[Serious] For former Christians only, why did you leave your faith?

[Ranjr]

In high school, I went to church for three reasons.  To see girls in dresses, to play trumpet with the choir, and to make my grandmother happy.

Once I went to college, there were girls everywhere, I played guitar too damn much, and my grandmother quit asking if I was going to church.  I spent hours on end in the library, reading history, and decided the Gospels were pure, not even historical, fiction.

I can't remember not being skeptical of the Baptist Church.  So, I had little if any faith to leave.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Interesting perspective on mortal sins:

If you die without being absolved of a mortal sin, you go straight to Hell. This means that if you masturbate, then head for the church to confess but get hit by a bus and die on the way, you will suffer eternally for having had a wank.

Boru

[Jehanne]

Depends if masturbation is a mortal sin or not. I suppose a traditional confessor would say that if you are trying to resist "the urge" but succumbing, it's venial, but, if you are habitual and happy with it, magazines and all, it's mortal.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Depends if masturbation is a mortal sin or not.  I suppose a traditional confessor would say that if you are trying to resist "the urge" but succumbing, it's venial, but, if you are habitual and happy with it, magazines and all, it's mortal.

The act of masturbation is a mortal sin, full stop. The are no conditions or intentions which make it venial. Which is another good reason to leave the Church.

Also, there is no requirement to confess venial sins (it is, however, strongly encouraged).

Boru

[Ahriman]

I was always taught masturbation is a venial sin.

[Jehanne]

Depends if masturbation is a mortal sin or not.  I suppose a traditional confessor would say that if you are trying to resist "the urge" but succumbing, it's venial, but, if you are habitual and happy with it, magazines and all, it's mortal.

The act of masturbation is a mortal sin, full stop. The are no conditions or intentions which make it venial. Which is another good reason to leave the Church.

Also, there is no requirement to confess venial sins (it is, however, strongly encouraged).

Boru

From the Horse's mouth (no pun intended):

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."
To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

[zebo-the-fat]

I was "sent" to church untl I was around 12 years old, then I realised it was nothing but pure BS, not been back since then... I wonder if they missed me?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The act of masturbation is a mortal sin, full stop. The are no conditions or intentions which make it venial. Which is another good reason to leave the Church.

Also, there is no requirement to confess venial sins (it is, however, strongly encouraged).

Boru

From the Horse's mouth (no pun intended):

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."
To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

None of which changes it from a mortal to a venial sin. ‘Moral culpability’ is not the same as sin.

Boru

[Jehanne]

From the Horse's mouth (no pun intended):

2352 By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."
To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability.

None of which changes it from a mortal to a venial sin. ‘Moral culpability’ is not the same as sin.

Boru

Maybe this is a question for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, successor to the Roman Inquisition? You could write to them!

[Fake Messiah]

I left Catholicism because I wanted to do bad things without having to pay the spiritual consequences,

For everything I long to do
No matter when or where or who
Has one thing in common, too
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a sin
It's a sin

Everything I've ever done
Everything I ever do
Every place I've ever been
Everywhere I'm going to
It's a sin