Can it be a sin to read murder novels?

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neisan

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Now I have never understood this.If I am reading a novel about a detective trying to find the culprit of grisly murders and they are put in great detail,is it a sin?Is the author a sinner for writing it,even though he does not condone killing.Or is the reader the sinner for enjoying the story?
 
No, no it’s not, unless you’re reading it because reading about corpses, murders, blood and dead people gets your jollies off. In which case, you need help. But chances are you’re enjoying an enthralling and thrilling story about human nature, twisted as it can be.

Check out decentfilm.com’s about page. It speaks about fiction such as this in a very enlightening way.
 
neisan said:
Now I have never understood this.If I am reading a novel about a detective trying to find the culprit of grisly murders and they are put in great detail,is it a sin?Is the author a sinner for writing it,even though he does not condone killing.Or is the reader the sinner for enjoying the story?
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No, it is not a sin. In fact it is probably quite virtuous because as a famous detective novelist (I think it was Dorothy L. Sayers) observed, crime fiction is based on the fact that Your Sin Will Find You Out.:cool:
 
That’s a good point as well! Fiction can help show us, in relateable ways, just what happens when we sin. One of my favorite genres is True Crime, and biographies of infamous seriel killers, and studying the effect their deeds had on their conscience, their psyches, and those around them. It can help solidify many church teachings. Even in cases where it is the protagonist who falls victim to sin in such a way, very often they pay for their deeds later on.
 
neisan said:
Now I have never understood this.If I am reading a novel about a detective trying to find the culprit of grisly murders and they are put in great detail,is it a sin?Is the author a sinner for writing it,even though he does not condone killing.Or is the reader the sinner for enjoying the story?
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for most normal adults, no, but for someone who does have a problem getting unduly excited or stirred up to sinful thoughts by such books, yes it would be wrong to read them. As a whole, most murder mysteries are among the most moralistic books you will find as they depict a battle between good and evil and those issues are implicit if not stated, there is a strong sense of sin and just punishment, and in many of the best, a clear sense of human failing that we would call original sin, and the possibility of redemption. Like details about sex, in any artistic work the detail should be enough to evoke the scene and reality described, without going overboard.

And they way it is presented could also be problematic. Just as most news media don’t allow graphic pictures of violence, but the medical or forensic report would of course have to have all the gory details. again unless the writer is unbalanced, or using the extraneous detail to titillate or shock beyond the needs of story-telling, it could be problematic, but not objectively sinful.
 
shondrea said:
No, no it’s not, unless you’re reading it because reading about corpses, murders, blood and dead people gets your jollies off. In which case, you need help. But chances are you’re enjoying an enthralling and thrilling story about human nature, twisted as it can be.

Check out decentfilm.com’s about page. It speaks about fiction such as this in a very enlightening way.
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I’d say even if he enjoys reading about corpses and murders it’s still not a sin, albeit something to be concerned about as a person.
 
flyingfish said:
I’d say even if he enjoys reading about corpses and murders it’s still not a sin, albeit something to be concerned about as a person.
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I can agree there. Our emotions aren’t sinful, But if the enjoyment one would GTE out of such descriptions would compel them to act in a displeasing manner…

My basic answer is, fiction in and of itself is not a sin. But it can, for some, be a near occasion of sin, a temptation
 
shondrea said:
I can agree there. Our emotions aren’t sinful, But if the enjoyment one would GTE out of such descriptions would compel them to act in a displeasing manner…

My basic answer is, fiction in and of itself is not a sin. But it can, for some, be a near occasion of sin, a temptation
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The OP sounds like a scrupulous person to me. Would it ever occur to a normal person that reading murder mysteries might be sinful?

I don’t agree that if reading detective novels caused someone to act in a displeasing manner that it would be sinful. What is meant by “displeasing manner”? Remember, mortal sins are grave sins, “displeasing manner” does not make for a mortal sin.
 
flyingfish said:
The OP sounds like a scrupulous person to me. Would it ever occur to a normal person that reading murder mysteries might be sinful?

