What if sin isn’t the cause of all the bad or counterproductive things we do?
And what if blaming it on sin does harm?
I wrote this reflection two years ago, and was revisiting it recently and realized it fit in so well with Christmas! Keith and I will talk about this a bit on our final podcast episode of 2025 airing this Thursday, but I thought I’d run it again today to get you all thinking!
Here’s the basic spiritual problem we have: When you have the wrong diagnosis, you’re going to have the wrong solution. And that can actually compound the problem. And one of the issues with Christianity over the ages is that we’ve never had a thorough understanding of the problems of the human condition.
We tend to blame everything on “sin” and lack of faith or lack of trust in God.
Yesterday my husband and I got into a conversation with someone after church about Augustine’s Confessions, and we got talking about the famous “pear” episode, from which “worm theology”, the thought that we are all helpless sinners and can do nothing else, derived and got its start.
Augustine wrote his Confessions around 400 A.D. He was a prominent Christian scholar in what is now Algeria, and had converted to Christianity after quite a promiscuous lifestyle. He never married, but became one of the fathers of the faith, his writings very influential.
Here’s what happened wtih the pears (and I’m doing this from my memory, so I may be a little off):
Augustine and some friends climbed the fence into a neighbour’s orchard and stole pears and ate them. They did it not because they wanted to eat the pears–there were better pears in their own garden–but because they wanted to destroy the neighbours’ pears. They did it for the thrill of doing something wrong.
What this episode drove home to Augustine is that he is a a terrible sinner, since he desires to sin for sin’s own sake–not even to get the benefit of the pears, but just to wreak havoc. His base desires are sinful, and therefore humanity’s base desires are to destroy. We are fundamentally, in our nature, sinners, and we have to fight against this.
This is quite compelling, and it’s a great illustration.
But could there also be something else going on here?
We know that adolescent males tend to gravitate to risk-seeking behaviour. There’s something about hormones combined with brain development at that time that makes teen boys do stupid things.
We also know that people crave adrenaline rushes–it’s why we skydive and bungee jump and even go on upside down roller coasters.
So what if Augustine’s and his friend’s desires to get the pears is less about an innate desire to do evil, and more about developmental risk taking that is channeled in the wrong direction, along with a desire for adrenaline rush?
Both of these things–risk taking in adolescence and desire for adrenaline rush–are part of the human condition, and are not, in and of themselves, sinful. They can be channelled in sinful ways, but they are not, in and of themselves, bad.
Another example: the desire for a relationship.
What if you really, really want to get married, but you don’t have any prospects? You’re actually quite desperate for a relationship. You feel lonely. You think about marriage all the time. You’re sad. You try to keep yourself busy and not think about it too much, but the fact is that you’re not happy single.
And you go to church and you hear that this is a form of idolatry. You are placing your desire for a spouse ahead of your desire for Jesus, and you are failing to consider Jesus enough for you. This is a lack of trust in God. You don’t think that God is enough for you. So you don’t actually love Jesus enough.
But is this true?
After all, God designed us for relationship and said that it wasn’t good for us to be alone. He made us with a desire for marriage and a sexual relationship and companionship.
And many of us have things in our pasts that make us really gravitate towards a relationship, and feel incomplete on our own. Maybe we had insecure attachment to our parents. Maybe we grew up alone, in the foster care system. Maybe we have trauma in our backgrounds and we’re desperate for love.
Does this feeling of sadness because we’re not married mean that we don’t trust God enough? Or does it mean that we have wounds that are making singleness even more painful for us than it would be for other people? Does it mean that we’re just sad that something which God designed us for doesn’t seem to be happening in our case?
What about laziness?
Let’s say that you have an idea of what you’re supposed to accomplish in a day, and what the people around you need from you. You need to keep the home organized and relatively clean, and everyone fed. You need to keep stuff relatively under control–organizing the calendar, figuring out any birthday parties that are coming up, figuring out gifts, figuring out doctor’s appointments. You’re supposed to be working on some courses online. You’re supposed to be exercising.
And you have no energy for anything, and at the end of the day, all you can think of is everything that you didn’t get done. You weren’t diligent. You didn’t persevere. You were just lazy. You wasted time that you will never get back. You can’t seem to get your act together, which means that you’re not trusting God enough. You’re letting your responsibilities go, so you must be a selfish person.
