FORUMS > Sexual Health Forum Rules

http://catechismoncall.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/catholic-teaching-on-masturbation/
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on masturbation:
2352 “By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. ‘Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.’ ‘The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.’ For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of ‘the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.’”
“To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.”

Is it no wonder so many Catholics are fucked in the head. A friend of my was so fucked up because of Catholic teaching he experienced massive guilt when ever he jackoff, and would even say a prayer over his cum.

OMG - I must have been the biggest sinner in my younger day. According to the teaching you quote I've redeamed myself having a partner for the last 20-yrs.

Couldn't your friend simply go to confession and be rid of his guilt? I'm sure the priest has a personal understanding of the situation.

JW61 saidOMG - I must have been the biggest sinner in my younger day. According to the teaching you quote I've redeamed myself having a partner for the last 20-yrs.

Couldn't your friend simply go to confession and be rid of his guilt? I'm sure the priest has a personal understanding of the situation.

Not if your partner is another guy:

Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.
Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Homosexuality.asp

False belief systems are fun, as long as you don't subscribe.

Hey M8: Sounds like u have a lot of "Catholic Teaching" info there urself. U got it right so far. Never could "wack off" myself when growing up without the guilt, until recently. After finfing out what some priest were doing to boys and the church heirachy looking the other way figured "wacking off" was a minor problem. No longer have any guilt about doing it!!! Besides read it does wonders for prostrate health!! So look upon it now as a health maintenance issue!!!

/sigh I don't understand homeboys anti-catholic stance especially with and after V2 but thats just me. I'll subscribe to providence and leave it to a higher power. Why worry about tomorrow when tomorrow takes care of itself.

I used to say the Rosary, light a votive, and BEG for forgiveness after masturbating. I attended confession on a weekly basis because the notion of guilt that Catholicism instills can kill (trust me, I have seen it)

I wouldn't go so far as being so harsh and calling Catholics "fucked in the head" (looking at most of your posts, you do have it out for them). A lot of "Catholics" are just that by adoption of parents' faith. When one is raised in that belief system, one cannot question it until that belief system is put into question which doesn't happen all the time. Someone like me went to Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, and Catholic college where one is surrounded by like-minded people who are of the same disposition (that is, faith of the parents with no external questioning).

I, like many other catholic-schooled boys knew nothing else except for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all of which I was taught how to drastically dismantle. The problem for them, is that I was trained to be a priest and was a novice, but now I use it all against them if they come harping at my door.

such a stupid waste of time. Instead of spending time repenting of a natural body function maybe they should spend repenting of all the homosexuals they have murdered or caused to be murdered over the past 1600 years or so.

I think it's important that, after sexually abusing an alter boy (like they did to my dad when he was young), a priest makes sure to lecture his flock on the evils of masturbation. This way, young boys who weren't lucky enough to be one of the thousands that were sexually abused at least get to share in some of the guilt and humiliation.

Do love that closeted gay Catholic priesthood -- works so well spreading shame, guilt, fear, denial, humiliation, and self-loathing far and wide. It's God's work. Truly it is.

Oops, did I just reveal a gigantic chip on my shoulder the size of the Titanic? I guess I did.

iguanaSF saidDo love that closeted gay Catholic priesthood

That was once the era (70-80s) when you couldn't do anything but be straight or a priest. Many, many priest programs do extensive testing and deny a lot of applicants they feel might be "latent homosexuals" (barf). I know about 4 gay Catholics who tried to join the priesthood but were flat out denied because they, like some others, have to wear their sexuality on their sleeves either in the form of a lisp, certain mannerisms, etc... These people "loved God" but were told no (obviously bc the Church is trying ridiculously hard to abolish the "only-gay-men-become-priests" notion).

That being said, once denied they have become the biggest enemies of the Church. There is no one better than embittered former novice priests to destroy the church.

phemt said

JW61 saidOMG - I must have been the biggest sinner in my younger day. According to the teaching you quote I've redeamed myself having a partner for the last 20-yrs.

Couldn't your friend simply go to confession and be rid of his guilt? I'm sure the priest has a personal understanding of the situation.

