Drugs & Chastity

  • Thread starter Thread starter tvdxer
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Historically, they were the same, as civil societies were hard on the children of unwed moms, as well as the women themselves.

There is still an English word used as a severe insult that once meant “child born of fornication.”

The idea of women having babies without marriage as “self fulfillment” is extremely modern.

ICXC NIKA.
I think KostyaJMJ was implying that a woman who was very unhappy with her marriage (especially if she had little to no choice in the matter) would be much more likely to cheat on her husband and conceive another man’s children.
 
Historically, they were the same, as civil societies were hard on the children of unwed moms, as well as the women themselves.

There is still an English word used as a severe insult that once meant “child born of fornication.”

The idea of women having babies without marriage as “self fulfillment” is extremely modern.

ICXC NIKA.
I meant extra-pair matings in traditional societies not so much babies outside of wedlock in civil society.
 
Precisely.

The Catholic Church might hate lust but the Church has always needed it to replenish its ranks. Without lust (on the man’s part at least) procreative sex cannot take place.
FYI, you are here manifesting evidence that you don’t know the difference between lust and passion. In lust, the woman is merely an object useful for pleasuring the man (or vice versa). Passion is the sexual desire for the person. I don’t look much like a muscle magazine guy. My wife wouldn’t get published in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Yet we manage a rather passionate love anyways because we see more than just the body of the other.
 
The drugs I speak of, and the theoretical drug I am referring to, would not chemically castrate an individual but rather substantially reduce their sex drive.

It seems like taking a harmless pill is much better than cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye.
 
The drugs I speak of, and the theoretical drug I am referring to, would not chemically castrate an individual but rather substantially reduce their sex drive.

It seems like taking a harmless pill is much better than cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye.
Please don’t cut anything off! :eek: Jesus was speaking of influences in our lives, not literally our body parts. Example 56909 of why it’s good to belong to the Church empowered with authority to interpret Scripture! 🙂

Our fallen nature is not something we are called to eliminate via surgery or medicine. We are called to sanctification through Grace. Forget the pills and just go to confession more often.
 
Please don’t cut anything off! :eek: Jesus was speaking of influences in our lives, not literally our body parts. Example 56909 of why it’s good to belong to the Church empowered with authority to interpret Scripture! 🙂

Our fallen nature is not something we are called to eliminate via surgery or medicine. We are called to sanctification through Grace. Forget the pills and just go to confession more often.
Yes, every mortal sin is almost infinitely evil. Much more evil than taking a theoretical pill to control the sex drive and hence reduce mortal sins…

Come to think of it, this pill could be used within marriage, too, when the couple wishes not to have any more children and be abstinent.
 
Heaven isn’t populated with people who have used tricks to avoid sin. Heaven is populated by people who have accepted Grace to the point of being totally and completely sanctified.

Move beyond seeing sin as a “forbidden list of actions” and grow to understand it as literally “missing the mark” of a virtously lived life. The pill idea is a shortcut that does nothing to help prepare you to live for eternity in heaven.
 
Heaven isn’t populated with people who have used tricks to avoid sin. Heaven is populated by people who have accepted Grace to the point of being totally and completely sanctified.

Move beyond seeing sin as a “forbidden list of actions” and grow to understand it as literally “missing the mark” of a virtously lived life. The pill idea is a shortcut that does nothing to help prepare you to live for eternity in heaven.
So should an alcoholic not use Antabuse because he is using a trick to overcome his cravings rather than facing them with God’s grace? The most successful strategy for overcoming sin is avoiding the near occasions of sin and using “tricks” to successfully overcome. I don’t see how using medicine is that fundamentally different from other tricks people use to stay chaste: cold showers, hobbies, exercise…
 
The drugs I speak of, and the theoretical drug I am referring to, would not chemically castrate an individual but rather substantially reduce their sex drive.

It seems like taking a harmless pill is much better than cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye.
Chemical castration IS using drugs to reduce someone’s sex drive to little or nothing.
 
Jimmy Akin addressed this issue on his blog.

jimmyakin.org/2007/04/medicine_avoidi.html

He basically said that it would be a legitimate treatment for people without any sexual outlet but single people shouldn’t use it as it will diminish the incentive to get married.
Why not just give everyone such drugs (including married couples)? That would certainly help reduce lust, and that’s the most important thing right;)
 
Jimmy Akin addressed this issue on his blog.

jimmyakin.org/2007/04/medicine_avoidi.html

He basically said that it would be a legitimate treatment for people without any sexual outlet but single people shouldn’t use it as it will diminish the incentive to get married.
I read the article, it talks about sexual desire as though it something that should only be tolerated because it can compel people to get married and lead to the birth of children.

The comments section is much worse. A lot of the posters clearly subscribe to the view that all sexual desire is Lust and all Lust is bad.
 
I read the article, it talks about sexual desire as though it something that should only be tolerated because it can compel people to get married and lead to the birth of children.

The comments section is much worse. A lot of the posters clearly subscribe to the view that all sexual desire is Lust and all Lust is bad.
Sadly and ironically, the most “sexually scrupulous” people are the ones that seem to be the most obsessed with sex… talking about it all the time, obsessing over ways to get away from it, constantly and unprovokingly condemning everything even slightly “sexy,” associating it to almost everything they see (women wearing skirts that are above the knees, tank tops, bathing suits, etc)…

People like I just described above strike me as much more sexualized and perverse than today’s average Joe. And that’s preeetttty bad. 😦
 
Look at it this way, the legitimate purpose of a medicine is to assist with the body’s natural self healing and self correcting properties to restore one’s body from malfunction to proper function.

