Sam Lowry said:

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Decent beer wasn't widely available in America until the mid-1990s. It's worth revisiting if you haven't tried it in a while.

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I was pretty much cured of it by my first sip of horrible 3.2 Coors beer during high school in Denver in the early 1970s. Disliking beer turned out to be a real advantage during high school and college, since I was never tempted to get drunk. Staying sober protected me from lots of pitfalls.

Jinx 2 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx 2 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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What I'm saying is, the Church doesn't teach that desire is unvirtuous or that women who've had sex are impure. Your description of the doctrine is incorrect. You may think the actual Catholic (and Protestant) teachings about contraception are incorrect too, but that's another issue.

There are different estimates of the failure rate of NFP, depending on who's doing the numbers and which method or combination of methods you're talking about. Planned Parenthood calls it between 12% and 24%. Assuming that's accurate, the better methods are only slightly less effective than the Pill, which according to Quash's link has a failure rate of 9%. I'm not arguing that NFP is the optimal method in terms of pregnancy prevention. I find it advantageous for its lack of harmful side effects, both medical and moral.

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The Church does, however, teach that use of contraception is immoral. Coke Bear calls NFP a "moral" form of family planning. But most Americans and most Catholics do not believe a woman or couple's decision to use an effective form of contraception is immoral.

Trying to impose the Church's view that God should and must make the decision regarding whether every single sex act will result in a pregnancy is not congruent with separation of church and state. While I disagree with your beliefs, they would not bother me nearly so much if the Church has not and did not still advocate their implementation as government policy with the force of law.

Sadly, what it's taken to end that, in Ireland at least, is evidence of the fact that the Church was perfectly willing to police the bedrooms of its members, but not its priests or of its institutions for children or for unwed mothers. A vigorous interest in life in the womb becomes considerably less credible when people learn that the children of unwed mothers who weren't sold away from their mothers in Irish institutions were starved, abused, received abysmal medical treatment, and were dumped in mass graves after they died of curable childhood illnesses, all because they were considered inferior children of sin, and that mothers who bore children out of wedlock were essentially enslaved. THAT is why Ireland voted itself out from under canon law--because it protects the Church and covers over the sins of its priests, nuns and employees, while condemning married couples for wanting to have sex without fear of a pregnancy resulting. If Church officials and members would acknowledge and atone for this level of hypocrisy and actually do something about it instead of doing everything it possibly can to avoid the criminal consequences that should result from such abuse or paying child support (in the cases of priests who fathered children), that would make things a little better. But, instead, the Church demands a level of morality from ordinary parishioners it does not require of its leaders.

So, IMO, the Church has certainly lost any moral authority it might assert to non-Catholics, and Catholics, rather than preaching to protestants about the immorality of contraception, should be demanding that priests and Church leadership be accountable for THEIR sins instead of holding the rest of the world accountable while excusing, ignoring and hiding their own transgressions.

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America is not a Catholic country. Our laws and opinions for and against contraception have never been based on Catholic dogma. I'm not even sure why we're talking about Catholicism. As for the Church and its moral authority, I really don't think any sort of atonement will improve your opinion unless you understand what the Church teaches and why.

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Catholics and Protestants diverged on the issue of contraception in 1930. In the 1960s, The Church waffled on the pill, allowing it to become entrenched, but you yourself have said you thought the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, was one of the worst court decisions ever.

The Catholic view of contraception is particularly stringent and equates interfering with sperm or preventing conception as murder, I guess because of the belief that only God should make decisions regarding life and that every time a couple has sex, God should have the right to decide whether a pregnancy will result.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-catholic-church-and-birth-control/

A Mortal Sin
On New Year's Eve 1930, the Roman Catholic Church officially banned any "artificial" means of birth control. Condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps were defined as artificial, since they blocked the natural journey of sperm during intercourse. ******s, suppositories and spermicides all killed or impeded sperm, and were banned as well. According to Church doctrine, tampering with the "male seed" was tantamount to murder. A common admonition on the subject at the time was "so many conceptions prevented, so many homicides." To interfere with God's will was a mortal sin and grounds for excommunication.

The Purpose of Intercourse
For the Vatican, the primary purpose of intercourse was for the sacred act of procreation. If couples were interested in having intercourse, then they had to be willing to accept the potential for the creation of another life. For devout Catholics, that left only abstinence or the church-approved rhythm method (the practice of abstaining from sex during the woman's period of ovulation). However, the rhythm method was unreliable, and many believed it placed a heavy strain on marital relations.

Here's an interesting article about why the Church condemns the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which affirmed the right of married couples to make their own decisions regarding contraception without government interferences, and claims that decision was a slippery slope that allowed unmarried adults to buy contraception and set a precedent of people's privacy to make their own decisions about sex and reproduction that resulted in the decision in Roe v. Wade:

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/abortion/the-bad-decision-that-started-it-all.html

After all, Griswold simply allowed married couples to decide whether to use contraceptives. But the Supreme Court soon transformed the right to privacy (the reference to marriage quickly disappeared) into a powerful tool for making public policy. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), the Court changed a right of spouses justified in Griswold precisely by reference to the importance of marriage into a right of unmarried adults to buy and use contraceptives. Then, in a move that plunged the United States into a culture war, the Court ruled in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton(1973) that this generalized right to privacy also encompassed a womans virtually unrestricted right to have an abortion.

