Is this a sin?

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Rainaldo

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**How should people deal with **“is this a sin?” type questions?


  1. *]No offense to anyone, but oftentimes the question is just plain frivolous, silly, and contrived. I know the person asking it does not think that way about it, but so often it’s the kind of silliness, frivolity, and contrivance that comes from someone not even trying to think about it and making zero effort at educating him or herself. Example: Is changing my clocks for daylight savings time a mortal sin in violation of the third commandment?
    *]Plus, the question and the answer are often of a highly personal nature, and it tempts others to give advice on very sensitive matters. (Sadly, yes, people do act on bad advice received from anonymous internet forums.) Example: Would I be sinning against the fourth commandment if I told my dad that my younger brother came from an affair my mom had with my uncle?
    *]Furthermore, much of the time, the person posting the question is secretly not telling the whole story, but only giving out handpicked facts in order to trick people into giving them a pre-determined answer, so that whatever advice they get can be twisted into supporting evil in the questioners life. Example: My friend is single and pregnant; would it be a sin to throw her a baby shower? [Conveniently left out of the story: I am the father.]]
    *]Often the person raising the question is suffering from scrupulosity or mental illness, and the correct answer time and time again boils down to “take it up with your confessor” or “you need to see a psychiatrist”, and there is nothing the CA community can do for him or her. Example: The last three confessors I’ve been to said “And I absolve you of your sins” when I just confessed one sin - should I keep searching for a confessor who will do it correctly so I can finally get absolution, or should I report them all to the Bishop? … or, I hear demons telling me to blaspheme every time I see the letter W…

    Don’t get me wrong, there are some great “is this a sin?” questions out there like “My grandmother had me pick up her prescriptions on my way home from school and in the bag was arthritis medication and birth control pills; should I admonish her about it so as not to be complicit in another’s sin?” or, “I forgot to mention a venial sin in my last confession, what should I do?” that are a great opportunity for everyone to learn something.

    I just wanted to get a meta-discussion going. Anyone else been on the questioners end as well as on the answerer’s end?

    p.s. all of the above examples are totally made up, okay?
 
I concur.

It seems like every day there is a thread with a title along the lines of “Did I commit a Mortal Sin?” Well, obviously (or maybe not if one is particularly uninformed) the answer is no, if one had no knowledge it was a sin.

I think it’s just the sheer repetition that makes it annoying. One would only need to read the subject lines of Today’s Posts to find the same question. Or try the search function. It’s also curious how frequently the answers given by the staff apologists are just canned replies with links to the same question and answer.
 
I would encourage you to familiarize yourself more with the terrible affliction known as scrupulosity. It fuels many of these types of questions. It is a compulsion.

If you cannot read them or answer them in charity, and with the suggestion that the seek out professional counseling with their priest, then my suggestion is not to read the questions at all.

Simply skip them.
 
1ke said:
I would encourage you to familiarize yourself more with the terrible affliction known as scrupulosity. It fuels many of these types of questions. It is a compulsion.

If you cannot read them or answer them in charity, and with the suggestion that the seek out professional counseling with their priest, then my suggestion is not to read the questions at all.

Simply skip them.
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I do appreciate your answers. And those of many other posters here. I think this was quite a charitable reply and I thank you for that.
 
Rainaldo said:
**How should people deal with **“is this a sin?” type questions?


  1. *]No offense to anyone, but oftentimes the question is just plain frivolous, silly, and contrived. I know the person asking it does not think that way about it, but so often it’s the kind of silliness, frivolity, and contrivance that comes from someone not even trying to think about it and making zero effort at educating him or herself. Example: Is changing my clocks for daylight savings time a mortal sin in violation of the third commandment?
    *]Plus, the question and the answer are often of a highly personal nature, and it tempts others to give advice on very sensitive matters. (Sadly, yes, people do act on bad advice received from anonymous internet forums.) Example: Would I be sinning against the fourth commandment if I told my dad that my younger brother came from an affair my mom had with my uncle?
    *]Furthermore, much of the time, the person posting the question is secretly not telling the whole story, but only giving out handpicked facts in order to trick people into giving them a pre-determined answer, so that whatever advice they get can be twisted into supporting evil in the questioners life. Example: My friend is single and pregnant; would it be a sin to throw her a baby shower? [Conveniently left out of the story: I am the father.]]
    *]Often the person raising the question is suffering from scrupulosity or mental illness, and the correct answer time and time again boils down to “take it up with your confessor” or “you need to see a psychiatrist”, and there is nothing the CA community can do for him or her. Example: The last three confessors I’ve been to said “And I absolve you of your sins” when I just confessed one sin - should I keep searching for a confessor who will do it correctly so I can finally get absolution, or should I report them all to the Bishop? … or, I hear demons telling me to blaspheme every time I see the letter W…

    Don’t get me wrong, there are some great “is this a sin?” questions out there like “My grandmother had me pick up her prescriptions on my way home from school and in the bag was arthritis medication and birth control pills; should I admonish her about it so as not to be complicit in another’s sin?” or, “I forgot to mention a venial sin in my last confession, what should I do?” that are a great opportunity for everyone to learn something.

    I just wanted to get a meta-discussion going. Anyone else been on the questioners end as well as on the answerer’s end?

    p.s. all of the above examples are totally made up, okay?
Click to expand...

  1. Let us try to be charitable and refrain from judgement in calling other people’s questions silly, frivolous or contrived. What may be clear as day to you might be shrouded in mystery to others. We cannot see into other people’s hearts and minds.

