Masturbation...why?

[billcu1]

Why bother with religion at all? Why not just join the Democratic party?

 

[lileli]

Now that statement lacks credibility, since the Church teaches none of the claims you made.

All my claims are valid. Exploring one’s I mean masturbation which the Church claims is very sinful I was told that I wearing tight jeans was sinful since it causes others to sin! It just isn’t healthy .

 

[Wesrock]

All my claims are valid. Exploring one’s I mean masturbation which the Church claims is very sinful I was told that I wearing tight jeans was sinful since it causes others to sin! It just isn’t healthy .

lileli, does the Catholic Church teach that sexual desire is bad and that wet dreams are sins?

Regarding tight jeans, that’s not inherently sinful. But we do need balance of some type. Romans 14 is something we should meditate on when considering these issues. We need to be careful about putting stumbling blocks in front of our brothers and sisters, but we should also be mindful of taking that to extremes that attack our rightful liberty. I think this is where your advisor was coming from, though I’m not sure he or she was correct in this case. I think your advisor could benefit from looking again at Romans 14, too.

 

[billcu1]

I think the animal kingdom is beautiful and many of the animals are intelligent. I think creatures such as dolphins and bobobos deserve some level of rights, though they aren’t human persons. However, they don’t have souls and aren’t models of moral behavior.

Also, I apologize for mischaracterizing your religious affiliation, lileli.

We’ll give them human right and all the rights they want! And MAKE them models of morality. Can they work a voting booth that relates to a mule?

 

[lileli]

lileli, does the Catholic Church teach that sexual desire is bad and that wet dreams are sins?

Sexual desire that results from “lust”, yes. On the matter of wet dreams, if one enjoyed said dream a lot, then yes according to what I was taught.

 

[billcu1]

Discounting their intelligence to what end? I sense you again want to point to animal behaviours and draw conclusions about how we may behave…

Some people want to justify using animals “homosexuality” Animals such as dogs are not homosexual. A mounting ritual between two males is a “dominance” issue. Not sexual at all.

 

[Wesrock]

This topic moves fast. I added some notes on your own edit regarding tight jeans to my last post.

 

[billcu1]

What! No! I mean being told that sec and sexual desires are bad. Being told that even having a wet dream is sinful. Being told to never explore your own body etc

What does “exploring your own body mean”?

 

[Wesrock]

Sexual desire that results from “lust”, yes. On the matter of wet dreams, if one enjoyed said dream a lot, then yes according to what I was taught.

Indulging in objectifying people in our mind is sinful. That’s pretty much explicitly addressed by Jesus. That said, our sexual desires are good. These are for our benefit it marriage. We just need to use them appropriately and let our will govern our passions, rather than let our passions govern our will.

 

[billcu1]

You need to be in a 12 step program. It is an addiction.

sa.org/

There are three parts to overcoming this addiction;

1. psychologists help with the underlying causes of acting out,
2. The sacraments and our spiritual life keep us strong.
3. Accountability to someone who will hold your feet to the fire.

Sobriety starts with accountability. Your sponsor is someone to whom you are accountable, someone someone who can look you in the eye and tell you the truth when you BS yourself. There will be a group of guys who have walked your walk and know exactly where you are, whom you can call when you are tempted to act out.

This is the way. I speak from experience.

Number #1 of your program was the purpose of this thread.

-Tim-

 

[lileli]

Indulging in objectifying people in our mind is sinful. That’s pretty much explicitly addressed by Jesus. That said, our sexual desires are good. These are for our benefit it marriage. We just need to use them appropriately and let our will govern our passions, rather than let our passions govern our will.

I think this is where historical context needs to be considered. When Jesus addressed the lust issue there was a rampant amount of cheating going on. Meaning, men were sleeping with married women, which is clearly wrong. Therefore Jesus addressed the conflict head on.

 

[Wesrock]

I think this is where historical context needs to be considered. When Jesus addressed the lust issue there was a rampant amount of cheating going on. Meaning, men were sleeping with married women, which is clearly wrong. Therefore Jesus addressed the conflict head on.

People still cheat today. It’s a huge problem for many. And are Jesus’ comments on being angry with one’s brother in that same teaching also limited to the historical context?

The treating and thinking of people as objects is still problematic, either way.

 

[lileli]

People still cheat today. It’s a huge problem for many. And are Jesus’ comments on being angry with one’s brother in that same teaching also limited to the historical context?

The treating and thinking of people as objects is still problematic, either way.

I don’t think we can take that passage and equate it to masturbation.

 

[NovusFidem]

Many of you are completely discounting the intelligence of higher level mammals. Whales and dolphins show incredible intelligence that is they had a means to really manipulate their environment, they would give us a run for our money. To discount the splendor of the rest of animal kingdom(which we are apart of) is to have an arrogant view about humanity. It reminds when the earth being the center of the solar system was a vital teaching as well.

Please, do give us examples. Dolphins are said to be one of the most intelligent beings on Earth, right next to humans. They also are known for participation in group rape, bullying and torture.

I do not discount their intelligence. However, intellectual capacity alone is not enough for an animal to judge their actions on **moral **reasoning.

Example time.

Man gives food to poor man. Man does this because he** wants to help the poor man**. There is nothing the poor man can give to him in return, and they will never see each other again. Man acted on Charity.