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I don't think procreation is the primary purpose; it's simply a purpose. Part of the Church's reason for emphasizing it is that when the creative purpose is denied, the dignity of women suffers. If you want a truly disturbing example, read Chris Hedges' account of a porn convention in Las Vegas. That's the fulfillment of Paul VI's prophecy in real life.

Catholic teaching on marriage is nuanced and not particularly well suited to being legislated. I've never advocated complete prohibition of birth control. I do think Griswold was an unfortunate decision on purely practical and humanistic grounds. The culture war has poisoned our political discourse perhaps beyond remedy, and the ubiquitous use of the Pill has had a host of immiserating consequences both foreseen and unforeseen.

I'm wondering if Waco47 supports these parents "kicking" their child out of their home?

Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx 2 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx 2 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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What I'm saying is, the Church doesn't teach that desire is unvirtuous or that women who've had sex are impure. Your description of the doctrine is incorrect. You may think the actual Catholic (and Protestant) teachings about contraception are incorrect too, but that's another issue.

There are different estimates of the failure rate of NFP, depending on who's doing the numbers and which method or combination of methods you're talking about. Planned Parenthood calls it between 12% and 24%. Assuming that's accurate, the better methods are only slightly less effective than the Pill, which according to Quash's link has a failure rate of 9%. I'm not arguing that NFP is the optimal method in terms of pregnancy prevention. I find it advantageous for its lack of harmful side effects, both medical and moral.

---

The Church does, however, teach that use of contraception is immoral. Coke Bear calls NFP a "moral" form of family planning. But most Americans and most Catholics do not believe a woman or couple's decision to use an effective form of contraception is immoral.

Trying to impose the Church's view that God should and must make the decision regarding whether every single sex act will result in a pregnancy is not congruent with separation of church and state. While I disagree with your beliefs, they would not bother me nearly so much if the Church has not and did not still advocate their implementation as government policy with the force of law.

Sadly, what it's taken to end that, in Ireland at least, is evidence of the fact that the Church was perfectly willing to police the bedrooms of its members, but not its priests or of its institutions for children or for unwed mothers. A vigorous interest in life in the womb becomes considerably less credible when people learn that the children of unwed mothers who weren't sold away from their mothers in Irish institutions were starved, abused, received abysmal medical treatment, and were dumped in mass graves after they died of curable childhood illnesses, all because they were considered inferior children of sin, and that mothers who bore children out of wedlock were essentially enslaved. THAT is why Ireland voted itself out from under canon law--because it protects the Church and covers over the sins of its priests, nuns and employees, while condemning married couples for wanting to have sex without fear of a pregnancy resulting. If Church officials and members would acknowledge and atone for this level of hypocrisy and actually do something about it instead of doing everything it possibly can to avoid the criminal consequences that should result from such abuse or paying child support (in the cases of priests who fathered children), that would make things a little better. But, instead, the Church demands a level of morality from ordinary parishioners it does not require of its leaders.

So, IMO, the Church has certainly lost any moral authority it might assert to non-Catholics, and Catholics, rather than preaching to protestants about the immorality of contraception, should be demanding that priests and Church leadership be accountable for THEIR sins instead of holding the rest of the world accountable while excusing, ignoring and hiding their own transgressions.

---

America is not a Catholic country. Our laws and opinions for and against contraception have never been based on Catholic dogma. I'm not even sure why we're talking about Catholicism. As for the Church and its moral authority, I really don't think any sort of atonement will improve your opinion unless you understand what the Church teaches and why.

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Catholics and Protestants diverged on the issue of contraception in 1930. In the 1960s, The Church waffled on the pill, allowing it to become entrenched, but you yourself have said you thought the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, was one of the worst court decisions ever.

The Catholic view of contraception is particularly stringent and equates interfering with sperm or preventing conception as murder, I guess because of the belief that only God should make decisions regarding life and that every time a couple has sex, God should have the right to decide whether a pregnancy will result.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-catholic-church-and-birth-control/

A Mortal Sin
On New Year's Eve 1930, the Roman Catholic Church officially banned any "artificial" means of birth control. Condoms, diaphragms and cervical caps were defined as artificial, since they blocked the natural journey of sperm during intercourse. ******s, suppositories and spermicides all killed or impeded sperm, and were banned as well. According to Church doctrine, tampering with the "male seed" was tantamount to murder. A common admonition on the subject at the time was "so many conceptions prevented, so many homicides." To interfere with God's will was a mortal sin and grounds for excommunication.

The Purpose of Intercourse
For the Vatican, the primary purpose of intercourse was for the sacred act of procreation. If couples were interested in having intercourse, then they had to be willing to accept the potential for the creation of another life. For devout Catholics, that left only abstinence or the church-approved rhythm method (the practice of abstaining from sex during the woman's period of ovulation). However, the rhythm method was unreliable, and many believed it placed a heavy strain on marital relations.

