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Question I
Why has Christianity rejected many expressions of sexuality as antithetical to spirituality while various Eastern traditions Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism have been more accepting of sexuality, have even embraced sex as a vehicle for spiritual transcendence? What do you think about the connection, if any, between sexuality and spirituality? In the Christian view, is Shakespeare's mortal coil, Milton's perfidious bark, just a weight holding us down, preventing us from achieving greater divinity, or is the body, as Blake explains, a portion of the soul discerned by the five senses?



Thomas Moore

I think the union of sex and spirit happens when we raise sex to a higher level by thinking of it in less moralistic and less physical terms and when we stop thinking of spirit as something in the air or on another planet. Each has to turn toward the other, with sex taking on some sublimity, spirit taking on some flesh. I think one of the most spiritual things a person can do is generously and artfully make love to a partner. There is no need to spiritualize that with bloated spiritual language or borrowed religious traditions. Sex itself is the holy ritual. It only asks that we do it with heart and soul.

Moore responds to Paglia, Francoeur and Kissling
Introduction

Question I
Camille Paglia
Thomas Moore
Elaine Pagels
Robert Francoeur
Frances Kissling

Question II
Camille Paglia
Thomas Moore
Elaine Pagels
Robert Francoeur
Frances Kissling

Question III
Camille Paglia
Thomas Moore
Elaine Pagels
Robert Francoeur
Frances Kissling

Question IV
Camille Paglia
Thomas Moore
Elaine Pagels
Robert Francoeur
Frances Kissling

Question V
Camille Paglia
Thomas Moore
Elaine Pagels
Robert Francoeur
Frances Kissling


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