"Lies the Church Told Us About Sex": an atheist's accusations

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Dobereiner

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So I found this long post by a guy called Neil Carter and most of it just left me confused and depressed. The comments section is just as depressing.

I really want some critical responses to the charges he makes (perhaps the most disturbing being the very first one, before the numbered list of “lies” even begins, about the Church’s motive behind its teachings). Some of the content is very explicit and “biological” and very unsettling.


I hope the moderators are OK with my posting on this sensitive topic as I feel like I’m at a crucial time in my life and my faith needs a lot of support. This forum has been a great source of support for me 🙂
 
Stop reading it then! This world hates the Church. Divorce yourself from the world and dive into your faith. Night and day difference.
 
About half of those claims aren’t even true—at least for Catholics.
  1. Masturbation actually does kill your dating mojo. This guy is just pretending if he thinks otherwise. The idea that it helps in sex is laughable and makes me wonder about his experience in this department.
  2. I haven’t heard any Catholic say that thinking sexual thoughts is the same as acting out adultery.
  3. As far as porn being a slippery slope for rape—no one in the Church has ever made that claim. A more appropriate remark for feminists.
  4. People who live together before marriage have a less chance of a successful marriage. The jury is in. Have doubts? Set your recorder to watch some daytime judge shows. Hint: I couldn’t help but notice a lack of Catholics who attend Mass who were there having problems.
  5. The nuclear family isn’t unique to Christianity. It’s found throughout the world as the standard.
  6. The Church doesn’t want to control people by controlling their behavior. All the Church has done is speak the Truth. People can do with it what they will, but I can’t help but notice how those who deviate from Catholic sexual teaching want my tax dollars to clean up their sexual mess.
  7. No one has said that having sex outside of marriage automatically means an STD, but the risk is greater.
  8. These things are funny because I thought atheists were about facts. Seems to me this guy is just picking and choosing which facts to investigate. Overall, it’s a column that will reinforce non-believer bias and fool the low information crowd, but that’s about it.
 
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Dobereiner said:
So I found this long post by a guy called Neil Carter and most of it just left me confused and depressed.
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You must be easily confused then. The nature of the article is plain. None of the “lies” therein were ever told to me by the church. How about you?
 
I wasn’t taught anything of the sort by my parents or anyone I knew. But there seem to be a few points that I first saw raised on Catholic Answers that are under attack.

The main thing that stumped me was his comments on the evolution of the human body allegedly proving that our sexual faculties have developed for purposes other than procreation. I still don’t know what to make of that.
 
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I see no point at all to listen to an atheist’s opinion on Christianity. It will only lead to useless argument. If you want to know more on the subject, ask the Church. Or maybe if you do not know to go about it, ask specific question that you really unsure of and let it be discussed here.
 
For example, the point SuperLuigi made above about cohabitation is the very point the author claims to have refuted with statistics.
 
I doubt there has ever been a scientifically sound study that can reliably answer the question as to the impact of cohabitation on marital success.
 
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I suppose I’m concerned with the evolutionary aspect. The author claims to show that the evolution of our reproductive organs, and the fact that women can experience arousal as well as men, refutes the idea that any use of our sexual faculties for strictly non-procreative purposes is unnatural.
 
Dobereiner said:
For example, the point SuperLuigi made above about cohabitation is the very point the author claims to have refuted with statistics.
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One has to see it from the Church’s perspective, not some statistic.

Is cohabitation right or not?

Even if you do not have pre-marital sex, would you not place yourself in near occasion of sin?

Cohabitation is probably one of major issues faced by Catholics today - to reconcile practical reality that cohabitation offers and spiritual purity that the Church demands.

This choice is quite clear; it is up to the would be marriage couple to obey and work it out. I am not saying that you cannot cohabit, but if you do, know that you have to make a Confession before you get married. Depend on the extent of your cohabitation, your priest may not want to say a marriage mass for you if he thinks that you are already living as a married couple.
 
Dobereiner said:
and the fact that women can experience arousal as well as men, refutes the idea that any use of our sexual faculties for strictly non-procreative purposes is unnatural.
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I don’t claim to know what “natural” means here. But the idea of men experiencing sexual arousal and pleasure but not women is somewhat disconcerting I’d have thought. One can speculate on the reasons for highly variable libidos between persons, and the differences in the sexual response of men and women (as a general or average observation).
 
Dobereiner said:
I suppose I’m concerned with the evolutionary aspect. The author claims to show that the evolution of our reproductive organs, and the fact that women can experience arousal as well as men, refutes the idea that any use of our sexual faculties for strictly non-procreative purposes is unnatural.
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That is not what the Church teaches. She teaches sex as both procreative and for the couple’s pleasure (unitive) as well. They only have to be open to have children and that artificial birth control is wrong (sinful) because it interferes with the biological function of our reproductive system. Creation is God’s and God alone.

Marriage is a gift thus the spouses should enjoy sex for pleasure as well.
 
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So, I’ve been thinking a bit more about this now I’ve had a day to reflect.

The point about the morality of actions as opposed to statistics is pretty relevant to the way I’ve been thinking about any Catholic moral teaching. I guess the problem for me comes when I’m presented with the nonbelievers’ version of the saying “you shall know them by their fruits”. They demand empirical evidence of degrading consequences on society and this is where I find a heap of studies with different conclusions. It’s at times like this when I have to remind myself that Catholics aren’t consequentialists.