But what if you’re just overwhelmed? What if you’re not sleeping well? What if you haven’t had a full night’s sleep in six years because of the kids not sleeping through the night? What if you’ve got mild depression and sometimes you feel like you have no energy?
You get the picture–I could go on and on and on.
When we end up doing things we don’t want to do, or we feel things intensely that we don’t want to feel, we blame it on sin.
The human heart is wicked and deceitful and is always pulling you away from God, you know. So if you have depression that won’t lift, it’s because you’re not focusing on the joy of the Lord (not because you actually have a chemical imbalance). If you have a bad habit you can’t stop, it’s because you’re not disciplined and you’re not saying that God is enough for you (not because you learned unhelpful self-soothing techniques in your childhood and adolescence). If you have a bad relationship with your grandparents, it’s because you’re failing to love and having a bad attitude (not because you were forced into the adult role at age 10, told that you need to initiate all phone calls and communication, and it was too much to put on a child).
Not every bad thing in our lives is caused by a sinful desire.
Sometimes it’s caused by our own trauma in our background. Sometimes it’s caused by hormonal changes. Sometimes it’s caused by being put in impossible situations. Sometimes it’s just the limits of our own endurance.
But when we over-spiritualize things and call it all sin, then when we are at our weakest point, we can’t go to God for help, because God is the source of condemnation, not consolation.
Sure, He may forgive us. But if we do it again tomorrow, and again the day after that, are we still going to feel close to Jesus? Or are we going to feel like we spend our lives disappointing Him, trying to figure out how we can make it up to Him? Are we going to feel like what He asks of us is just too much?
What if part of the point of the Incarnation is that Jesus understands?
The Incarnation has so many purposes, and we tend to focus on only one: He came to be the perfect sacrifice.
But what if it’s more than that?
- What if it’s that He came to show us what God is like?
- What if it’s that He came to show us how to be fully human?
- What if He came to show us that He understands our hormonal changes; our grief; our exhaustion; our disappointments; our longing for something else?
- What if He came to show us that He understands the evil systems of the world that keep so many trapped?
How would that understanding of Jesus change our faith?
What if we could approach so many of our issues not as sin issues and attach shame to them, but instead as part of the human condition? We all have baggage from childhood, and some of us have truckloads that is much heavier than others. That doesn’t mean you’re more sinful; it means that you have much to bear, and Jesus sees that and knows what that looks like. If some of us have harder times with motivation and with mental health, it doesn’t mean that we’re more sinful; it means that we’re more prone to these issues, and Jesus understands.
And if some of us start out with more stacked against us because the world isn’t set up for people like us, Jesus understands that too.
I think Augustine was partially wrong about the pears.
I think that he had an adolescent desire for an adrenaline rush, and it was channelled in the wrong direction. But that desire for an adrenaline rush was not, in and of itself, bad.
Being human isn’t a sin. Dealing with the frailties of the human condition does not mean that we are sinning.
Yes, sin is real. But not everything bad or uncomfortable has our own sin as its root.
What if we could also focus on Jesus as the Healer rather than only Jesus as the Saviour? What if we could focus on Jesus as the Friend and not just Jesus as the Forgiver?
What if we could have more compassion upon ourselves?
That’s what I’m thinking about this Christmas: About how the Incarnation shows us that God understands the human condition. God Himself walked right into it to show us that He doesn’t judge us for being human, since He himself was one.
And what if that can hep us see trauma more clearly? Can we find true wholeness? Can we put aside shame and embrace freedom and love?
I hope we can, because there have been far too heavy burdens put on people’s backs, as we’ve blamed ourselves for being human.
What do you think? Has this idea that everything bad is because you’re sinning hurt you and your relationship with God? Hurt you and your healing? Let’s talk in the comments!
This is one of those post you make that speaks to me on a visceral level.
Do you know what it is like to feel like you are behind in life? That you are this pervert who has an imagination that can not stop imagining hearing a woman say wow that was amazing I love yo u? To sit back and feel like you were born on the wrong planet?
I do.
Autism is a funny condition as is wanting to know if you are actually desirable.
I find i have grown considerably.
And I also find more and more that I want things that when you analyze them come from a good place.
What kinds of things am I talking about?
Being in love for one. I have never been in that situation.