Here's an interesting article about why the Church condemns the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, which affirmed the right of married couples to make their own decisions regarding contraception without government interferences, and claims that decision was a slippery slope that allowed unmarried adults to buy contraception and set a precedent of people's privacy to make their own decisions about sex and reproduction that resulted in the decision in Roe v. Wade:

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/abortion/the-bad-decision-that-started-it-all.html

After all, Griswold simply allowed married couples to decide whether to use contraceptives. But the Supreme Court soon transformed the right to privacy (the reference to marriage quickly disappeared) into a powerful tool for making public policy. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), the Court changed a right of spouses justified in Griswold precisely by reference to the importance of marriage into a right of unmarried adults to buy and use contraceptives. Then, in a move that plunged the United States into a culture war, the Court ruled in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton(1973) that this generalized right to privacy also encompassed a womans virtually unrestricted right to have an abortion.

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I don't think procreation is the primary purpose; it's simply a purpose. Part of the Church's reason for emphasizing it is that when the creative purpose is denied, the dignity of women suffers. If you want a truly disturbing example, read Chris Hedges' account of a porn convention in Las Vegas. That's the fulfillment of Paul VI's prophecy in real life.

Catholic teaching on marriage is nuanced and not particularly well suited to being legislated. I've never advocated complete prohibition of birth control. I do think Griswold was an unfortunate decision on purely practical and humanistic grounds. The culture war has poisoned our political discourse perhaps beyond remedy, and the ubiquitous use of the Pill has had a host of immiserating consequences both foreseen and unforeseen.

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Sam, how does the "dignity of women suffer" when "the creative purpose" of sex is "denied" by the use of contraception?

This is an honest question, because a lifetime of one pregnancy after another seems really undiginified to me. I still remember a friend recounting, with disgust, being at her husband's family reunion during her first pregnancy. Her parents were German immigrants and not terribly religious; he was part of a large Southern Baptist family that numbered many preachers and "prayer warriors" in its ranks, and she joined his Baptist church before they married. One of his uncles sidled up to her and cracked, "Now everyone knows you did it once."

She was incensed when she recounted it to me, because it was so personal and intrusive, and implied that "doing it" was somehow dirty, "as if it were a badge of shame I was wearing on my big belly!" she fumed.

I oppose porn for the same reason I oppose surrogacy and organ sales--too much potential for abuse and trafficking when you sell your body or their parts in whole or for short-term use. I also think porn is really harmful because it involves lots of practices that aren't enjoyable and that may even be risky for one partner, often the woman, and it's now so ubiquitous that teenage girls who lack a faith tradition or parents who teach them to care for their bodies and not let someone else use them for bad purposes are having to be TOLD they don't have to do these things. Not sure how to deal with that, but I don't believe that awfulness can be hung on the availability of contraception, although it's a safe bet that women who work as pron stars use it and that they also have abortions when it fails. Do the men get vasectomies?

Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx 2 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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What I'm saying is, the Church doesn't teach that desire is unvirtuous or that women who've had sex are impure. Your description of the doctrine is incorrect. You may think the actual Catholic (and Protestant) teachings about contraception are incorrect too, but that's another issue.

There are different estimates of the failure rate of NFP, depending on who's doing the numbers and which method or combination of methods you're talking about. Planned Parenthood calls it between 12% and 24%. Assuming that's accurate, the better methods are only slightly less effective than the Pill, which according to Quash's link has a failure rate of 9%. I'm not arguing that NFP is the optimal method in terms of pregnancy prevention. I find it advantageous for its lack of harmful side effects, both medical and moral.

---

The Church does, however, teach that use of contraception is immoral. Coke Bear calls NFP a "moral" form of family planning. But most Americans and most Catholics do not believe a woman or couple's decision to use an effective form of contraception is immoral.

Trying to impose the Church's view that God should and must make the decision regarding whether every single sex act will result in a pregnancy is not congruent with separation of church and state. While I disagree with your beliefs, they would not bother me nearly so much if the Church has not and did not still advocate their implementation as government policy with the force of law.

Sadly, what it's taken to end that, in Ireland at least, is evidence of the fact that the Church was perfectly willing to police the bedrooms of its members, but not its priests or of its institutions for children or for unwed mothers. A vigorous interest in life in the womb becomes considerably less credible when people learn that the children of unwed mothers who weren't sold away from their mothers in Irish institutions were starved, abused, received abysmal medical treatment, and were dumped in mass graves after they died of curable childhood illnesses, all because they were considered inferior children of sin, and that mothers who bore children out of wedlock were essentially enslaved. THAT is why Ireland voted itself out from under canon law--because it protects the Church and covers over the sins of its priests, nuns and employees, while condemning married couples for wanting to have sex without fear of a pregnancy resulting. If Church officials and members would acknowledge and atone for this level of hypocrisy and actually do something about it instead of doing everything it possibly can to avoid the criminal consequences that should result from such abuse or paying child support (in the cases of priests who fathered children), that would make things a little better. But, instead, the Church demands a level of morality from ordinary parishioners it does not require of its leaders.