I don’t agree that if reading detective novels caused someone to act in a displeasing manner that it would be sinful. What is meant by “displeasing manner”? Remember, mortal sins are grave sins, “displeasing manner” does not make for a mortal sin.
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Eh, are you sure? I’ve seen at least 3 people on these forums claiming that reading secular fiction, ever, is a sin. You’d be surprised what people beleieve.

ANYway, sorry, I have a hard time expressing what I’m trying to say. What I mean is, to some people, fiction of some kinds can be a trigger. It’s a stretch, of course, but let’s say you have a teenage boy picking up a detective story that contains some sexually suggestive material. For most people. the vague references would not mean anything, and they could pass them by. A teenage boy. however, may not be able to pass them up so easily.

Don’t get me wrong; I ain’t trying to say that fiction makes people sin, not at all. I’m an avid reader myself. But I do aknowledge that there are some books I should leave alone, because they could trigger certain vices for me.
 
shondrea said:
Eh, are you sure? I’ve seen at least 3 people on these forums claiming that reading secular fiction, ever, is a sin. You’d be surprised what people beleieve.
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There are a lot of scrupulous people on this form who will ask questions about whether completely neutral things are sinful. Scrupulosity is pretty much OCD expressing itself through a person’s religious beliefs.
ANYway, sorry, I have a hard time expressing what I’m trying to say. What I mean is, to some people, fiction of some kinds can be a trigger. It’s a stretch, of course, but let’s say you have a teenage boy picking up a detective story that contains some sexually suggestive material. For most people. the vague references would not mean anything, and they could pass them by. A teenage boy. however, may not be able to pass them up so easily.
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In the context of Catholicism, sexually charged material is different. Thinking lustful thoughts is a sin according to the Church (though as far as I understand it’s a venial sin). I don’t know if you can make the same parallel to thinking about corpses. It’s definitely weird, but I don’t think the Church would say it’s sinful.

It might be sinful to fantasize about murdering an actual person (though I would think it would be venially sinful, unless you’re actually seriously planning to harm them), but I don’t think it would be sinful to just thinking about murder or enjoying plots with murders or thinking about bloody corpses or whatever. Definitely weird, at least from my perspective (I’m female), but I just don’t see the sinfulness in it.

Maybe if reading detective stories was making you feel this uncontrollable urge to kill real people and you acted on it I could see your point, but in such a case I don’t think you could blame detective stories but rather something inside the person who is behaving this way.

So many human stories are about war, conflict, strife, murder etc. If those kinds of things were sinful, you’d have to destroy a very large amount of human fiction.
 
I agree with you, I hope you aren’t misunderstanding me. I don’t believe a novel can compel you to sin unless you’re predisposed in some way to a particular vice. I know we’re talking about murder novels but I’m speaking more in general. I doubt there are many people who will be tempted to kill someone after watching an episode of CSI, afterall. The only other thing that one has to watch out for when reading or watching television is if the reading is swaying you in a direction contradictory to church teachings, but again, this is rare, and is usually only a problem for people who are spiritually weak in the first place.

So really, most fiction is perfectly safe for most people. There’s no sin in enjoying secular fiction, even when it depicts horrible sin or questionable morality, and I never said there was. My favorite series right now is about a fictional world war, involving genocide, mass execution, mind control, and a LOT of using sin as means to a just end, things very contradictory to church teachings. But viewing and enjoying something isn’t a sin, even when it’s depicting sin. And most people won’t find most fiction even an OCCASION of sin, and those who do, it’s usually along the lines of sexually provocative content, not corpses or war

I’m just regurgiating church stance, my friend, not necessarily my own opinion. My own opinion is pretty much, if it ain’t porn, go for it. You know what you can and can’t handle.
 
We become what we gaze upon. We become what we fill our minds, hearts, and souls with.

I used to read “grizzly” detective stories, and watch some CSI/Criminal Minds types of shows, which seem innocent enough because certainly, they’re not pornographic. Then I realized that, although clearly I’m repulsed by the idea of murder, I was using precious time given to me here on earth to fill my mind and heart with trash, and these awful images had stolen an element of purity away from me.

