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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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Trigger warning - this is related to pornographic material

Lily Philips is an onlyfans model who slept with 100 guys in a single day. She is from the UK and does not have the background of a typical pornstar from the looks of it. Popular Youtube video maker Joshua Pieters made a documentary around it with her in it where at one point she just cracks where she gets a hint of what she just did, in trying to sleep with more guys than most friend circles do in a few lifetimes all for the sake of being edgy.

The clip has gained traction and I feel bad about the girl. Some Christian women are asking for her to be forgiven and taken back under gods grace whilst the Tate Brothers asked their followers to go undercover in her gangbang and literally preach the gospel to a cum infested e celeb. Hell this is the first time I have seen either of them show regret for having ran an onlyfans studio.

Lily and her friends have done similar things before but I cannot find any of it since any mention of her name brings up thousands of links about what she did this week. How do you even describe what she did given that she wants to do a 1000 in a day despite breaking down on camera? The cherry on this cake is that she can get married to a fairly normal guy tomorrow because Riley Reid, another adult entertainer did this too.

edit - removed a question about religiosity, since I think it came off in bad faith which is not my intent at all as a religous person

Do religious people actually genuinely believe that those who willingly perform such stunts are capable of having all their sins washed away?

I'm copying this from other comments because you removed it. I don't think this was in bad faith at all, it's a very good question.

And yes. But the form of Christianity I believe in also holds that, while God forgives all things because of genuine repentance, he doesn't remove the natural consequences of sin, and he doesn't remove the requirement for intense, even painful, spiritual growth and purification after partaking in sin. In this sense, yes, some sins are worse than others, and more sins are worse than fewer sins.

The closest person to Lily in the Christian tradition is probably St. Mary of Egypt, who was a prostitute who often refused payment for her services because she just loved sex, and even went on a pilgrimage to try and bang pilgrims. According to the hagiography, she tried to enter a church and could not, and was struck with remorse, pledging to become an aescetic if God would forgive her. After receiving absolution, she fled into the desert and lived as a hermit.

I don't see it in your comment -- did this woman repent? Did she publicly say that she's ashamed of her actions and she believes God has given her grace to overcome them? Has she been baptized? If not, will she?

If yes, my response to her is the same as to Russell Brand: I trust in God to judge you spiritually, but to earn my temporal respect you must prove your amendment over a long period of time, and that starts with shutting up.

Stop trying to be a celebrity. Don't go on shows to talk about how great your conversion is and how much of a degenerate you were and how much of a good Christian you are now -- just stop. Go into the desert. Become an aescetic. For someone whose sins are so public and attention-seeking, repentance must inevitably involve privacy and humility. And that path may be painful, involving great sacrifice -- it may indeed include religious vows someday. But no one said the Christian life was easy, least of all the man nailed to the cross.

When St. Paul became a Christian, he did not immediately set out to preach to the world, but fled to Arabia for three years. If your goal is truly to make yourself right with God, and not to win the favor of men, you should treasure this opportunity as a pearl of great price. Christianity is not a get-out-of-consequences-free-card, but the Way that leads to life.

But if your goal is merely to resurrect your temporal reputation and not to resurrect your soul, then you will be numbered among the goats and there can be no redemption for you.

Are Christians morally obligated to forgive someone if God has forgiven them? Like, let's say this woman appears to convert to Christianity and repent meaningfully and by all appearances it seems 100% genuine. Am I supposed to treat her like she's a completely fresh, clean bowl of cheerios? Would it be wrong of me to refuse to marry/date her because of her past?

Would you marry/date a bowl of corn flakes? Or fruit loops, I don't mean to assume.

It would be wrong of you, according to the Christianity I was raised with, to insist upon that decision even in the face of genuine remorse. If you got to know this woman and had long deeply spiritual conversations with her and came to the conclusion that she was genuinely sorry for it and still refused to date her for that reason, that would not be Christian.