But also situations like what if I suddenly had Dr Doom leven intellect and technology? Surely if I had that I could do a lot of good for the world but also I could easily become the sort who could be like I am in charge now because you idiots will not stop destroying each other now let me rule me for your own good.
It is fascinating stuff really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxD7rJJ2PM&t=1274s
It is videos like this that I wish you guys would respond to. Because I feel like you guys could see where the video is right but also where it is terribly wrong back up what people need to to know with data because you guys are good at that and give people a more hopeful vision. Videos like this gain traction because they are not entirely wrong and yet I feel like the claims are not well substantiated and that the claims that do not match reality should be shown to not work while the real issues are adressed with both the facts and the hope that yeah we can make things better and address why people are hurting and hopefully make things better.
I’ll take a look, Codec!
Thank you
Just from the title (specifically the code words “Modern Women”), the video sounds like a lot of the InCel/Manosphere videos that YouTube’s Sacred Algorithm was sending into my feed a few weeks ago. All of them with an opinion of “Modern Women(TM)”, i.e. femmies, foids, 304s, holes, etc) — even lower than Adolf Hitler’s opinion of Jews.
Be careful about watching this kind of video, even for research; they can reprogram your mind into the Elliot Roger level of InCel.
I wish I read this article ten years ago! I believed in worm theology for so long it really did not help me grow in my relationship with Christ. I was just telling my wife Christians need to have a balance of hey your not this worm that God hates and despises but also you aren’t this perfect human being that does everything right all the time.
Both extreme views don’t help us to to grow in our relationship with Jesus. We need to understand that we are created in God’s image and loved by Jesus while at the same time know that Jesus loves us so much that he does want us to mature in our relationship with Him and with others and that takes a willingness of us looking at ourselves (especially men who are husbands) and say I need to change this behavior so that I can better serve my wife and fellow man so I can reflect God’s nature and character on this earth.
Thank you so much for this article! This makes me love Jesus even more.
I’m so glad, Clark!
“I think Augustine was partially wrong about the pears” should be a meme. He was also extremely wrong about women. I love how you combine theology and psychology. I was a psychology major at a Christian college that did that very well (no Biblical counseling there, we read peer-reviewed research in our classes) and I love seeing that here, I love that Rebecca was also a psychology major.
I have been thinking about how God said it was not good for man to be alone after creating Adam and gave him Eve, but we don’t know if it would have been equally bad for Eve to be alone. What modern research shows us is that it is, indeed, bad for men to be alone, but that women who are alone tend to thrive, whereas binding their life with men tends to result in decreased health and lifespan. Married men live longer than single men, while single women live longer than married ones, right? It is also the case that the greatest concentration of single men is among the least educated, while the greatest concentration of single women is in the most educated. And I find all of that very interesting in light of the creation story.
I was thinking about Adam and Eve last night, too. I just finished Intro to Biblical Hebrew 1 and can confirm that the Hebrew word for “adam” also is used in the same way that in English we would use “mankind.” So, I was thinking, if God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden, then wouldn’t God have also been able to walk with Adam before Eve was created? Whether or not God did isn’t recorded, but I don’t think there is any reason to suspect God was incapable of it.
If God had the ability to walk with Adam, then Adam, more than any current human, should have been able to rely on God alone. Yet, God said that it is not good for Adam/mankind/man to be alone. Why would God say that if it is true that God is enough for us and therefore, we should not want another human for companionship? If it were true that God wants to be enough for a human, then why wouldn’t God just take walks with Adam and not even think to create Eve? It seems like right there at the beginning, God is telling us that it is not good for Human to exist alone with just God for companionship.
That is interesting about the difference between men and women! I would think it’s a power thing–because women are disadvantaged in marriage, they do better if they don’t marry, and because men are advantaged, they do better if they do marry.
I think most people tend to go to one extreme or the other. So one person will be beating themselves up for the ‘sin’ of not working hard enough (even though they are achieving an amazing amount considering their mental or physical health issues) while another person will be excusing their violent outbursts of anger or porn use as being ‘just who they are’.
My father used to say that God is both truth AND love but that most of us have a tendency to see him as being just one or the other, and neither view is healthy.
Preach it!
The first time I read The Augustinian Pear Incident, I had two thoughts:
1) How is sin the conclusion Augustine came to, rather than “humans like excitement and getting away with doing something wrong is exciting, so be sure to give yourself/your children plenty of options for excitement while doing things that are right”?