    People are free to ask whatever questions they wish within reason, and it is not for us to judge whether they’re legitimate questions or not, but provide them with whatever help we can, even if it is saying, “take it up with your priest.” The forum is moderated and the participants do try and refrain from answering excessively personal questions.

    If the person asking the question should try to use the answers he receives to justify himself in doing evil, then it is up to God to judge him on that. Even if the asker uses the answers for evil, other people reading the posts may learn how the Catholic Faith applies in practice to a specific situation as presented by the asker and in this way be educated. We have no way of knowing the motives and only God can judge a person on those, but so too will God judge us if we are not charitable in our answers.

    Let us focus on our own faults and not the faults of others.
    Matthew 7:3
    Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
    Click to expand...
 
Rainaldo said:
It hurts my feelings when you accuse me of being uncharitable when I went out of my way to write this:

and this:
Click to expand...
I apologise. I meant that we should be careful about judging other people’s motives and not be too quick to jump to conclusions. I didn’t mean that you were being uncharitable. I’m sorry for expressing myself poorly and hurting your feelings.
 
Rainaldo said:
**How should people deal with **“is this a sin?” type questions?


  1. *]No offense to anyone, but oftentimes the question is just plain frivolous, silly, and contrived. I know the person asking it does not think that way about it, but so often it’s the kind of silliness, frivolity, and contrivance that comes from someone not even trying to think about it and making zero effort at educating him or herself. Example: Is changing my clocks for daylight savings time a mortal sin in violation of the third commandment?
    *]Plus, the question and the answer are often of a highly personal nature, and it tempts others to give advice on very sensitive matters. (Sadly, yes, people do act on bad advice received from anonymous internet forums.) Example: Would I be sinning against the fourth commandment if I told my dad that my younger brother came from an affair my mom had with my uncle?
    *]Furthermore, much of the time, the person posting the question is secretly not telling the whole story, but only giving out handpicked facts in order to trick people into giving them a pre-determined answer, so that whatever advice they get can be twisted into supporting evil in the questioners life. Example: My friend is single and pregnant; would it be a sin to throw her a baby shower? [Conveniently left out of the story: I am the father.]]
    *]Often the person raising the question is suffering from scrupulosity or mental illness, and the correct answer time and time again boils down to “take it up with your confessor” or “you need to see a psychiatrist”, and there is nothing the CA community can do for him or her. Example: The last three confessors I’ve been to said “And I absolve you of your sins” when I just confessed one sin - should I keep searching for a confessor who will do it correctly so I can finally get absolution, or should I report them all to the Bishop? … or, I hear demons telling me to blaspheme every time I see the letter W…

    Don’t get me wrong, there are some great “is this a sin?” questions out there like “My grandmother had me pick up her prescriptions on my way home from school and in the bag was arthritis medication and birth control pills; should I admonish her about it so as not to be complicit in another’s sin?” or, “I forgot to mention a venial sin in my last confession, what should I do?” that are a great opportunity for everyone to learn something.

    I just wanted to get a meta-discussion going. Anyone else been on the questioners end as well as on the answerer’s end?

    p.s. all of the above examples are totally made up, okay?
Click to expand...

  1. I agree with the OP in many respects.

    WRT to issue #1, these questions are indeed often unnecessary, the kinds that could be addressed with even a cursory search in the Catechism or even a casual Googling. Laziness and impatience are sins (at the very least, bad habits) we ought not to be encouraging here. On rare occasions these are atheists asking a silly question to provoke what they think will be a silly response, which they can then use to convince themselves that Catholicism is silly and atheism is the One True Way™. We hardly need to be feeding their pathologies!

    Issue #2: I often get the impression that people are sharing personal issues only because they feel the need to talk about them. This is quite common on Internet forums and, while I guess there is nothing wrong with it, the “Moral Theology” forum is not the right one in which to be having such conversations. Maybe a forum could be opened for “Personal Questions” or “Personal Discussions” or something of that sort? Or such posts could be rerouted to, for instance, the “Water Cooler” subforum?

    Issue #3 has another dimension to it, too, which is the cafeteria Catholic hoping someone will clue them into a loophole so they can escape the Church’s teachings on contraception / fornication / fasting and abstinence / etc. These wind up not being moral theology questions at all, and are sometimes prefaced explicitly with the claim that the poster is already familiar with the relevant moral theology and doesn’t want to hear any discussion about it!

    Issue #4 is an especially serious concern, as these questions sometimes devolve into “Please give me legal or medical advice you’re not qualified to give me and for which you might be held legally liable.” That said, these, I’m fairly sure, get closed or warned off their course before they go too far. As for scrupulosity, there isn’t much we can do there, I’m afraid. Some people are genuinely scrupulous; this scrupulosity is often informed by a general ignorance of the Church’s ethical teachings; that ignorance has to be rectified somewhere and somehow, and often the question is at a level of detail that, for instance, the Catechism (being an outlining of first and second principles) doesn’t go into. This seems like the natural place for such questions to be answered.

    None of these are especially pernicious (i.e., at the level of obvious spam or trollery), but they do contribute to a general degradation of the discourse in this particular subforum, which, in my experience, has been heavily compromised. Moral Theology seems to have degenerated into a less-well-read-man’s Philosophy forum, with extra atheists (why do we tolerate so many of them, by the way? Isn’t it enough that they control, like, all discourse in this country?).

    I like questions related to moral theology; it’s one of the areas that drew me into the Church, I’m fascinated by it, and I love answering questions and debating about it. But there aren’t many opportunities to do so here. This forum often gets bogged down in wearisome frivolity, often over the exact same issue: contraception.
 
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