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This thread presupposes that, to properly understand it, a Christian worldview is held. If one is not a Christian, it would indeed seem foolish to prioritize this problem above some of the ones you mention.

But, for a Christian, it is simply undeniable that viewing porn and masturbation are sinful endeavors. Some might consider them very serious sins, some might consider them not so serious. But, as they are, in fact, sins in their essence, they certainly qualify as things we should be striving to avoid, if we are to “follow Christ.”

In previous threads along these lines, some of the more secular FReepers seem to think they are scoring points for Freedom and Civil Liberties in their zeal to uphold the porn industry and their “personal choice” to utilize pornography. If their worldview is all that secular, no Christian argument is going to disuade them. God will, indeed, respect their free will (their ability to make sinful choices, from His POV) to ignore Him or His commands. They are free, while in this life, to “party hard” if they wish. They are free to make no effort to avoid these modern enhancements of assault on our already fragile state of mind with respect to concupisence. They are free to ignore Him altogether. We believe that is a “bad use of freedom,” and that they’ll be positioned to regret it later. But God’s track record is clear enough: if His quiet calls to repentance are ignored, He will not force the issue.

But the article isn’t addressing such people! It is addressing people who struggle with this issue in an effort to co-operate with the grace of God and be free of addiction to porn. In other words, it is directed to Christians. If you are not a Christian, you won’t pay attention anyway.

But, if you are a Christian, how is masturbating to images of women who are not your wife maintaining true faithfullness to her? How is this not cyber-adultery? A Christian will be concerned with squaring his (or her) conduct in these matters with the clear commands of Christ, who is God! He might fail from time to time, or even quite often, but at least he will know what the proper standard of conduct is here, and will make some effort to conform to it. All he has to do, in the end, is truly conform his will to that of Christ, and use that will to consistently co-operate with the grace of God (2Corinthians 12:9). I grant that the road to that goal can be rocky, but the bottom-line I just mentioned is hardly impossible, else St. Paul, under God’s inspiration, would not have mentioned it.

If you think all of that is mubo-jumbo, there is nothing I or anyone else here can do to persuade you otherwise. But don’t trash the concept while it sits here on the Religion Forum! It’s directed at others with a completely different worldview. Just ignore it, and keep on walking down the wide and easy road.