I'm not selfish, and I know why your wife left you (warning: TMI)

[cewfa]

After giving this matter a lot of thought, I have come to these conclusions:

1: What I do, or don't do, with my body is none of their business. I am not joining in on no masturbation with these people. If they choose not to masturbate for spiritual reasons, that is their choice, and it doesn't concern me.

2: Most of the men in this group have strained marriages at best, and they freely admit to these. At the risk of sounding judgmental myself, when they fix their marriages they can tell me how "selfish" I am about masturbation.

2a: Speaking of selfish, I prefer to use the term "responsible". I know that due to what has happened in my life and my lifestyle, I am not cut out for marriage and definitely not cut out to raise kids. I would end up hurting both my wife and my children, if I was married with a family. Flying solo, as it were, is the most responsible course of action I can take.

2b: In addition to point 2a. I am also for health and safety reasons choosing not to be promiscuous and thus my solo act, as it were, is the safest sex I can have. There is zero chance of an STD and zero chance of an accidental pregnancy.

If God doesn't like it, then God will either allow a suitable woman to come into my life, or he will change my heart and my attitude on the subject.

[Gravekeeper]

The constant debates over whether or not masturbation is sinful are usually focused on what exactly is meant by "sexual immorality" in these scriptures.

Well, as you say, muddy translations.

"Sexuality immorality" is just how its translated in certain versions of the Bible. Other versions use "fornication" which is closer to the original translations and has specific definition ( Premarital sex, incest, bestiality, sex with someone who is divorced, etc ). The Greek root is porneia ( also the root of pornography as you may notice ) which basically just meant illicit sexual intercourse. IE when unwed, with your mom, with a sheep, etc. Masturbation is not included.

Really, the Bible has nothing to say on the topic of masturbation. The oft cited Onan spilling his "seed on the ground" and getting smited for it had nothing to do with masturbation.

This is also one of those things Jesus supposedly said that the various authors of the New Testament don't actually agree on. As each one basically gives his own list of what he thinks Jesus was condemning. Some of the lists get pretty ridiculously long. Its doubtful that if Jesus even decided to give a bullet point list there that he stood there and rattled off 11 items.

The core teaching here was simply it's not what you put in your mouth that defiles you but what comes out of it. Jesus was basically a social and political revolutionary trying to overthrow the system at the time, I honestly doubt icky sex things were a big topic of concern for him.

Now, the OLD Testament, it has a whole catalog of icky sex things it will stone the shit out of you for. So does Judaism. Wanking = Death in Judaism. That is not a translation or interpretation. Its pretty clear. Wanking = Death. There's even a specific term for it in Judaism ( "Zera levatala" ).

Personally I think the exact meaning of these scriptures should be left to personal interpretation. That's pretty much all we have when there's no clear right or wrong spelled out.

Well, no, they should be left to academic interpretation. Personal interpretation is what gets Christians into all these messes to begin with. >.>

[Gravekeeper]

2b: In addition to point 2a. I am also for health and safety reasons choosing not to be promiscuous and thus my solo act, as it were, is the safest sex I can have. There is zero chance of an STD and zero chance of an accidental pregnancy.

If God doesn't like it, then God will either allow a suitable woman to come into my life, or he will change my heart and my attitude on the subject.

Frankly, if there is an omnipotent creative force at the helm of the universe, I sincerely doubt it gives a shit whether or not some evolved monkeys touch their weiners or not.

If it does, it was pretty stupid of him/her/it to attach a litany of health and psychological benefits to it and let every other animal on the planet that can reach its own genitals do it in front of us.

The whole masturbation = evil thing is basically the Catholics, not the Bible. And the Catholics wield shame and guilty like a baseball bat to begin with.

[cewfa]

It isn't just Catholics, it is Protestants too. I go to a Protestant church.

I doubt very seriously God cares whether or not I wank. I've never felt bad about it, I just get pissed off when people make judgments of things they know nothing about.

[wolfie]

Remember the words "sexual immorality" in the scriptures above are taken from an English TRANSLATION of a very old text. It's easy to lose or distort meaning in translation. This further muddies the picture of what exactly "sexual immorality" means.

Also, the translation into English was merely the latest in a series of translations, so what we're reading now is an Nth generation translation. The Islamic dogma that the original Arabic version of the Koran is the definitive version, and that translations are merely for the convenience of people who can't read Arabic, is good in that it avoids the whole "what did this mean before it was translated?" issue. AFAIK, there is NO surviving version of the Christian bible in the language in which it was originally written (i.e. no translation-induced changes of meaning). That's why the Dead Sea Scrolls are so important - they're a version of the Bible before the last few generations of translation.

Frankly, if there is an omnipotent creative force at the helm of the universe, I sincerely doubt it gives a shit whether or not some evolved monkeys touch their weiners or not.