Monkey gives banana to other monkey. He does it because other monkey is submissive to him and needs to be strong enough to help him defend this territory. Other monkey decides to help monkey defend territory, since he gets free food from it. Each monkey gets something out of this action, so no Charity was done.

We can do that because our souls are spiritual, geared into finding Truth/God. We can understand a concept such as “Justice” or “Chastity” and act on them due to a more spiritual development. Animals can’t. They can be very intelligent, and see that killing their babies is baby for the group - but this is based on concern for their own possession, not a spiritual sort of Love, or anything like that.

We cant judge humans basing on what animals do. If we did that, society would be WORSE than it already is.

 

[lileli]

Please, do give us examples. Dolphins are said to be one of the most intelligent beings on Earth, right next to humans. They also are known for participation in group rape, bullying and torture.

SO DO HUMANS! There are moral dolphins and morals humans and bad ones as well.

I do not discount their intelligence. However, intellectual capacity alone is not enough for an animal to judge their actions on **moral **reasoning.

Example time.

Man gives food to poor man. Man does this because he** wants to help the poor man**. There is nothing the poor man can give to him in return, and they will never see each other again. Man acted on Charity.

Monkey gives banana to other monkey. He does it because other monkey is submissive to him and needs to be strong enough to help him defend this territory. Other monkey decides to help monkey defend territory, since he gets free food from it. Each monkey gets something out of this action, so no Charity was done.

We can do that because our souls are spiritual, geared into finding Truth/God. We can understand a concept such as “Justice” or “Chastity” and act on them due to a more spiritual development. Animals can’t. They can be very intelligent, and see that killing their babies is baby for the group - but this is based on concern for their own possession, not a spiritual sort of Love, or anything like that.

We cant judge humans basing on what animals do. If we did that, society would be WORSE than it already is.

Experiments have been done to demonstrate the empathy most apes dogs and other animals exhibit and can exhibit. They may even be more holy than us since they can do this without religion.

 

[Thorolfr]

That said, our sexual desires are good. These are for our benefit it marriage. We just need to use them appropriately and let our will govern our passions, rather than let our passions govern our will.

So our sexual desires are good, especially in the context of marriage. In fact, as reported here from Harvard University:

A major survey of 127,545 American adults found that married men are healthier than men who were never married or whose marriages ended in divorce or widowhood. Men who have marital partners also live longer than men without spouses…If marriage protects health, the heart would be a likely beneficiary. Japanese scientists reported that never-married men were three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than married men…Although the data are sparse, marriage appears to have a positive effect on a variety of health outcomes. Mental health is the most prominent; married men have a lower risk of depression and a higher likelihood of satisfaction with life in retirement than their unmarried peers. Being married has also been linked to better cognitive function, a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, improved blood sugar levels, and better outcomes for hospitalized patients.

health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/marriage-and-mens-health

But what about gay people? They are told that they must remain celibate and cannot marry each other. This probably means that they will suffer from all the negative health consequences experienced by single people in relation to married people, including higher rates of cardiovascular disease, poorer outcomes if they get cancer, more depression, higher rates of Alzheimer’s, etc.

 

[NovusFidem]

SO DO HUMANS! There are moral dolphins and morals humans and bad ones as well.

You still are missing the point.

If I kill a man, I am acting against Morals, because I am a moral being, and am bound by moral laws. The police will arrest me and I will be judged by my actions.

If a dolphin kills another dolphin, they are NOT acting against Morals, because they are NOT moral beings, and are NOT bound by moral laws. NO dolphin police is going to arrest him, and he won’t be judged by his actions.

The action of group rape is immoral in OUR society, but not on dolphin’s society.

Dolphins can’t be moral or immoral because they have NO MORAL LAWS.

You are judging a “moral dolphin” based on YOUR morality. YOUR understanding that group rape is wrong makes YOU judge dolphin as bad.

Experiments have been done to demonstrate the empathy most apes dogs and other animals exhibit and can exhibit. They may even be more holy than us since they can do this without religion.

Empathy is not morality. Intelligence is not morality. Reasoning is not morality.

Morality is something else entirely.

 

[Wesrock]

I don’t think we can take that passage and equate it to masturbation.

Well, this tangent of ours is related to you saying the Church said sexual desire and wet dreams were sinful. I think masturbation is very frequently associated with lust and objectification of people, so there are some applications. However, I do understand it doesn’t address the technical component only, which the Church also finds to be a sin. That goes back to tradition, scripture, analysis of the natural law, and the Church’s interpretation of these things taken all together.

 

[Wesrock]

Animals can’t sin. They aren’t responsible for sin. They don’t have immortal souls that are judged at death.

I think we could debate forever about how aware of right and wrong animals are. I think some do have some awareness, but it’s not as developed as ours, and it’s irrelevant to the discussion, anyway. They can’t sin.

 

[Thorolfr]

Animals can’t sin. They aren’t responsible for sin. They don’t have immortal souls that are judged at death.

I think we could debate forever about how aware of right and wrong animals are. I think some do have some awareness, but it’s not as developed as ours, and it’s irrelevant to the discussion, anyway. They can’t sin.

That still doesn’t explain why God allows animals to do things that are sinful for humans to do. Why did He create the animals in such a way that they would do these things in the first place since they apparently don’t have any free will like humans do? If masturbating is bad for humans, then why wouldn’t it also be bad for animals even if they won’t be punished for doing it?