Something Happened on My Way to Hell : Break Free from the Insatiable Pursuit of Pleasure

When was the last time you gave cash as a gift — not counting obligatory gifts such as birthday, Christmas, anniversary, etc.? Do you love sex so much that you think about it constantly? Do you love your pet more than the people around you?

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Do you love fashion so much that you spend hours shopping or looking through catalogs? Do you love your car so much that any flaw is distressing? Do you love the praise of others so much that you actually think of ways to get praise? Do you love taking first place in a contest more than those participating with you? Do you love your home and furnishings so much that you spend every available dollar for more stuff to put in your house? Do you spend more than you should on things that bring you pleasure? These simple questions should give you an idea of how SOCD can begin — it can begin with loving something so much that it causes harm.

The devil and his demons study each of us very closely to see what inherited predispositions we have. They constantly stress test our "want gland" to see if they can create discontent.

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After they determine our weakness and the state of our discontentment, they get together and come up with a series of tailored temptations to induce us into pursuing a life of leisure and pleasure. But, after we have participated in a little pleasure and discovered what a good thing that was, it only stands to reason that more pleasure is better. As a lifestyle of finding pleasure develops, the devil positions us where he can finally begin to work us over. By leading us into an acquired taste for pleasure, he has gained control without causing us to actually violate our conscience.

When the time comes to induce us into sin, the devil tempts us with a pleasure and the initial price for this pleasure is a small sin. The devil is a master at gradualism. He is also a master at diminishing the penalty for sin. In other words, the devil is a master at making sin look insignificant.

He knows that if he can create an appetite for pleasure, then he has won a big battle before sin begins because he knows that it will be very difficult to say "no" later on to his temptations. Have you experienced this chain of events? To illustrate how the pursuit of pleasure can lead into the grip of SOCD, please consider this sad illustration.

Ted Bundy, the infamous serial killer who was executed in , confessed that he became a sex addict when he was a young teenager. It is believed that he killed a minimum of thirty-six women. Even on his dying day, he could not remember exactly how many women he had killed. Shortly before his execution, I saw him interviewed on TV and I heard him express the following thoughts to a TV reporter: Pornography took control of my life at a young age and it created an insatiable desire for sex that could not be satisfied.

Desire for sex burned within me every day and my need for sex was so overwhelming that it destroyed every female relationship that I managed to start. Sexual deprivation turned into sexual frustration which turned into sexual rage.

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I vented my sexual rage on unsuspecting women because I knew I could get away with it. I found relief in raping and killing because it produced sexual gratification. Violence became the only way I could silence the churning desire for sex within me. They call this type of murder "a crime of passion. First, as a young man, he became engrossed with pornography because it offered some "harmless" pleasure. I have heard Christian men claim that there was nothing wrong with "a little porn to keep the bedroom interesting.

Second, Ted became obsessed with sex through pornography. He fantasized about sex and he sought out relationships with females for the purpose of having sex. Because he was obsessed with sex, no female wanted to be around him for very long. Consequently, he could not sustain meaningful relationships and his failure at finding happiness and contentment caused endless frustration which eventually turned into loathing for women. The very thing that Ted loved ruined his life and it eventually led him to commit thirty-six murders to achieve sexual gratification!

Third, Ted became compulsive about sex. He could not restrain himself. Ted Bundy had a very high IQ. He eluded capture for many years. The point here is that passion can overrule intellect. After raping and killing his first woman in order to have sex, he discovered a demonic sense of pleasure and the rest is history.

Ted Bundy became obsessed with sexual pleasure. Yes, he knew what he was doing was wrong, but he could not control his passion for sexual pleasure. Because everyone wants pleasure, everyone has a weakness for too much pleasure.

Is the devil tempting you with pleasure? The human experience is made up of many facets. God wants us to be accountable, responsible and self-controlled. He wants us to be good stewards of the assets He has put in our hands. God wants to live within us and give us joy.

If our life is balanced, the joy that comes from the sum of all of its parts will fill our life with contentment and happiness — a genuine happiness that produces health and well being for ourselves and those around us. On the other hand, the devil is constantly moving the world away from God and toward more pleasure so that he can tempt us into sin with excessive pleasure.

The devil wants to control us through an appetite for pleasure and once he gains control, he can use our obsession to destroy us and the happiness of those around us. He loves to see SCOD victims imposing suffering on innocent people around them.

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2. Durkheim on Happiness;
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You may not be tempted with porn magazines, but are you tempted with fashion magazines or catalogs? You may be not tempted with over-eating, but are you tempted with the pleasure of eating out more than you should? You may not be tempted to gossip, but are you tempted to watch the gossip shows on TV? You may not be tempted with stealing money, but are you tempted with gambling, overworking or overreaching to make more money?

Which produces greater pleasure: How do you want to spend your retirement years: Serving God or enjoying a "self-indulgent life on easy street? One study demonstrates how the happiness of lottery winners returns to a baseline after a period of time, showing they are no happier than a control group.



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In a world of ever-decreasing regulation, how can individuals find happiness? In hunter-gatherer societies this role was provided to us directly, in feudal societies it was inherited, but in modern times it must be sought after and discovered. With ever expanding opportunities, Durkheim emphasized the need for specialization:. We can then say that, in higher societies, our duty is not to spread our activity over a large surface, but to concentrate and specialize it.

Lovers of Pleasure More Than Lovers of God

We must contract our horizon, choose a definite task and immerse ourselves in it completely. In summary, happiness is not the escape from restriction or the accumulation of pleasures. Rather, it is found in social regulation through the pursuit of socially determined goals. Pleasures are fleeting, leaving us, in time, back at a happiness-baseline. The threat of anomic unhappiness can be avoided by the sense that one progresses by engaging in social action. Social action in modern times is extremely diverse and highly specialized, requiring individuals to seek out a specific occupational endeavor, whether it be developing a specific product, advocating for a specific cause, or caring for others in a specific fashion.

He is currently a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University and works in the addiction field. View all posts by Steve Rose.

Lovers of Pleasure More than Lovers of God

But part of our difficulty is in diagnosing what, exactly, it is we feel is missing. I disagree that we covet just for the sake of gathering. I believe that element of our personalities emerges very early in our indivdiual development and lingers throughout our lives.

In fact, I believe the error in Hobbes is the source of our feeling that something is missing. As far as the social influences are concerned, I believe they just add to the buffet of options presented to individuals. However, I believe the nature of the vacancy remains the same. Life gives us the opportunity, through trial and error, to fill that vacancy. Such an insightful read Thank you. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email. Skip to content Close Search for: Durkheim reverses the idea that happiness depends on pleasure by stating pleasure depends on happiness: