Masturbation is wrong, but eating ice cream is okay?

[Bookcat]

What is needed is “temperance”

Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI

1. What is temperance?

1809
1838

Temperance moderates the attraction of -]pleasures/-] icecream, assures the mastery of the will over instincts and provides balance in the use of -]created goods/-] icecream.

(amplified version…amplified after it was issued…though I imagine the Pope likes icecream…)

vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

 

[LittleSoldier]

Before I eat (yep, even ice cream) I say a prayer to thank God:

Bless us, oh Lord,
and these Thy gifts
which we are about to receive
from Thy bounty
through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

I enjoy what I eat (hopefully). My enjoyment of what I am eating is a gift from God and I thank Him for this gift and also for giving me the means to nourish my body (which belongs to Him). God created us with taste buds and everything He creates is good and my opinion is that He wants us to enjoy eating.

I think that we do need to nourish our bodies properly, so snarfing down a whole container of ice cream (even though those containers are getting smaller and smaller) that is filled with artificial color, artificial flavor, and other artificial ingredients that may be carcinogenic or ingredients that are just plain nasty just because “it tastes good” is not showing respect to God, His gifts, or our bodies (which belong to Him), just as eating potato chips and candy but never getting within ten feet of a piece of fruit or a vegetable is wrong. I don’t know if it’s a sin. It’s just wrong. IMHO at least. And I think I’ve been guilty of this at times (it’s a good thing there is Confession tomorrow).

Edit: I just thought of something. Sometimes we have to eat things that we don’t like. I’m supposed to be drinking soy milk and eating Cream of Wheat (yuck). I don’t want to drink soy milk and eat Cream of Wheat but I’m going to because they are both necessary to properly nourish my body. It’s wrong to gorge ourselves on junk food and it’s wrong to neglect to provide our bodies with nutrients they need. Both show disrespect to God.

I think the OP has a point.

 

[bmullins]

So we are biblically sanctioned to enjoy the pleasure of wine and food, so long as its no excessive, but not the pleasure of sex. Hmm.

Actually there is nothing wrong with the pleasure of sex. Masturbation however is not sex. You can enjoy sex with a spouse and never fear it as a sin.

 

[Nate13]

Actually there is nothing wrong with the pleasure of sex. Masturbation however is not sex. You can enjoy sex with a spouse and never fear it as a sin.

Exactly. There is a time, place, and circumstance to have sex and enjoy it to the fullest. There is a time, place, and circumstance to eat and enjoy it to the fullest. Eating in the middle of your big meeting and talking with your mouth full is not a great idea. Eating in Church is not the place. Eating to the point you make yourself sick is not the right circumstance. Eating right before you go to bed is not really the right time.

 

[LilyM]

Exactly. There is a time, place, and circumstance to have sex and enjoy it to the fullest. There is a time, place, and circumstance to eat and enjoy it to the fullest. Eating in the middle of your big meeting and talking with your mouth full is not a great idea. Eating in Church is not the place. Eating to the point you make yourself sick is not the right circumstance. Eating right before you go to bed is not really the right time.

Amen! Perhaps the higher bar that is set in regards sex is also to do with the comparatively higher importance and significance of sex in the grand scheme of things - eg as a mirroring of God’s creative outpouring of love for mankind and Christ’s for mankind.

Being more significant and important than eating and drinking, I would think the abuse of our sexual faculties is a deeper ‘slap in the face’ to God, and so it is rightly something that needs to be more closely controlled in mankind.

Not to say we don’t in general have a pretty unhealthy relationship with food, so perhaps gluttony is a sin we need to be more aware of now than in the past.

 

[Cyclophile]

Beer… and I brew my own… Mmmmmm

 

[emmaberry]

How that could possibly equate with ice cream or other so-called pleasures absolutely boggles the imagination!
If you are going to debate something, be serious and spare us from such trivial sophomoric idiocies!

Yikes! Let’s answer the OP’s question respectfully.

Masturbation: always wrong

Ice cream/beer-can be perverted but are not wrong in and of themselves.

After all, Jesus gave the people more wine at Cana.
Getting drunk is the perversion of wine, masturbation is one perversion of sexuality.

 

[twoangels]

We do overemphasis sexual sins versus other forms of sin primarily because our culture is obsessed with sex. Any time I’ve posted questions on these forums on a non-sexual nature, they get about 7 replies and people move on. The post gets lost in the multiple pages. But the sexual topics keep getting pulled up again and again, rehashing the same points from posts started over 5 years ago at times.

So I think you have a point about the gluttony, but I don’t think its the point you were trying to make.

 

[luvmykids]

How many men/women do you think eat chocolate “to nourish their bodies”?

I know that when I last ate a chocolate bar the last thought on my mind was that I was eating it to survive or nourish my body. I ate it simply because I liked the taste.