Not if your partner is another guy:

Every human being is called to receive a gift of divine sonship, to become a child of God by grace. However, to receive this gift, we must reject sin, including homosexual behavior—that is, acts intended to arouse or stimulate a sexual response regarding a person of the same sex. The Catholic Church teaches that such acts are always violations of divine and natural law.
Homosexual desires, however, are not in themselves sinful. People are subject to a wide variety of sinful desires over which they have little direct control, but these do not become sinful until a person acts upon them, either by acting out the desire or by encouraging the desire and deliberately engaging in fantasies about acting it out. People tempted by homosexual desires, like people tempted by improper heterosexual desires, are not sinning until they act upon those desires in some manner.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Homosexuality.asp

Okay... again I'll pull what I posted before. As for homosexual relations: Lots of questions remain about that and I know you're spinning in your chair about to hit google up like a fat kid loves cake but fact is that many many scholars disagree on what exactly was meant but much of what is said in scripture especially when referencing the old testament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledge that homosexual orientation is not a matter of choice (2358 ). There is a difference made between orientation and sexual activity and that latter being considered immoral. American Catholic bishops have stated that "homosexuals, like everyone else, should not suffer from prejudice against their basic human rights. They have a right to respect, friendship, and justice. They should have an active role in the Christian community."(2)
Any sexual act that is Irresponsible, promiscuous, or violent are seen as morally evil regardless of their sexual orientation. Other Catholic documents exist that restate the long held teaching concerning homosexual behavior but questions still remain on what to do with homosexuals in long term committed relationships.
(2) To Live in Christ Jesus: A Pastoral Reflection on the Moral Life (Washington: USCC, 1976)

Something to consider: The term "Eunuch" and referenced relationships in the bible between the following individuals:

Ruth and Naomi
David and Jonathan
Daniel and Ashpenaz

Some reading for you to consider:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bmar.htm

Now taking in to consideration all over catholic teaching as it currently stand and the point made by the Catechism one can make a make an informed conscience decisions based on upon said issues and questions if combined with full faithful prayer and meditation.

That teaching caused me a lot of unnecessary pain and shame when I was a teenager in Catholic school. I still have trouble forgiving that church

after he preyed did he eat it?

When I was a young teen, I confessed that I masturbated. The priest told me that the next time I had the urge to masturbate, to imagine myself doing it on the altar. So yeah, they really do fuck with your mind.

Pinny said (looking at most of your posts, you do have it out for them).

That's putting it mildly. "Obsession" seems more like it.

It seems to me that the best way to refute the repressive aspects of Catholicism or any other creed, isn't just to demonize those who believe in it. That simply duplicates the church's ancient practice of hurling anathemas at heretics. The way to defeat intolerance is by being tolerant.

My masturbation lecture was delivered to me at age 14 in 1963, along with about 100 other freshman boys, by a Jesuit while we were seated in a Catholic Church! It was the chapel of my all-boys prep school, and the whole episode was totally ludicrous.

First, you have to realize we had no idea why we were being brought there, we assuming it was for another frequent dose of prayer, or for some theological exhortation, as we took our seats in the pews. Then a Jesuit in his ecclesiastical attire started addressing us, warming up to the subject and trying to be "one of the guys" by demonstrating that he knew all the current terminology.

So we're sitting there, with a crucified Jesus on the cross above the solemn altar, statues of the saints looking down on us from all around, and this robed priest is rattling on about boners, hard-ons, dicks, jerking off and self-abuse. Many of the young men giggled and squirmed in the pews uncomfortably, while I was actually a bit offended by this inappropriate presentation.

Maybe the Jesuits thought having it in the chapel would impress us with the seriousness of the subject, and they'd be drawing upon the full authority of the Church to enforce the ban against wicked masturbation. I merely found it tasteless & gross, better delivered in an academic lecture hall, if at all.

An authentic sense of this distant time & place can be found in the movie "Heaven Help Us" about a Catholic boys school in the same New York City area as mine (though not Jesuit, the Jesuits a religious order that was even more strict than the one in the movie), and that story occurring 2 years after the incident I describe above.

You may recall the scene where the fanatical priest lectures the boys while they're all standing nude at poolside. It portrays much the same spirit of our chapel lecture, though we weren't naked of course, as we nevertheless were when we swam, too, exactly as the movie shows.

