Is masterbation a mortal sin or a venial sin?

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Blade_and_Blood said:
Well, it happens, that’s for sure. But I purely believe in sex after marriage for logical and health reasons, not religious reasons.

Sex, in general, is natural-- like that other dude said, but in Christian families (and families from other conservative faiths) frown upon it.
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Are you a catholic?
 
dumbseeker said:
Is masturbation a mortal sin or a venial sin?
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Objectively, it is a mortal sin. Subjectively, it may be mortal or venial. As for personal culpability or responsibility, a sin requires knowledge and deliberate consent that one’s actions are gravely wrong.
 
dumbseeker said:
BTW I read your profile, it says you want to be a religious studies professor. Are you going to teach morality?
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No, I am not that religious–Spiritual? Yes. Religious? No. I think I know better than that.

I don’t think, as a teacher, I would teach morality. It will come around, I’m sure, but morality is, in detail, very different in specific religions and cultures.
 
dumbseeker said:
How would you define “fully consent and knowledge”? The term is kind of vague. Sometimes we just masturbate when we get to a point of great sexual drive and we just can’t help ourselves. Is that a mortal sin in that case? What if sometimes we cannot control our sex drive and have premarital sex?
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You should really talk with a priest to discern whether it is willfull or not. One thing that would fall under the consent and knowledge aspect is mental illness. Someone who is mentally ill would most likely not be held accountable. There are varying degrees of emotional maturity and knowledge.
Simply put if you are a healthy individual and you understand the church teaching you need to be stopping and confessing if you fall.

God gives us the grace necessary to avoid sin. We just need to tap into it. We are not uncontrollable beasts who can’t stop ourselves. We are new beings in Christ if we are baptized into the church.
 
Hey Blade and Blood and dumbseeker-
It seems there is a lot of confusion in your conversations. There are a few different topics you have brought up. There are steps you need to take before you look at is a sin mortal or venial. You first need to define sin. So lets have some good dialectic conversation. What is sin? Is it all the same? If they are not, what sins are worse? What makes an act sinful (or evil) rather than good? I will leave you with those questions. Let me know your reply, or if you want me to just outline everything that I am thinking let me know! 👍
 
As I’ve said on another forum, I always thought it was a bit steep to proclaim masturbation a mortal sin. All sins are serious, including venial sin, but mortal sins are surely terrible things - I’m dubious over putting self-abuse in the same group as abuse of others.

Incidentally, theres this thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=584285 in which apparently petty theft is described as venial. It would seem to me to be more of a sin than masturbation, surely?
 
Why is a 3-yr-old thread being bumped? 🤷

(Particularly because the question has been asked and answered numerous times.) 😉
 
Mystic_Banana said:
As I’ve said on another forum, I always thought it was a bit steep to proclaim masturbation a mortal sin. All sins are serious, including venial sin, but mortal sins are surely terrible things - I’m dubious over putting self-abuse in the same group as abuse of others.

Incidentally, theres this thread forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=584285 in which apparently petty theft is described as venial. It would seem to me to be more of a sin than masturbation, surely?
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(there is a distinction between mortal sin venial sin…venial sin is yes to be avoided…but it is not “serious” in the sense that mortal is…see the compendium of the Catechism)

As to if it is not as bad as some other mortal sin…

All mortal sins are …well mortal.

Just as all ways of murdering a person are well murder.

But there are some that are worse than others…
but lets avoid all mortal sins…be they masturbation or murder in its various means.
 
Oh…I see this is an old thread that has been revived…

we really are to not do such 🙂
 
Oh - never noticed the date, I’m afraid - I think it probably just came up in the left sidebar or something when I was browsing! 🤷
 
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