Catholic sins that do not break the golden rule

[jmcrae]

By the explanation that it takes time away from helping others…so does basically anything. Sleeping takes time away from helping others.

Sleeping meets a legitimate human need; it’s not “a waste of time” if you’re tired and you need to sleep.

Most people could probably function just fine on 6 hours of sleep…those extra two you might try to sneak in MUST be sinful because you aren’t helping others.

Different people have different needs for sleep, depending on age and metabolism. And yes,it would be the sin of sloth to remain in bed if you didn’t need to sleep.

As for masturbation being disgusting and homosexuality being a violation of the human body, those are only opinions. It is completely subjective.

I don’t think there is a single culture on earth that sees masturbation as “a beautiful thing,” even those that eat things that I would not consider to be food, and even those that make art and music that seems discordant, according to the aesthetic values that I’ve been taught.

Medical professionals who work with homosexual clients tell some pretty wild horror stories about the damages done to the human body by “normal” homosexual practices. The “puzzle pieces” simply do not “fit together” and there is a lot of damage done in forcing them to go where they aren’t supposed to go.

 

[flyingfish]

I am going to list a bunch of things that are “grave matters” according to the church that do not break the golden rule. Please add to them if you would like.

Homosexual actions
Masturbation
Condom use
Any ceremonial obligation (confession, eucharist, etc)

Remarriage after being abandoned by spouse, or after a mutual agreement to separate.

 

[jmcrae]

I use my own logic, reason, and the good heart that God gave me to determine my morality.

Do you also invent your own fire and wheel, or do you use the ones that society (authority) has provided for you?

 

[alongexpected]

I am going to list a bunch of things that are “grave matters” according to the church that do not break the golden rule. Please add to them if you would like.

Homosexual actions
Masturbation
Condom use
Any ceremonial obligation (confession, eucharist, etc)

So, if these things do not go against the greatest commandment, why are they grave matters?

They probably aren’t grave matters, or at least they shouldn’t be. If God does exist, I’m not It, so I can’t tell you for sure. But I do know that masturbation hurts no one. NO ONE. Stop giving me cloud talk about how it separates you from God and all that. You don’t know that. Why do you think that?

 

[hellopeople]

They probably aren’t grave matters, or at least they shouldn’t be. If God does exist, I’m not It, so I can’t tell you for sure. But I do know that masturbation hurts no one. NO ONE. Stop giving me cloud talk about how it separates you from God and all that. You don’t know that. Why do you think that?

All of those are grave matters. Go into any thread about masturbation and the first reply will likely state this fact.

 

[hellopeople]

Do you also invent your own fire and wheel, or do you use the ones that society (authority) has provided for you?

I don’t completely make up my morals. It definitely has basis in Christianity as well as other religious and secular moral systems. But I refuse to believe that using a condom is bad…and it certainly not is worse than putting someone down or making someone feel badly.

 

[jmcrae]

I don’t completely make up my morals. It definitely has basis in Christianity as well as other religious and secular moral systems. But I refuse to believe that using a condom is bad…and it certainly not is worse than putting someone down or making someone feel badly.

What makes you think that putting someone down or making someone feel bad would not be serious sins?

 

[hellopeople]

What makes you think that putting someone down or making someone feel bad would not be serious sins?

From everything I have read on here I was lead to believe that using condoms were a grave matter while putting someone down was not.

 

[jmcrae]

From everything I have read on here I was lead to believe that using condoms were a grave matter while putting someone down was not.

Putting people down (verbal harassment) is definitely grave matter. You can’t go around making fun of other people, and then expect to go to Heaven.

 

[EmeraldWings]

I haven’t read any Catholic books. I did go to a Catholic grammar school and high school though.

i see…ok then that explains everything…
i think the problem here is, not that you don’t understand or agree with the church on all these things, but simply that you have not even gone and put the effort into understanding these things from an intelligent enough source(such as Saint Thomas Aquinas or Saint Francis De Sales) who will present this information to you in an understandable and reasonable way so you can begin to know what the church is and what it teaches and why we believe what we do.

i can suggest many good books to start off with if you are interested, even books you can read right online, such as these -
goodcatholicbooks.org/pdf/Imitation-of-Christ.pdf
goodcatholicbooks.org/pdf/catherine-dialog.pdf
2heartsnetwork.org/Uniformity.with.Gods.Will-St.Alphonsus.de.Ligouri.pdf
2heartsnetwork.org/Uniformity.with.Gods.Will-St.Alphonsus.de.Ligouri.pdf
2heartsnetwork.org/On.Christian.Doctrine-St.Augustine.pdf
2heartsnetwork.org/The.Way.of.Perfection-St.Theresa.pdf