In fact, that film is so amazingly accurate it could have been shot while I was in Catholic prep school myself: the clothes, the look, the attitude, the experiences, the sense of the era. With the exception that the movie gave the students more of a working class flavor, not realistic given the high tuition, and competitive academic entrance standards.

In retrospect I view it as a clash between our modern world and the world of late medieval logic and reasoning, which the Jesuits had helped to create. Unsettling though that entire prep school experience was for me, it prepared me to appreciate & understand many kinds of outdated, disconnected & faulty philosophical reasoning that I continue to encounter to this day.

It actually helped me to recognize and deal with right-wing Republicanism, along with Christian evangelism or Muslim fundamentalism, and other defective reasoning approaches. Or just a goofy neighbor who has simple cause & effect logic all twisted around, to the point of being barely able to manage the activities of daily living (ADLs).

Whether involving issues political or practical, our great societal failing is that we don't teach pure logic to our kids, but instead pure opinion. With some critical thinking skills they could decide for themselves, one way or the other. But instead they are encouraged to engage in "team think" and are pushed to wear only red or blue, black or white.

So it is with masturbation. Any medical, scientific or logical approach is ignored, in favor of "teachings" and unqualified opinion. I really think there should be a law, that anyone who thinks & acts medieval, should be compelled to dress medieval. Codpiece, anyone?

I'm astonished that anyone cares what the Church Of Paedophilia has to say about anything.

TheIStrat saidThat teaching caused me a lot of unnecessary pain and shame when I was a teenager in Catholic school. I still have trouble forgiving that church

Ditto

Went to Catholic high school... jacked off about 25x/week...think was average for a teenager...of any religion. Never booked a passage on the "guilt" trip....Kept the good parts of the religion and disregarded the rest, as did many, if not most, of my peers. ***Shortnsexy sums it all up very nicely. (see below) "find your own truth" EXACTLY !!!

Pinny said

iguanaSF saidDo love that closeted gay Catholic priesthood

That being said, once denied they have become the biggest enemies of the Church. There is no one better than embittered former novice priests to destroy the church.

Just seems to me that it has done nothing more than showed their true allegiance.

Destroyed the church - as in the body of Christ. That's impossible
Destroyed the church - as in the institution - well I'm no Catholic - but that doesn't seem to have happened.

The guilt was HUGE well into adulthood. I still feel twinges of guilt when I realize that I am eating meat on a Friday.

I don't think that I will ever fully recover from being a Roman Catholic.

In high school, I had one instructor who preached one day, "Thou shalt not cast thy seed upon the ground" and I withdrew from that class - that very day. Old fundamentalist teachers should retire and just retreat back into the shadows of their angry hateful lives.

Hmmm, everybody seems to be ignoring Ryan.....I wonder why?

Ryan, I'm sure you are a WONDERFUL guy and treat everyone around you with respect and dignity but do it because that's who you are and it comes from your heart......not because someone tells you you're going to go to hell if you don't!

Catholicism is based on belief, not faith. Belief is ascribing to something someone else has put out for you to take in....you believe it or you don't and beliefs can change or be stagnant, whatever you choose. When people say they believe in Jesus Christ, they are saying I take as truth what I have been taught about Jesus Christ not what is true about Jesus Christ. Who KNOWS what is really true about Jesus? Where you there? Did you know him and experience him first hand? Did those who wrote the bible? Did the pope? No! I'm not saying don't believe in Jesus. If you believe in the core principles that he taught and espoused himself, then great. If you believe in the churches interpretation of what he taught, then you are also saying that you believe in every interpretation, re-interpretation, social filter, common day belief and twisting of facts that have been applied to anything that has been written about in the bible since it was first put to paper by Gutenburg (spelling?)!

Faith is knowing in your heart and soul, what is right at your core for you! You are part of all that is and as such are connected to the truth always if you only allow yourself to make your own decision about it. Faith is knowing there is something bigger than all of us that created the universe and gave human beings the gift of free will. There is nothing inherently good or bad about anything except what we (man) define as good or bad. Somethings we have decided as a society are bad....murder, stealing, etc., etc. Somethings we have changed our minds about after finding that what we had based our decision on previously was flawed....the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, the sun revolves around the earth, etc., etc. Faith is not blindly clinging to some belief when it has been PROVEN to be false, i.e., homosexuality is unnatural, sexual activity is ONLY designed for PROCREATION and therefore limited to ONLY married men and women, etc., etc.

