truthaintflashy wrote on 09 Sep 2024 15:27:

The difference between "masturbating is assur" and "G-d loves me and wants me to lead a happy and fulfilling life" is immense. Many people believe the first thing and have almost no relation to the latter (even if they intellectually admit to it). 

Living a life with G-d is of course an eminently practical way to get clean. But it's not an attitude that can bootstrap itself. That is to say, someone who's chronically masturbating is very unlikely to make the leap from "masturbating is assur, my life sucks, I hate myself and G-d is gonna get me for this" to "G-d loves me and my life is the way it should be and now I can stop masturbating till my hand bleeds".

What about “God loves me and occasional masturbation will not cause my sperm to become demons that will haunt me?”

It’s not all or nothing, right?

The way I understand it, this gets into the whole midrash of "initially G-d wanted to create the world with the Attribute of Strict Judgement etc."

Basically the more a certain choice will naturally lead a person to moral confusion/identity confusion, the more G-d chooses to correspondingly wake that person up to stop confusing themselves.  Sexual sins are way up near the top of that scale, and have lasting effects on the mind that are difficult to correct in one fell swoop, so the consequence is also usually prolonged.

livingpalpitation wrote on 09 Sep 2024 16:15:

Very few things in life are all or nothing. But the two halves of your sentence don't depend on each other even a little. G-d might love me and sperm demons may still haunt you. Or G-d may hate you and the sperm demons may be fake news. 

I have no idea if my wasted sperm breed with Lilith to become demons that try to kill me. That's above my pay grade. But unless those demons are real to a person, they have very little relevance. 

Look. There are people who occasionally indulge in lust and feel religious guilt about that. Those people are by and large not on this site. Those people talk to a rabbi, do teshuva (or not) and move on with life. That's a religious problem.

Basically everyone on this site is here because at some point they tried that process and it didn't work. Their lust had progressed to a point where just stopping was not an option. And the proof is we tried that many times and it didn't click. So now the problem isn't really anything religious. The problem is that we've lost control of something in our life. 

There are some people who don't have control of their lust but that doesn't really bother them but-for the religious aspect of the lust. Those people have an extremely hard time stopping. 

If you want to hear about solutions to out of control lust - that's what we're here for. But debating the nature of the spiritual ramifications of lust isn't really going to get anyone anywhere. 

Can you please elaborate on this?

livingpalpitation wrote on 09 Sep 2024 16:15:

If I understand you correctly, I agree with what you are saying here.

Religion is all or nothing. You can't omit any parts you don't like or don't understand. It's a package deal, and as many have said already, we can question in order to understand, but at the end of the day, we need faith to accept G-d's will regardless.

That doesn't mean that if you sin you are out. G-d created sin, and he knows we will sin. That's why He first created repentance.

Our sages of blessed memory speak strongly about sin and punishment. They also speak about love, mercy, kindness, and reward. I know neither what heaven nor hell is like. Maybe you create demons, maybe someone else creates demons. Maybe they affect you, maybe they don't. Whatever happens, the world runs according to G-d's rules and I trust G-d that He wants the best for me. He's not out to get me.

To not understand it fully and be willing to accept it anyways isn't a copout. It's a combination of faith and accepting that I'm human, I'm on whatever level I'm on, and Hashem and all the inner workings of His universe are beyond me. There is difference between lack of understanding and doubt. 

We trust Dr's to perform surgery. We trust engineers to build safe cars & airplanes. We trust food companies not to poison us. Nitpicking exceptions aside, we can all find many things in life that we trust with some level of blind faith. I don't know about anyone else, but what little I know is certainly far from the full picture. 

So whether you create demons by masturbating or not I don't know, but even if you do, so what? G-d is just. He's not out to get you. That doesn't mean that you get the occasional free pass to sin without repercussions, but the punishment fits the transgressor too, not just the transgression.

Hope you find the clarity you are looking for.

livingpalpitation wrote on 09 Sep 2024 16:15:


"God loves me, and the occasional swim in lava shouldn't harm me."
"God loves me, and he'll make sure that I don't get cancer from smoking."

All of God's love won't save you from yourself.

Chazal described the reality of things. Now, whether you accept what they said as reality or not is largely up to you. And it seems that you have a hard time with that. No judgment from my side. I just feel bad because it seems to be messing with your thought process. Perhaps reaching out to someone well-versed in the subject can help improve the quality of your life. (i.e., Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb, he's helped me in many areas, including this one).

livingpalpitation wrote on 09 Sep 2024 16:15:

 i would guess he doesnt mind negotiating,
see if you can cut a deal.

just my guess, i dont keenly aware of this as fact.

I understand that what I’m saying is antagonistic to you, but if you can’t respond in good faith, maybe it’s better not to respond at all.

Comparing masturbation to cancer is part of the problem.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that this is an environment that is extremist in its own way.

Oh cut him some slack for wanting to understand something he learned...Maybe drag this into the "beit midrash" section.

"please elaborate" -- who, me? (that one's 50/50)

On what? Do I need to explain how acting out perverts the mind?

Maybe it helps to know the goal in the Torah, that you have one wife, that she's the only one in the room and the only one in your thoughts, and that you're not in a fight/ceasefire because she doesn't feel like she's in a competition with anyone or anything else, and she has crazy woman's intuition and knows where you've been. Anything short of this has an effect on the children, who are the future and whose choices you have to live with in this and the next world.

(I'm still not married but this is based on The Garden of Peace)

livingpalpitation wrote on 09 Sep 2024 17:43:

Do you think it's at all strange that you are showing up as a newcomer and just being antagonistic and name calling?

livingpalpitation wrote on 09 Sep 2024 17:43:

With all due respect, you misunderstood my point.

If you must say I was making comparisons, then I was comparing masturbation to smoking and demons to cancer.

But I wasn't comparing anything to anything; I just pointed out, as Shem did, that the two parts of your sentence have no relation to each other. Our actions have consequences, no matter how much God loves us.

P.S. Show me an environment that isn't extremist. Especially in its own way. This form of extremism bothers you more than others.

I came here to have a discussion and attempt to answer questions that will guide me going forward. What I’m finding is a great deal of anger towards what I consider very reasonable, thought-provoking questions. The foundations cannot be this shaky.

I don’t believe that I called anyone names at any point in this conversation.

its just not fair!
this is not a pick and choose game


its hard to address you properly, when you keep adding more info were you stand in your keen belief