If it does, it was pretty stupid of him/her/it to attach a litany of health and psychological benefits to it and let every other animal on the planet that can reach its own genitals do it in front of us.

The old "Why do dogs lick their balls? Because they can" issue.

[mathnerd]

Needing to delete some stuff. Thanks for understanding.

[Rageaholic]

^

Me too. Fuck the guilt. Guilt is a toxic emotion and so is any church which exploits that to gain compliance. Most of the things they guilt you over are things which hurt no one.

[NecCat]

^

Me too. Fuck the guilt. Guilt is a toxic emotion and so is any church which exploits that to gain compliance. Most of the things they guilt you over are things which hurt no one.

I wouldn't agree with that, killing, lying, stealing and purposefully hurting others, it seems most of the things that churchs guilt you over are things that should cause you guilt because they hurt others. People just get all upset about the sex stuff because they disagree with what the church is telling them.

I think it depends on both the church and the religion too. I was raised lapsed catholic, but attended catholic school and the lectures on sex went like:
The will of god is that sex will occur between married people for the purpose of procreating, but occasionally people aren't able to perform gods will perfectly so ...(45 minutes on disease control, birth control, or respect for self and others) ... and remember everyone except the saints fail to live gods will perfectly so if you think it's possible you might find yourself needing more information on this before you are married you can get it from (local agencies, doctors, school counsellor).

Overall pretty non-guilty. As far as I know there was never any indication that masturbation was a sin, just reasonable warnings about hygiene and safety.

Straight from the nuns mouths that was.

[cewfa]

I think it depends on both the church and the religion too. I was raised lapsed catholic, but attended catholic school and the lectures on sex went like: The will of god is that sex will occur between married people for the purpose of procreating, but occasionally people aren't able to perform gods will perfectly so ...(45 minutes on disease control, birth control, or respect for self and others) ... and remember everyone except the saints fail to live gods will perfectly so if you think it's possible you might find yourself needing more information on this before you are married you can get it from (local agencies, doctors, school counsellor).

Overall pretty non-guilty. As far as I know there was never any indication that masturbation was a sin, just reasonable warnings about hygiene and safety.

Straight from the nuns mouths that was.

See, I could live with that because it is realistic and honest, and pretty much the way my parents talked to me about sex as a teenager.

I'm starting to think that there are A LOT of false teachings in the name of Christianity out there, but that again is a whole 'nother thread.

[mathnerd]

I wouldn't agree with that, killing, lying, stealing and purposefully hurting others, it seems most of the things that churchs guilt you over are things that should cause you guilt because they hurt others. People just get all upset about the sex stuff because they disagree with what the church is telling them.

I think it depends on both the church and the religion too. I was raised lapsed catholic, but attended catholic school and the lectures on sex went like:
The will of god is that sex will occur between married people for the purpose of procreating, but occasionally people aren't able to perform gods will perfectly so ...(45 minutes on disease control, birth control, or respect for self and others) ... and remember everyone except the saints fail to live gods will perfectly so if you think it's possible you might find yourself needing more information on this before you are married you can get it from (local agencies, doctors, school counsellor).

Overall pretty non-guilty. As far as I know there was never any indication that masturbation was a sin, just reasonable warnings about hygiene and safety.

Straight from the nuns mouths that was.

That's the polar opposite of what I was taught in a Catholic school. Essentially we got "Sex is bad and women should only have sex because it's a necessary evil for getting pregnant and having kids. A pure, Godly woman doesn't enjoy sex, only submits to her husband out of necessity."

I was in for a huge culture shock when I went to a boarding school for the performing arts in high school, and sex, sexuality, and LGBTQ rights and acceptance were major cultural themes in the school. Hell the annual spring fling ended with a formal dance at which the highlight was a drag queen fashion show. It was eye opening for me, and started me on the path that eventually led me to separating from the church.

The final nail came when I condemned by many for getting my tubes tied after my third baby nearly took the life of both of us. I'd had complicated pregnancies, and they were getting more and more difficult. My youngest was born at 24 weeks after delivery was necessary to save my life, and nearly didn't work. Yet somehow I'm a bad and evil person because I took measures to ensure that I would be alive to take care of the kids I already have instead of risking getting pregnant again and depriving these three from having a mother.


As for the rest that was mentioned above, you don't need religion to know that killing people and hurting people is bad. That's basic humanity.

[NecCat]

That's the polar opposite of what I was taught in a Catholic school.

I think it really depends on the parish priest. Ours was ordained as a widower when his kids were teenagers, even a decade later I think he was more in touch with how to teach kids than a lot of priests would be. Also I did most of my schooling in Quebec, one of the most simultaneously religious, catholic, sexual liberal part of the country. No, I don't understand how that works either.

[s_stabeler]

It really depends on the priest, I suspect. Does the priest care more about their flock, or about banging on about the religion? Many priests care more about their flock.The more extreme ones care more about the religion.