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Tvdxer is basically right as I understand it. However I don't think every religion opposes this so the OP might be going on a false premise.
It's strange that I agree with my faith's view on the subject, and the reasoning behind it, but I do the act anyway. This has really bothered me at times, but going by what I know quitting it completely is virtually impossible for some humans. (They even use to try aversion therapy, shocking one's hands with electrodes, but it didn't work. Reading Aquinas I came to the conclusion that, religiously speaking, it would be better to get a hooker if doing that would keep me from self-pleasuring as the hooker would already be in a state-of-sin and I would be engaging in something more like ordered actions. However I decided that even if intellectually that's true I just can't go for that and also I don't have that kind of money.) So even if it's not orthodox I think I personally tend to see it as one of those sins that's also a flaw in human nature. Like greed, pride, wrath, and so forth. So on that I'm not really with samyn, but if I had no sexual drive whatsoever I probably would agree as I do think it's rather gross and unnecessary.
Why are religions so against masterbation? Who does it hurt realy? Why ban it when it is a healthy way to release sexual tension and energy?
A second take on this, if I may.
It's about control and guilt. If you can convince someone they're a bad human being for doing something harmless, it's easy to convince them they're a horrible person that needs Jesus. Better head down to the church now along with 10 percent of your paycheck, you wretched sinner!
Food and sex are the two basic needs that any healthy human being needs. It's a bit harder to guilt trip people over gluttony, especially when you see what many of the average church goers in the south look like.
It always cracks me up how most of the die hard fundamentalist Christians on CD never attempt to chime in on subjects like this one. It truly makes me wonder. LOL!
It always cracks me up how most of the die hard fundamentalist Christians on CD never attempt to chime in on subjects like this one. It truly makes me wonder. LOL!
It's not that odd.
One: Many Protestant denominations actually don't deal with this subject one way or other.
Two: If they do consider it a sin they likely find it unpleasant or inappropriate to talk about among others. Possibly in the way talking about constipation or anal itch is nobody's business.
An interesting article about Masturbation, from a spriritual perspective.
Certainly, no question is taboo, although some people would prefer that I didn’t address certain topics. This unwillingness to consider a topic is usually due to the fact that the person is not willing to revise his or her opinion about the topic. In my discourse on the spiritual cause of homosexuality, I give the following teaching:
God has a dual nature, namely the masculine and feminine, the yang and the yin elements. Everything in the entire universe is created through a harmonious interaction, a harmonious union, of the masculine and feminine polarities of God. When the two come together in a harmonious union, new life is created.
Everything in this universe is an expression of these two aspects of God. This filters all the way down to the material universe, and that is why a human soul has a masculine and feminine aspect and why human bodies are masculine or feminine.
You will notice that when a masculine and feminine body come together in sexual union, new life can be created. However, if two bodies of the same sex attempt sexual union, they cannot create new life. What you see in the material universe is simply an outpicturing of a spiritual principle.
This ties in with the fact that all of your actions will qualify the energies of God. When a man and a woman come together in sexual union, it is possible that this union will qualify the energies of God in a pure, one might say Holy, manner. Therefore, the energies generated by the sexual union can ascend back to the spiritual realm. When this occurs, both sexual partners will have a deep experience of union, not only with each other but with something beyond their souls. They can indeed experience a spiritual union with their higher selves.
However, I must caution that there is no guarantee that heterosexual sex will always produce a sense of union or qualify the energies in a pure manner. On the contrary, the vast majority of sexual intercourse falls below the critical mark and misqualifies the energies of God. This will inevitably occur if people engage in sex purely for the gratification of the body or the physical senses. If there is not a true and pure love and a pure desire for spiritual union, sexual intercourse is likely to misqualify energy.
When you have an interaction between two bodies of the same sex, you do not have a masculine and feminine polarity. Therefore, there is no possibility that the interaction can produce a true union between male and female aspects.
I think it should be obvious that these statements also apply to the topic of masturbation. When there is no masculine/feminine polarity, there is no possibility that the energies released can be qualified with a higher vibration. In other words, masturbation will always misqualify energy.
Add to this the statement, “However, I must caution that there is no guarantee that heterosexual sex will always produce a sense of union or qualify the energies in a pure manner.” The deciding factor here is whether the partners seek to give or to get? Do they seek the gratification of the physical body and the carnal mind, or do they seek the gratification of the soul? Do they seek gratification of the lower self or the larger self?
A soul can have a legitimate desire for sexual union. However, this desire is not focused on the physical body and it is not fueled by the carnal mind. It is truly a desire for union with something outside itself, and in order to experience that union, the soul must look beyond itself.