I confess!

I don’t know about most people, but I usually eat when I am hungry, and sometimes that even includes ice-cream or chocolate. When I’m full, I usually stop. Isn’t that what eating is for?

 

[LittleSoldier]

Beer… and I brew my own… Mmmmmm

Ice cream…and I have made my own…Yummmmmmy! I intend to make my own this summer and to make it as healthy as I can. Homemade ice cream (and I suspect home-brewed beer) are a thousand times better than store-bought IMHO (although I hate the taste of beer myself).

 

[Bookcat]

What is needed is “temperance”

Compendium issued by Pope Benedict XVI

1. What is temperance?

1809
1838

Temperance moderates the attraction of -]pleasures/-] icecream, assures the mastery of the will over instincts and provides balance in the use of -]created goods/-] icecream.

(amplified version…amplified after it was issued…though I imagine the Pope likes icecream…)

vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html

 

[Newbie2]

While I completely agree that masturbation is wrong, I too struggle to see how masturbation can be wrong, while eating foods that are detrimental to your body (purely for the sake of pleasure) is completely ok unless done in access.

The OP has a good point and asks a tough question.

Thanks for posting this thread.

That article doesn’t really address the question raised by the Catholic Encyclopedia article, that eating merely for pleasure is to commit gluttony, and for what reason do you eat ice cream other than mere pleasure? This problem is exacerbated by realizing that, instead of spending $3 on an ice cream cone, the money could have gone to serve the poor (who are always with us) who need it for nutritious food among other things. Furthermore, ice cream makes you fat – it’s one of the last foods Americans should be eating – so questions are raised about whether one is polluting or disrespecting the temple of the Holy Spirit (the body) by eating such an unhealthy food.

1. “Eating ice cream as part of a recreational activity is fine” has been suggested above. Replace “eating ice cream” with “doing drugs”, etc, and you’ll see that it’s simply a distraction from the actual question, which is: Why do you eat the ice cream? (Indeed, some drink beer “while hanging out with friends”, and indeed the beverage is often used as a drug on those occasions.) Ice cream is not an inherent part of spending time with friends, and is a separate activity from spending time with friends: the agent is doing two activities at once: the eating of ice cream, and the sharing time with friends. I really feel this might be a waste of time trying to help someone to see this fact, though. If you don’t get it already, you probably aren’t going to.
2. Thanks for telling me about using ice cream as medicine for diabetics. I didn’t know that. That would not be gluttony, since the ice cream is not being eaten merely for pleasure. But eating ice cream as a means to enhance pleasure while spending time with friends so far has not been demonstrated to not be gluttony, since it is still being eaten merely for pleasure in that case, right?
3. No one has shown that the OCE article is wrong, particularly where it says ““it’s incontrovertible that”] eating for mere pleasure is gluttony”. Recalling temperance is good, but temperance does not say “a little (anything)_ is okay, too much is bad”; temperance addresses using too much of a good thing, e.g. taking too long of showers, wanting to eat too much (healthy) food, wanting to spend too much time at leisure, etc.

What’s missing in this discussion is the proper ordering of the bodily parts/functions:

1. Genitals are not ordered toward self-stimulation. We’re not comparing marital-act sex to ice cream here, we’re talking about an action (masturbation) that goes against Natural Law: Genitals are not playthings made for self-pleasure.
2. We all seem to agree that overeating for the sole purpose of overeating is a bad thing. However, it is bad in a different way. Overeating is still using the digestive system for its ordered purpose; to ingest food and process it for the health of the body.

The digestive system IS ordered, however, to give us pleasure in eating tasty foods; we benefit from the taste, as well as the feeling of being satiated after eating.

There is no sin in partaking of the things that are ordered to give us pleasure, however, there is sin in using our faculties in a disordered manner, which would include both masturbation and overeating.

Spending $3 on an ice cream cone when the money could be given to the poor is an entirely different discussion, BTW.

 

[ethereality]

The Bible, especially in Ecclesiastes, tells us that in and of itself wine and food is good simply because it is pleasurable, so long as it is not consumed to excess. So we are biblically sanctioned to enjoy the pleasure of wine and food, so long as its no excessive, but not the pleasure of sex. Hmm. …] the bible seems to say its fine to enjoy food and wine simply for the pleasure so long as its not excessive. I’m confused

Quickly, we are “Biblically sanctioned” to enjoy sex; cf. the theology of the body, the Song of Songs, even Genesis “for this reason the two become one flesh” contains it subtly (i.e. that it’s good and natural to come together); God’s first commandment is “Be fruitful and multiply” (touching on the theology of the body), etc.

