemnity condition that had to be made in history.  This price was made through people's death throughout the course of history and will be redeemed when the True Family is established.

When they appear on earth, this should be a cause for unparalleled joy and value.  For a true family to come about, there have to be True Parents.

A true husband and wife must emerge at the same time as True Parents.  They become a true couple and must give birth to true children.  These True Parents should have no condition that permits Satan to accuse them or their family.

The Bible states to be careful with your every action because Satan is waiting at the door for you to invite him in.

They should not make a base for Satan to accuse them of behaving in a manner unlike God.  The children born in a true family cannot be the sons and daughters of a true family if they leave behind a condition to be accused by the satanic world.

Nobody in history had thought of the title as True Parents, but you are using the words today.  You are in the glorious position to know their name, attend them and their teachings.  You are in a happier and nobler position than anyone who ever lived in history.

Those who sought True Parents, cried and hoped for their coming offered a tremendous amount of sacrifice and work to lay the foundation for their Victory.

When you consider the history, then you should know that the words portend the greatest blessing for humankind today.

Saints and good people of the world for thousands of years, hoped for the arrival of the parents who could lead us toward a world of peace beginning on the individual level.

History is being brought under control through the True Parents.  They are the starting point of our advancement toward a new world.

Who in history has been able to bring a solution to all of humanity's problems and reverse the cause at its roots?

They lay the conditions that we can use to subjugate Satan.  The central couple can liberate God from His anguish by conquering Satan, who is occupying the external world under the mask of True God.

You should be thankful of the amazing grace to be living together with the True Parents.

Therefore, you should be thankful for this grace while you receive and carry out their instructions.  If there is a way you can align yourself to their path, there should be nothing that makes you happier.

If a soldier marches toward an enemy camp based on True Parents' command, then they are a holy soldier standing on the highest summit of hope desired by humankind.  This will draw history's attention.

If you fight on behalf of the Parents' heart or on behalf of the nation and people, this heart will enable the nation and people to open the gate of the garden of happiness for the first time.

If you are in the position to fight on behalf of True Parents' heart or on behalf of the nation and people, this heart will enable the nation and people to open the gate of the garden of happiness for the first time. 

You are the flag bearers who can revive the violent, sorrowful history and judge the world of death again.

The nation and people of hope who can march in and join in the glory of victory will appear.

The future Secured Through True Parents

The title of True Parent we use is a great one.  The Principle's content is very deep.  It gives meaning and confidence to the future.

We should unite.

You should not become one with you at the center.  Nor should you become one with your family at the center by pulling in True Parents.

You should be pulled by True Parents.

You should not be pulled just by yourself, but take your parents, husband or wife together with you.  Moreover, you should take your children and even your material possessions.  You should become one in this way.

The value of True Parents

There has been many positions in history.  But this is the most valuable one, the position of True Parents.  Parents without any condition for Satan to attack.

It could be likened to a world where fathers were like Jesus and mother's were like Mary giving birth to sinless children.

It is the central point where God's ideal world is realized.

All the saints have fought for that foundation.  God and all the spirits in spirit world consider it important.  So, should we also understand its importance.

The point before the fall, heaven on earth cannot be exchanged even for thousands of pieces of land.  It cannot be exchanged for a diamond as wide as a stretch of land.  You would not be able to buy it even if you offered the United States to God as a sacrificial offering.

How miserable humanity has been for not being able to see it.  God, spirits and all people must be focused on this.  To look at history from this point of view, there has not be any true history that connects with this.

True Parents, is the place before the Fall, before the birth of sin.

There can be no fall in history after it has been restored.

We should be happy that a new beginning starts from this point.

From here, the center of everything, the substance of everything and the result of everything will begin from here.  Those who participate in this will be the first winners on earth.

We start forming a family that is fully centered on God's love.

We can defeat the sovereignty of Satan and build a new, heavenly kingdom on earth.  Moreover, the fruits of history will emerge from this point.  The accumulation of sacrifices and shedding of blood for God's sake will finally be harvested.

It is the start point of the future; the center point of the entire world.

The culmination of the past history will occur, the fulfillment of present history will be preserved and the completion of the future world of peace will begin.

If you take in this point, this place, you will be the conqueror of everything.

How great is the value after knowing this?

This place has to be the highest place in history.  You will love, praise and respect it and come to like it.

All the great people who ever existed in history cannot compare with this.  When you see it, you will surely be deeply moved by joy.