My point being that although the soul can have a desire for union with a person of the opposite sex, that desire will not be expressed as a desire for masturbation. Therefore, masturbation is always fueled by the physical body and the carnal mind. It is always a self-centered desire that seeks self-gratification without the giving of self. One might say that the soul has no desire for masturbation, meaning that when a person feels such a desire, it is because the soul has retreated and the person’s conscious mind has given in to the desires of the physical and the emotional bodies.
There are many people in the world who live almost their entire lives on a quest to satisfy these lower desires. Yet for a person on the spiritual path, it is important to rise above these lower desires. You must silence the loud voices of worldly and carnal desires so you can hear the quiet voice of the true desires of your soul.
Let me make it clear that masturbation is not necessary to the soul’s growth, and it is not healthy for the soul’s growth. The problem here being that when you give in to the carnal desires, you place yourself on a slide, and the gravitational force of the mass consciousness will constantly pull on you to go further down that slide. Many people slide further and further down the slide during a lifetime, but as a spiritual seeker, you cannot afford to do that. The essence of spiritual growth is that you go the other way, that you overcome the gravitational force of the mass consciousness. That consciousness is very strong when it comes to sex, and people will do almost anything to justify the desire for sex.
The idea that masturbation is “healthy and relieves stress” is a perfect example of the “justification” that springs from the mass consciousness. The reasoning is that since God created us with sexual organs, it is only natural that we express our sexuality, and if we don’t have a partner, masturbation is a natural way to relieve the stress. The lie here is that there is no end to carnal desires; they are like a black hole that can never be filled. So you can literally spend your entire life trying to satisfy carnal desires without ever getting there. It is an impossible quest that ends up swallowing up your life.
In reality, masturbation might relieve stress on a temporary basis, but in the long run it only reinforces the carnal desire that created the stress in the first place. In other words, when you give in to carnal desires, you create a self-reinforcing spiral that takes you down as far as you allow it to take you. If relieving stress only leads to more stress, where is the relief? In reality, this leads to addiction rather than freedom. I am aware that most young people come to a point where they start exploring their bodies, and they end up masturbating. This is not necessarily a serious concern of mine, but the problem is that once you start going down the slide, masturbation quickly develops into an addiction. Your body now starts telling you that it cannot survive without sex, and it makes your life miserable if it doesn’t get it.
The biological fact is that if you don’t eat, drink or sleep, your body will die. Yet you can live an entire lifetime without having sex. My point being that sex is not a survival need; you can indeed live without it. I am not hereby saying you have to live without it. I am only saying that as a spiritual seeker, you need to be clear that you cannot allow the sexual desires that spring from the carnal mind to run your life. You need to master the body and the carnal mind instead of letting them run your life.
This starts with a firm decision, and you have already made many decisions that can help you. For example, I am confident that for the people open to this website, rape is not an acceptable way to relieve the stress of sexual desire. So you have already made the firm decision that certain types of behavior are not acceptable ways to fulfill sexual desires. You simply need to add masturbation to the list. I have no problem with people living in a committed relationship, where the two partners fulfill each others sexual desires in a balanced and loving manner. Therefore, I encourage people to decide that this is the only acceptable way to fulfill your sexual desires.
The consequence of this is that if you are not currently in a committed relationship, then you simply cannot fulfill your sexual desires. Therefore, you need to find other ways to deal with those desires, which I will comment on shortly. My point here is that once you have made a firm decision, you are more than half way to the goal. The reason most people are continually bothered by sexual temptation is that they have not made a firm decision concerning how to fulfill sexual desires. Therefore, it is so easy for their own carnal minds and for dark forces to tempt these people. And once you open yourself up to temptation, the pressure keeps building until you can no longer stand it. Something breaks, and it is usually your will. You need to avoid getting near that point of no return.
This leads us to one of the above questions, “If masturbation isn't beneficial to the soul, then how do you get rid of the stress?” The best way to deal with stress is to prevent it from building critical mass—meaning that you can no longer control it. As I explain throughout this website, you are alive because you receive a stream of spiritual energy from your I AM Presence. This energy, this life-force, enters your energy field at the bottom of the spine. It enters through an energy center that is normally called the base chakra.
The natural flow of energy is that the life-force rises through all of the seven main chakras, but the energy can be diverted into any of the chakras. For example, when people have a self-centered, body-centered sexual desire, some of the life-force will be diverted into the base chakra. A self-centered desire always causes the chakra to spin the wrong way, which will cause the energy to be qualified with a lower vibration, leading to a buildup of energy in the chakra. This is what feels stimulating to the sexual organs, but as the energy builds, the stimulus turns into stress that can become very uncomfortable.