The powers that be gave us the intelligence to apply SCIENCE and figure these things out for ourselves and we have. The Catholic church and most "organized" religions have vehemently denied scientific evidence on an as needed basis in order to maintain that their teachings on certain issues are undeniably true and justify their actions regarding them accordingly. Not to mention the idea that if the teaching is not adhered to you are blasphemous and punished by eternal damnation! They rule by fear, not love. Hate not acceptance and tolerance. Is that the kind of person YOU want to be?

Bottom line, find your own truth. Connect to the universe and you'll know that we are all in this together. We are one and as long as one group finds themselves superior in one way or another from another group, we will always have war, crime, intolerance, injustice and chaos in this world.

Peace.

Oh, and by the way.....I was raised Catholic! Catholic schools, hell fire and brimstone, God will get you, guilt, guilt, guilt.....the whole ball of wax!!! My breakthrough on this:

"Conversations with God" by Neale Donald Walsh. It rang true for me.

Shortnsexystud saidHmmm, everybody seems to be ignoring Ryan.....I wonder why?
...

Maybe because he is an apologist for the sexually repressive, anti-gay aganda pressing Catholic Church. Several guys on here have been rasied Catholic and they know first hand how repressive the Catholic church is. I thank the day I was born that I wasn't raised Catholic. Several of my friends were raised Catholic and I know from them how bad a Catholic upbring can be.

As a never-was Catholic, I'm amazed that the Catholic hierarchy is still spouting this anti-masturbation claptrap, as evidenced by the younger guys' experiences. I've seen references to this in older movies but I figured it's such obvious nonsense that surely they've given it up by now. But apparently not.
Didn't they just admit the world revolves around the sun about 5 years ago?
Give them time.
All kidding aside, I think this kind of institutional, widespread campaign of misinformation and emotional warping is CHILD ABUSE, plain and simple.
And if anyone has less credibility on issues of morality than the Catholic hierarchy, I can't think of who that would be.

[quote][cite]Ryan_Andrew said

...like a fat kid loves cake... [/quote]


Are you refering to yourself there? Maybe someone didn't want to give up cake during lent?

You'd think people would CHOOSE to be thankful for sex, orgasms, masturbation, etc. Oh wait, how could the flock be fleeced so well, without leveraging the guilt of sexual repression?

coolarmydude saidWhen I was a young teen, I confessed that I masturbated. The priest told me that the next time I had the urge to masturbate, to imagine myself doing it on the altar. So yeah, they really do fuck with your mind.

Sounds kinky
Looks like he inspired someone -
http://www.neolestat.com/neolestat_church.htm

Sorry, female photos in a church that caused a bit of an outcry in certain newspapers over here - nudes in the font, lesbians on the altar etc.

People who don't play the game, shouldn't be allowed to make the rules....

A priest told me back in the 60's or 70's that he masturbated all the time, and that he was told in the seminary that the official teaching on masturbation did not apply to priests. I don't know if it's true, but sure relaxed my feelings on the subject

Blackguy4you saidDestroyed the church - as in the body of Christ. That's impossible
Destroyed the church - as in the institution - well I'm no Catholic - but that doesn't seem to have happened.

Because we aren't out to. If they go head hunting for us, we can take them down. I can single-handedly take down a diocese and there are more.

We left, we don't care, we do our part to help others find a faith (if they desire) that isn't institutionalized.

. . . this medieval crap is really not worthy of our attentions . . .

. . . but it's Halloween, so why not dwell on the macabre? . . .

. . . there are still those (the Stockholm Syndrome/Fifth Column guys like Ryan and the execrable BlackGuy4U) who haven't yet found the nads or the anger to rid themselves of their oppressors . . . if they want to "subscribe to providence and leave it to a higher power" then they should do it on their own damn time and leave the rest of us out of it . . . they are the enemy within . . . .

