Catholic sexual morality - indefensible?

[Sarpedon]

Unfortunately, Yes, the philosophy underpinning modern explanations of Catholic sexual morality is incoherent and based on unsound premises. Read Humanae Vitae and Theology of the Body to get a taste of how worthless the reasoning is. For better reasoning, go back to earlier thinkers who didn’t try to reinvent Catholic tradition in their own image.

Examples?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Unfortunately, Yes, the philosophy underpinning modern explanations of Catholic sexual morality is incoherent and based on unsound premises. Read Humanae Vitae and Theology of the Body to get a taste of how worthless the reasoning is. For better reasoning, go back to earlier thinkers who didn’t try to reinvent Catholic tradition in their own image.

I would like to hear an example as well.

I believe JPII did start a tradition…

World Day for Consecrated Life
And
World Marriage Day
Which occur on the same Sunday.

After JPII died, another tradition began…

Priest in our archdiocese are required
Not to preach about consecrated life or marriage on this day.

Instead, we listen to a prerecorded message by our Archbishop
About the Annual Catholic Appeal for money, during the homily.

This happens even though the Annual Catholic Appeal does not officially start
Until the following uneventful Sunday.

Are either of these traditions questionable?

 

[Psychotheosophy]

Unfortunately, Yes, the philosophy underpinning modern explanations of Catholic sexual morality is incoherent and based on unsound premises. Read Humanae Vitae and Theology of the Body to get a taste of how worthless the reasoning is. For better reasoning, go back to earlier thinkers who didn’t try to reinvent Catholic tradition in their own image.

I would like to hear an example as well.

I believe JPII did start a tradition…

World Day for Consecrated Life
And
World Marriage Day
Which occur on the same Sunday.

After JPII died, another tradition began…

Priest in our archdiocese are required
Not to preach about consecrated life or marriage on this day.

Instead, we listen to a prerecorded message by our Archbishop
About the Annual Catholic Appeal for money, during the homily.

This happens even though the Annual Catholic Appeal does not officially start
Until the following uneventful Sunday.

Are either of these traditions questionable?

 

[Sair]

The first refutation I could provide is the prophetic pronouncements (I like alliteration ) from Humanae Vitae. It stated in there, that once we remove the procreative aspect of sex, we will end up denigrating women (using them as sexual objects and not respecting them. Look around you to see the fruits of that one.),

Also, the Catholic position is the only one I have seen that is completely unified. The Church says that sexual intercourse is only valid within marriage. This means we don’t need to “hate” or marginalize those with homosexual tendencies. We simply apply the rules equally across all people. They cannot marry someone of the same gender and therefore should not have sexual encounters since by definition they would all be outside of marriage. We don’t condone between any unmarried persons and therefore it is egalitarian.

The first position is easily refutable. What you’re basically saying is that women are only valuable because they can bear children. This was a position held throughout most of our history, and it’s only recently that women have emerged from centuries of social and psychological repression. Also, it seems like you’re denying the role of the father in the procreative process. Why should men automatically start seeing women as sex objects because they don’t end up pregnant after every act of sex? Are women only respectable if they’re having babies? If we are to believe this reasoning, the real crisis is in women’s ability to enjoy sex and all its emotional and physical benefits, without ending up with a child. Men have been exploiting this ability in themselves for millennia.

And this view of the church’s ‘egalitarian’ approach to sexuality is laughable. Consider it from another point of view - Everyone wants cheese. In order to have cheese, you have to own a cow. But the law says only people with brown eyes are allowed to own cows. Blue-eyed people want cheese too, but they’re not allowed to have it because they can’t own a cow. Don’t you think this law discriminates against blue-eyed people? And that’s the thing - the church’s laws are inherently discriminatory in regard to sexuality.

And don’t even get me started on the issue of overpopulation. It should be obvious to any thinking person that this is a long-term problem, but unfortunately our obsessively, emotively pronatalist and anthropocentric society - and the religious doctrines that underpin these qualities - clouds the judgement of the majority of people when it comes to population control.

 

[Spirithound]

And don’t even get me started on the issue of overpopulation. It should be obvious to any thinking person that this is a long-term problem, but unfortunately our obsessively, emotively pronatalist and anthropocentric society - and the religious doctrines that underpin these qualities - clouds the judgement of the majority of people when it comes to population control.

You know the overpopulation trumpet has been played for over 200 years in the United States, right?

 

[HappyRevert]

The first position is easily refutable. What you’re basically saying is that women are only valuable because they can bear children. This was a position held throughout most of our history, and it’s only recently that women have emerged from centuries of social and psychological repression. Also, it seems like you’re denying the role of the father in the procreative process. Why should men automatically start seeing women as sex objects because they don’t end up pregnant after every act of sex? Are women only respectable if they’re having babies? If we are to believe this reasoning, the real crisis is in women’s ability to enjoy sex and all its emotional and physical benefits, without ending up with a child. Men have been exploiting this ability in themselves for millennia.

And this view of the church’s ‘egalitarian’ approach to sexuality is laughable. Consider it from another point of view - Everyone wants cheese. In order to have cheese, you have to own a cow. But the law says only people with brown eyes are allowed to own cows. Blue-eyed people want cheese too, but they’re not allowed to have it because they can’t own a cow. Don’t you think this law discriminates against blue-eyed people? And that’s the thing - the church’s laws are inherently discriminatory in regard to sexuality.