the problem is, you are talking here on a forum where you keep getting many peoples different opinions and explanations and it just ends up being either confusing or misunderstood,
to understand the catholic faith you need to be instructed either from someone whose job it is to instruct in the faith, or from well known sources who’s life work it was to teach the faith(such as the saints) but it’s always good to have a teacher or spiritual director who can be there for you whenever you need them…this here though is not the way

otherwise this is just going to be an ongoing thing of back and forth disagreements on matters you haven’t been educated on in the first place,
i’m not trying to tell you not to come on here, not at all, there’s no problem with coming on a forum and asking questions or debating,
but my point is simply that in order to discuss or debate the faith(or convert to it) you need to learn it, otherwise it’s like this, two guys talking about electrical work, the one guy knows his stuff, went to school for electrical engineering, has a job in it and everything, but the other guy has only basic knowledge of electrical work and hasn’t really looked into it much,
but the guy who doesn’t know much starts getting into a debate with the guy who’s been into it for years and tells him what he agrees and disagrees with him on and thinks he knows better…but who really knows better? the answer is obvious,
and that is basically how it is in this situation, not to say that you don’t know what your talking about in matters of morality or whatever, but in matters of understanding what the catholic church teaches, you need to actually learn where we’re coming from, cause at this point you’re just getting ahead of yourself.

well, that’s all i want to say for now, i hope this helps. tc.

 

[LilyM]

Obviously God can lead two different people to opposite conclusions. Many church leaders and Biblical interpreters have come to different conclusions about the Bible. How else would you explain it? To be honest, I think that when people cannot come to a consensus on something, it likely is not that important in the eyes of God.

Also, I did not say that masturbation was right, but I do believe that it is not a grave matter. In my eyes, it is similar to overeating or something of that nature.

People can’t agree on utter fundamentals. God’s name. God’s nature - is He three-in-one, just one, or are there many divinities? Is Christ actually divine, as many Christians claim, or not, as Jews, Muslims and others claim?

You think THOSE things are unimportant to Him? Of course not, the name and nature of any person is of critical importance. They are of SUCH utter importance, and so irreconcilable, that the claims of one or more religions about them cannot possibly be true. A person, God included, can only have ONE nature.

And they are of such importance that God would not leave humankind in ignorance about them any more than I would leave people in ignorance about my being female or any other important fact about myself.

If two people disagree about YOUR true name, or YOUR true nature, then it can only possibly mean that one or other of them is wrong, not that you have deliberately fed differing information to each - that is, unless your sole intent is to deceive them.

 

[LilyM]

From everything I have read on here I was lead to believe that using condoms were a grave matter while putting someone down was not.

Putting someone down absolutely can be grave matter. Same with the overeating that you’ve mentioned - have you never heard that gluttony is among the seven deadly sins?

Difference being there are degrees of seriousness of putting someone down (very gentle poking fun v full-on serious insult) and overeating (one extra cookie v three packets of cookies downed in one sitting).

There are NOT such degrees of seriousness with masturbation, as there aren’t with adultery - it’s a simple fact of either you do it or you don’t.

 

[hellopeople]

People can’t agree on utter fundamentals. God’s name. God’s nature - is He three-in-one, just one, or are there many divinities? Is Christ actually divine, as many Christians claim, or not, as Jews, Muslims and others claim?

You think THOSE things are unimportant to Him? Of course not, the name and nature of any person is of critical importance. They are of SUCH utter importance, and so irreconcilable, that the claims of one or more religions about them cannot possibly be true. A person, God included, can only have ONE nature.

And they are of such importance that God would not leave humankind in ignorance about them any more than I would leave people in ignorance about my being female or any other important fact about myself.

If two people disagree about YOUR true name, or YOUR true nature, then it can only possibly mean that one or other of them is wrong, not that you have deliberately fed differing information to each - that is, unless your sole intent is to deceive them.

OR I don’t care if anyone knows my name or not.

I have this theory that the “main points” of religion are actually just details that do not really matter. Is Jesus the son of God, is Muhammad a true prophet, what does the afterlife consist of…these things are just details. They don’t matter. What matters is being a good person and treating others with compassion…something that every religion preaches. That is my feeling. Salvation can come from any religion (or none at all).

 

[hellopeople]

Putting someone down absolutely can be grave matter. Same with the overeating that you’ve mentioned - have you never heard that gluttony is among the seven deadly sins?

Difference being there are degrees of seriousness of putting someone down (very gentle poking fun v full-on serious insult) and overeating (one extra cookie v three packets of cookies downed in one sitting).

There are NOT such degrees of seriousness with masturbation, as there aren’t with adultery - it’s a simple fact of either you do it or you don’t.

Well adultery 100% breaks the golden rule. That isn’t even arguable.

In my opinion, heaven is for those that have a good heart. You could say “what does that even mean, how can you tell, etc”…but I think God knows. If your intentions are consistently good, then you have a good heart.

 

[LilyM]

OR I don’t care if anyone knows my name or not.

