Unnatural Practices

Is being natural a good thing or a bad thing? Is being abnormal a good or bad thing? And how do these questions relate to what most would probably agree is on the minds of most people rather a lot: sex.

Mainly through citing the ideas of others, Tom de Castella examines the case for and against religiously motivated celibacy among Catholics and Buddhists in "Is it even possible to live a celibate life?". Against a life without sex is that it is highly abnormal and likely leads to dishonesty as priests, monks and others inevitably lie about masturbating, while those favouring it argue that it allows for a stronger commitment to religious principles.

This story, like so many recently, responds to the ongoing scandal amongst Catholic priests and bishops, who have long had a nasty habit of abusing children trusted to their care. In the past, their undeserved respect and censorship kept these evils secret, but today the truth is rightly being told and the religion's leaders are getting the contempt and criticism that they deserve. One regularly repeated idea is that much of this abuse of the vulnerable and weak in society, especially children, results from the religious rule that followers of the religion must be celibate; that is, that they not have sex, not with anyone, not ever, and that they not even masturbate. I'm not sure if it's true or not, since establishing the truth requires research which I don't think has yet been done, but it is certainly plausible that such unnatural rules do lead men who have serious psychological problems or social issues to join: as Buddhist Vishvapani, who is himself sensibly married, tells us that "in a less-than-tolerant society many gay people might choose the priesthood" (as cited in de Castella, 2013). And if there is a disproportionately large number of such men present, it is hardly surprising that they abuse their position and power in society to harm the weak and innocent, especially when social custom gives them great respect, which the ugly facts are increasingly proving to be wholly undeserved respect.

But even when not leading to physical abuse, such religious injunctions against sex that does not harm the self or others causes great harm. I remember suffering awful guilt as a young teenager because it was biologically impossible to follow the unnatural and abnormal teachings of my religion. Thankfully, I soon reached an age of reason and gave up the religion, but it had done a lot of harm with its immoral teachings against nature, against reason and against justice. I think people should be free to practise any religious belief they like, but not to force others to do it, and not to practice beliefs that harm others. Just because something happens to be a part of an ancient and traditional religion does not, and cannot, make it right, reasonable or good for human beings. And whilst religions do have some very good points, we should not overlook or excuse their bad points.

What I actually wanted to talk about was the value of being natural compared to being unnatural - that's why I wrote that title, "Unnatural Practices", at the top of this post. The common religious attitude to sex shows that being unnatural can be very harmful to human beings and societies. But I'm not sure that following what is natural is always a good thing either. Is something good just because it's natural? No. And sex does give good examples of this. Rape is very natural for men, and it is certainly evil. So too are stealing, lying and the like all perfectly natural activities, and they are all wrong. Opium and cocaine are also very natural, but I'm not sure that makes them very good for us either. On the other hand, modern medicines tend to be very unnatural, and also extremely good for us.

Perhaps whether something is natural or not is irrelevant to it's value and goodness?

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Reference

de Castella, T. (2013, March 5). Is it even possible to live a celibate life? BBC News Magazine. Retrieved March 6, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21654663