Pride will always be the thing that brings thinking, sentient beings, which include both men and women as well as organizations, away from the truth, away from happiness and, in the case of religion, toward heresy. To quote Pope Frances from the second paragraph of his first encyclical – The Light of Faith: Lumen Fide, which he wrote in cooperation with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
” Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old, but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways. Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind form boldly setting out in quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread “new paths . . . with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way”, adding that “this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, them believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek”. [3] Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his critique of Christianity for diminishing the full meaning of human existence and stripping life of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future. ”
Observe Pope Francis’ analysis of the modernist mindset. These days “for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways” Nietzsche assumed only two paths open for humanity and thinks “humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek”. This may have merit if what you seek is to verify truth (if that were possible), but for most of us we want to have peace of soul and happiness to free us to enjoy life and other pursuits. If we have a proven and workable system, as the Catholic faith had been for more than a millennium and a half with complex treatises supporting its merits written by great philosophers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas and theologians like Saint Augustine, why would you want to or how could you find a better way, searching, in just one lifetime? Yes, you must have faith but if electrical engineers did not have “faith” in the mathematics and the electrical engineering theories they learned in school and decided to search for “electronics design truth” on their own, from the ground up, would they ever get to the point of designing anything? The same is true for happiness and peace of soul, if you want to get to higher levels of happiness and peace of soul you must have faith in and build on a foundation that is well established and know to work.
If you reject all past philosophies and decide to strike out on your own to find “truth” and debase yourself in the company of prostitutes, drug users and criminals to start with you can contract diseases (as was the case for the young Nietzsche getting syphilis eventually causing him to go insane), acquire addictions and become injured before realizing even the most basic of truths, would it be worth it? At the very least you must “seek” basic philosophies, one of which you must have basic faith in, and start going from there.
The bible agrees with Nietzsche (to a point, to seek) when it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 “Test all things, hold fast what is good.” Implied in this passage is all things not against Gods law. So, for the younger crowd, tattoos (which don’t espouse something intrinsically wrong or presents something lewd or evil), gauging and piercing is okay unless of course your parents say no, but once you are married since you separate from your parents and cleave to you husband[/wife] (Genesis 2:24) it is okay even if they do disagree, if it is alright with your husband (wife), and of course you did not promise you parents otherwise. This also goes for husband and wife as to what is permissible between married couples.
In my opinion, there is much license in repaying the “marital debt,” but you should check with your spiritual advisor for anything out of the ordinary, many things are permissible that includes only the married couple and does not permanently hurt them, is agreeable to both parties, allows for the possibility of conception in any one session and does not invoke any sort of artificial contraception. NOT CONSIDERED artificial contraception is the use of fertility computers, methods such as the billings ovulation method/FEM or books to calculate fertility by virtue of the fact that they work in deference to Gods plan are not against it and are considered types of natural birth avoidance which are in concert with nature as well as in concert with Gods plan, God being the one who created nature, and the fact that will and reason available, conceivably since the start of Christianity are all that are needed to accomplish them.
This may sound complicated but it just breaks down to the two laws Jesus stated (Mark 12:30-31) as the basis of heavens law: Love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself. So, things like premarital sex, multiple participant sex, same-sex sex, same sex marriage and pornography are unacceptable, because they involve more than just a particular husband (who must be male defined as each of his cells must have an XY chromosome) and his particular wife (who must be female defined as each of her cells must have an XX chromosome). With sexual self-stimulation (touching yourself impurely or self pleasuring, AKA masterbation), If you are single, you have 3 problems especially if in connection with pornography. The three problems are that 1) whoever is in the pornographic movie is not your spouse and 2) is highly probable that the people in the film were either coerced (think sex slave), tricked or because of circumstance convinced that making the film was one of the only, if not the only chance, to solve their problem, possibly lack of money to eat or support their family and 3) it is not possible to create human life, the primary of the two purposes of sex (the other to bring the parties involved to better mental, emotional, physical and/or spiritual health through mutual cooperative reinforcement which is something casual sex rarely if ever does and is usually detrimental) which should always exist together.
People always ask why is there such a big deal concerning sex, why is it considered so sacred? Its because sex is the way God works with man to create, immortal beings, hopefully as citizens of heaven. To do this the husband and wife must be committed to each other and to the children they bring into the world to insure that those children learn about God and what He wants them to be to become – citizens of heaven, and influence them to become good citizens of heaven. Failure to do so is to condemn those children to an eternity of pain and horror.
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 