I don't think, Sal, that he has a campaign against all people: just against all people he adolescently percieves as "them stupid humans" or something like that. What is your reason for believing he hates everybody? I don't think he does, he's just a teenager <i seem to remember?>. Also sex is only for procreation is not unheard of, and if all you ever saw is catholics going "sex is sinful" and some random lady going "sex that is not for procreation is evil" its wrong, but understandable, to reach the conclusion that these weird people believe sex is evil and only permissible for procreation... I mean, from a pagan's perspective, it'd be one of the easy to understand things catholics putatively believe in, wouldn't it ? <even if they don't, you get my drift>
EDIT: I'm not sure Inversion's recent posting supports or breaks the above paragraph xD
However not all restrictions are equal, catholic restrictions instrumentalize sex and reduce it to a means, almost an evil thing which can only be used for good in this one specific instance but that is, in all other respects, sinful. Its easy to argue <and you've done, I think> that lust in catholicism is no different than gluttony: eating is for nurturing the body and keeping it healthy just like sex is for nurturing and uniting married couples, so the principle of sin as perverting the purpose of something in order to derive pleasure from it would seem to indicate sex is not treated with especial aversion. Except that's not really the case... some gluttony is all fine and dandy for catholicism, for catholics and for the catholic church: like, giving a kid some candy or eating a nice burger if you're not hungry, or even dissociating the nurturing function of food while still enjoying its unitive function on the dinner table... unless it becomes so overpowering for the glutton that they have *actual* consequences of their sin <become very fat or morally corrupt or unable to fullfill their duties or whatever as a result of their gluttony> the church looks at this perversion of "food is for nurture" with amused indulgence. Furthermore there is metonymy here: when noncatholics say that catholics <or christians, as it were, since this is not province of the vatican> hate sex, they actually mean they hate sexual *pleasure*, since that is the most salient aspect of sexuality. We hedonists imagine sexuality as something which feels good, brings people together, makes you grow as a person, and is great enough to be pursued for its own sake.
Catholicism is explicitly against sexual pleasure is my main point here, I suppose, viewing it not as something which can enrich people's lives, but as an evil temptation: the only sexual pleasure you're ever allowed to feel within the catholic ethics is sexual pleasure which you *happen* to feel, perhaps by accident, while engaged in penis-in-vagina sex with a person who you previously decided would be the only woman or man you would ever have sex with that is of the kind that could, under typical circumstances, get a woman pregnant: and even then only if you're not actually trying to feel it -which is not the same thing as trying not to feel it but comes pretty damned close!- since pursuit of sexual pleasure for itself is sinful. Even having sex with your wife in order to make her relax and sleep better is a sin, i mean
come ooooon! you can't know *that* and tell me that catholicism is all sex-positive and that it deems sex as something wonderful and blablabla.
tldr: catholicism is against sexual pleasure and this is what people mean when they say its against sex.
As for the really tiny details, I do believe you're wrong and that Roman Catholic doctrine deems oral sex, masturbation and so on and so forth as inherently unnatural and immoral...officially, at least, since I know of a few liberation theology-influenced priests here that posit that "anything done within holy matrimony is fine and dandy because holy matrimony itself sanctifies all the sex that happens within it" or some similar heresies like that polish friar wrote once... I'm not sure the church has an expresss official position on anal and manual sex, but catechism teaches a few things: contrary to your prior post's theses that for catholicism sex is either unitive or sin because its *meant* <presumably by the Lord> to be unitive and thus it not being unitive is inherently disorderly and evil and whatnot, unitiveness is hardly the only criterion for sex to be good in catholicism: there's also reproduction. sex is meant to be both unitive and reproductive, and thus sex that isn't is sinful. "the creator himself established that in the generative function there should be pleasure" the cathecism, 2331 and on, claims with truly enthusiastic insistence. thus:
a) lust is the desire for sexual pleasure, apart from its reproductive and unitive functions: while masturbation with a partner *might* get protection under the unitive thing it isn't open to life, it is sex separated from its reproductive purpose, it doesn't constitute a "gift of all of oneself" as it were, since the person recieving it <catholicism's sex-as-giving-oneself has always struck me as repugnant, but then again it would, wouldn't it?> does not recieve all of the person's giving it self <that is, whatever she recieves, she doesn't recieve his fecundity for new life or something>.
b) The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the simultaneous obligation of fidelity and fecundity; this simultaneity can't be messed with: sex for only one of the two valid reaons is still sinful. [which is why homosexual marriage, even chaste homosexual marriage, is nonsense in catholicism: its not even marriage at all, its just a couple of gays lusting after each other]. Even moreso
c) Husband and wife shouldn't have sex with each other except for when the reproductive result of that sex is responsible, that is to say that if they are not in a condition to have a child they should not bone at all. So not even pulling out of your wife is acceptable.
Now, I agree that
in your example: yes, it would be dumb of me to think that you hated meat, if you told me repeatedly how wonderful meat was, how it was your favourite food, how, although you thought it was forbidden in most circumstances, it was still the most constant temptation you had, and how you thought that going without meat was one of the greatest sacrifices possible in life
You're right, catholics don't hate sex, how could they, they're humans. However,
KathAveara wrote:I don't know about Catholicism, but in the Bible, Jesus very clearly states that there is no marriage after the resurrection. Simple as that.
Jesus never condemns sex, but he does condemn 'sexual immorality'. I can't remember if the Bible itself does explain that in more depth. Homosexuality is also condemned, though it is acknowledged that it is a perfectly natural phenomenon resulting from sin.
We're talking about a cultural artifact called catholicism. You could broaden it to christianity and it would be all well and good... but when you start discussing theology as a matter of fact, and even worse a simple one at that, just "go search the bible for what jesus said and you'll find the One True Christian Answer
tm you're no longer discussing this particular, and rather interesting, cultural artifact -a religion, a family of religions, or religion itself, or anything- but, rather, you're preaching some sort of protestantism. I'd like to politely point out this is not a fun, interesting, engaging, or particularly enlightened thing for you to do. If you're still interested in looking at this as cultural artifact, and not as "what is the actual word of jesus" -excuse my being crass here- I *think* I remember <perhaps Sal knows more about catholciism here> that catholicism taught death ends marriage, whereas orthodox and eastern catholicism <like the armenian church and so on> teaches that it doesn't. the whole "till death do us part" thinamajig in american protestantism suggests this is the majority view as well. If what I remember is right there is no sex in the catholic heaven, but there *may* be some in orthodox heaven.
EDIT: this post has sat on my computer's RAM for like a week and its starting to smell.