"But why do you view this as corruption, and not simply self-pleasure?"
To me, self pleasure is not far from corruption. These things are not the same, but it's easy to go from one to the other. I do
not think there's anything at all wrong with pleasure in general. But isn't the point of pleasure; enjoying something, praising something? If all that we enjoy is ourselves, we are just glorifying ourselves. This is pride. If we forget about the meaning and purpose of pleasure and focus on the feeling of it, we are very close to corrupting it altogether. It's like separating love and sex; together, they are meaningful, on its own sex is mere animal lust. Christ taught us to live for more than ourselves. This is enjoyable, but also good.
"Sexual desire is not lust...."
I see what you're saying. I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling these things or sexual desire in general. What matters is our choices towards our feelings. Masturbation is a choice, which makes it either good or bad.
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart"
"This warns against those who commonly would actually act on lust...The passage you refer to was designed to stave that sort of behavior off."
But Jesus is saying that lustful thoughts are just as bad as lustful actions. This passage doesn't just talk against their behavior, but against their thoughts, which are also sinful. This makes sense, because Christianity is about being good from the inside, not just on the outside like the Pharisees in the New Testament.
"It's usually one of those two things. And yes, unfortunately the way you were exposed to faith was through a faulty interpretation of scripture."
That's a pretty serious comment to make, but are you just basing it on my view on masturbation? Of course my understanding of Scripture is not perfect, and I would never claim that it is. But with all due respect, the only way you could say this is if you
know for a fact that your interpretation is right. Do you?
"If sex within marriage is the only proper response to sexual desire, what are people to do in the meantime? Masturbation comprises a healthy, natural release of sexual tension and anxiety for that interim period (and even during marriage, sometimes)."
Of course I'm not trying to say that sexual desire is wrong or evil or something. And of course it's not limited to marriage, and it's perfectly natural to 'grow up'. But since not everyone masturbates, I bet there are people who are fine without it, and who don't have a problem with avoiding sex before marriage... Actually I don't have a clear cut answer to your question, since this is something each person should sort out with God. We're all different and each have different temptations that we fall easily into, etc.
"Yes, but I think Christ had more significant things in mind than giving up masturbation. Making sacrifices would be things like giving your time to the needy, standing up for what is right in the face of tyranny, or defending your fellow man from harm. Those are noble pursuits."
Yes, they're very noble and important, but they aren't excuses to ignore the lesser problems of our fallen race. God wants all of us, and not just when big, important opportunities come up (like opposing tyranny). That said, He doesn't expect us to be perfect..but that's because of His love, it's not an excuse for us to not try.
"Using the addiction argument against masturbation really isn't worthwhile. People get addicted to food, internet usage and hundreds of other innocuous things. That doesn't mean that we should stop eating, or stop using the internet entirely. It means that moderation is healthy, and knowing your limits is a good idea"
True, but what I'm saying is that, like pornography, it's easy to get addicted to. The problem with a mind that's addicted to sex is that it doesn't let God in. That's a problem with many addictions, but at least if you're addicted to alcohol or cigarettes you'll see the negative results on your body and might want to stop (I'm not denying that it's extremely difficult to get rid of these addictions, and I know there are lots of people struggling with them..I'm not undermining these problems at all!). But with lust, the damage is spiritual so you can't really see it, and might not have any motivation to fight it. This makes it a dangerous trap. By the way, would you say that looking at porn is a sin?
It seems so to me.
"Perfection is something we all strive for, but it is perhaps the only thing that humanity will truly never accomplish"
Well I believe we'll be perfect in the Resurrection, but that would be God's work, not ours. I don't think we can attain it by human effort, but of course we should try to get rid of things like poverty, injustice, and hunger, to help out people in need.
"When you start to regularly miss scheduled appointments, skip meals or begin failing in work or school because of an addiction, that's a problem. Masturbation
very rarely results in any of these things"
Some sins affect our whole lives, some only affect our souls and apart from God's grace we wouldn't even notice them. For example, take gossip. It ruins lives, but not the life of the gossiper. They might not even notice when they're doing it. It doesn't affect their life, but does that make it less wrong? No.. Just because something doesn't cause problems on the outside, doesn't mean it doesn't on the inside.
"Or maybe they have a societally-induced sense of guilt associated with it, through their upbringing or their exposure to faith. Imagine that you had been raised in a community where you were told, all your life, that eating strawberries would cause your soul to be placed in moral peril! Or imagine that you suddenly converted to the Christian faith, and partway through your enamored fascination with religion you were told that strawberries are a tool of Satan, and that there is a verse in scripture to back it up! In either of these situations you would probably begin avoiding strawberries, and would likely not think to question whether or not you were doing it for a good reason."
I ate strawberries yesterday haha
Seriously though, what if you pray about it? I believe that God answers prayers for wisdom. It says so in the Bible. What would you tell a person who prayed about masturbation and afterwards felt that it's wrong?
cheers
monica