Regarding your confusion and Ecclesiastes, please quote the passage in question: Getting to specifics readily removes confusion. A great tool of the devil in contradicting Christian doctrine – specifically arguments I’ve seen made by “progressives” in the USA concerning natural law and sexuality – is to speak “in general terms” and “in hypothetical situations” rather than something actual and specific. The “fuzzy cloud theology” of the Unitarians sounds nice and incontrovertible, yet much of it is nonsense from not defining terms. Let’s talk about the specific verses you read!

 

[LaSainte]

Amen! Perhaps the higher bar that is set in regards sex is also to do with the comparatively higher importance and significance of sex in the grand scheme of things - eg as a mirroring of God’s creative outpouring of love for mankind and Christ’s for mankind.

Being more significant and important than eating and drinking, I would think the abuse of our sexual faculties is a deeper ‘slap in the face’ to God, and so it is rightly something that needs to be more closely controlled in mankind.

Not to say we don’t in general have a pretty unhealthy relationship with food, so perhaps gluttony is a sin we need to be more aware of now than in the past.

I wouldn’t say that sex carries more significance than eating. We would die if we did not eat. Now, sex between two spouses is certainly more emotional than eating (I hope), but eating is at least as important as sex in the grand scheme of things.

 

[jstanker]

Howdy folks,

New to the CAF. Been reading for awhile and recently (last April) converted to become Catholic. Please pardon my opinions if they are off course or out of line.

I am having a problem understanding how one can compare the sin of over eating ice cream with masturbation. To me this is like comparing cows to stop watches - here’s why I think this way.

Yes, over indulgence of anything could be a venial sin and could I guess in extreme cases be considered a mortal sin, maybe. The difference I see here is that sex in any form is eternally joined with the Sacrament of Marriage. The Church, I believe, is very clear on their position on sex outside of marriage and masturbation. I believe that since the Church has elevated marriage to a Sacrament, and sex is inherently linked to marriage, then sex is also part of Sacrament. Could this be one primary reason the Church takes such a strong stand on sex of any kind outside of marriage?

If the Church elevates the Sacrament of Marriage to such a high level, then desecration of this Sacrament must also be considered one of the worst sins. Desecration of the best leads to the worst. Take Satin for example. He began as one of the highest Angels, but now he is the worst enemy.

If my ramblings are correct, then how can we compare over eating ice cream with desecration of one of our most Holy Sacraments. Not saying this is the case, but I believe that we have to be careful that we do not use our “logic” in an attempt to justify our actions.

 

[LittleSoldier]

I wouldn’t say that sex carries more significance than eating. We would die if we did not eat. Now, sex between two spouses is certainly more emotional than eating (I hope), but eating is at least as important as sex in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, but sex DOES carry more significance than eating! It is true that eating is necessary for us to remain alive, but sex is not. But as far as I know, eating is not involved in a covenant with God. Sexual relations between spouses IS involved in a covenant with God. A marriage forms a covenant with God. It is so important that it is a Sacrament. But it is not a full covenant until consummation and that is where sex comes in.

The act of sex has two purposes:

(1) procreation;
(2) showing and strengthening the bond between spouses.

If spouses have sex simply for the purpose of physical pleasure they are acting with less reverence to God than rabbits rutting in the forest. Sex is very, very, very SACRED, is tied in with the Church (she is the Bride of Christ), and every act of sex performed properly strengthens not only the bond between husband and wife, but the bond between God and the married couple.

St. Paul compared the love between husband and wife to the love between Christ and the Church:

Wives and Husbands. Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, he himself the savior of the body. As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. So [also] husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

“For this reason a man shall leave [his] father and [his] mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

This is a great mystery, but I speak in reference to Christ and the church. In any case, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and the wife should respect her husband

(Ephesians 5:21-33, New American Bible, underlining added by this poster for emphasis)

I know this part of Scripture is confusing (and angers many people) because it speaks of submission of the wife to her husband in all things. I’m not trying to hijack this thread - what is stated there is poorly understood by most (including me). I posted it because it shows how the relationship between husband and wife is like the relationship between God and His Church.

Eating ice cream is so different that I’m having some problems comparing eating ice cream with sex. I think everyone has agreed so far that eating in a way that harms the body is wrong (as for culpability, that is a whole other thread as there are eating disorders).

If I eat ice cream, not in excess, and truly thank God for the gift of ice cream and the gift of the parts of my anatomy that allow me to enjoy eating ice cream (taste buds, etc.) I just can’t see anything wrong with my actions. I am using the body God created in love to enjoy what He also created (all those ingredients that, together, form ice cream).

God did not create our genitalia to be used to simply pleasure ourselves in a sexual sense. The role of sex in our lives is much more complicated (and sacred) than the eating of ice cream.

I’m doing a poor job of explaining as I am still learning about covenants and am not sure about the wording I have used. If someone understands what I am trying to say and can clarify, please do (I will appreciate it as it will also help me understand).