2) How did Augustine’s conclusion get perpetuated all these centuries?
That was my first encounter with Augustine and every encounter since has me less impressed with his thought process.
1) Because that’s how Augustine thought. Everything was Spiritual. Christian Monist figures it was because of Neo-Platonic Dualism (which denigrated physical reality in favor of the Perfect Archetype) filtering into the church from the surrounding Hellinistic culture.
2) Because Augustine’s theological writings had enough value that everything he wrote was given the same imprimatur.
Many years ago, there was some essay from a “Mars Hill” claiming that Augustine invented a Christian sexual morality that aged into Purity Culture. Monica’s son Auggie was quite a horndog in his younger Manichaean days, and I figure he brought a lot of baggage into his conversion experience. And his followers in theology had a hard time separating his actual insights from his baggage. And that this baggage also colored Christian sexual morality and the place of women; before, women were sex objects and after they were The Forbidden Fruit. In neither case were they people you could get to know as people. So he rock-slammed from one extreme to the other, from carnal to spiritual, like how ex-smokers become the most militant anti-smoking activists.
And because post-conversion Auggie was such a hotshot theologian, his baggage (like the above) got a free ride into Dogma for some 1600 years and counting.
I think this relates to Augustine’s thought process – the fact that each person tends to judge all humans to be like themselves. Augustine thought about what was in his heart and what his experience was. Then he thought that all humans were like he was, thought like he did, and would seek after what he did. I believe it’s called “overgeneralizing”. I appreciate Sheila pointing out that teen boys tend to want to take risks, etc. I, being more of a typical female, may like excitement at times, but have rarely desired to take risks, so I am certainly not like Augustine and I’m sure many of us are not.
One thing I have struggled understanding is that if we are born sinners (the foundational idea of original sin), then how could Jesus have become human? Wouldn’t he have been born in sin? How could God be born a sinner? And then how can it be true that God can have nothing to do with sin (i.e. that He can’t be around it)? Does anyone know where I can find the answers?
I also agree that many Christians overspiritualize things in their lives. Some of them are also quite superstitious, if that’s the word for it. Such as thinking that if they leave their bible open at home, it has power to get rid of bad/evil influences in their home. I don’t believe it does, it is God who has power, not the physical book. I love my church family, but these things disturb me and I wonder why there is not more discernment among God’s people.
Charlene, those are intriguing philosophical questions. For your second question, I would say, quite simply, that it is NOT true that God can’t even be around sin. I have heard that, too, or read it, so I know it’s a common Christian belief (e.g. I recall reading some old Grace Livingston Hill romance novels where one of the characters explains that he or she cannot go into a nightclub, where there would be drinking and dancing, because God could not be there), but I have also heard Christians — wiser ones, I think — toss the idea out the window. And I’m on the side of the tossers. It seems just silly to say that there is somewhere God cannot be, and the psalms say that there is nowhere we can go where God is not. Of course God can be around sin. Jesus ate and drank with sinners (and was criticized for it), and it is where sin is the darkest that we need him most. If he leaves the ninety and nine to go and rescue the one that is lost, then he goes where sin is, because that is where the lost sheep is. I think this idea is probably an attempt to understand and explain God’s perfect holiness. Or perhaps it is an attempt to explain why we need salvation, because (by this flawed reasoning) God cannot have anything to do with us until our sin is “erased” by the cross. But while that seems on the surface like a nice, logical explanation, it leads to real theological problems, such as you are noticing. I think it’s more accurate to say that we need salvation, not because sin cannot be in God’s presence (didn’t he come down to walk and talk with Adam and Eve right after the Fall?) but because sin breaks our relationship with him, and that relationship needs to be repaired and restored. So I think this notion is really a case of mistaken theology. It would be more accurate to say that God is grieved by sin and desires to rescue us from it than to say something that suggests that he walks away from it or abandons us to it, which is what that theology suggests to me. Instead of recoiling from the deep darkness of sin, God comes close and shines his light into it.