I think we need to be really careful about what we let into our hearts.

No, watching CSI or reading grizzly novels won’t turn normal people into murderers. Watching daytime talk shows where people physically abuse each other and reveal the results of paternity tests on national television also won’t turn most people into raving lunatics ready to line up and act like fools on national television, either.

But really, is this what we want to fill our minds with? Are we that committed to just doing the minimum–staying away from things that are blatantly lustful and pornographic–or are we striving to be saints, with pure hearts and minds?

My priest often says, and maybe he’s quoting here, that each of us has both a wolf and an eagle inside of us. The wolf represents our selfish, sinful tendencies and the eagle our goodness. Which one will reign? Which one will we become? The one that we feed.

FIlling our minds with trash feeds the wolf. Let’s strive for perfection, let’s feed our eagles.
 
Just because one person sees it as nothing more than rotting trash doesn’t mean someone ELSE can’t get a veyr moving and powerful moral out of the story. No two peoplewill read a book and leave it with the same emotional response.
 
Yes, typical murder mysteries portray the evil one as the villain, and end with a triumph of good over evil. Great. I still feel, though, that deriving our entertainment by watching and reading about other people’s mortal sin is probably not the best use of our time.

Take, for instance, a how like CSI or criminal minds. How many “powerful and moving morals” are we deriving from these weekly iterations of sick, twisted, violent, evil murder? And if we somehow manage to learn some great life lesson, does the benefit to our immortal souls outweigh the damage done by the constant stream of all of that evil?

How much will we all rationalize before we just accept that some worldly pleasures just aren’t worth it?

Our culture is already filled with so much evil, subtle and outright, it takes a deliberate effort to counteract that. One of the best ways to do that is to try to keep my mind and heart as pure as possible, reading he lives of the Saints, etc.

Yes sometimes I watch a show that contains violence or a prime time TV show with some really borderline offensive, inappropriate content.

I’ve found, though, that I don’t emerge from these experiences any closer to God no matter how I rationalize it.

But that’s just me.
 
Yes, that’s you. Everyone processes something different. I’m a psychology buff. I like true crime novels for that reason. I like knowing why people do the things they do. What happened in their past to compel them to do what they have. Are they sick? Sociopathic? Do they realize what they’ve done? Do they have enough mental processeing to feel guilt? Can they be rehabilitated? Will they feel remorse after? I may not come out of it closer to God, but closer to understanding this child of his, and what went wrong.

Keep reading about saints. That’s all well and good for you. I’d rather not, thanks.

For the record, I wouldn’t know if someone could leave CSI with a moral. I’ve never seen it.
 
BTW, I don’t know about you, But I’m definitely not entertained by mortal sin. What I’m entertained by is people, going through the repercussions of said sin. Love the sinner hate the sin applies to novels too.
 
Yes, I also used to be into true crime, but the deeper I went into my relationship with the Lord, the more I realized that as humans we tend to internalize a lot of that evil, in one way or another.

Sorry you’re so adamantly opposed to reading about a Saint. I do pray that, with time, you might change your mind on that.

This is me, speaking from experience. Once you start rooting out evil influences from your life, purify your surroundings, purify what goes into your mind and heart, you’ll be surprised at how much closer you can feel to God, you receive the grace to overcome sins you never thought you could conquer. You obtain a certain peace.
 
And I don’t feel very close to God and a deep peace in my faith because I read true crime? Just because you were affected adversely doesn’t mean the entire world has. I have “rooted out evil” form my life. You’d be surprised at the sheer amount I weeded out of my shelves, computer, life. But I’m sorry I don’t see a good murder mystery as one of those evils.

I can eat a delicious rib dinner and leave all the grisle on the plate, not to be touched.
 
I certainly didn’t mean to imply that you don’t have a deep relationship with God or peace in your life. My statement was intended to be a very general one.

Sorry I’ve made you so angry.

Good luck and God bless.
 
You haven’t made me angry, I’m just cranky XD Up waaay too late, up too early, ya know.

Sorry for coming across as angry.
 
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