# Is It Ethical To 'Correct' Religious Folks?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 22, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483 "2021-12-22T16:41:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/81 "2022-01-07T17:09:45Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#):
>
> People in Biblical times believed that a man’s semen contained his ‘seed’, i.e., literally a fully formed baby.
Cite?
> [@Jim\_B](#):
>
> BTW, if you want to see where the Bible clear _does_ say this, read about Onan in Genesis 38:9. (Yeah, the RC church still uses the term _Onanism_ to put the fear of G-d into people about masturbation 😉 🙂 .)
That’s definitely the church’s interpretation of the account, but it’s not actually what Gensis _says._
edit: I see DocCathode has beat me to the explanation so I won’t rehash it.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/82 "2022-01-07T17:17:03Z")
Yeah, Onan’s sin was definitely that he tried to cheat God. It is nonetheless traditionally forbidden for a man to masturbate, because it is seen as killing potential human life. Not murder. Even causing a woman to miscarry isn’t murder.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/83 "2022-01-07T17:22:22Z")
> **off-topic**
>
> I just want to make clear, ‘man’s seed’ containing a full baby was something I heard about in religion class, in RC high school. It would be hard to provide a cite. (I am presently doing a search. But all the hits I get are religious-based views on the subject. And those are notorious for not providing scientific or even historical information on the matter.)
I thought the Onan verse would be enough. That is usually what is cited by most people, I know. And notice I did point out that the Roman Catholic Church _uses_ the entry in the Bible that way. I didn’t mean that they even were necessarily correct.
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### Author:  [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/84 "2022-01-07T17:28:17Z")
All the Genesis verse seems to show is that the Hebrew word for “semen” is the same as “seed”. They may well have believed that the seed contained a fully formed human, but I don’t see how that particular quote demonstrates it.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/85 "2022-01-07T17:30:40Z")
> **off-topic**
>
> Keith Shannon on [Quora](https://www.quora.com/search?q=man%27s%20seed%20contains%20a%20baby) seems to agree with me:
>
> _“…The second theory is much as Nick Lilavois stated; before we learned how human reproduction actually works, it was thought that a man’s seed literally contained a fully-formed but very small human. Life, then, began before conception in this model, and so spilling one’s seed into any place other than into “fertile ground” (a woman’s womb), not giving it the chance to grow, was murder…”_
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### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/86 "2022-01-07T17:35:37Z")
Not to extend the tangent further, is the phrase “the _seed_ of Onan” or “the _sin_ of Onan”? I am not sure what I have heard, but given the info shared here (and appreciated), I just wanted to gain clarity.
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### Author:  [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/87 "2022-01-07T17:48:57Z")
I’m not clear on what you’re trying to prove, Jim. Is is that the RCC holds masturbation to be tantamount to murder, and justifies that with a ludicrously stupid misreading of the Onan story? Seems like an RCC site would be the best place to check that.
If the claim is that actual Mosaic law holds, or ever has held, that masturbation is murder or otherwise merits the death penalty, several people in this thread have already told you otherwise.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/88 "2022-01-07T17:49:54Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#):
>
> People in Biblical times believed that a man’s semen contained his ‘seed’, i.e., literally a fully formed baby.
I’d be interested to see an authoritative cite proving or disproving this. I’ve heard this claim (at least about people in “the old days,” not necessarily biblical), but I’ve been sceptical. Surely people noticed that children resembled their mothers as well as their fathers?
But maybe they attributed this to the influence of the “soil” in which the “seed” grew? i.e. environmental rather than genetic factors?
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2022, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/90 "2022-01-07T19:18:49Z")
**Jim\_B, Thudlow\_Boink, Thing.Fish & Johnny\_Bravo**
_ **If there is interest in continuing this digression, please start a new thread.** _
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2022, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/91 "2022-01-12T21:11:12Z")
To answer the OP…if you and this other person, whom you say you are “correcting”, enjoy such discussion, back and forth, so to speak, then sure…go right ahead.
If you are jumping, uninvited, into such conversations that another person may have initiated to proselytize others, and they are taking offense of your “correcting”, then you’re being more of a harasser, and should back off. It’s is very highly likely, that your “correcting” will be unheeded and you will come off more as an asshole. But if that’s how you enjoy your weekends…it’s a free country and go to town.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/92 "2022-01-13T16:22:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> Folklore as whole definitely includes religious stories, but no one built a temple to Pecos Bill.
(o\_o)
(\>\_\<)
(o\_0)
brb, I’ve got to go to the bank and put a Stop Payment on a check.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ethical-to-correct-religious-folks/956483/93 "2022-01-13T16:40:10Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> My position is that it is myth and folklore, and myth is a subset of folklore.
> How No True Scotsman has anything to do with this is beyond me. It’s purely a matter of definition.
But the analogy still holds, because _ **True** Scotsmen_ are a subset of _ **ALL** Scotsmen_.
Well, to people who argue about porridge, anyway.
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