Is sex a sin? If so, why aren't people repenting?

There is another potential problem that you did not mention, and that I think is rather important. There is a risk, I think especially given the attitudes of modern society, to obsess too much about sex — to waste much of our lives in attempts to "get laid", or dealing with the fallout, or so on.

I do not share the Buddhist views about attachments being always a bad thing; but I think that sex is one of the aspects of human existence in which it is easiest to fall in unhealthy forms of attachment.

It is demeaning for a human being to turn itself into an orgasm-seeking machine. We are better than that.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Oh yes I forgot about that and I'm the Buddhist. I should be the one going "PEOPLE WASTE THEIR TIME TRYING TO FIND PLEASURE TOO MUCH INSTEAD OF STUDYING, EXERCISING, AND BEING AWESOME STUDENTS OF THE DHAMMA."

What kind of Buddhist am I?!

AT LEAST I DON'T MINDLESSLY HATE ATTACHMENT AND DESIRE LIKE SOME. Are they adhamma? Yes. But it is through experiences with adhamma that one learns the value of Dhamma as well as Dhamma!

YOU NEED TO STAB YOUR FOOT TO REACH ENLIGHTENMENT.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Maybe. But I don't think that's much of an issue, really. Most people function pretty well.

I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.

It's a jolly good thing that Buddhism does not condemn excessive use of the Caps Lock key.

With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.

It only does if you can't use it constructively! USELESS TALKING IS BAD. HARMFUL TALKING IS BAD.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Do they? How many idiotic shenaningans have been committed out of half-baked attempts to be more successful with one's preferred sex? How much time have we, as a species, spent in bitter resentment against the more sexually successful members or our gender, or against those of our preferred gender who spurned us? How many people have been turned by a misused sexuality into mockeries of what they could have been?

Let me repeat, I am not saying that sex is evil. It is not. But sex is definitely dangerous, I think. It is something to treat with caution and reverence.

edited 20th May '12 11:10:16 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Yeah, okay. But as far as being reduced to machines, I don't think so.

I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.

Yeah, I was a bit hyperbolic there. I think that extreme misuse of sexuality can indeed turn people into little more than animals; but thankfully, that's not commonplace.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

But we are little more than that...We just happen to be able to find that Dhamma thing easier...

AND THEN THE THREAD BECAME A DEBATE ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Ultimately, every topic is about the nature of man

Personally, I favor Pico della Mirandola's point of view on the issue. Man is a proteiform being, able to change his very nature depending on his choices; and some choices decrease his dignity, while others increase it.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I LIKE BUDDHISM'S VIEW: Living thing that is fancy solely because it is in the best position to reach Enlightenment. We are worth no more than other living beings and we aren't kings or rulers of anything.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

I don't think even matters what an individual human, or even a community of them, are "reduced" to. There is value in living for nothing but physical satisfaction, or pursuing such a lifestyle as an end.

There is more value in exerting our higher faculties. Physical satisfaction is not bad; but if it is to be taken as a human's main purpose, well, that's just a waste.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

If that's how you wish to live then so be it. Just don't hurt others. I myself can't live that way as I find it to be a waste of myself and it won't get me to the goal I want to reach. Gonna be a Buddha some day...Some day...So I can help the world. Yeah...

If it's not a waste to you and you're satisfied with life then that's what matters, yeah?

Just don't hurt others.

edited 20th May '12 12:17:43 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

No it isn't. Not objectively, anyway. I've always posited that creativity and physical health were equally important to gratification, but it's every person's prerogative which of the three they wish to opt out of, so long as their decision doesn't affect others. If you have a society of people who want nothing more than to fuck like animals and die of malaria, that's their choice.

Just because physical gratification is someone's top priority doesn't mean that the other two values suffer for it. For example, as a Hedonist, my primary goal is to maximize personal pleasure. However, because pleasure is usually fleeting, that means I usually have to be creative in how I explore it. Likewise, I have to take great care to maintain my health and physical appearance or else I can and will ruin my opportunities for future amusement.

edited 20th May '12 12:30:07 PM by KingZeal

Oh, objectively. I so love that term. It is essentially meaningless, but it sounds just so nice

And what I'm saying is that it would be a terrible choice. Objectively. A group of humans, with all their immense potential and stupendously powerful minds, reduced to that?

Ultimately, I think that our difference is that you seems to posit that values are something arbitrary, that people make for themselves — I may think that creating beautiful musical compositions is a better way to spend one's life than mindless rutting, but somebody else may think otherwise, and both opinions are equally valid.

I don't agree with this. I think that values are something that exist independently from human minds, and that human minds recognize them (or attempt to). Beauty, justice, honor are as "real" as heat or radiation — more, perhaps. They are not physical, of course; but that does not mean that they don't exist.

edited 20th May '12 12:39:53 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Who's to say the simple things are life aren't the most valuable?

I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.

The individual.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

...'Kay.

If that's what they want, hell yes. Who are you to tell people what their potential amounts to? If this makes everyone completely happy and satisfied, then there's no higher bar to aim for.

A value cannot exist independently of a human mind. Human minds invent values. Your "beautiful musical compositions" are no more of a value than someone who manages to figure out how to cause a continuous number of orgasms. They're both a form of material pleasure.

Which is why you should join me! I aim to destroy both music and sex!

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

@Zeal: I'd say hedonism is ultimately fruitless for the same reason you said: Pleasure is fleeting. There's nothing inherently wrong with seeking pleasure, but seeking something more meaningful is much more satisfying once it's attained.

edited 20th May '12 1:09:03 PM by 0dd1

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

I disagree. For a human mind to recognize something, there must be something to be recognized. Mornings would be beautiful even if there was no human mind to recognize them as such.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

A sunset is a sunset. It is neither Dhamma nor adhamma. It just is.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

You see a sunset as beautiful because it is a wonderfully complicated phenomena which is pleasing to the human senses.

The same can be said of an orgasm.

[[quotebloc

"More meaningful" like what? Knowledge? Skills? Construction?

All of these are "meaningless" on their own. Typically, there's some sort of end that it serves which gives it meaning. Those that do these things for the sake of doing them (philosophers, athletes and artists for example) run the risk that no one will give a shit about what they've done save themselves. For every Aristotle, Babe Ruth and Pablo Picasso, there's a million other people whose efforts were pointless except for their own sense of enjoyment. But if that's all they wanted, then that is no less a victory.

Nothing "just" is, I think. Existence is blessing. If there was nothing in the universe but a single electron, floating forever in an endless vacuum, that single electron would still be a thing of beauty beyond our wildest imaginations. If we could understand its nature in detail, all of our world's libraries would not be enough to fit all the poems that we would compose in its honor.

And if I am not mistaken, the most recent estimates suggest that there exist about 10^80 electrons in the universe. The magnificence of it all is something that we simply are not equipped to understand entirely — at least, not yet.

And if I am going to speak so admiringly about a single electron, what am I going to say about sex — a complex interaction between sapient beings, one which often strengthen their bonds of love and mutual allegiance and that is in certain cases associated to the generation of human beings? Sex is magnificent.

But even more so are human beings themselves, with their complex minds which are even able to grasp a glimpse of the beauty and complexity of the universe. I would not want all that potential to be wasted.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.