As many of you may remember, I have a quite extensive background in Catholic Theology and the Catechism. So, seeing such absurdity will really bother me.

Let me make this clear - unlike Hebrew Law, the Catechism is not a series of cultural and religious dictates or norms established to protect people from health problems. As such, the prohibition against masturbation has nothing to do with sperm count or the rest.

Instead, it is a dictate on perspective that can trace its origins to Boethius, who established the necessity of perspective and view point in the relationship of sin and virtue. A sinful act is one that makes an individual animal like - they no longer think or care, they don't reason, and they no longer live for God. They instead pursue the flesh and think only of the flesh. Masturbation is not the sinful act but the manifestation of a sinful pursual of the flesh.

The Catechism requires individuals to live a chaste life because it is their exercising of the will in order to achieve a state that surpasses the animal. Animals are controlled by their passions and by their instincts. God did not make us superior to simply throw that away. Instead, free will is exercised only in chosing to do what is right. We are given the power to use our will to overcome our desires, to control our habits, and to focus on the divine instead of the worldly.

To somehow try to argue that animals doing something makes it "natural" and therefore we should allow it is absolutely absurd. We are better than animals, not worse. If anything, the argument that animals can do it would only verify the baseness of the act itself.

Well, it may be fallacious to say that whatever animals do is natural and therefore "good" (or at least allowable), but I think it's equally fallacious to say that whatever animals do is "base" and therefore should be "bettered" and avoided. One shouldn't exercise the will just for the sake of exercising the will and bettering the animals.

One shouldn't be better than animals? If you think that is true, why don't you labotomize any rationality out of your brain so you can be completely animal? Animals aren't noble or great. They have no ability to even know what such things are. They have no clue what the divine is, nor do they have any sense of their selves.

They are bound and controlled. They are dominated by their impulses, their instincts, and have no freedom. Humanity has the ability to overcome such a condition of slavery.

You missed the point. The point was that "doing things that animals don't do" is not a laudable goal in and of itself. Exercising your will doesn't automatically make your actions better. There has to be some standard for determining when exercising one's will is better.

As I stated and explained above, the exercise of the will is only done when you are acting good. Free will, as Milton and others famously defined it, is only in doing what is morally correct, and it is the ability to do what is morally correct.

It would be impossible for free will to be exercised in any other way. The use of "reason" to kill, rape, steal, etc, are all animal actions based on primal desires, not man's connection to the divine.

This is a tautology -- you have nothing to say.

Tautology? My dear, if you bothered to read, this discussion is about a philosophical viewpoint adopted by the Catholic Church. Your current comments show a lack of awareness of that and are troubling to say the least.

Look, if you define all exercise of will as automatically being good, then there's nothing to say. There are lots of things that animals do due to their base instincts that humans could choose not to do, but not all of those choices would necessarily be sensible. Some animals are compelled to nurture their young. Some animals kill other animals in self-defense. Some animals eat lesser animals. These are all things that require no thinking or reason. A human could choose to go against her "animal nature" and not nurture her children. A human could choose not to kill anyone under any circumstance, even to survive. A human could choose to become a vegeterian. If you define the exercise of free will as being done only when you are "acting good," then you have not suggested any moral (or amoral) code by which one should decide between any of those alternatives. Your original argument -- that masturbation is bad because it is animal-like and requires no thinking or reason -- is flawed. You need to propose some other moral principle that differentiates between which animal behaviors are bad for humans to follow and which are not. Your subsequent statements really reduce to "that which is good is good," and that's a tautology. It also allows you to draw a box around whatever particular set of human behaviors you don't like and call them "base animal instincts" to be repudiated while ignoring the base animal instincts that lead to behaviors you consider to be good. I suppose you will rationalize away the "good" behaviors as being freely chosen and the "bad" behaviors as being due to instincts without having any empirical method to support your arbitrary division.

It doesn't really matter whether Milton said something or the Catholic Church did -- if you can't justify your own position using your God-given thought and reason, then you have no business bringing it up. An appeal to authority does not make your argument any more rational. Similarly, your infantalizing behavior betrays the weakness of your position.

"if you define all exercise of will " See, here is the problem. The article discusses what the Catechism says. It is based on a philosophical point of view that divides behavior into two - one, an exercise of free will in which man is able to overcome instinct, desire, and mortality in order to pursue the divine state, i.e. virtue, and the second is the animalistic state of succumbing to desire and indulging in the flesh.

For some reason, you are trying to posit "will" as something which it is not. You do not "will" yourself to sin, to inaction, to indulgence or the rest. You submit to them.

"It doesn't really matter whether Milton said something or the Catholic Church did" Seeing as how this is about what the Catholic Church says, you better rethink, as your line of argument only verifies ignorance.

OK, so tell me how one decides which instincts to go against and which to follow. I gave some examples of some animal instincts that also occur in humans that should not necessarily be "overcome" -- I think even according to Church teachings.

I think you have a curious definition of "ignorance."

San: what the Catechism says. It is based on a philosophical point of view that divides behavior into two - one, an exercise of free will in which man is able to overcome instinct, desire, and mortality in order to pursue the divine state, i.e. virtue, and the second is the animalistic state of succumbing to desire and indulging in the flesh.

LeRoy: Animals defecate, which is certainly a base act. Presumably they (and we) succumb to the desire to rid the body of waste products, and indulge ourselves in a good old-fashioned crap. Following your reasoning, we should certainly all avoid defecating, starting right now. How can we be in touch with the divine when we are taking a dump?

"OK, so tell me how one decides which instincts to go against and which to follow. " No instinct will get you into heaven. A relationship with God is purely devotional and intellectual.

And my definition of "ignorance" comes from the dictionary. Seeing as how your record on understanding language seems far below par, I would recommend you picking up one sometime.

" Following your reasoning, we should certainly all avoid"

Really? Are you going to waste everyone's time with such incredibly pathetic attempt at playing games? Obviously, defecating in any form will not get one into heaven. Therefore, it was stupid for you to even make such rhetorical games.

I shall repeat it for you, to refresh your memory:

San: what the Catechism says. It is based on a philosophical point of view that divides behavior into two - one, an exercise of free will in which man is able to overcome instinct, desire, and mortality in order to pursue the divine state, i.e. virtue, and the second is the animalistic state of succumbing to desire and indulging in the flesh.

LeRoy: Are you now arguing that taking a shit is a divine act of worship? I would have thought that defecating would fall into your second category stipulated above, an animalistic act, an indulgence of the flesh. Certainly, I would say that people occasionally have a very strong desire, instinctive at its root, to stop whatever else they are doing, and take a dump. But if pooping is actually a virtuous act of 'pursuing the divine state', then I guess I have been taking the wrong approach to it all these years, as I never thought of it in those terms. My father used to have a little statuette of a man sitting on the crapper, and the legend said: "The only man in the place who knows what he is doing'. But maybe he didn't know what he was doing, if it is to be viewed as an act of worship. Just as a side bet, I would wager that most people are not praying while they are simultaneously pooping. Perhaps you could turn it into an informal Fray poll.

No doubt you will clarify this for all of us.

"Are you now arguing that taking a shit is a divine act of worship?"

That statement makes me question if you are capable of reading or, if you actually are, if you bothered to actually read before just making stuff up.

Now, either way, you have made it clear that you are a complete idiot, so it really wouldn't matter which of the two is correct.