So, IMO, the Church has certainly lost any moral authority it might assert to non-Catholics, and Catholics, rather than preaching to protestants about the immorality of contraception, should be demanding that priests and Church leadership be accountable for THEIR sins instead of holding the rest of the world accountable while excusing, ignoring and hiding their own transgressions.

---

America is not a Catholic country. Our laws and opinions for and against contraception have never been based on Catholic dogma. I'm not even sure why we're talking about Catholicism. As for the Church and its moral authority, I really don't think any sort of atonement will improve your opinion unless you understand what the Church teaches and why.

---

The Catholic Church has never been a bastion of morality or moral authority. It's a political animal with the purpose of amassing wealth.

Worth reading and looking at charts-differences between ages of first-time mothers has changed dramatically since 1980: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html?fallback=0&recId=18WgbRisZDMxkxTpmG6Qb1ZEXxJ&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=UT&recAlloc=als1&geoCountry=US&blockId=signature-journalism-vi&imp_id=104869070&action=click&module=editor*****s&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer

People with a higher socioeconomic status "just have more potential things they could do instead of being a parent, like going to college or grad school and having a fulfilling career," said Heather Rackin, a sociologist at Louisiana State University who studies fertility. "Lower-socioeconomic-status people might not have as many opportunity costs and motherhood has these benefits of emotional fulfillment, status in their community and a path to becoming an adult."

There has long been an age gap for first-time mothers, which has narrowed a bit in recent years, driven largely by fewer teenage births, Ms. Myers said. Yet the gap may be more meaningful today. Researchers say the differences in when women start families are a symptom of the nation's inequality -- and as moving up the economic ladder has become harder, mothers' circumstances could have a bigger effect on their children's futures.
....
Women who have children young tend to live in areas that view family ties as paramount. Parents might be physically healthier because of their youth, and the children's grandparents are younger and often live nearby. But parents are less likely to have significant savings or a college degree and career. Their pregnancies are more likely to be unintended, and three-quarters of first-time mothers under 25 are unmarried.

Natalia Maani, an obstetrician at Starr County Hospital in Rio Grande City, Tex., where the average age of first birth is 22, said very few of her pregnant patients are married, and she can count on two hands the number of pregnancies that were planned. Many can't afford birth control, she said. Most wouldn't consider abortion, and there is no provider nearby. And the cultural norm is to start families young.

fadskier said:

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I'm wondering if Waco47 supports these parents "kicking" their child out of their home?

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Ohhh waco? Hello?

Jinx,

Catholics see marriage as a sacrament and a vocation, just like the priesthood. Coke Bear mentioned the unitive and creative purposes of sex in his post above. The creative refers to procreation. The unitive refers to most everything else that's good in a sexual relationship--pleasure, love, emotional bonding, etc. But these two aspects can't be separated. They're part of the same thing. Only with complete giving of themselves to each other, in openness to creation, is the union of a husband and wife fully loving and fully realized. Otherwise the woman is denying her unique power and allowing the dignity of her vocation to be undermined.

In less mystical and more practical terms, what this means is that contraception teaches women to dehumanize themselves and make themselves available for use at another person's whim (and this is a two-way street; it makes women users as well). It makes family planning the sole responsibility of the woman and opens her up to blame when her body does what is natural for the female body to do. It enables further dehumanizing with things like pornography and prostitution.

This is not to say the timing and number of children shouldn't be planned. NFP is a method that shares responsibility between both partners and, in fact, makes marriages stronger by giving a sense of reverence for the woman and her vocation. It's not perfectly effective in preventing pregnancy, but no form of birth control is. According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost half of unplanned pregnancies and more than half of abortions happen to women on some form of artificial birth control.

The kind of jokes and shaming you referred to are alien to my perspective. I assume it's something to do with Baptists' being uncomfortable around visible evidence of intimate love and needing to break the tension somehow. I would have been annoyed too.

Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx,

Catholics see marriage as a sacrament and a vocation, just like the priesthood. Coke Bear mentioned the unitive and creative purposes of sex in his post above. The creative refers to procreation. The unitive refers to most everything else that's good in a sexual relationship--pleasure, love, emotional bonding, etc. But these two aspects can't be separated. They're part of the same thing. Only with complete giving of themselves to each other, in openness to creation, is the union of a husband and wife fully loving and fully realized. Otherwise the woman is denying her unique power and allowing the dignity of her vocation to be undermined.

In less mystical and more practical terms, what this means is that contraception teaches women to dehumanize themselves and make themselves available for use at another person's whim (and this is a two-way street; it makes women users as well). It makes family planning the sole responsibility of the woman and opens her up to blame when her body does what is natural for the female body to do. It enables further dehumanizing with things like pornography and prostitution.

This is not to say that the timing and number of children shouldn't be planned. NFP is a method that shares responsibility between both partners and, in fact, makes marriages stronger by giving a sense of reverence for the woman and her vocation. It's not perfectly effective in preventing pregnancy, but no form of birth control is. According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost half of unplanned pregnancies and more than half of abortions happen to women on some form of artificial birth control.

The kind of jokes and shaming you referred to are alien to my perspective. I assume it's something to do with Baptists' being uncomfortable around visible evidence of intimate love and needing to break the tension somehow. I would have been annoyed too.

