Reply #10: I've been intrigued with his use of the term "ghouls"

[Why Syzygy]

When I was in high school my friends at church and I used to get together to watch the Friday night horror shows on tv. I can promise you that I closed my eyes on the very scary parts. Eventually one of the guys, a cheerleader at school who was very outgoing, told me his heart had informed him that God didn't want us to submit our minds to all that frightening imagery. Since visual is my primary processing sensory method, the scenes are harder for me to deal with or forget. I wasn't entirely convinced, and did go on to watch some in college. However, I've seen enough horror in real life at this point. There are a lot of things posted on DU that I don't look at any more. Even the mention of the name, Nick Berg, which came about when I did a search on another topic a few days ago, immediately brings me back to the memory of watching.

Regarding porn, I've always been pretty neutral. Another friend in school showed us some of her parent's magazines. I have experienced a feeling of pity for some people I've seen buying it at a liquor store. Thought it was kind of sad. It did cause a VERY painful situation in the last relationship I was in. That started me thinking more about how I feel about it. But, it was just a recent situation that finally revealed how someone who has a history of porn considers women's bodies as simply a detached 'object' to be used at his discretion in order to satisfy his own appetites. I never understood the "women as objects" until that situation.

So, the word ghouls can be aptly applied to at least SOME uses of porn. I don't know everyone's heart, so I won't make a blanket declaration. Just as sex and eating are not wrong, they can be perverted to an extent that a human being is disgraced, degraded and seen as nothing more than the object to satisfy another. This is the very definition of "ghoul". It also includes a sense of "trickery" against fellow mortals. It may be one of our strongest temptations to use others in some fashion or another instead of taking legitimate measures to feed ourselves.

http://www.answers.com/ghouls
(snips/spelling errors in original)
n.

1. One who delights in the revolting, morbid, or loathsome.
2. A grave robber.
3. An evil spirit or demon in Muslim folklore believed to plunder graves and feed on corpses.



Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia:
An evil spirit or revived corpse supposed to rob graves and feed on human corpses. It is similar to the vampire, but differs in that it not only drinks blood but also consumes flesh. The term is from the Arabic ghul (feminine form, ghulah) meaning "to seize," and the story of the ghoul has been widely disseminated in Moslem countries, ranging from India to Africa. Some people believe that the superstition stems from wild animals that disturb graves at night, others that its origin is the terror of death in the lonely desert. The idea of the ghoul entered into the West in the nineteenth century through translations of the Arabian Nights. (...)

The Vampire Book:
The ghoul, a traditional monster frequently associated with the vampire originated as part of Arabic folklore. It played a part in several tales in the Arabian Knights. Ghouls represented a more demonic aspect of the world of jinns, the spirits of Arabic mythology. The Arabic ghul (masculine) and ghulah (feminine) lived near graves and attacked and ate human corpses. It was also believed that ghouls lived in desolated places where they would attack unsuspecting travelers who mistook the ghoul for a traveling companion and were led astray. Ghul-I-Beában was a particularly monstrous ghoul believed to inhabit the wilderness of Afghanistan and Iran. Marco Polo, reflecting on the accounts of ghouls he heard during his travels, suggested that ghouls, gryphons (an imaginary animal), and good faith were three things people frequently referred to but did not exist. (...)

Wikipedia:
The ghoul is a desert-dwelling, shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary travellers into the desert wastes to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, robs graves, and eats the dead.<4> Because of the latter habit, the word ghoul is sometimes used to refer to an ordinary human such as a grave robber, or to anyone who delights in the macabre. (...)