«Masturbation should be considered as a CRIME…»
When I read that in a newspaper of my country, Spain, does anyone still dare to ask me: «Why are you in Israel?» At least here there is freedom of masturbation, right?
Made as an unusual request to the Catholic church, the pro-life organization wants from them to recognize that masturbation is not only a sin of lust but also a form of abortion.
The irony is that while Spain is a Secular country and Israel a Jewish state, looks like still this kind of stupidity is allowed, heard and follow. Probably conservative and radical Jewish claim for senseless requests similar to that one, but I can understand due to the unfortunate big amount of fanatics gathered in a small territory as Israel. Although, I can see a similarity in terms of power of the religion in general in both countries.
However, I rely on smarter and with common sense people who has a lot to say.
Religious that follows monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam ), give rise to people who do not follow these schools of thought to consider the firsts as devoid of reason. Why to refer to them in such a grotesque manner?
Simple. Because the human being is characterized and distinguish from other animals by the use of reasoning, and I remark USE not possession of it. Considering that, I ask myself, “what is good about having something but not making use of it? Which ultimately becomes the same.
What I mean is that we differ from the use of reason, which means that when you do not use it, it could be assumed that it does not exist, and that is what I conclude in the case of believers in general, and extremist in particular.
Having clear evidence on this subject, yet many people believe that religion should be part of their life, and in many other cases not only part but their life are shaped and molded upon it: The Curse of the religion, I would call it.
Regarding to the Spanish News, I found especially amusing the last paragraph of that interesting request: “Masturbation is criminal because it is the start of a spiral of perdition: we know that masturbation will easily lead to compulsive loneliness, to criminal activity, to rape, corruption, drug addiction and finally atheism”.
Faith is a shallow pretext, might be comfortable to have faith but the suspension of disbelief inherent in it can lead to much more dangerous ideas, such as intolerance worldwide and among everyone «that is not like me».
So as an Atheist I just can say:
«I respect you to think what you want, but I DO NOT RESPECT YOUR THOUGHTS».
Sources:
http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=138104
Article in Spanish about Religion (in my blog)
I believe that the main issue here is that, unfortunately, extremist people (religiously talking) do make use of their reason but they do it manipulating the principles under which their faith is based. This is, they surrender their reason to what they think their faith dictates.