But like @urquan says, only God can truly judge you, because only God and you know what is truly in your heart. On top of that, no one will be judged before judgement day and no one knows when that will be. In our predicament we can only evaluate the evidence - has she stopped doing it, does she visibly feel bad about it, and so on. It would be acceptable if you didn't believe she was truly sorry after getting to know her, although it would still be necessary to be polite to her.

To roll in what @mrvanillasky asked about the guy nuking the planet and then repenting, yes God would forgive that guy, because he would know that guy was legit, because he can see his thoughts and because it was part of his plan. The idea of nuking the planet and then being truly remorseful about it seems strictly impossible to me though - how do you even conceptualise the death and suffering of 10 billion people?

It would be wrong of you, according to the Christianity I was raised with, to insist upon that decision even in the face of genuine remorse. If you got to know this woman and had long deeply spiritual conversations with her and came to the conclusion that she was genuinely sorry for it and still refused to date her for that reason, that would not be Christian.

Repentance is not the same as healing. If she's so psychologically scarred that she'll never be able to function as a wife there's no reason I'd consider marrying her in the first place, whether she's 'really' sorry or not. We're not expected to marry a woman unless she occurs to us as good to marry. There are many reasons that someone with her history is less likely to be a good wife.

whether she's 'really' sorry or not.

Can I ask what you mean by quoting really there? Because I'll tell you what I assume - you don't believe she's really sorry* and there actually isn't anything short of the clouds opening up and a ray of sunshine beaming "no dude she is totes for real" into your head that would change your mind. It is that thought pattern that is unchristian as I understand the faith. I didn't say you were expected to marry her, I said if you maintained the belief that she was a soiled bowl of cheerios you point blank refuse to date after getting to know her and embracing the concept of forgiveness you would be in the wrong.

One of the first steps in embracing the concept of forgiveness is accepting how much of a fuck up you are. It changes your worldview, as does getting to know someone, especially on a spiritual level. Still, only God can judge, if after all those deep and meaningfuls and tears and sleepless nights you still believed she wasn't really remorseful, it would be acceptable to refuse to date her. (But I would bet some people in your community would believe you didn't 'really' forgive her.)

Deciding up front that a woman is a roastie who could never truly accept Jesus because she's banged too many dudes you see, is a similar sin to banging a hundred dudes then saying sorry because then you have to be forgiven. You are trying to put one over on God. God doesn't expect you to get everything right, or even anything right, but he expects you to try and to think it through.

*For clarity, I don't think this Lily is genuinely remorseful, it sounds like she's getting ready to bang another thousand guys? She would have a very high bar to vault to convince me she was sincere. I would talk to her and give her a chance to change my mind though.

Can I ask what you mean by quoting really there? Because I'll tell you what I assume - you don't believe she's really sorry* and there actually isn't anything short of the clouds opening up and a ray of sunshine beaming "no dude she is totes for real" into your head that would change your mind. It is that thought pattern that is unchristian as I understand the faith.

I mean there's a solid chance she's not really sorry, yes. This is how people work. Hopefully we both understand this? Seems like you do.

But the part where you've apparently randomly concluded that I've already decided she's lying and it would be nearly impossible to change my mind is kind of crazy. No idea where you're getting that.

Yes I understand how people work. That's why, when someone angrily implies I'm being a naive simp for suggesting forgiving this woman to the point that you can view her as another person deserving of love, reads an obligation to marry her in a post that explicitly says the opposite and adds a pre-arranged excuse to get him out of viewing her as marriage material, I assume he has already made up his mind.

Maybe you just meant to signal your strong disbelief currently and you would be happy to marry her if you got to know her and discovered she wasn't too psychologically scarred? I apologise if that is the case. Where would you get married? How many kids would you have together and what would you name the first one if it was a girl?

You know, rather than respond point by point I'll just let you know that I wasn't angry in the slightest, but it's also true that I'm not interested in the conversation any more.

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