The Lure of Babylon the Great
In light of recent events, with the website entity known as Pornhub shutting down their servers in Texas as to avoid compliance with Texas Law H.B. 1181. There have been many comments on the world wide web both in support of the Texas Law and against it. Especially with the statement released by Pornhub on their website strongly against Texas and the stance that the Texas Legislature has taken in the fight against the pornography industry. In Pornhub’s statement, they have written that because of the law passed in Texas that not only is the age verification ineffective, but it limits Pornhub’s ability to distribute “safe adult content” to minors and drive them to other websites that are “unsafe.” Reading comments online from news articles and social media posts about this so-called restriction to porn, majority of people seem to glance over the fact the Pornhub states they are providing minors with sexual content and seem to be ok with that and looking over the fact of the oxymoron of “safe adult content for minors.” Which begs the question, is porn safe? Not just for minors but for anyone? In this article, let us investigate what the Bible describes porn, the neurological effect porn has on an individual, and the spirit of Babylon the Great.
As a Christian myself it is easy to say why watching and looking at porn is bad and wrong. One, it objectifies woman in a heinous way. Two, it is a gross perversion of what God created sex to be. Three, it perverts a person’s idea of what a healthy relationship should be. Despite pornography being a moral argument, what does it do to an individual’s brain? Addictions themselves, whether it be a drug addiction, alcohol, or tabaco, all addictions negatively affect the brain and produce measurable anatomical, chemical, and pathological changes to the brain. The biggest change that happens in the brain is pornography damages the frontal lobe. The front lobe is responsible for motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgement, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior. Damage to the frontal lobe causes changes in personality, concentration, impulse behavior, and many other symptoms. Meaning porn can cause decrease in ability to think, ability to remember, and impairs good judgment making. Frequent viewing of porn can also make one more irritable, increases in anger, and increase in social anxiety. These are all symptoms that happen to oneself. But like all addictions, it also affects others around you especially those you are in relationships with. Pornography dulls your senses to dopamine, the feel-good chemical, or the reward center of your brain. What this does is it makes it difficult for an individual to feel rewarded by anything else, including, if you are married, sexual gratification from your partner. So that prize or promotion you are fighting so hard for will feel dull and empty compared to the rush you get from viewing pornography.
There are many more negative effects that porn has neurologically but let us examine what the Bible has to say.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
All relationships should be between man and woman only. Ephesians 5 talks about how a man should love and treat his wife and how a woman should honor and respect her husband. There should be no outside influence of any kind in a marriage or relationship. In Revelations, the Apostle John writes about the spirit of Babylon the Great, or the spirit of porneia. Which the spirit of porneia has made the world drink from her maddening wine of sexual immorality (Revelations 14:8) and the kings of the earth have fornicated with her, and the people of earth are drunk on her wine of prostitution (Revelations 17:2). Even as the world is drunk on her wine, the spirit of Babylon the Great becomes drunk on the blood of God’s holy believers. It is my interpretation that we as Christians, if we are stuck in the addiction of pornography; not only do we drink from the wine of the spirit, that same spirit becomes drunk off our blood that we offer to her when we participate. It becomes increasingly harder for us to let go of that addiction because the more we dive in, the more we give to that spirit who needs more of our blood.
Even if you are not “spiritual” or “religious,” pornography is something you should put at a distance with a thirty-foot pole. Out of all the temptations in the Bible, sexual temptation is the only one where it is written that we should flee from (1 Corinthians 6:18). It affects us spiritually, physically, and mentally. Nothing good can come from porn, and to say that there is “safe porn” is delusional. The world is out to get the innocence and purity of our children. The best way to protect them—in my opinion—is to watch and monitor what they see and watch and keep them away from pornography but to also teach them what the Bible tells us about sex that it is something sacred and beautiful. An ultimate expression of love that God has created for us, and the world tries to pervert into something that takes away that beauty. We should not be ashamed of what God has given to us, for if we fall in our duties to teach what God has made; the world will take our place and teach its perversion in our place. It is time that we take a stand against the spirit of Babylon the Great because this battle is not about politics or morals or right and left but a spiritual battle for the blood of the believers and for the purity of our children