I just got such the naughty idea of getting railing in a priest/nun outfit. Why am I half-chub at this notion?

Space_Cowboy_89 saidafter he preyed did he eat it?

lmao... that is actually kind of funny.

phemt said

Shortnsexystud saidHmmm, everybody seems to be ignoring Ryan.....I wonder why?
...

Maybe because he is an apologist for the sexually repressive, anti-gay aganda pressing Catholic Church. Several guys on here have been rasied Catholic and they know first hand how repressive the Catholic church is. I thank the day I was born that I wasn't raised Catholic. Several of my friends were raised Catholic and I know from them how bad a Catholic upbring can be.

Meh... If I had been an apologetic I'd have first started by saying "if you ain't Catholic, you ain't shit" but yeah... thats not me. Believe as you wish, worship as you want, do as you please. I just subscribe to Providence and in time its my belief and prayer that you'll see and understand what I was, have been, and am trying to say.

Shortnsexystud saidHmmm, everybody seems to be ignoring Ryan.....I wonder why?

Ryan, I'm sure you are a WONDERFUL guy and treat everyone around you with respect and dignity but do it because that's who you are and it comes from your heart......not because someone tells you you're going to go to hell if you don't!

Catholicism is based on belief, not faith. Belief is ascribing to something someone else has put out for you to take in....you believe it or you don't and beliefs can change or be stagnant, whatever you choose. When people say they believe in Jesus Christ, they are saying I take as truth what I have been taught about Jesus Christ not what is true about Jesus Christ. Who KNOWS what is really true about Jesus? Where you there? Did you know him and experience him first hand? Did those who wrote the bible? Did the pope? No! I'm not saying don't believe in Jesus. If you believe in the core principles that he taught and espoused himself, then great. If you believe in the churches interpretation of what he taught, then you are also saying that you believe in every interpretation, re-interpretation, social filter, common day belief and twisting of facts that have been applied to anything that has been written about in the bible since it was first put to paper by Gutenburg (spelling?)!

Faith is knowing in your heart and soul, what is right at your core for you! You are part of all that is and as such are connected to the truth always if you only allow yourself to make your own decision about it. Faith is knowing there is something bigger than all of us that created the universe and gave human beings the gift of free will. There is nothing inherently good or bad about anything except what we (man) define as good or bad. Somethings we have decided as a society are bad....murder, stealing, etc., etc. Somethings we have changed our minds about after finding that what we had based our decision on previously was flawed....the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, the sun revolves around the earth, etc., etc. Faith is not blindly clinging to some belief when it has been PROVEN to be false, i.e., homosexuality is unnatural, sexual activity is ONLY designed for PROCREATION and therefore limited to ONLY married men and women, etc., etc.

The powers that be gave us the intelligence to apply SCIENCE and figure these things out for ourselves and we have. The Catholic church and most "organized" religions have vehemently denied scientific evidence on an as needed basis in order to maintain that their teachings on certain issues are undeniably true and justify their actions regarding them accordingly. Not to mention the idea that if the teaching is not adhered to you are blasphemous and punished by eternal damnation! They rule by fear, not love. Hate not acceptance and tolerance. Is that the kind of person YOU want to be?

Bottom line, find your own truth. Connect to the universe and you'll know that we are all in this together. We are one and as long as one group finds themselves superior in one way or another from another group, we will always have war, crime, intolerance, injustice and chaos in this world.

Peace.

