Where does this quote come from? It’s frequently attributed as a Bible quote, but it’s not. Anyone have any idea?
I remember reading something to this effect in another message. Someone was referring to a passage in the bible where God gets angry with someone for spilling his semen on the ground. So it could be a bible quote. I’ll see if I can find the thread where I read that.
It sounds like the story of Onan, though I’m not sure about the “whore” part.
Yeah. It was Onan. Genesis 38:8-10. Doesn’t say anything about a whore though, just that God slew him. Maybe it was based on that, someone thinking that God was angry because of the semen spilling, not the fact that Onan went against God’s will? I’m sure this is a common misinterpretation for people who say that masturbation is a sin.
I’d never heard this saying before, but it sounds like a wry comment on Biblical inconsistency. I am not a Bible reader, but I seem to recall a few passages about men engaging in debauchery, frequenting whores and the like, then changing their ways. These men were not slain. Onan was. Thus, my WAG is some wag came up with the observation that poor Onan got iced for an arguably minor offense, while full-scale sinners were allowed to live.
One more argument for atheism…
As I read the account (which is real brief), it isn’t even definite that Onan masturbated. It only says he spilled his seed on the ground (as opposed to in his brother’s wife’s uterus). He did this because he knew any resulting offspring wouldn’t be considered his, and he wouldn’t benefit from the inheritance of the first-born.
Now, it does say “whenever he (Onan) lay with his brother’s wife (my emphasis), he spilled his semen on the ground,” so it’s possible that the Big O was engaging in sexual intercourse with her, but withdrew before ejaculation.
Or maybe he was just being careless.
I wasn’t saying that Onan masturbated. Just that anti-masturbation people say you shouldn’t waste your semen that way since Onan was killed for wasting his (not due to masturbation though).
The passage is a bit unclear; the NIV translates Gen 38:9 as “whenever he lay with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground”, but the KJV says, “it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it [his semen] on the ground”. The lookup site I’m looking at also has “Young’s literal translation”, which gives the whole of 38:9 as “and Onan knoweth that the seed is not [reckoned] his; and it hath come to pass, if he hath gone in unto his brother’s wife, that he hath destroyed [it] to the earth, so as not to give seed to his brother”.
Sure sounds like Onan did the ol’ thrill-and-spill (pull-out method), but it’s not the clearest passage in the world.
doesn’t “onanism” mean masturbation? can’t find my dictionary.
So God is OK with committing adultery with one’s brother’s wife, as long as you don’t use contraceptive methods?
That MUST have lost something in the translation.
(humming Monty Python’s “Every Sperm Is Sacred”)
The practice described in Gen 38 was known as a Leverite marriage. If a man died without producing an heir than his brother was required to produce one with the widow. This was so the dead man’s lineage would be preserved and the widow would have a child to support her in her old age. Onanism does refer to masterbation but only because the results are the same, seed on ground, not because that is what Onan did.
the practice was/is common in other cultures, too, even recently. a similar scenario happened in my family. after several years of marriage and several children, my grandmother’s husband died. his unmarried brother married her, and they later had children, including my mother. so, half of my mother’s siblings are actually her half-siblings.
i always thought this was weird, but my mother suggested that this wasn’t just normal, it was expected. it was the unmarried brother’s duty to look after his sister-in-law and her children (maybe because of the bible verse in question?).
luckily, no one was smote in the process.
This line is useful in so many different situations. 
Onan was having sex with his sister-in-law on the ground? 
Ah, right here:
onan•ism n 1 : uncompleted coitus 2 : masturbation
from my trusty Webster’s (hey, it’s no OED, but you dance with them what brought you).
So, I guess the word to means “the ol’ thrill-and-spill” (thanks, Max) as well as masturbation.
… well, OK, but you have to promise to oniate.
It does have a ring to it.
Certainly is better to “spill it in the belly than on the ground”…I mean, there aren’t many men who enjoy early withdrawal, now is there?
Maybe Onan just had himself a hair trigger? Certainly wouldn’t want god to start to smite men for THAT, now would we? But there’s a title I surely wouldn’t envy! … “Onan: the world’s first premature ejaculator”
I know that this quote comes from the story of Onan. The problem is that the actual phrase is found nowhere in the Bible, nor is anything even remotely similar. Does anyone know when this phrase was first used? 100 years ago? 200? 1000? 2500? And where? The Talmud? Some Apocryphal text? A work by a Catholic priest in the middle ages? Jerry Falwell in the 1980’s?
That kind of info. Thanks in advance.
on the ground, in your McRib, on the ceiling tiles… what’s the difference?
I’m a dead man for sure. 
The “sin of Onan” was not “spilling his seed on the ground”, but was disobeying the Lord (thru Judah) who ordered him to get his brothers widow (who became then another “wife” of Onan) pregnant so that family could inherit. No-where else is “onanism” a sin or punished- but disobeying the Lord certainly was.
I have never heard that quote before, opus- have you checked the usual suspects- bartletts, etc? Maybe you misheard it- it simply makes no Biblical sense, anyway.