Insight on the News
“Swinging” Life-Style Not Satisfying
● In recent years, the “swinging” life-style has been publicized as a desirable and happy life. It promises adventure, excitement and freedom from responsibility. A main feature of this way of life is searching out a partner for sexual relations, usually for only one night.
However, psychiatrists report that many who live this way are now coming to them as patients, having serious mental and emotional problems. The “Times Herald” of Newport News, Virginia, observes: “Many in this group . . . are unhappy. Their romantic or sexual fantasies are not being fulfilled. Without any plans for getting better acquainted or seeing the partner again, they begin looking on themselves as promiscuous. . . . The result is regret, disgust and frustration over the non-satisfying and unfulfilling nature of their lifestyle.”
Many go from physician to physician because of the fear of venereal disease. Also, many syphilophobes are being found among the “swingers.” These are people who have a psychopathic dread of venereal disease. Especially is this the case among many married ones who have this morbid fear of passing on venereal disease to their wives or offspring.
This life-style was aptly described in the Bible, where one immoral person says to another: “Do come, let us drink our fill of love until the morning.” But those who engaged in immoral relations, the account further says, are “like a bull that comes even to the slaughter, . . . until an arrow cleaves open his liver, just as a bird hastens into the trap, and he has not known that it involves his very soul.” (Prov. 7:18-23) The very soul, or life, is involved because “God will judge fornicators and adulterers.”—Heb. 13:4.
‘No Stone Left’
● Archaeologists have probed down to the bedrock foundations of the “wailing wall” in old Jerusalem. They have confirmed that the large stones of the wall are not part of any temple that was standing there before Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 C.E.
Some people have had the impression that the remnants of the wall are from Solomon’s temple, or from Herod’s temple. But as an Israeli archaeologist stated recently: “The wall you see is not the wall of Solomon’s Temple, . . . Nor is it even the wall of the temple built by Herod the Great,” which was the temple destroyed in 70 C.E.
What was this wall that is now called the “wailing wall”? The archaeologist stated: “When Herod decided to build the temple, he leveled off a site twice as large as the Acropolis—500 by 260 yards [457 by 237 meters]—bolstered by huge retaining walls. And the Western Wall [the “wailing wall”] is that retaining wall.”
In his prophecy about Herod’s temple, Jesus said to his followers: “Truly I say to you, By no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:2) Archaeology confirms the truth of his prophetic words.
Detestable Child Sacrifices
● In Brazil, eight children were murdered in a ritual drowning. They belonged to members of a sect called the Universal Assembly of the Saints. On the fatal night the group marched to the seashore carrying their sleeping children. One by one the children were thrown into the sea by the sect’s leader.
Those involved were arrested. But they attributed the drownings to God. At a meeting where they ‘spoke in tongues,’ the sect’s leader said that he had been given a “divine command” by God to kill the children.
Was this the will of God? Of a similar practice in ancient times, God says: “They built the high places of the Baal in order to burn their sons in the fire as whole burnt offerings to the Baal, something that I had not commanded or spoken of, and that had not come up into my heart.” God speaks of this practice as a “detestable thing.”—Jer. 19:5; 32:35.
The Brazilian child sacrifice could not have been from God since it is completely contrary to his love and his command against murder. From where could such an anti-God “command” come? It is obviously of demonic origin, for “Satan himself keeps transforming himself into an angel of light.”—2 Cor. 11:14.