As for your first question, that’s a good one. I don’t know offhand of any scholar or theologian who has written on it, though I am sure there must be many (is the doctrine of original sin accepted and understood the same way across the global church? I don’t know) but I think you are right that it cannot be true that we are born sinners, or where does that leave Jesus, who was fully human. Instead of saying that we are all born already sinners, can we say that we are all born with a tendency to sin, an inclination towards it? Which Jesus resisted, but which the rest of us naturally fall prey to? Is that more accurate, or is it a meaningless distinction? I am uncomfortable with the notion that we are all sinners from birth. It tends to lead to horrific things like supposedly Christian parenting advice to spank tiny babies in order to root out the sin in them. I don’t see how there can be sin before there can be even a basic understanding of right and wrong. Perhaps another way to look at this is to think of Jesus as being fully human, but human in the way Adam and Eve were before the Fall, created according to the original template before it was infected by the virus of sin. I want to add “if that is even possible,” but of course, with God, it is. Nothing about Jesus’ conception was anything like the rest of us humans, so why not this. If we see it that way, then we could still accept the original sin idea of all the rest of being born sinners. Though I think I prefer my first theory.
It would be interesting to see how theologians who have studied this deal with it.
charlene clough, you’re asking good questions here. I wish this was a conference session so that we could talk in person. An answer is more nuanced and complex than can fit into a comment.
Here a few thoughts:
Not all Christians believe that humans are born as sinners. Many believe that humans are born with the capacity for sin. John Calvin vs. Jacobus Arminius is one place to start researching this. If it is true that humans are born for the capacity for sin, but not with original sin, then Jesus could have been born with the capacity for sin, but because Jesus was also God, Jesus never used his ability to sin.
I don’t see conclusive biblical evidence that God cannot be around sin. Jesus hung out with sinners all the time. If God can’t be around sinners, then Jesus wasn’t God. Also, God spoke to Cain, who was a murderer. God even cared enough about Cain’s fears of being murdered in retaliation that God provided protection for Cain. There are other examples of God/Jesus voluntarily and kindly being around people who sin. If you believe The Angel/Messenger of God in the Old Testament is sometimes God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit, then there are even more examples.
You are right that Christians are often superstitious. There are a variety of reasons. A few include:
– Pentecostalism’s influence (Pentecostalism isn’t directly superstitious, but it does encourage a similar mindset)
– A lack of formal, or even intentional, education for many pastors/preachers/Christian influencers
– The human tendency to want God/the supernatural to fix problems that are too big for humans combined with the fact that God does perform miracles
– Churches that tell people not to ask questions
– The human tendency to do what our parents/other important people did without thinking too much – the ritual provides comfort regardless of the outcome
Keep asking questions. Look far and wide for answers. You’ll come across heresy, nonsense, half-truths, and truth. Keep reading the Bible and praying through the process. God will guide you to God’s truth.
“I also agree that many Christians overspiritualize things in their lives.”
Just like “Germans over-engineer everything”, Christians over-spiritualize everything.
Like they want to shed their body like a tech-bro at the Singularity and float around Heaven forever as a naked wisp of a Soul(TM) like a shade in Hades or a string of ones and zeros in the Cloud. And for everything else? “It’s All Gonna Burn”. and some of them just want to laugh as the world burns. (The Gospel According to Heath Ledger’s Joker? Come to think of it, he was also really into showing and proving how sinful and depraved everybody else was…)
“Some of them are also quite superstitious, if that’s the word for it.”
Another word for it would be magical thinking. I chalk it up to folk magic beliefs which accreted around the core beliefs over time. For instance your example of “an open Bible gets rid of bad/evil influences in your home (like those DEMONS in your Goodwill sweater?) or the more familiar form of folk Bibliomancy called “Bible Dipping” – Open the Bible at random and seek guidance in the form of direct orders from the first verse it opens onto. (And in Applachian lore, you do it three times to make sure.)
And depression is by no means the only condition which gets overspiritualized and condemned! I suspect this blog post will resonate with a lot of neruodivergent readers. I’ve got ADHD, and even though I was diagnosed at a young age, as a child I couldn’t help but think:
“I can’t remember to complete my devotionals, I must not be close enough to God” (No, you’re just more forgetful than normal)
“I keep getting distracted while praying, will God be upset?” (Of course not, you have ADHD)
“If I really cared about this I would just get it done. I’m just slothful and lazy.” (No, it’s executive dysfunction, you need more momentum and energy to start tasks, and no one’s taught you how to do that yet)
“Why do I think more about my interests than God and church? I must be a horrible Christian, this must be idolatry” (No, that’s just hyperfixation. You’re a 10 year old child who got a new Pokémon game, it’s fine.)
