Why?
And don’t cite the legal right to privacy, because we aren’t talking about the law here.
Again, the Catholic Church doesn’t object to people having smaller families, they object to people using particular (artificial) means to do so. They in fact stress the importance of responsible family size. Natural family planning can work on a societal scale (it was used by a plurality of Polish women in the 1990s, according to the WHO, and Poland at the time had a below-replacement fertility rate).
the R C C 's method of birth control is the most unnatural method there is. The natural way would just have sex. Preventing Pregnancy is unnatural like having surgery etc…
Yea, you said that, and I disagree.
I don’t think having surgery is unnatural, either. ‘Natural’ in the sense which the Catholic and other Christian churches use it, means something different than ‘happens in nature without human intervention’.
Of course that is their translation of natural or Unnatural. But to have children they do not want or cannot take care of emotionally physically,etc. and let some be abused , or like in some places starve to death should be far worse than using a condom, having a vasectomy of tubal litigation. A couple should have the right to have only children they want and can care for. worrying about the poor and helping create more poor is in my opinion a sadist thing to force a couple to do. by way of guilt. or fear of punishment.
The Bible’s authority has already been overwhelming undermined, and this was a minor part of the process. Anything that teaches such absurdity as that God abhors two men or two women “making” it is not going to persuade open people. The idea approaches funny.
But that’s a totally bogus position on its part. If the church agrees that couples can and should use some means to control birth, what difference does it make how?
But do its rules make any sense?
I don’t know that the Catholic Church’s particular set of rules on sex has much to do with what the Bible actually says. If so they are sure working hard to do their part to discredit the Bible.
Christians aren’t consequentialists, generally, so we believe that how you do something is as important as what you hope to gain by it.
To me? Sort of. I don’t agree that taking a contraceptive pill is morally different from relying on naturally occurring infertile periods (since the logic of NFP is that the woman’s fertility status is morally irrelevant to whether the sex act is licit or not), but I can see where some people disagree. It’s not an unreasonable argument.Frank Merton well, some of them (the laws against divorce, etc.) come from the Bible. The prohibition against artificial contraception comes from a combination of tradition, and natural-law reasoning.
You assert that the laws against divorce come from the Bible. I am not a Bible expert, but as I understand it the argument depends on a particular application of context (what God has joined let no man put asunder) might or might not apply to marriage – it might only apply, for example, to marriages directly performed by God. Or it might apply to something like close friendships.
Languages are like that – people read what they expect to read to the exclusion of other possibilities.
Sure, but in this case, what’s the difference?
Why would it matter how you prevent pregnancy? Other than abortion, what’s moral about this vs. that method? Why would a barrier method somehow be considered any different from a moral perspective than the approved methods? If the church actually approves of controlling birth, why does it care how you do it?
Why then? Why would they disagree? What’s the argument?
What IS that argument though?
Tradition is a shitty argument. We can dismiss that one right now.
What’s the “natural-law reasoning?” Can you tell me?
The moral premise that the Catholic Church is using here, which comes from Aristotle, that it’s immoral to use things, or processes, contrary to their intended purpose. (This is also the heart of why the Catholic Church thinks that lying is always a venial sin, even when it’s for the best of intentions like avoiding a murder: because it uses the faculty of speech contrary to its intended purpose). They also believe that the purpose of the sex act is first, deposition of semen in the vagina, and second, to serve both procreative and unitive goals.
Again, I’m not an Aristotelian, I just don’t think their argument is blatantly silly.
Frank the text says ‘divorce’ and ‘marriage’. What do you think it was referring to? There’s certainly room for exegesis around the text, but I think it’s pretty clear that Jesus thought remarriage after divorce was adultery. Churches do disagree about what to do with that, of course.
The normal reading is that of context. I only point out that the passage is not explicit and subject to other readings; it is probable that you are so familiar with the reading you were taught as a child that you are not able to even imagine this.
Lance Tradition is an exceptionally strong argument when you believe, as Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria do, that the organization embodying that tradition happens to be a divinely guided one, and that Jesus promised us that it would never fall into error.
If that really was Aristotle’s view of things, then it really truly was absurd. Of course I doubt it and think it is only the RC view of what he said.
Frank It’s subject to a lot of different readings, but some are more plausible than others.
I think the liberal Protestant position (that Jesus was setting a high standard, but that His mercy trumps his judgment, and that we can bend the law to account for human frailty) is a consistent one. I think the Catholic position is a coherent and consistent one two. There are some other readings I think are less coherent.
This is the point: that it is not accurate to assert that the Bible “teaches” something when the actuality is that this is only one possible reading.
Sure, but that’s simply relying on another worthless illogical argument.
I’m not dissing religion, I’m just noting that religion isn’t rational sometimes. If you want to simply say “that’s the way it is because the church says so,” that’s fine, but if there’s no logical reason, there’s no logical reason.