Ok, I can't quote scripture here, but I remember not too long ago being given a pamphlet in church (Catholic) about what the "mortal sins are" and the 4 that were on there were:
* Murder
* Abortion
* Sex outside of marriage
* Masturbation
So my 1st question is - how do you equate rubbing one out to abortion, in terms of severity of the offense? 2nd question would be - why did they distinguish between murder and abortion, but that's a WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE nother can of worms.
I had it explained to me once that the reason masturbation is a sin is because our bodies are supposed to be "images of God" or "God's temples" or something like that. So when we treat our bodies in this way, it's disrespectful to God.
That's the short answer anyway