As the energy builds, the chakra is discolored, and that is why you see many spiritual and New Age teachings that show the base chakra as orange or dark red. When the base chakra is spinning the right way and is pure, it radiates white light.
As a spiritual seeker, you need to learn how to feel when energy is building up in your chakras, and this is very easy to learn about the base chakra because it has physical symptoms. The first step toward taking control over your energy field is to avoid anything that leads to sexual stimulus. In other words, if you are a spiritual seeker, you don’t indulge in pornographic images or movies, and you avoid sexually explicit conversations. I admit that in today’s Western society, you are constantly bombarded with sexually explicit material through the media and advertising, yet you can learn to simply let it pass you by without affecting you. You simply refuse to give it direct attention because it is your attention that magnifies sexual desire. My point is that if you want to avoid being burned, you don’t deliberately pour gasoline on a fire.
You can also achieve a lot by invoking spiritual protection, and as always Archangel Michael’s Rosary is my first recommendation. Call for the protection of your desire body and base chakra. There are numerous dark forces who seek to inflate your sexual desires in order to trick you into misqualifying energy. These forces are directly behind the entire sex industry, including movies and advertising. So you need to be diligent in defending your forcefield from their attacks. Obviously, you can also use Mother Mary’s rosaries to transform any misqualified energy that has already built up in your base chakra and desire body. You might even review my teachings on how to combat an addiction, because for many people sexual desires have become a lifelong addiction.
The next step is that you learn not only to sense how energy flows through your chakras, but you learn how to control the flow of energy. This is an essential ability for any serious spiritual seeker, and again sexual energies are the perfect way to practice. You need to learn how to consciously prevent your life-force from flowing into the base chakra and the sexual organs. And you need to learn how to reverse the flow once it has already started flowing in the wrong direction.
For an intuitive person, this is not nearly as difficult as it might seem. Yet most people will be greatly assisted by using a technique, and I have given one elsewhere. However, you can also use various forms of Yoga and Tai Chi exercises for this purpose.
Let me end by stressing the importance of making a clear decision. Most people were brought up with a confused and contradictory view of their sexuality. If you can resolve some of this confusion – and I have given a number of teachings in this section that can help you – you can end up making a firm decision about how to express your sexuality. Once you have connected to your soul's desire concerning sexuality, you have the best possible foundation for taking control over the sexual desires that spring from the physical body and the emotional body.
As always, I encourage you to adopt a positive attitude. For many spiritual people, sexuality has been the source of shame, confusion and other negative feelings, and this often hinders their spiritual growth. Instead, use sexuality to enhance your spiritual growth by learning how to take command over the energy flow through your chakras. When you have mastered these energies, you should be able to appreciate the beauty of the human body without feeling sexual desire. In other words, sexuality no longer runs your life; your spiritual quest does. You have decided that spiritual progress is far more important to you than sexual gratification. You have discovered that you are not a sexual being, but a spiritual being.
Real Jesus, (http://www.askrealjesus.com/askrealjesus/jesusanswers/lovesexuality/masturbation.html - broken link)
Modern day science -which still can't cure the common cold or explain gravity - is an impotent measuring stick (pun intended) for a topic of this nature.
Science has not yet solved certain problems, therefore medical science cannot assess the health benefits of masturbation. I see. Your logic is impeckerable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green
This is elementary common sense as all feel the guilt of transgression the moral law. Even if you accept masturbation -it seems that most do raised in this system- you are not going to masturbate in public or a bathroom and then brag about it among colleagues. Even among those that except it there remains a shame about it. This is your heart talking. Inside the heart it is clear that this action is a moral wrong.
I see that you have mastered the art of telepathy and can now see into the depths of my mind and heart to directly determine what I feel guilty about. Very impressive, but still you somehow manage to be wrong. It so happens that I don't masturbate in public primarily for 2 reasons: 1) its illegal, and 2) in most contexts this would freak people out (esp. women and children) and I don't wish to unnecessarily upset anyone. However, at an orgy or swinger's party, masturbating "in public" is no big deal. So it is not a matter of morality or shame, but merely context and practicality. If you really want to understand my views on sex and morality, you could start by looking here: The devil made me do it! (How sex became sin)
Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green
The sensibility of the heart knows it is wrong.
The sensibility of my heart is based first and foremost on the Golden Rule. Masturbation is harmless, so why should I feel it is "wrong."
Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green
Masturbation is disorder...
(You've just admitted that you have no evidence to support this claim.)