Thank you. I think you hit it a lot of great points. You can easily become all that you mentioned and worse. The thing about it is that when I found my faith, my believe in God was at Our Lady of the Lake University a private catholic university founded by the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence. I had things in church happen to me by family members, priest, etc that for a very very long time pushed me away from the church and I felt like WTF? If this is what God is really about well FUCK HIM! My exact feelings. I hit a lot of hard points in my life where I asked God show me something. And I got a lot of really really blunt answers that he was there for me. So I would pray on them and let me be guided wherever I felt being lead to. I ended up there at OLLU. I remember the first I met and saw a nun. Crazy thing too is she wasn't wearing the black and white look but rather something in a navy blue kind of a sori material and she was black. Im kind of thinking back on it in my head and just remembering the first time I took an Intro. to Catholicism Class and remembering the topic of Providence coming up and how it is an experience... never something you can explain. All I know is that I saw people from all walks of life, the good, the bad, the ugly, come together under one chapel, and worship one God and celebrate one faith that united them all. It was beautiful. No one passed judgements on each other. Everyone was accepting of each other. Sure I mean it wasn't all perfect but it was something unlike I had ever experienced before in my life. When I came out, it was the people from the retreat I went to that where there to tell me they loved me and prayed for me that everything would go well and they were very supportive. I guess with any religion you can see then and hear the "fire and brimstone" bully pulpit". Sure you are going to have all those bad experiences that I hear and see and know yeah.. they happened. Let me ask you this... Did it make it right? Is that something that for anyone that believes in Jesus Christ could say.. Jesus Would Do That? NO! Religion is laws set by men whom interpret... who is to say their interpretation is the right one? Faith is an experience that can only be felt by the one whom is experiencing it. You might be abel to see it but can you feel it? I don't expect anyone to really understand what I am trying to say here. All I can say is that I pray and hope that in time Providence will lead you to an understanding to a truth that you might find your own faith and your own understanding and that maybe in some small way this is that seed that leads you there. No hard feelings or anything bitter Im just giving you my experiences and my understanding. Just cause the band-wagon might be long that doesn't mean it's right.

phemt said[quote][cite]Ryan_Andrew said

...like a fat kid loves cake...

Are you refering to yourself there? Maybe someone didn't want to give up cake during lent?

[/quote]

Ha, Actually no... I don't eat much sweats so that would have been very easy to do. As for coke though... yeah that was a hard one one year. Im not going to lie. Damn Coke. I love how ad-hominem always works it way in. Nice cheap-shot. Bless you and may God's providence guide you.

this is why young repressed boys' hands eventually find their way to their cocks, jack off, see nothing wrong with it, and the floodgates of COCAINE AND SEX ARE OPENED!
gateway penis

phemt saidhttp://catechismoncall.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/catholic-teaching-on-masturbation/
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on masturbation:
2352 “By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. ‘Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.’ ‘The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.’ For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of ‘the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved.’”
“To form an equitable judgment about the subjects’ moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.”

Is it no wonder so many Catholics are fucked in the head. A friend of my was so fucked up because of Catholic teaching he experienced massive guilt when ever he jackoff, and would even say a prayer over his cum.

But what about the 5th commandment which says that you are not to harm your own body? If you are not ejaculating from sex nor masturbation, this is very harmful to your body, which the comamndment says you are not to do. The Roman Catholic Church has so many laws which the Bible forbids that I don''t even find them Christian anymore. They actually tell you to do things that God forbids or tell you not to do things, which God does not say is wrong.

When the Vatican sells the billions of dollars in holdings that they have in order to help God's people, they will get my attention. Until then, they can continue to try to make children feel guilty, inadequate, and sinful without me. And what about wet dreams? Is that a sin too?

Ryan_Andrew said

Shortnsexystud saidHmmm, everybody seems to be ignoring Ryan.....I wonder why?

Ryan, I'm sure you are a WONDERFUL guy and treat everyone around you with respect and dignity but do it because that's who you are and it comes from your heart......not because someone tells you you're going to go to hell if you don't!

Catholicism is based on belief, not faith. Belief is ascribing to something someone else has put out for you to take in....you believe it or you don't and beliefs can change or be stagnant, whatever you choose. When people say they believe in Jesus Christ, they are saying I take as truth what I have been taught about Jesus Christ not what is true about Jesus Christ. Who KNOWS what is really true about Jesus? Where you there? Did you know him and experience him first hand? Did those who wrote the bible? Did the pope? No! I'm not saying don't believe in Jesus. If you believe in the core principles that he taught and espoused himself, then great. If you believe in the churches interpretation of what he taught, then you are also saying that you believe in every interpretation, re-interpretation, social filter, common day belief and twisting of facts that have been applied to anything that has been written about in the bible since it was first put to paper by Gutenburg (spelling?)!