Then why would anything else matter? If God isn’t interested enough in humankind to make Himself known to at least some of them, then it seems absurd to suggest that He gives a fig about what we do, or indeed about anything that goes on among this crazy old species of ours.

 

[jmcrae]

Well adultery 100% breaks the golden rule. That isn’t even arguable.

In my opinion, heaven is for those that have a good heart. You could say “what does that even mean, how can you tell, etc”…but I think God knows. If your intentions are consistently good, then you have a good heart.

There are a lot of good-hearted people who commit adultery, though, too - they feel “in love” with that other person, so they go ahead and have sex with them, thinking that, “Well, for other people it’s wrong, but we’re special - we can break the rules because we love each other very much.” I hear this kind of thing over and over again. “It just feels right; how could God judge us for that? I mean obviously my spouse would be angry if he/she ever found out, but if they never find out, then where is the harm?”

Do you think that someone who thinks like that or behaves like that is going to get to go to Heaven? And yet, they have all the right intentions, and they don’t mean to harm anyone. Unfortunately, the laws of nature are such that they will always get caught, and people will always get hurt, no matter how hard they try to “do the right thing” as they see it.

 

[hellopeople]

There are a lot of good-hearted people who commit adultery, though, too - they feel “in love” with that other person, so they go ahead and have sex with them, thinking that, “Well, for other people it’s wrong, but we’re special - we can break the rules because we love each other very much.” I hear this kind of thing over and over again. “It just feels right; how could God judge us for that? I mean obviously my spouse would be angry if he/she ever found out, but if they never find out, then where is the harm?”

Do you think that someone who thinks like that or behaves like that is going to get to go to Heaven? And yet, they have all the right intentions, and they don’t mean to harm anyone. Unfortunately, the laws of nature are such that they will always get caught, and people will always get hurt, no matter how hard they try to “do the right thing” as they see it.

No one that does that ACTUALLY has a good heart. I refuse to believe that anyone that commits adultery has a good heart.

 

[LilyM]

No one that does that ACTUALLY has a good heart. I refuse to believe that anyone that commits adultery has a good heart.

Uh huh.

hellopeople:

If your intentions are consistently good, then you have a good heart.

There are people out there who are utterly sincere in their conviction that they are committing adultery with the best intentions in the world.

Obviously, unless you know all of them personally, you have no call to say otherwise than that their intentions actually ARE consistently good. As are those of many sinners.

Therefore, by your criteria, they DO have good hearts and ARE saved despite their sins, despite what you or anyone else thinks of their behaviour.

 

[wanner47]

No one that does that ACTUALLY has a good heart. I refuse to believe that anyone that commits adultery has a good heart.

Oh, really?

My mother has a very good heart. She’s spent her whole career as a special-education teacher, helping kids with disabilities. She volunteers at her church constantly. She’s kind, and generous, and spoils her seven (soon to be eight) grandchildren absolutely rotten. She recently drove over 1800 miles so she could see me for 24 hours, and help us move into our new house, before flying back home again. She’s had a good heart as long as I’ve known her.

And when I was 13 she cheated on my dad with my dad’s best friend. After the messy divorce, she married her partner in adultery, and they’ve been married for over a dozen years now. She says she regrets how their relationship began, and that it hurt so many people, but she doesn’t regret the relationship itself.

So are you really saying that my mother is evil?

 

[TedDC]

It’s more than personal experience - it’s observational evidence. Evidence which adds weight to the truth of the Church’s claim that masturbation is wrong in every circumstance.

Put it this way - the AMA teaches that we shouldn’t abuse alcohol because among other things it has numerous bad effects on our health. If someone comes along and says ‘yes, I was an alcoholic and can tell you that I DID, as a direct result of my misuse of alcohol, suffer horrible health effects, namely xyz’ then it adds an amount of weight to the claims of the AMA, no?

Isn’t that one of the ways that science works? Someone comes up with a theory - such as Galileo his theory that the earth revolves around the sun - and proves it at least in part by gathering observational evidence. Galileo says ‘well, a planet that revolves around the sun would behave in x y and z ways. We can observe that the Earth DOES behave in x y and z ways, so that’s evidence in favour of my theory being correct’.

Again, you’re citing your own assessment of your own experience as evidence, and furthermore you’re generalizing it to everyone without any foundation for doing so. It is not evidence; it’s an opinion or judgment. Suppose I had exactly the opposite experience with masturbation as you did? Or suppose I have an allergy to a particular food - should I warn that no one should eat it, based on my own experience?

Regarding alcohol, as you note, medical authority warns against alcohol abuse; it doesn’t condemn drinking absolutely, the way the church does with masturbation. Furthermore, the harm caused by alcohol abuse has been well-documented by objective, published studies - far different from anecdotal evidence and self-observation.

Most things taken to excess are harmful; that doesn’t make them immoral by themselves.