Quote:
... and is nature lends itself to be an habitual act. That is why the righteous man walks in the path of self mastery. Self mastery starts by subjugating internal passions.
Self-mastery start with self-knowledge. "Subjugating internal passions" is often a sign of - or even a cause of - mental disease. Wisdom and good health are expressed through the creative/productive/harmless expression of one's passions.
An interesting article about Masturbation, from a spriritual perspective.
. . . for a person on the spiritual path, it is important to rise above these lower desires. You must silence the loud voices of worldly and carnal desires so you can hear the quiet voice of the true desires of your soul.
This articles falls victim to a fundamental error, namely, the mistake of uncritically accepting a traditional view of spirituality that is rooted in an unreliable set of ancient philosophical ideas. I referenced this article (The devil made me do it! (How sex became sin) in my previous post, but once again it is directly relevant. Plato is the father of a great deal of western philosophy, but this doesn't mean that his ideas were always good. The idea that the material world is a "lower" realm that imprisons us is profoundly flawed, and has lead to an unfathomable amount of unnecessary suffering. Once we free our minds from this foolish source of mind/matter, heaven/earth, sacred/profane dualisms, we begin to see that a radically different (and ultimately far better) way of thinking about sex and sexuality is possible.
More proof of dangerous religious social thinking!
(the following snipped for brevity)
Quote:
Originally Posted by samyn on the green
Modern day science -which still can't cure the common cold or explain gravity- is an impotent measuring stick (pun intended) for a topic of this nature.
This is your heart talking. Inside the heart it is clear that this action is a moral wrong. Only the head or id which is controlled by the passion of the act and filled with forty years ideological subversion (media provides the bogus data for rationalization as posted above) can rationalize this disorder as "normal" or even "healthy". The sensibility of the heart knows it is wrong.
This is the trials of being a man; we have so much brilliance and potential yet our flawed nature is predisposed towards disorder and addiction. Masturbation is disorder and is nature lends itself to be an habitual act. That is why the righteous man walks in the path of self mastery. Self mastery starts by subjugating internal passions.
Either you are in charge of your passion or your passions are in charge of you.
Well, again, all you've shown us is that your Christian religious leaders are predisposed to disorder and addiction. You're right! All those sexually starved priests who eventually turned to "alternate" releases and consequential felony convictions: you're going to tell me, straight to my face, that they never relieved themselves since they had signed off on abstinence?
You also failed to address the widowed, the aged, the single, and others who are perhaps "between" relationships. All of these situations are realities in the world, and always have been. but typical of ardent Christian commentary, you lump everything into one statement, assuming a simplicity that is not there in real life. Thank God so many of us can see past the dogma and fear-mongering.
Psychologists tell us it's OK to feed ones' private (normal) sexual fantasies. We all do it unless a person is so straight-laced that they shudder at the thought of even thinking about having fun with their once-and-glorious high school cheerleader girlfriend (she who took off with the quarterback from the other school's team when HE won the game that night... sigh).
achickenchaser has it essentially right: this was seized on by the Church in it's ever-pressing need to "hold it over" it's congregation. To instill guilt and thus to gain control as the only organization in town that can save you from your own, self-inflicted mortal sins. Typical.
You religious hard-liners always end up insulting science, and thus me. Personally. I happen to be an honest, hard-working and diligent scientist, as are virtually every one of the fellow scientists I've ever worked with. No "floating numbers", no biasing, no lies, etc.
When some scientist does try to slide one by us all, and claims, for instance, room temperature fusion, or some fashionable fossil find, he or she is almost always caught, and the catching is achieved by other diliegent scientists who are working to ensure the integrity of their careful work and conservative conclusions.
Your slight of science is 1) demonstrably nonsense, and 2) uncalled for, though of course I understand it. Most every single proclamation by the fundamentalist Christian fringe mind like yours has been cleanly shot out of the sky. There's simply no contest between an honest, vigorous step-wise and peer-reviewed system of asking and answering questions and a bible-thumping, fear-mongering, guilt-soaked ancient philosophy that was hatched out of opportunity when men were scared stiff by their own shadows.
Your final line begs a re-quote: "Either you are in charge of your passion or your passions are in charge of you."
This is the capping statement that shows your EPIC FAIL. The OP topic is certainly not a simple either-or situation for those of us with operating minds and a healthy social conscience. Your belittling is as much an indictment of your twisted mode of thinking as it may be of your own level of social adjustment.
He masturbates. He confesses. He masturbates. He confesses. He masturbates. He confesses.
One of the perks of being a Catholic
On a side note now, will the universalists will find an issue with my slapping the ham or that capital C
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More proof of dangerous religious social thinking!