And the horrible guilt I felt for a long time with worship music! I have some pretty strong sensory issues and am prone to overload/meltdowns when I’m around super loud sounds, so modern-style worship services are a no-go for me. I felt spiritually broken for not being able to participate!
I take comfort now in knowing that God, who knows all, knows how my brain works. He sees the invisible barriers of this disability that other people sometimes don’t even believe in, and He knows that I’m doing my best.
It’s often easy for us to confuse HOW we live out our faith with actually HAVING a Christian faith. So we assume the way we do things is not just ‘a’ right way (although it may not even be that!) but is the ‘only’ right way.
I have hypersensitive hearing and, like you, cannot cope with very loud sounds – including the kind of worship service where the volume is turned up full blast. Over the years, I’ve had many people hint that my inability to cope with loud worship music is a lack of spirituality – and sometimes, they’ve even said it outright.
I used to feel terrible about it, as if I should be able to cope with the loud noise if I were truly focussed on worship. But I gradually realised that there is nothing especially spiritual about loud noise. And then I heard a couple of those ‘if you are focussed on God you can worship in any circumstance’ folks get really, REALLY grumpy because they had to go to a service in a church that played old-style hymns really slowly on a traditional organ. Funnily enough, they ‘couldn’t worship’ in those circumstances! It made me realise that what they were viewing as the only ‘right’ way to worship was actually the way they ENJOYED worshipping and had nothing to do with spirituality at all.
God looks on our hearts. You can worship him truly from your heart in total silence or shouting at top volume – what matters is that it is from the heart. So don’t let anyone make you feel that your worship is worth less because it’s not as noisy as other peoples.
This was very much my experience also. I didn’t know I had ADHD until I was in my 30’s. I relate to pretty much all your examples of self-criticism. Plus things like “why do I miss social cues and blurt things out at the wrong time? I must be really self-centered.” Whatever you do that doesn’t fit the mold, or that draws negative attention or inconveniences other people gets labeled sin.
Once I got diagnosed, so many things about my life suddenly made sense. And once I started really learning to adapt to the way my brain actually works, a surprising number of other things I struggled with started to become more manageable too. It’s almost like accepting myself the way God made me has made me a better person! Who knew??
I’m not neurodivergent, but I can’t take loud sounds or tons of competing stimulation, either. When I went to a CCM church, I would sometimes walk into the lobby during the music just to regulate. Some days, I would leave the building and walk around outside until the music portion was over. I eventually convinced leadership to use a decibel gauge, arguing that it wasn’t taking care of God’s temple (AKA human bodies) if the church had music at a decibel level known to cause hearing damage. They used it sporadically, at the highest “safe” level, but the volume generally was lower after that. I now go to a hymn church and have yet to get overwhelmed from overstimulation. Whenever someone says that CCM is the only way to grow a church/attract “young” people, I mention the overstimulating affect, among other objections people under 60 have.
Oh, yes, I have had all of those thoughts and I’m not ADHD! I can just imagine how much worse it is if you have ADHD!
“But when we over-spiritualize things and call it all sin…”
Many of the people I’ve encountered in evang. spaces lean towards things either being all good or all bad. It’s a very black and white sort of thinking… ironically it is so very different from my son’s B&W thinking- He has ASD yet has and is learning to keep his B&W thinking in a much healthier zone than many of those mentioned.
They couldn’t stand the play, Wicked; Elphaba was evil, pure and simple. The first time I saw the touring play, I cried. (For the life of me I cannot understand how they had harsh thinking yet a softer stance on porn usage, they only gray area allowed, it seemed to me.)
And I agree with others on the sensory issues with church! I am not officially diagnosed with but likely have Sensory Processing Disorder. I cannot for the life of me find a local-ish church where I can worship that is also a safe/healthy space. We found a church but then they got a new worship leader and now it is far too loud for me, even in the lobby. I’m about done with trying to worship in an actual church unfortunately.
(For the life of me I cannot understand how they had harsh thinking yet a softer stance on porn usage, they only gray area allowed, it seemed to me.)
Maybe because they themselves were gooning off to porn?
“The Goon State” is supposed to be an altered state of consciousness.
Seems to be a pattern that the stricter your religious environment is about sex, the more porn use there is. I understand the highest per-capita consumption of porn is in Saudi Arabia, where sexual morality is enforced by religious police with whips.