However, I still don’t feel like the claim about evolution has been answered. What does it mean for something to be “natural”? I won’t go into too much detail over the author’s argument since I fear the content of his writing might break the community guidelines. But it basically goes like this:
  1. at the embryonic stage, the Y chromosome causes an organ which both male and female unborn children possess to develop into the male reproductive organs.
  2. this organ remains, undeveloped, in women, but because of this women are capable of experiencing arousal even though the organ serves no reproductive function
  3. since all this organ does is give pleasure without procreation, it must be perfectly natural for women to stimulate themselves without any intent of procreating, since it evolved that way
  4. if it’s fine for women, why not men?
How does one respond to this kind of argument?
 
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[W]e found that the relationship between union type and relationship quality is now bifurcated with direct marrieds reporting the highest relationship quality and cohabitors without marriage plans reporting the lowest marital quality. In the middle were the two largest groups: marrieds who premaritally cohabited and cohabitors with plans to marry. These two groups [of cohabitors] did not differ in terms of relationship quality.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0192513X15622236
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Even assuming cohabitation has no effect, Christians are disciples of Christ. We follow God’s ways. NOT the ways of sinful men.
SuperLuigi said:
These things are funny because I thought atheists were about facts. Seems to me this guy is just picking and choosing which facts to investigate. Overall, it’s a column that will reinforce non-believer bias and fool the low information crowd, but that’s about it.
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What a surprise. I didn’t bother reading it. I was expecting it to be of poor quality and it seems my assumption was correct. I only posted that study because I noticed it was a common topic in the replies.
Dobereiner said:
I think he is referring to Jesus’s saying about lust and committing adultery in one’s heart.
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Sin originates in the heart is the point. It may be a surprise to some but lusting after another is how adultery starts. And it is wrong to indulge in that stuff and not see it as wrong if you truly loved your spouse. No wonder the Hollywood-types and the ‘sexually liberated’ make lousy spouses.
 
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Dobereiner said:
How does one respond to this kind of argument?
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By looking at better sources. Which will state that the sensitive female “part” plays an enormous role in human procreation. The word human is important there. We are not animals who bump and run. Our species would have died out long ago if there was not multiple reasons why men and women stay together to raise a family.

I type too slow to go into detail. But it’s not nearly as simple as this person in this blog is making it out to be.
 
Dobereiner said:
since all this organ does is give pleasure without procreation, it must be perfectly natural for women to stimulate themselves without any intent of procreating, since it evolved that way
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The sexual responsiveness of women encourages them to partake in the sexual act. That should be sufficient explanation for why sex can involve female pleasure.

The next question typically goes to the placement of the organ. If it’s meant just for sex, why is it not located in/closer to the vagina etc etc. Do you really want to go there?

Most of that article you referenced was rubbish masquerading as church bashing. Is it really weighing on your faith?
 
I think you meant masturbation here.

The Church teaches that it is a sin.The CCC defines it as ‘an intrinsically and seriously disordered act’ - the deiberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal conjugal relations essentially contradicts the ultimate purpose of the sexual faculty.

Persona humana (Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics) issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also confirms this.

So it does not matter, whether it is done by a man or a woman, it is still morally wrong.

Of course there is mitigation factor that will not make it a mortal sin, if the ‘will’ is not wholly involved but partially, such as in habit which is beyond the person’s self-control.
 
Blessings,
He has chosen to rebel against the Catholic Church. Maybe his parents, too.
First, parents in the past, used fear to control sexual behaviors. After you mature and truth is told, it’s funny. I thought it was funny. I didn’t do this but heard my parents tell my brothers. Don’t masterbate or you’ll go blind. Masterbating is a mortal sin. That is true. It’s a normal task that is understandable but not encouraged.
It would take too much time to explain his rant.
God wants us to be pure. Sex is there for procreation. Sensual feelings are there meant to draw us close to someone, to whom we are attracted. It is special. Though, it actually is lust from a release of pheromones in our bodies.
That spark is not love. That’s why you restrain yourself. You date after 16yo or after HS. In HS. the person you are attracted to could be a criminal or a doctor. The doctor comes alive in college. HS is hormones raging, peer pressure to encourage others to break parents rules. PET scans show changes in the brain in teen age that clear after teenage.
That’s where our kids get rebellious challenging behavior.
Does he go to church? How does his family get along? He’ll bring problems in his family into your relationship. That’s why you hold back. Those wonderful feelings can come along, again.
Love is lust that stays and takes vows and waits. Girls are not sex toys!! If you have unprotected sex, you have had sex w everyone your partner has had sex with. Medical sentence!
Important point= you both are passionate and marry, virtuously. 5 yrs down the road. Someone pops into your life and all the sparkles and butterflies occur…,
You think,”HUH.” I thought this meant love. I know I love my husband?? That’s what I mean about lust and chemical reactions. Stay married and stay away from your temptation!!!
We all have organs in our bodies that are complete. Our hearts, lungs, brain, etc. Only our reproductive organs are half. It takes two of us to come together to make a whole and babies. Nifty, huh!
Read Song of Solomon. On your wedding night. Follow directions. You’ll do fine. Two virgins can be clumsy but it’s precious. You get better w time.
Pornography is a sin. It leads you into temptation of adultery or fornication. How is a normal, sweet gorgeous girl going to compare to a triple D fake breasts, doing ungodly things w an abnormally endowed male. A high percentage have AIDS.
Sex before marriage is sinful but is sad. We are precious. We are not sex toys. No teen boy can support himself or a wife and children. You’ll love him and he’ll move on.
The atheist is an embittered man. Some things were false,some true. Some true today. Being a Virgin is important. Saving yourself for husband ensures you won’t be a dropped sex toy for a raging hormone teen.
Being a prude, means he couldn’t enjoy sex. He feels cheated. Now, he’s liberated enjoying free sex from women, he may love but leave when those butterflies come back. God wants us to have self control. Virtue, grace and self control will bring us to healthy success in life in our way to heaven.
In Christ’s love
Tweedlealice
 
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