Faith is knowing in your heart and soul, what is right at your core for you! You are part of all that is and as such are connected to the truth always if you only allow yourself to make your own decision about it. Faith is knowing there is something bigger than all of us that created the universe and gave human beings the gift of free will. There is nothing inherently good or bad about anything except what we (man) define as good or bad. Somethings we have decided as a society are bad....murder, stealing, etc., etc. Somethings we have changed our minds about after finding that what we had based our decision on previously was flawed....the earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe, the sun revolves around the earth, etc., etc. Faith is not blindly clinging to some belief when it has been PROVEN to be false, i.e., homosexuality is unnatural, sexual activity is ONLY designed for PROCREATION and therefore limited to ONLY married men and women, etc., etc.

The powers that be gave us the intelligence to apply SCIENCE and figure these things out for ourselves and we have. The Catholic church and most "organized" religions have vehemently denied scientific evidence on an as needed basis in order to maintain that their teachings on certain issues are undeniably true and justify their actions regarding them accordingly. Not to mention the idea that if the teaching is not adhered to you are blasphemous and punished by eternal damnation! They rule by fear, not love. Hate not acceptance and tolerance. Is that the kind of person YOU want to be?

Bottom line, find your own truth. Connect to the universe and you'll know that we are all in this together. We are one and as long as one group finds themselves superior in one way or another from another group, we will always have war, crime, intolerance, injustice and chaos in this world.

Peace.

Thank you. I think you hit it a lot of great points. You can easily become all that you mentioned and worse. The thing about it is that when I found my faith, my believe in God was at Our Lady of the Lake University a private catholic university founded by the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence. I had things in church happen to me by family members, priest, etc that for a very very long time pushed me away from the church and I felt like WTF? If this is what God is really about well FUCK HIM! My exact feelings. I hit a lot of hard points in my life where I asked God show me something. And I got a lot of really really blunt answers that he was there for me. So I would pray on them and let me be guided wherever I felt being lead to. I ended up there at OLLU. I remember the first I met and saw a nun. Crazy thing too is she wasn't wearing the black and white look but rather something in a navy blue kind of a sori material and she was black. Im kind of thinking back on it in my head and just remembering the first time I took an Intro. to Catholicism Class and remembering the topic of Providence coming up and how it is an experience... never something you can explain. All I know is that I saw people from all walks of life, the good, the bad, the ugly, come together under one chapel, and worship one God and celebrate one faith that united them all. It was beautiful. No one passed judgements on each other. Everyone was accepting of each other. Sure I mean it wasn't all perfect but it was something unlike I had ever experienced before in my life. When I came out, it was the people from the retreat I went to that where there to tell me they loved me and prayed for me that everything would go well and they were very supportive. I guess with any religion you can see then and hear the "fire and brimstone" bully pulpit". Sure you are going to have all those bad experiences that I hear and see and know yeah.. they happened. Let me ask you this... Did it make it right? Is that something that for anyone that believes in Jesus Christ could say.. Jesus Would Do That? NO! Religion is laws set by men whom interpret... who is to say their interpretation is the right one? Faith is an experience that can only be felt by the one whom is experiencing it. You might be abel to see it but can you feel it? I don't expect anyone to really understand what I am trying to say here. All I can say is that I pray and hope that in time Providence will lead you to an understanding to a truth that you might find your own faith and your own understanding and that maybe in some small way this is that seed that leads you there. No hard feelings or anything bitter Im just giving you my experiences and my understanding. Just cause the band-wagon might be long that doesn't mean it's right.

You've made some very good points here and I agree with you. Not EVERYTHING is bad in the church, nor is God evil. Just like with everything else you hear, you need to be discerning with what you hear in the church and and sort out what is true and what is false. Each person needs to do this. Just as we are not perfect, neither is the church because the church is made up of sinners. Every person in the church is an imperfect sinner, even the Pope himself.

But just as you may eat in some bad restaurants or sleep in some dumpy motels, doesn't mean that all restaurants and motels are bad. Even if you have had a bad experience in one restaurant or motel, even within a chain, doesn';t mean that all the restaurants or motels are bad in that chain. Denominations are like a chain . There are good and bad churches and good and bad pastors and priests even within the same denomination.

At the age of 12 I did not know any Catholics to teach me so I took matters into my own hands and taught myself how to masturbate.