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This is a good post and a good explanation. Thank you.

I disagree with the idea that every woman has a "vocation" for childbearing, though. After watching my parents struggle for 10 years to care for my profoundly handicapped brother and then deal with the heartbreak of having to institutionalize him, I wasn't sure I wanted children. The chances of catastrophe seemed too great. I had to witness several friends having normal children and seek genetic counseling before I got over my fear of a life that the one my parents lived for the 10 years after my brother's birth. So I was married for 7 years before having children.

I agree that sex has become degraded in this day and time, but I think there have always been corners of society where it's been degraded. Unfortunately, in our time, it's not a corner; it's too often center stage. But I don't think contraception is to blame, or that it's elimination would change the fact that society is now driven more by technology than by faith.

Finally, is the Church supporting, financially or in any other way, efforts to reduce or eliminate access to contraception in the U.S. or elsewhere? Do you believe the Pope should dictate government policy re: contraception or gay marriage, or just within the confines of the Catholic Church.

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

Thank you, Jinx.

I believe our policies should be enacted or rejected based on their merits, not because they're Catholic or because they aren't. If a policy agrees with the Church or is based on a teaching of the Church, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be the law. For example, "you shall not steal" is a good law. By the same token, the fact that a policy agrees with Church teaching doesn't mean it should be the law, either. "You shall not take the Lord's name in vain" is a good rule to live by, but it wouldn't be a good civil law because the secular benefits wouldn't justify the intrusion on free speech.

So, separation of church and state means that the pope's approval of a policy doesn't weigh for or against it in the government's eyes. The pope's opinion does carry weight with some citizens, and even with some politicians. Their estimation of what is or isn't good policy will be biased accordingly, just as everyone's opinion is biased by their deeply held beliefs, whether religious or not. But ultimately all those differing biases and opinions will compete on a level playing field to prove their worth. This is what we mean by pluralism.

As for marriage and related issues, governments of all kinds, religious and secular, ancient and modern, monarchic and democratic, have always taken a special interest in marriage because of its importance to the upbringing of children and the future of the society and the state. This interest exists completely apart from any particular religious dogma. Any policy favoring or disfavoring contraception or gay marriage should be justified in the way I described above, based on its secular benefits, and not because the pope agrees with it or disagrees with it.

In my experience with Catholics and other pro-lifers over the years, I've never found contraception to be a major part of the agenda. I'm not aware of any effort by the Church to reduce access, with the exception that they oppose certain forms of sex education for children and handing out contraceptives in schools. Catholic hospitals also want the freedom not to deal with contraceptives, as we saw in the Obamacare dispute.

I'm gonna guess their was more to Seth being a problem child and that his parents were justified in kicking him out of the home

Waco1947 said:

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Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

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Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

Waco1947 said:

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Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

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Why would I need him to talk to a pastor at all?

Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx,

Catholics see marriage as a sacrament and a vocation, just like the priesthood. Coke Bear mentioned the unitive and creative purposes of sex in his post above. The creative refers to procreation. The unitive refers to most everything else that's good in a sexual relationship--pleasure, love, emotional bonding, etc. But these two aspects can't be separated. They're part of the same thing. Only with complete giving of themselves to each other, in openness to creation, is the union of a husband and wife fully loving and fully realized. Otherwise the woman is denying her unique power and allowing the dignity of her vocation to be undermined.

In less mystical and more practical terms, what this means is that contraception teaches women to dehumanize themselves and make themselves available for use at another person's whim (and this is a two-way street; it makes women users as well). It makes family planning the sole responsibility of the woman and opens her up to blame when her body does what is natural for the female body to do. It enables further dehumanizing with things like pornography and prostitution.

This is not to say the timing and number of children shouldn't be planned. NFP is a method that shares responsibility between both partners and, in fact, makes marriages stronger by giving a sense of reverence for the woman and her vocation. It's not perfectly effective in preventing pregnancy, but no form of birth control is. According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost half of unplanned pregnancies and more than half of abortions happen to women on some form of artificial birth control.

The kind of jokes and shaming you referred to are alien to my perspective. I assume it's something to do with Baptists' being uncomfortable around visible evidence of intimate love and needing to break the tension somehow. I would have been annoyed too.

---

I'm not really a part of this discussion, and you can chide me for butting in, but I have to say your views are wrong on so many levels. You're ideas about women and contraception are about two steps away from Islam. NFP mechanically if timed right, accomplishes the same thing that other contraception, just less effective. All contraception has a risk of failure. NFP is a gamble with higher odds of failure than some other forms of contraception. Creative and unitive bonding due to NFP is malarkey. NFP wastes eggs and sperm equally, the same as any other form of contraception. Does your God really need you to practice NFP over some other form in order to give you an unwanted pregnancy? Where is your faith? Couldn't he cause other forms of contraception to fail if he wants you to conceive? The real reason the "Church" is against contraception is it interferes with growth of the Church. The greater the numbers born to Catholic families, especially in impoverished uneducated countries, the better chance of sustaining growth in church members, which translates to more $$.

Actually it was the Church's ideas that brought women from second class status (at best) in the ancient world to the position of equality they enjoy today.

