S
Shin
Guest
Thank you for your kindness. However I must respond that no it’s not hyperbole, it’s a necessary mental adjustment to undo the harmful psychological associations and habits that come of concupiscence and build up from looking at women for sensual pleasure. You can’t undo that habit by a neutral reaction you have to use an opposing one.
If you don’t use an opposing one you will always be drawn into the occasion of sin because of the built up bad habit and your lack of awareness of danger.
Have you ever seen a little boy hear talk of kissing and girls and go ‘ick’? That is the proper reaction.
And what I am describing works for adults as well, I have seen it work.Even someone who isn’t Christian can overcome concupiscence by this method. I learned it from an agnostic Jew (please pray for him). Which proves by the way, that one is always given the ability interiorly to avoid sin, without extraordinary graces. Even this one.
Also, there’s nothing evil in doing it, it’s not sinful in the slightest, the saints did exactly that – it’s a mental adjustment.
So when you say, ‘it is contrary to the will of God’ you have bought into something that is not a teaching of God, but opposed to it. There’s nothing evil in being disgusted by sin or the near occasion of sin. In fact, hating the world or hating things that are ‘natural goods’ is part of becoming a saint, and not just in regards to matters of lust, but all sorts of things.
It is a teaching of the world that has filtered into some teachers in positions in the Church who have promoted sexuality as all ‘good’ and wonderful that makes many say what you have I fear, because it has made men who would otherwise be prudent and avoid looking too much at women become imprudent to what is a near occasion of sin to them.
And we are not allowed to take pleasure in near occasions of sin, it is in fact an unnatural reaction to do so. A natural reaction would be to be disgusted and horrified and any occasion of risk to the soul that could send it to Hell and be a sin against God, and to value the sensual as DUST in the face of that.
If an orange causes you to sin from gluttony, if you mentally trick yourself into being disgusted by oranges you are doing yourself a favor, however ‘good’ oranges are. And for a person afflicted by concupiscence to pretend a neutral approach will work, well. It doesn’t. The same goes for the appearances of people, or anything else.
These responses were given to us by God for the sake of our souls.
I’m trying to teach people an actually effective method for becoming pure of heart rather than the garbage that hasn’t worked for people in the past that gets spewed out these days, the filth from Hell that teaches embracing sexual desires outside of marriage and pretending this is a good thing, and teaches ‘look but don’t lust’ in regards to near occasions of sin.
The psychological link between lust and looking at women is very strong once it is in place. It takes a lot of work to undo it. Also, demons will tempt a person with lust directly at first, but when it is overcome, they will tempt a person with the ‘innocent’ pleasure of enjoying looking at women (which normally is not innocent, but is sensual and mistakenly distinguished from lust when it isn’t by the way). So it will be a demonic temptation for someone trying for purity of heart of pleasure of looking at women and you can’t oppose this neutrally, you have to oppose it with the irascible appetites, that is hate, disgust, etc.
You have to oppose the devil directly.
Now, there is mentally appreciating beauty and there is sensually appreciating beauty – few people actually know the difference. They just think they do and fool themselves. The disgust you create will never destroy real intellectual appreciation of beauty because it’s not a sensual appreciation which sensual disgust can only apply to. And you shouldn’t be wasting your time spending much effort on intellectually appreciating women who aren’t your spouse’s beauty normatively either. It may not be unfaithful but it’s a waste of time and smacks of it if you go far with it.
Now I have said all this but if you do not believe me I will gladly repeat the words of the saints saying it, there’s an invisible footnote on all of what I have said above – But I think most people already can fill the footnotes in themselves and bring the scriptures to mind.
All should be aware of the scriptures and their sayings already – and many probably just mistakenly said ‘hyperbole’.
So many do interprete the words of Christ and the saints as ‘hyperbole’, when they as Christ mean what they say quite literally, and that is why so many fail to proceed, because they make that mistake ‘the saints can’t be serious’, ‘Christ can’t be serious’.
No they are!
Read the scriptures on the moral and spiritual life literally and -take them to heart- that way. Try to understand interiorly the meaning of each.
Methinks it’d be better, not to think of women as disgusting, but perhaps, the idea of lust as so. Or whatever fantasies one might have, or perhaps, our disordered desires.
