I Lust Och Nöd
Magdalena Liendo
Lust is an intense desire for something.[1][2] Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony) as distinct from the need for food or lust for redolence, when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.
Lust is defined as immoral because its object or action of affection is improperly ordered according to natural law and/or the appetite for the particular object (eg sexual desire) is governing the person's will and intellect rather than the will and intellect governing the appetite for that object.
Whereas passion, regardless of its strength, is maintained to be something God-given and moral, because the purpose, actions and intentions behind it are benevolent and ordered toward creation, while also being governed by the person's intellect and will. A primary school of thought on this is Thomism, which speaks on the intellect, will and appetite, and draws from principles defined by Aristotle. However, the exact definitions assigned to what is morally definite and ordered toward creation depend on the religion. For example, religions based in pantheism and theism will differ on what is moral according to the nature of the "God" acknowledged or worshipped.
In Judaism, all evil inclinations and lusts of the flesh are characterized by Yetzer hara (Hebrew, יצר הרע, the evil inclination). Yetzer hara is not a demonic force; rather, it is man's misuse of the things which the physical body needs to survive, and is often contrasted with yetzer hatov (Hebrew, יצר הטוב, the positive desire).
Yetzer HaRa is often identified with Satan and the angel of death,[3] and there is sometimes a tendency to give a personality and separate activity to the yetzer. For the yetzer, like Satan, misleads man in this world, and testifies against him in the world to come. The yetzer is, however, clearly distinguished from Satan, and on other occasions is made exactly parallel to sin. The Torah is considered the great antidote against this force. Though, like all things which God has made, the yetzer hara (evil inclination) can be manipulated into doing good: for without it, man would never marry, beget a child, build a house, or occupy himself in a trade.
You shall not covet your neighbour's wife; you shall not covet your neighbour's house or his field or his male slave or his female slave or his ox or his draft animal or any animal of his or whatever belongs to your neighbour.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, a Christian's heart is lustful when "venereal satisfaction is sought for either outside wedlock or, at any rate, in a manner which is contrary to the laws that govern marital intercourse".[5] Pope John Paul II said that lust devalues the eternal attraction of male and female, reducing personal riches of the opposite sex to an object for gratification of sexuality.[6]
Lust is considered by Catholicism to be a disordered desire for sexual pleasure, where sexual pleasure is "sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes".[7] In Catholicism, sexual desire in itself is good, and is considered part of God's plan for humanity. However, when sexual desire is separated from God's love, it becomes disordered and self-seeking. This is seen as lust.
St. Thomas Aquinas differentiates between sexual intercourse within marriage, which is seen as meritorious through giving justice to one's spouse, and sins of lust which can themselves be differentiated in magnitude of immorality according to intention and action. For example, Aquinas says in the Summa Theologica II-II, q. 154, a. 12 "I answer that, In every genus, worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend. Now the principles of reason are those things that are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting." He uses St. Augustine as his source writing "Augustine says that 'of all these,' namely the sins belonging to lust, 'that which is against nature is the worst.'" Which St. Thomas clarifies means that they are greater than sins against justice pertaining to the genus of lust, such as rape or incest, in his statement "Reply to Objection 3: The nature of the species is more intimately united to each individual, than any other individual is. Wherefore sins against the specific nature are more grievous." Thus St. Thomas gives the order of magnitude of lustful acts as: "The most grievous is the sin of bestiality, because use of the due species is not observed...(Then) the sin of sodomy, because use of the right sex is not observed...(Then) the sin of not observing the right manner of copulation (or the unatural act or masturbation)... (Then) incest... is contrary to the natural respect which we owe persons related to us... Then, it is a greater injustice to have intercourse with a woman who is subject to another's authority as regards the act of generation, than as regards merely her guardianship. Wherefore adultery is more grievous than seduction. And both of these are aggravated by the use of violence." [8]
The Latin for extravagance (Latin: luxuria) was used by St. Jerome to translate a variety of biblical sins, including drunkenness and sexual excess.[9] Gregory the Great placed luxuria as one of the seven capital sins (it is often considered the least serious of the seven deadly sins), narrowing its scope to disordered desire,[10] and it was in this sense that the Middle Ages generally took luxuria, (although the Old French cognate was adopted into English as luxury without its sexual meaning by the 14th century[citation needed]).
In Romanesque art, the personified Luxuria is generally feminine,[11] often represented by a siren or a naked woman with breasts being bitten by snakes. Prudentius in his Psychomachia or 'Battle of the Soul' had described[12]
For Dante, Luxuria was both the first of the circles of incontinence (or self-indulgence) on the descent into hell, and the last of the cornices of Mount Purgatory, representing the excessive (disordered) love of individuals;[13] while for Edmund Spenser, luxuria was synonymous with the power of desire.[14]
The Catholic Church defines lust as the idolatry of sexual pleasure, in all of its forms: contraception, masturbation, adultery, premarital relations, relations between persons of the same sex, etc, which destroys the human capacity of loving, that is, of the person to give themselves to God and to others.
The evangelical Melvin Tinker states that: "The principle is clear isn't it, 'You shall not commit adultery'? How does the Pharisee handle it according to the minimum requirement method? He says, 'Sex outside marriage is OK for us because neither of us are really married. I am not sleeping with another man's wife, so it isn't adultery, she's my girlfriend'. Or it is also not adultery because 'I have not had sex with that woman.' to quote President Clinton's plea in the Monica Lewinski [sic] saga. So he can abuse his position as President by messing around with a girl who is hardly younger than his daughter, he can engage in all kinds of sexual activities with her, but because he technically doesn't have intercourse he can hold up his hands and say, 'I have not had sex with that woman.' That is a Pharisee speaking.
"But the maximum application method says, adultery doesn't just happen when you have sexual intercourse, it happens in your heart. However, the mistranslation is unfortunate at this point. In the Greek it says, 'If anyone looks upon a woman in order to lust, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.' That is an important distinction. I need to point that out because sexual arousal, sexual interest, sexual attraction are essential for the continuation of the human species.
In Islam, lust is considered one of the primitive states of the self, called the nafs. In sufi psychology, according to Robert Frager, nafs is an aspect of psyche that begins as our worst adversary but can develop into an invaluable tool.[18]
Muslims are encouraged to overcome their baser instincts and intentional lascivious glances are forbidden. Lascivious thoughts are disliked, for they are the first step towards adultery, rape and other antisocial behaviors. The Islamic prophet Muhammad also stressed the magnitude of the "second glance", as while the first glance towards an attractive member of the opposite sex could be just accidental or observatory, the second glance could be that gate into lustful thinking.[21]
Lust is the attachment to, identification with, and passionate desire for certain things in existence, all of which relate to the form, sensation, perception, mentality, and consciousness that certain combinations of these things engender within us. Lust is thus the ultimate cause of general imperfection and the most immediate root cause of a certain suffering.
The passionate desire for either non-existence or for freedom from lust is a common misunderstanding. For example, the headlong pursuit of lust (or other "deadly sin") in order to fulfill a desire for death is followed by a reincarnation accompanied by a self-fulfilling karma, resulting in an endless wheel of life, until the right way to live, the right worldview, is somehow discovered and practiced. Beholding an endless knot puts one, symbolically, in the position of the one with the right worldview, representing that person who attains freedom from lust.
In existence there are four kinds of things that engender clinging (attachment): rituals, worldviews, pleasures, and the self. The way to eliminate lust is to learn of its unintended effects and to pursue righteousness as concerns a worldview, intention, speech, behavior, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration, in the place where lust formerly sat.
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