 

[JoArtist]

I think the OP has a point. I don’t think it’s that masturbation is to be regarded as without moral consequence, but we are a culture of gluttons. Only now, instead of vomiting so we can eat more to attain more pleasure from food, we invent “food” that actually isn’t food at all in the usual sense, and seek from it immediate pleasure, gratification and comfort. That is, we take what God has provided for our sustenance and pervert it into something we use solely for pleasure with little regard for the needs of others. You can’t justify spending money on empty calories that are shortening your life when 25,000 people a day die of starvation and hunger-related causes.

It is actually 29,000 people for starvation and malnutrition related diseases each day.

In this culture with out fast food, constant snacks ,treats, and sodas that are high in sugar, fat, and have little to no nutrition is what I call excess and gluttony. Now the occasional treat I think is okay, but I know people who drink tons of soda (most people I know have soda every day), when a 12 oz coca cola has 39 grams of sugar and usually when people drink soda it is in larger quantities. At McDonald’s for instance the small has 16 oz (52 grams of sugar) , the medium has 21 oz,(68.25 grams of sugar), and the large is 32 oz (104 grams of sugar). Not to mention refills. I would call our Western society in general pretty darn gluttonous.

Now our bodies evolved to enjoy the taste of sugars and fat because these were in the items that we needed for proper nutrition like, fruits, vegetables, and fats in meats and such. Now we have high concentrations of processed sugars and fats in foods and drinks that are readily available. It is only natural that we seek foods that have these tastes, but we need to rise above what our bodies tell us to do and realize we are not only being unhealthy, but gluttonous and just chasing that instant satisfaction of having these foods that are high in sugars and fats.

 

[JoArtist]

I can honestly say I don’t remember the last time I had ice cream. I probably have it maybe once a year. Then again I really don’t like sweets. I drink beer or other alcoholic beverages maybe once a month, but generally less. I really don’t struggle in the area of what I choose to eat or drink. My hubby and I both don’t drink soda (except very occasionally which is maybe once or twice a year), we don’t eat fast food (I make over 90% of our meals at home and the rest are eaten at sit down resturaunts), don’t eat many frozen foods (we only eat these when we have very limited time), and rarely eat junk food or candy. Our junk food is baked corn chips in salsa or cheese and triscuts. lol.

 

[Nate13]

Howdy folks,

New to the CAF. Been reading for awhile and recently (last April) converted to become Catholic. Please pardon my opinions if they are off course or out of line.

I am having a problem understanding how one can compare the sin of over eating ice cream with masturbation. To me this is like comparing cows to stop watches - here’s why I think this way.

Yes, over indulgence of anything could be a venial sin and could I guess in extreme cases be considered a mortal sin, maybe. The difference I see here is that sex in any form is eternally joined with the Sacrament of Marriage. The Church, I believe, is very clear on their position on sex outside of marriage and masturbation. I believe that since the Church has elevated marriage to a Sacrament, and sex is inherently linked to marriage, then sex is also part of Sacrament. Could this be one primary reason the Church takes such a strong stand on sex of any kind outside of marriage?

If the Church elevates the Sacrament of Marriage to such a high level, then desecration of this Sacrament must also be considered one of the worst sins. Desecration of the best leads to the worst. Take Satin for example. He began as one of the highest Angels, but now he is the worst enemy.

If my ramblings are correct, then how can we compare over eating ice cream with desecration of one of our most Holy Sacraments. Not saying this is the case, but I believe that we have to be careful that we do not use our “logic” in an attempt to justify our actions.

I think this is a great point. (Awesome first post ) If we think about just how serious a sin desecrating the Sacrament of the Eucharist is I think it hits home why screwing with the Sacrament of the Matrimony is such a big deal. Sex is intimately tied to the Sacrament of Matrimony and if we think about how much care the Church has for protecting and upholding the value of the Eucharist, it should be no surprise how much care the Church has in protecting and upholding the sanctity of marriage and sex.

I think the ratio of threads on sex to threads on ice cream is about right where it should be

 

[ethereality]

I can honestly say I don’t remember the last time I had ice cream. I probably have it maybe once a year. Then again I really don’t like sweets. I drink beer or other alcoholic beverages maybe once a month, but generally less. I really don’t struggle in the area of what I choose to eat or drink. My hubby and I both don’t drink soda (except very occasionally which is maybe once or twice a year), we don’t eat fast food (I make over 90% of our meals at home and the rest are eaten at sit down resturaunts), don’t eat many frozen foods (we only eat these when we have very limited time), and rarely eat junk food or candy. Our junk food is baked corn chips in salsa or cheese and triscuts. lol.

Man, invite me over to your house! That sounds like a nice way to live.