Sam Lowry said:

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Actually it was the Church's ideas that brought women from second class status (at best) in the ancient world to the position of equality they enjoy today.

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You must have swallowed a lot of propaganda to come up with that statement. Do you really believe women enjoy equality within the Catholic Church today - much less outside the Catholic Church?

Sam Lowry said:

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Actually it was the Church's ideas that brought women from second class status (at best) in the ancient world to the position of equality they enjoy today.

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Women in the early church had considerably higher status--they were leaders of congregations and corresponded with as respect leaders by Paul--than have women in the Catholic church.

Where I think you (and many religious conservatives) and I (and many social liberals) disagree is the role of a higher authority in dictating choices--and which choices that higher authority should have the power to try to make on behalf of everyone in society.

If you believe God is in control and that He has (or should have) the ultimate power in deciding if sex should result in a pregnancy, then you oppose contraception as subverting the higher authority you believe everyone should be subject to, whether or not they share your religious beliefs.

If you don't believe in God or are religious but believe that God gives people the freedom to decide for themselves when to have sex, what partners to choose (maybe even a member of the same sex) and when and whether to have children, then you reject the idea of a church or the government or both dictating and trying to severely limit intensely personal choices regarding sex and reproduction with the force of law.

In America, we straddle that fence in favor of religious authority. Judges who make (what I consider) common sense rulings that a man who has fathered 14 or 15 kids and supports none of them financially must have a vasectomy are condemned and their rulings overturned, because they interfere with reproductive freedom. But women who seek early-term abortions--which most do for financial reasons-are also condemned even though the procedure is legal. We aren't consistent, partly because female contraception and abortion have been the primary targets of the policy war.

In a society in which separation of church and state is a basic tenet, the religious should not seek to limit every member of society's eproductive choices based on their view that God alone should have the authority to determine who is born.

My belief that God is in control is a religious belief. I don't want or expect the government to enforce it on anyone who doesn't share it.

No idea where that emoticon came from in my previous post.

TexasScientist said:

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Do you really believe women enjoy equality within the Catholic Church today - much less outside the Catholic Church?

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Relatively so, yes. It's not perfect equality in practice, but they are equal under the law in Western societies.

"In a society in which separation of church and state is a basic tenet, the religious should not seek to limit every member of society's productive choices based on their view that God alone should have the authority to determine who is born."

Why stop there? Why should we limit anyone's authority for anyone to live?

Sam Lowry said:

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No idea where that emoticon came from in my previous post.

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You mean this one Sam.

You and Jinx are having a good discussion.

Finally I think Jinx2 is the real Jinx. I wasn't sure for a while the way names and characters seem to change often over here. But, Jinx is making good arguements that I agree with a lot of the concepts. For a while I wondered if Jinx2 was a new person trying to take on a new persona. Seems like the real person to me now.

fadskier said:

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Waco1947 said:

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Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

---

I don't think anybody here is arguing that the father didn't have the right to kick his kid out.

I think Waco1947 is saying he doesn't think that was a loving choice. Or a just one.

And if your criteria is WWJD, I don't think Jesus would kick a kid out of his house for being openly gay. He's otherwise a good kid--class valdictorian, a student athlete, someone who managed his own college application and admission process.

Doesn't sound like a troublesome kid to me unless his parents are trying to force him to share their religious beliefs, or at least live as if he does (including attending a church that preaches that gay and transgendered people are sinners) until he leaves home. I can't imagine how a loving parent would want a gay son to attend a church week after week where he is verbally battered from the pulpit. Even if he's bright enough to understand the wrong-headedness of that--and he obviously is--it has to hurt.

Finally, supporting a woman's right to make HER own choices doesn't mean YOU would make the same choice. It means you believe strongly enough in separation of church and state and in the rights of individual in a democracy that purports to value personal freedom that you want to make sure, under law, that women have the right to make their own choice about a very personal matter--and that you believe a just government would never seek to dictate such a personal choice for anyone, male or female.

I'd go further: If the government is empowered to force pregnant women to remain pregnant until they give birth or have a miscarriage, why should that same government not be empowered to force a man who keeps fathering children he can't support to have a vasectomy by court order. If you want to intrude into people's reproductive choices because you don't want them to make bad ones, it seems like you'd be in favor of allowing that intrusion when it's in the public interest to stop a guy who can't or won't support the children he fathers from continuing to produce children who must be supported by taxpayers.

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. (((((((( Yes he will I Corinthians 6: 9 Says so. He may not say but he believes it. Ask him. ))))))))


Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in. ((((( Always a silllu fall back for SBC but if you believe the Bible lime you say you do then it's clearly indicated by your understanding of scripture. Don't think for a second your gay child doesn't believe you condemning him to hell. He's read your posts or heard you at the dinner table. That canard "Only God judges." Is full of deceit. You know in your heart and in your understanding of scripture that's its the "truth." Don't kid yourself.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

---

. Speak to your pastor? According to you homosexuality is a moral and spiritual issue and your pastor would "set him straight on Baptist doctrine." You don't talk spirituality with the spiritual leader of your church? Hmmmmmm?

