Hey all. I was just wondering: is it morally uprising if one takes a vow of celibacy for their whole life? Or morally acceptable, for that matter?
I don’t see why not - but good luck not wanking it.
Self discipline is obviously difficult, but is a good thing to achieve.
Have you ever had sex? How do you know that it’s not the opposite, after all? Lemme tell you: In the romance department, so many things made more sense after I lost my virginity.
It’s morally retarded.
That’s what it is.
I see by your favorite book what’s going on in your head right now. Let me tell you a story about Nietzsche. Once, before writing Thus Spake Zarathustra, he fell in love with a girl. Because he was so shy, he sent a friend to propose to her in his stead. The girl laughed at the offer and refused. Nietzsche’s friend then proposed to the girl for himself. The girl accepted. Life: 1, Nietzsche: 0.
When Nietzsche talks about how the great man is one who represses his lust, and how the next greatest man is the one who rears his lust, he’s merely evidencing his own sexual childishness. That is, half the time he’s afraid that lust is something disgusting that will ruin him, and half the time he’s so overwhelmed by his pent-up lust that he vaunts it like it’s some guardian demon. No. People who make wild proclamations about the filthiness or hellishness of sex either lack sexual experience or are mentally unstable. (Probably both, in the late Nietzsche’s case.) Imagine writing about the hellishness of taking a shit or blowing your nose. In short, you eventually realize, <i>there’s nothing that weird about sex.</i>
One question:
Why?
Hey, easy on the generalizations. Philosophical surely not. Which are your theological concerns?
If you take such a vow before having sex you are screwing yourself and your future partners.
Sex is a natural drive. Suppressing it for your entire life is pretty definitely unhealthy. I can understand doing so until you get married or find “the right one”, but not forever.
As long as society in general produces morals, you’re going hard-pressed to find a contemporary society in which a lifelong vow of celibacy is encouraged. Maybe in a few hundred years…
The only case where lifelong celibacy seems to be accepted by the population at large (barring soemthing disastrous like having AIDS), and in some ways admired however slightly, is the various positions in the Roman Catholic Church that require it. You know, being married to the Church, blah blah blah. Even then there is some debate over whether that is necessary or even wise. It would also be naive to assume that the clergy all uphold that vow, child molestors aside.
Striving for self control is a fine thing and all. However, denying bodily pleasures merely for the sake of self control is a bad idea. There’s nothing wrong with remaining celibate if you’re waiting for the right person or marriage or were joining the priesthood, whatever. However, to deny it out right merely for the sake of proving you can… Not a good idea.
Besides, how much self control does it take to deny something if you’ve never had it? It could very well be a greater accomplishment and testament to one’s concentrated power of will if you had sex, thoroughly enjoyed it, then denied it.
is it morally uprising if one takes a vow of celibacy for their whole life? Or morally acceptable, for that matter?
It’s morally retarded.
Yes.
Hallelujah!
It seems fairly pointless a thing to committ to, and a rash decision to be made (covering an entire life from the low vantage point that you are at?). On the flipside, it’s probably no great moral failing if that’s how do you end up living. But again, a fairly pointless thing to actively pursue.
Unless you’re the Setz type and our advice causes you to end up telling us your escapades in the bathroom of a KFC. In cases like that, celibacy is probably the better course both socially and for the sake of humanity’s future genetics.
Thanks, I just wanted to hear the group consensus.
So I take it that’s a no? I dunno, it feels like something I have to do, and I’m not basing it off Nietzsche. To tell the truth, I never actually finished the book.
Why does it feel like something you have to do? I’m pretty sure that’d help out the discussion.
Denying yourself a natural human urge isn’t discipline, it’s stupidity. I won’t quite say it’s the equivalent of starving yourself, but it can’t be healthy. Yeah though, why do you feel like it’s something you have to do?
If you want to TRULY be celibate for the rest of your life, there’s two ways of doing that: Shooting yourself in the head, or becoming a eunuch.
I for one think it’s a stupid thing to do because it not only causes physical health problems, but also psychological ones. I’m not saying you should go boink everything that moves, but don’t totally cut yourself off.
Deciding a very intimate part of the rest of your life based on the replies of a bunch of people you don’t know and have never met is probably a bad idea in any case.
Hey baby, wanna kill all humans?
You’re my favorite person right now