Every time you think of such an original place as this this position, you will have the feeling of dancing in a dream while you were asleep.

You will be able to dance even during your sleep.  Your heart should be drawn to this pure place more than any other places, your life or anything else.  You should want to see it, touch it and feel that you cannot live without it.

Adam turned reality into a non-reality by saying, "Yes" to something that God said "No" to.

For this reason, without acknowledging a current non-reality(world peace) as a reality again, it will not be possible to regain the original standard.

If one physically resolve all problems on their road to become True Parents they brighten heaven and earth, and resolves the complex issues of history and remove the nail embedded in God's heart.  

When true love is liberated, results in rejoicing, dancing, and laughing while embracing and loving these sons and daughters.

Great shouts of victory will rise up from every being.  They experience tremendous joy throughout all of creation and heaven and earth.

Within the ideal of creation, there is a heart that cannot be expressed in words.  We each should realize this heart on the road to perfecting himself and bring the devil to surrender.

Adam should be the sovereign of liberation.  True Adam is the ruler of all nations, the master of salvation, and the one who can be the first son among all brothers and sisters.

We should be grateful

What is the best way to offer our gratitude to God and True Parents?  To our church? How do we show gratitude for being created?

After the process I have been through, a true family will appear. At the next stage, a true tribe will appear, and at the next stage, a true nation, then a true world, a true universe, and a true cosmos; at the next stage up, God appears. 

This is our final goal.

Humankind for countless of generations received Satan's blood lineage after the fall.  This is the problem.  Instead of receiving God's lineage, humankind received Satan's blood lineage filled with sin.

How can we eliminate this satanic lineage?

How do we eliminate the dirty lineage Adam and Eve inherited from the Fall?

True Parents come to our age with true love, true life and God's true blood lineage in order to eliminate the Fall through using those in Satan's lineage, they have been raising up.

In this new age, the body will mature based on God's love, life and lineage.  It will use true love as fertilizer.  One side will disappear and the other prospers.  At that point, God is present and Satan is separated away forever.  This is a time for rejoicing.

No one knows the pain that is in God's heart.

Through the True Parent revelation, we have come to know the sorrow of God's heart due to His being separate from His children.  Otherwise, we would not know it.

This is truly amazing affirmation that even Jesus did not know.  Even if he did know it, he was not able to relay exactly what was in his heart due to the disciples not able to understand his most basic teachings.

There also has never been any religious leader who could understand this hidden secret of the universe.

I have come here before the world to reveal the secrets of the universe for the first time in history. From now on, we should turn our direction from the individual foundation to the national foundation. 

If the leader of a nation repents of his past wrongdoings, God forgives him.

This is part of God's new tradition and signals a new lineage.  Otherwise, there is no way we can separate from Satan.

This also signifies the changing from the sinful lineage humanity inherited to a new lineage directly connected to God that takes place in the Unification Church through the Marriage Blessing Ceremony given by True Parents.

For the first time, humanity can have a true marriage tying their family to God's blood lineage.

Humanity had connected to a dirty blood lineage and things in the satanic world because of the Fall.  Now we can be connected to God's true love, life and lineage horizontally.

This is a complete 180 degree conversion.

The hope we seek is not in America or this world because they are connected to the satanic side.

All the people of the world have followed the most wickedest of parents on the satanic side since the beginning.

Now for the first time, that direction has been completely turned around. 

We are at zero point.

Now we are in the place where there is no meaning, no concept, no tradition and no culture.  This is re-creation.

When God first created man by combining soil, water and air, humans did not have any fixed concepts.  It was zero point.

Today, we are turned completely around from the satanic tradition and are becoming completely reborn.

This means to be born again in the truest sense, not just spiritually, but physically.

The first to accomplish getting rid of the satanic bloodline are the parents on the individual level, not the nation first.  Brothers and sisters are next.  Husband and wife are third and the children are fourth.

God wants three generations, but has never had them before this time.

The first generation is God, the second generation is Adam and Eve, yet God never had the third generation before this time.  Humankind has not multiplied under God, but has belonged to Satan who is an enemy of love.

How can we eliminate this fallen lineage?

To recognize the new world of peace which the world is headed, you must recognize that you are not born American or Japanese, but as one of God's people.

Return for Tomorrow's Post:

Chapter 6 True Parents and Us from the book Cheon Seong Gyeong Book Two