Jinx 2 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

---

I don't think anybody here is arguing that the father didn't have the right to kick his kid out.

I think Waco1947 is saying he doesn't think that was a loving choice. Or a just one.

And if your criteria is WWJD, I don't think Jesus would kick a kid out of his house for being openly gay. He's otherwise a good kid--class valdictorian, a student athlete, someone who managed his own college application and admission process.

Doesn't sound like a troublesome kid to me unless his parents are trying to force him to share their religious beliefs, or at least live as if he does (including attending a church that preaches that gay and transgendered people are sinners) until he leaves home. I can't imagine how a loving parent would want a gay son to attend a church week after week where he is verbally battered from the pulpit. Even if he's bright enough to understand the wrong-headedness of that--and he obviously is--it has to hurt.

Finally, supporting a woman's right to make HER own choices doesn't mean YOU would make the same choice. It means you believe strongly enough in separation of church and state and in the rights of individual in a democracy that purports to value personal freedom that you want to make sure, under law, that women have the right to make their own choice about a very personal matter--and that you believe a just government would never seek to dictate such a personal choice for anyone, male or female.

I'd go further: If the government is empowered to force pregnant women to remain pregnant until they give birth or have a miscarriage, why should that same government not be empowered to force a man who keeps fathering children he can't support to have a vasectomy by court order. If you want to intrude into people's reproductive choices because you don't want them to make bad ones, it seems like you'd be in favor of allowing that intrusion when it's in the public interest to stop a guy who can't or won't support the children he fathers from continuing to produce children who must be supported by taxpayers.

---

Yeah, I'd be in favor of that.

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. (((((((( Yes he will I Corinthians 6: 9 Says so. He may not say but he believes it. Ask him. ))))))))


Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in. ((((( Always a silllu fall back for SBC but if you believe the Bible lime you say you do then it's clearly indicated by your understanding of scripture. Don't think for a second your gay child doesn't believe you condemning him to hell. He's read your posts or heard you at the dinner table. That canard "Only God judges." Is full of deceit. You know in your heart and in your understanding of scripture that's its the "truth." Don't kid yourself.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

---

. Speak to your pastor? According to you homosexuality is a moral and spiritual issue and your pastor would "set him straight on Baptist doctrine." You don't talk spirituality with the spiritual leader of your church? Hmmmmmm?

---

Did I say the pastor would set him straight on doctrine? I don't believe I said that. I think I said almost the opposite. A pastor is the spiritual leader of the church? Christ is the head of the church. I am the spiritual leader of my family.

To answer your question, I would have no problem with my child talking to my current preacher. I would, however, never allow you to speak to one of my family members. You twist God's word to mean what you want. You can't preach about God's love and acceptance without leaving out his expectations, commandments and consequences of sin.

Jinx 2 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

---

I don't think anybody here is arguing that the father didn't have the right to kick his kid out.

I think Waco1947 is saying he doesn't think that was a loving choice. Or a just one.

And if your criteria is WWJD, I don't think Jesus would kick a kid out of his house for being openly gay. He's otherwise a good kid--class valdictorian, a student athlete, someone who managed his own college application and admission process.

Doesn't sound like a troublesome kid to me unless his parents are trying to force him to share their religious beliefs, or at least live as if he does (including attending a church that preaches that gay and transgendered people are sinners) until he leaves home. I can't imagine how a loving parent would want a gay son to attend a church week after week where he is verbally battered from the pulpit. Even if he's bright enough to understand the wrong-headedness of that--and he obviously is--it has to hurt.

Finally, supporting a woman's right to make HER own choices doesn't mean YOU would make the same choice. It means you believe strongly enough in separation of church and state and in the rights of individual in a democracy that purports to value personal freedom that you want to make sure, under law, that women have the right to make their own choice about a very personal matter--and that you believe a just government would never seek to dictate such a personal choice for anyone, male or female.

I'd go further: If the government is empowered to force pregnant women to remain pregnant until they give birth or have a miscarriage, why should that same government not be empowered to force a man who keeps fathering children he can't support to have a vasectomy by court order. If you want to intrude into people's reproductive choices because you don't want them to make bad ones, it seems like you'd be in favor of allowing that intrusion when it's in the public interest to stop a guy who can't or won't support the children he fathers from continuing to produce children who must be supported by taxpayers.

---

and for the record, I absolutely DO support a woman's choice. She chose to get pregnant OR to commit the act that gets someone pregnant. Why should a life end because of that?

Jinx 2 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

fadskier said:

---

Waco1947 said:

---

Fadskier, if one of your children came out of the closet would you want them to talk to me as their pastor or your SBC pastor? And why?

---

Do you support the parents kicking out their child? Yes or no?

---

I do not support parents kicking our children for being gay. I also would tell the youth "It's ok to be gay." Your SBC pastor will say "It's not ok to be gay. It is against God, an abomination and a perversion. Unless you repent and become chaste you are not going to enter the kingdom of God. Now go home and obey your parents. I will tell them to keep demanding your repentance."
I would say "Mom and Dad, he's a child of God and your child. Keep him in your home, love and accept him and learn more about his struggle and orientation."
Now which message do you delivered by your pastor?

