H
HereticAmI
Guest
From one of the early responses (first page):
“But I tell you that anyone who [l]ooks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
The poster then went on the claim that masturbation involves lust and so, “game over”.
My response is as follows: Do you lust after your wife? So you’ve committed adultery in your heart? Jesus said, a woman, and did not say, a woman that you are not married to. The point of the passage, dear poster, is to get some to understand that thought matters as much as deed. To take the obvious example, recent surveys on college campuses across the US found that more than half of college-aged men would rape a woman if they knew that they could away with it. So what the credit to them for not raping anyone, given that it appears that the only reason they are not raping anyone now is that they don’t want to go to jail? That’s the point of Jesus’ words, i.e., you can’t say that you never committed adultery if you spent your whole life lusting after married women and the only reason you didn’t commit the adultery is because you didn’t want to be stoned.
Masturbation is not mentioned a single time in the entire Bible. We have much else that is sexual in nature mentioned, even sex with beasts, and by the way, what percent of the population fornicates with animals? Less than 1%? How many masturbate? So, an activity involving less than 1% of the human population gets mentioned but one that involves more than half gets no word. What does that say.
And see the Torah re the emission of semen. Not gravely immoral. When emitted in intercourse and when not, same remedy, go take a bath. Maybe the RCC could wrap it’s mind around that concept: unclean when engaging in an act designed to give new life, ie., you are unclean when you emit semen while trying to make a baby. The reason why it is “unclean” is simple. The very fact that we need to procreate to keep our species alive is an everyday reminder of the decay and death that is us and our universe, and such decay and death is the antithesis of The Eternal and so it is unclean.
Lastly, there was this other comment:
“Who is more likely to be correct, me or the long list of saints in various cultures and various times who believed and taught what the Church teaches?”
First off, that’s a logical fallacy, and the fallacy is more than amply demonstrated by all those humans of long ago being wrong in thinking that the earth is flat. Secondly, the long list of saints includes more patent anti-Semites than I care to count [you shall not hate your brother in your heart; they did and so gave voice to their hate]. And back to my initial point here, most saints before the last century believed the earth to be flat [my favorite papal bull, Inter Caetera, divides the world between Spain and Portugal, giving to Spain all territory to the one side of the line, and all territory on the other side of the line to the Portugal; problem is the world is round so the Portuguese and Spanish will just fight again when they meet up on the other side of the world after sailing around the world]. And so, you’re right, let’s put our trust in humans who divided a round world along an up and down line that didn’t make a circle.
Sorry, almost forgot, but concerning another grab for power, the power to bind and loose is for the individual and not the church. You see, friends, if you were sinned against, and you loose the sin against you, how can God not also do the same? Does God want to be known as less merciful than you? Now if you bind the sin… Come judgment day, we will well and truly know who are the merciful among us.
“But I tell you that anyone who [l]ooks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
The poster then went on the claim that masturbation involves lust and so, “game over”.
My response is as follows: Do you lust after your wife? So you’ve committed adultery in your heart? Jesus said, a woman, and did not say, a woman that you are not married to. The point of the passage, dear poster, is to get some to understand that thought matters as much as deed. To take the obvious example, recent surveys on college campuses across the US found that more than half of college-aged men would rape a woman if they knew that they could away with it. So what the credit to them for not raping anyone, given that it appears that the only reason they are not raping anyone now is that they don’t want to go to jail? That’s the point of Jesus’ words, i.e., you can’t say that you never committed adultery if you spent your whole life lusting after married women and the only reason you didn’t commit the adultery is because you didn’t want to be stoned.
Masturbation is not mentioned a single time in the entire Bible. We have much else that is sexual in nature mentioned, even sex with beasts, and by the way, what percent of the population fornicates with animals? Less than 1%? How many masturbate? So, an activity involving less than 1% of the human population gets mentioned but one that involves more than half gets no word. What does that say.
And see the Torah re the emission of semen. Not gravely immoral. When emitted in intercourse and when not, same remedy, go take a bath. Maybe the RCC could wrap it’s mind around that concept: unclean when engaging in an act designed to give new life, ie., you are unclean when you emit semen while trying to make a baby. The reason why it is “unclean” is simple. The very fact that we need to procreate to keep our species alive is an everyday reminder of the decay and death that is us and our universe, and such decay and death is the antithesis of The Eternal and so it is unclean.
Lastly, there was this other comment:
“Who is more likely to be correct, me or the long list of saints in various cultures and various times who believed and taught what the Church teaches?”
First off, that’s a logical fallacy, and the fallacy is more than amply demonstrated by all those humans of long ago being wrong in thinking that the earth is flat. Secondly, the long list of saints includes more patent anti-Semites than I care to count [you shall not hate your brother in your heart; they did and so gave voice to their hate]. And back to my initial point here, most saints before the last century believed the earth to be flat [my favorite papal bull, Inter Caetera, divides the world between Spain and Portugal, giving to Spain all territory to the one side of the line, and all territory on the other side of the line to the Portugal; problem is the world is round so the Portuguese and Spanish will just fight again when they meet up on the other side of the world after sailing around the world]. And so, you’re right, let’s put our trust in humans who divided a round world along an up and down line that didn’t make a circle.
Sorry, almost forgot, but concerning another grab for power, the power to bind and loose is for the individual and not the church. You see, friends, if you were sinned against, and you loose the sin against you, how can God not also do the same? Does God want to be known as less merciful than you? Now if you bind the sin… Come judgment day, we will well and truly know who are the merciful among us.
:tiphat: