Just watched a tv programme about how different religions regard masturbation. Had a shock. Only Catholics treat this ordinary Human function as a crime!

Please put me right.

-- Ralph McLean, Plymouth, England (syborg@blueyonder.co.uk), November 30, 2004

Answers

It's not a crime, it's a sin. There is a difference.

First of all, it's not a crime as there is no civil law banning it.

It is a sin (and has been since the time of the apostles) for the following objective (as opposed to self-interested subjective) reasons:

a) scriptural - Onan spilled his seed and was killed for it. The Patriarchs saw sexual intercourse as a GOOD thing, but only within marriage. The Jews and early Christians were surrounded by Pagans who glorified sexual license outside of marriage - whether in Sodom or Babylon or Greece - so they were certainly exposed to the practice and rejected it as opposed to God's command to be fruitful and multiply.

b) historical/hygene... The Romans had whole feast days in praise of masturbatory actions - and they died in droves to various plagues and illnesses. It didn't take a rocket scientists (or astronomer) to figure out a cause and effect between men becoming addicted to the practice and marital problems and a link between promiscuity and disease... the Church fathers just watched what their culture was doing, saw the practical and almost constant witness of their pagan neighbors and concluded that masturbation is the door to worse activities, and as it is notoriously addictive, it weakens the will and mind (cf. Aristotle) to the point where men can no longer reason properly.

c) Modern studies. Modern studies in sexology have confirmed that there is an immediate endorphic effect which is habit forming (addictive) when a man masturbates. The well known and statistically common dysfunction of premature ejaculation is attributed to frequent or addictive masturbation in men.

If you think the Church's teaching that the act is sinful because it is harmful is hoey, please offer us FACTUAL based rebuttals based on history and medicine. You can't.

You ASSUME that it's OK sight unseen, based on zero reasons.

Or you go to websites like Planned Parenthood or Playboy that run their business on increased sexual promiscuity and addictive behavior and see them praising this as a natural and wonderful thing to be indulged in daily as part of a habitual "lifestyle". Of course they would! But then, they are not scientific or neutral sources.

Or try to stop if you happen to do it... try do not arouse or touch yourself there for 1 month. I bet you can't do it- if you have the habit it is harder to break than smoking. If that doesn't convince you that something is wrong with the action, nothing else will.

To conclude: the Church bases its moral teaching on two factors: scriptural revelation and historical,phenomenological (scientific) CONCLUSIONS as to the harm a given act does to the organism or interpersonal relationships.

In other words - Catholic morality is not arbitrary or based on flipping coins or worse, calculated to merely take pot shots at a given culture's favorite pass time for the hell of it.

Look at all the dying Christian Churches that have buckled under to the pop culture - every single church that goes with the flow and lets its members do whatever they desire looses numbers and members.

Conversely, the Catholic Church continues to grow in numbers around the world, including in the USA, even with extemely unpopular moral teachings.

It's not always easy to be moral - or healthy. It's easier to be a couch potato and get fat. It's easier to be addicted to drink or smoking or drugs or masturbation and hard to break those addictions. But health and morality doesn't consist in doing what is easy!

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), December 01, 2004.

Hello Ralph!

I find masturbation problematic not merely because of the spilling of seed (wet dreams do that too), but because it invariably involves our thought life, our fantasies. Instead of sharing the holiness and joy of sex with one's spouse, one is making love to a fantasy, robbing one's mate for the sake of an illusion, or committing adultery in one's mind and heart. It is important to be faithful to one's spouse in heart, not only physically.

And by the way, Gandhi and the Dalai Lama would find masturbation to be morally off as well. It isn't only the Catholic Church that finds masturbation to miss the mark, it is every major religion (at least until secular trends in the 20th century took over many churches).

In the pursuit of excellence, Christians avoid not only lies and stealing, but also the muddying of our sexual waters.

Christ our Lord said, "Blessed are the pure in heart." May you have that great gift of purity in your life, my friend!

Cordially,

-- Michael (edwardsronning@prodigy.net), December 01, 2004.

Masturbation is a crime against your own spiritual self, only that it is laced with intense pleasure instead of pain.

-- Leslie John (lesliemon@hotmail.com), December 01, 2004.

Ralph McLean, Plymouth, England (syborg@blueyonder.co.uk), :
Happy to meet you, Good Englishman.

I've been in your great country and loved it. Loved the people. It's more than a great country; you are a deeply spiritual people, no matter what the madmen say.

Since the days of Henry VIII Catholic saints have abounded in England. Truly you are in a land watered with the holy blood of martyrs.

You came to us referring to the offensive habit of masturbation as only an ordinary human function; and it really IS ordinary. We cannot deny it. It's banal and stupid and repulsive-- after the fact. Like a dog, eating its own vomit. Do dogs slurp up excrement and vomit as merely an ''ordinary canine function''-- ? ? ?

I don't claim to know. But I do know we are above ordinary dogs, and above nature. We have the image of God breathed into our souls. YOU have it. This is what calls you incessantly in the depths of your psyche, to LOVE Him. If you would love God, you will not descend to the level of a dog.

I love dogs, really. I don't hate a dog for eating his own vomit, because I realise he is never acts under pain of sin. Dogs do not sin under almost any circumstances. They are automatons, operating in the spell of instinct.

This is animal instinct as we all understand it. Instinct of animals is why we are driven to fall into sins of self-abuse. We give in to the animal in us. An urge your TV program refers to as ''human function''. It's really an animal function below human beings.

Jesus Christ deigned in time to appear amongst men in truly human form & Person. Not in animal function or anything debased. He is our model. Find Him, and you'll find our ultra-human function and potential in yourself. --The holy function of divine love. Have complete confidence in Jesus; Eternal Son of God made Man.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), December 01, 2004.

Let me give you this, Ralph. Do not despise it, but learn.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), December 02, 2004.

Please go here:

http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/shj.htm

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), December 02, 2004.

Take your advice where it's appreciated. Back to the gutter. You trust psychologists? OK; and if they have an itch, they scratch it. Many of them masturbate; then they call it an addiction, because it makes them feel guilt. Self-serving (self-abusing) counsel is bad counsel. They don't care about morality or God's commandments. Neither do you.

Here we care. This is a forum that keeps us on the side of God, not men. And I have no idea what you want here, since you're not on the side of morality or God. You're on the side of death and decay.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), December 19, 2004.