---

So you support personal choice of a woman aborting a fetus but not the personal choice of other parents? Interesting...and yet, hypocritical.

You have no idea what my pastor would say, but I assure you that he would not say that someone is going to hell for being gay. Neither I nor my pastor have the authority to condemn or judge someone to hell...that is reserved for God. I don't believe that someone goes to hell for being gay, nor does my pastor, judging by Bible studies that we have been in.

Again, why would I have him speak to a pastor at all?

---

I don't think anybody here is arguing that the father didn't have the right to kick his kid out.

I think Waco1947 is saying he doesn't think that was a loving choice. Or a just one.

And if your criteria is WWJD, I don't think Jesus would kick a kid out of his house for being openly gay. He's otherwise a good kid--class valdictorian, a student athlete, someone who managed his own college application and admission process.

Doesn't sound like a troublesome kid to me unless his parents are trying to force him to share their religious beliefs, or at least live as if he does (including attending a church that preaches that gay and transgendered people are sinners) until he leaves home. I can't imagine how a loving parent would want a gay son to attend a church week after week where he is verbally battered from the pulpit. Even if he's bright enough to understand the wrong-headedness of that--and he obviously is--it has to hurt.

Finally, supporting a woman's right to make HER own choices doesn't mean YOU would make the same choice. It means you believe strongly enough in separation of church and state and in the rights of individual in a democracy that purports to value personal freedom that you want to make sure, under law, that women have the right to make their own choice about a very personal matter--and that you believe a just government would never seek to dictate such a personal choice for anyone, male or female.

I'd go further: If the government is empowered to force pregnant women to remain pregnant until they give birth or have a miscarriage, why should that same government not be empowered to force a man who keeps fathering children he can't support to have a vasectomy by court order. If you want to intrude into people's reproductive choices because you don't want them to make bad ones, it seems like you'd be in favor of allowing that intrusion when it's in the public interest to stop a guy who can't or won't support the children he fathers from continuing to produce children who must be supported by taxpayers.

---

and women abort a child out of love?

Fadskier, Jinx gave you a thought answer and you simply dismissand demean her explanation with "and women abort a child out of love?"
You sir are not a gentleman

You're answering a question no asked.

TexasScientist said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Jinx 2 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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What I'm saying is, the Church doesn't teach that desire is unvirtuous or that women who've had sex are impure. Your description of the doctrine is incorrect. You may think the actual Catholic (and Protestant) teachings about contraception are incorrect too, but that's another issue.

There are different estimates of the failure rate of NFP, depending on who's doing the numbers and which method or combination of methods you're talking about. Planned Parenthood calls it between 12% and 24%. Assuming that's accurate, the better methods are only slightly less effective than the Pill, which according to Quash's link has a failure rate of 9%. I'm not arguing that NFP is the optimal method in terms of pregnancy prevention. I find it advantageous for its lack of harmful side effects, both medical and moral.

---

The Church does, however, teach that use of contraception is immoral. Coke Bear calls NFP a "moral" form of family planning. But most Americans and most Catholics do not believe a woman or couple's decision to use an effective form of contraception is immoral.

Trying to impose the Church's view that God should and must make the decision regarding whether every single sex act will result in a pregnancy is not congruent with separation of church and state. While I disagree with your beliefs, they would not bother me nearly so much if the Church has not and did not still advocate their implementation as government policy with the force of law.

Sadly, what it's taken to end that, in Ireland at least, is evidence of the fact that the Church was perfectly willing to police the bedrooms of its members, but not its priests or of its institutions for children or for unwed mothers. A vigorous interest in life in the womb becomes considerably less credible when people learn that the children of unwed mothers who weren't sold away from their mothers in Irish institutions were starved, abused, received abysmal medical treatment, and were dumped in mass graves after they died of curable childhood illnesses, all because they were considered inferior children of sin, and that mothers who bore children out of wedlock were essentially enslaved. THAT is why Ireland voted itself out from under canon law--because it protects the Church and covers over the sins of its priests, nuns and employees, while condemning married couples for wanting to have sex without fear of a pregnancy resulting. If Church officials and members would acknowledge and atone for this level of hypocrisy and actually do something about it instead of doing everything it possibly can to avoid the criminal consequences that should result from such abuse or paying child support (in the cases of priests who fathered children), that would make things a little better. But, instead, the Church demands a level of morality from ordinary parishioners it does not require of its leaders.

So, IMO, the Church has certainly lost any moral authority it might assert to non-Catholics, and Catholics, rather than preaching to protestants about the immorality of contraception, should be demanding that priests and Church leadership be accountable for THEIR sins instead of holding the rest of the world accountable while excusing, ignoring and hiding their own transgressions.

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America is not a Catholic country. Our laws and opinions for and against contraception have never been based on Catholic dogma. I'm not even sure why we're talking about Catholicism. As for the Church and its moral authority, I really don't think any sort of atonement will improve your opinion unless you understand what the Church teaches and why.

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The Catholic Church has never been a bastion of morality or moral authority. It's a political animal with the purpose of amassing wealth.

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The billions of dollars distributed to the worlds poor via Catholic Charities ?