This drug is being proposed to do the exact opposite: it’s aim is to take a normally functioning human hormonal system and cause it to malfunction. It’s medical malpractice almost by definition. Don’t do it.

Substance addicts have broken the normal functioning of their body through addiction and may need temporary help to regain equilibrium. Sexual temptation does not arise from something physically broken within us. Temptation to sin arises from something broken on the spiritual side. There are no pills for that.
 
Sadly and ironically, the most “sexually scrupulous” people are the ones that seem to be the most obsessed with sex… talking about it all the time, obsessing over ways to get away from it, constantly and unprovokingly condemning everything even slightly “sexy,” associating it to almost everything they see (women wearing skirts that are above the knees, tank tops, bathing suits, etc)…

People like I just described above strike me as much more sexualized and perverse than today’s average Joe. And that’s preeetttty bad. 😦
Maybe they are “scrupulous” BECAUSE they are aware of the power that drive can have?
 
Look at it this way, the legitimate purpose of a medicine is to assist with the body’s natural self healing and self correcting properties to restore one’s body from malfunction to proper function.

This drug is being proposed to do the exact opposite: it’s aim is to take a normally functioning human hormonal system and cause it to malfunction. It’s medical malpractice almost by definition. Don’t do it.

Substance addicts have broken the normal functioning of their body through addiction and may need temporary help to regain equilibrium. Sexual temptation does not arise from something physically broken within us. Temptation to sin arises from something broken on the spiritual side. There are no pills for that.
The problem is that (according to Catholic theology) the normal human sex drive is NOT functioning properly.

Its perfectly normal (and even healthy from a biological perspective) for a man to have sexual thoughts whenever he sees attractive women or to become aroused at displays of female sexuality (regardless of whether he knows or even likes the woman in question).

However, the Catholic Church (and most Christian churches) has a very different point of view. To them the normal human sex drive is abhorrent/corrupted.

In order to get healthy spiritually (according to the churches) the normal human sex drive must be suppressed and/or warped into something else.

So why not just have all scrupulous Catholics take drugs that suppress the human sex drive all the time. They would be happier, and we would be happier because their sex hating doctrines would largely die out with them.
 
The problem is that (according to Catholic theology) the normal human sex drive is NOT functioning properly.

Its perfectly normal (and even healthy from a biological perspective) for a man to have sexual thoughts whenever he sees attractive women or to become aroused at displays of female sexuality (regardless of whether he knows or even likes the woman in question).

However, the Catholic Church (and most Christian churches) has a very different point of view. To them the normal human sex drive is abhorrent/corrupted.

In order to get healthy spiritually (according to the churches) the normal human sex drive must be suppressed and/or warped into something else.

So why not just have all scrupulous Catholics take drugs that suppress the human sex drive all the time. They would be happier, and we would be happier because their sex hating doctrines would largely die out with them.
Are you are professional caricature artist or something? Your description isn’t just distorted, it is all but unrecognizable. The idea that the flesh is evil and only the spirit can be good is a heresy that was formally condemned better than 1,500 years ago. (I’m terrible with heresy names). Catholicism absolutely affirms not only the goodness, but the sacredness of the gift of human sexuality. Our teaching, in fact, affirms that sexual relations are a basic part of marriage (so much so that the marriage doesn’t reach the status of indissoluble until it is consummated! Not that that’s often much of a problem, mind you…)

Perhaps you merely need a perspective. Nobody is crazy enough to claim that Catholicism is opposed to eating or forbids people from ENJOYING eating. But eating has similarities to sexuality: there is abusive and twisted forms of it that are inherently unhealthy. People who grossly overeat commit the sin of gluttony, for example. Anorexia and Bulemia are physical/psychological conditions that START by disordered outlooks on the purpose and meaning of eating. Everybody ‘gets’ this and nobody goes whacky and tries to equate these principles to calling food “abhorrent/corrupted.”

Yet when you get to sex, the spinmeisters show up to try to call bad good and good bad. Face it, sexuality misused has an enormous potential for harm. Surely we can agree that far. But instead of honestly debating where the healthy/unhealthy line occurs, you choose to use insults, distortion and mockery to make up for lack of a cogent argument.

Within the confines of its purpose and intent, human sexuality is a gift from God, in fact THE gift in which we most closely bear His image and likeness: the ability to create new life. Abhorrent, indeed. :rolleyes:

But like food, the gift of sexuality can be misused and made destructive to our bodies and souls. I can relate. I have a hard time stopping a bag of Chips Ahoy once I get started. Same problem when a woman with a low cut top walks by. These are human frailties we’re called to learn to regulate and control. To be governed by our virtue, not just our appetites. Our passions are gifts given to help cement, nurture and sustain our lifelong marriages, but merely to gratify ourselves with.

Prudishness exists, but not as an actual tent of catholic teaching. Most often, it is an over- reaction people have against mistakes people have made themselves or consequences people have witnessed from mistakes others have made.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top