And don’t even get me started on the issue of overpopulation. It should be obvious to any thinking person that this is a long-term problem, but unfortunately our obsessively, emotively pronatalist and anthropocentric society - and the religious doctrines that underpin these qualities - clouds the judgement of the majority of people when it comes to population control.

I didn’t say that women were only valued for their ability to bear children. I’m using my well analogy that once you remove people too far from the source of anything, they become very lacksadaisacal about it and forget why we should behave in particular ways. We have tried to pretend that sex doesn’t cause procreation - which it does. Even when birth control is used. Even when caution is used. It still can and does cause procreation (look carefully at your condom pack for efficacy numbers). Once we try to pretend that sex doesn’t cause procreation all sorts of things start to happen. The first being, once it happens when we expected it not to happen - we think we’re justified in aborting because we were duped into thinking sex would not cause procreation. I say men use women as sex objects because they are willing to have sex with her, but heaven forbid she make any demands on him if she becomes pregnant. I’m having a hard time understanding why you think this is all biased in favor of men. They are both supposed to behave in the same way so how is that a bias? I don’t follow the rest of your comments about women only being respectable when they have babies - perhaps you can explain it to me so I can understand it better.

You lost me on the cow analogy too. Are you saying that the sex rules don’t apply equally to men and women? They obviously do. Both are supposed to be chaste (only sex within marriage). I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. Please try again so I can understand.

We can quibble about population control, but the fact is right now we have an underpopulation problem in many countries and not an overpopulation problem. If you feel strongly about population control, then you use NFP which is free (so no one will ever push it except religious organizations because you can’t make money off of it) and is the most healthy way to prevent pregnancy (nothing artificial, no chemicals, no hormones and good for the environment).

 

[Sair]

You know the overpopulation trumpet has been played for over 200 years in the United States, right?

Which pretty much just backs up my point about the blinkers being very firmly on in this regard…

 

[Sair]

I didn’t say that women were only valued for their ability to bear children. I’m using my well analogy that once you remove people too far from the source of anything, they become very lacksadaisacal about it and forget why we should behave in particular ways. We have tried to pretend that sex doesn’t cause procreation - which it does. Even when birth control is used. Even when caution is used. It still can and does cause procreation (look carefully at your condom pack for efficacy numbers). Once we try to pretend that sex doesn’t cause procreation all sorts of things start to happen. The first being, once it happens when we expected it not to happen - we think we’re justified in aborting because we were duped into thinking sex would not cause procreation. I say men use women as sex objects because they are willing to have sex with her, but heaven forbid she make any demands on him if she becomes pregnant. I’m having a hard time understanding why you think this is all biased in favor of men. They are both supposed to behave in the same way so how is that a bias? I don’t follow the rest of your comments about women only being respectable when they have babies - perhaps you can explain it to me so I can understand it better.

You lost me on the cow analogy too. Are you saying that the sex rules don’t apply equally to men and women? They obviously do. Both are supposed to be chaste (only sex within marriage). I don’t understand the point you are trying to make. Please try again so I can understand.

We can quibble about population control, but the fact is right now we have an underpopulation problem in many countries and not an overpopulation problem. If you feel strongly about population control, then you use NFP which is free (so no one will ever push it except religious organizations because you can’t make money off of it) and is the most healthy way to prevent pregnancy (nothing artificial, no chemicals, no hormones and good for the environment).

The issue of sexual promiscuity has always been biased - whether for or against women depends on your point of view, but the fact is that while men have been exercising sexual freedom for centuries, because they can, like it or not, it took women exercising a comparable level of freedom for people to start calling it a problem.

If you look at most of history, women have been categorised in one of three ways - virgin, mother or whore. Two out of three of these have been considered ‘respectable’, while the third…well, I don’t really need to go into it. Find me any historical or cultural source that places men into the three categories of virgin, father or sexual predator and I might concede that there is no bias in the belief that artificial contraception has increased the problem of promiscuity.

The cow analogy was meant to highlight the problematic nature of the church’s teaching on gay sex. Denying one privilege because of supposed ineligibility for a prerequisite privilege seems a little unfair, and certainly discriminatory, to me.

The notion of underpopulation being the real problem when we have nearly 7 billion people on the planet also strikes me as laughable. People can say all they like that we just need to redistribute resources, but if the earth’s population keeps growing at the exponential rate that it has for the last couple of centuries, there will be vast shortages of space and resources. Remember, not all the land on earth is habitable for humans… Furthermore, in many of the countries that have immense populations, women are culturally expected to submit to their husbands whenever the men want sex. So much for NFP there, and in any case, NFP only works when it is based on a sound education - something that is also largely denied to the women in many developing countries.

 

[LilyM]

The issue of sexual promiscuity has always been biased - whether for or against women depends on your point of view, but the fact is that while men have been exercising sexual freedom for centuries, because they can, like it or not, it took women exercising a comparable level of freedom for people to start calling it a problem.

If they have, it’s been in spite of Catholic moral teaching, not because of it. The Church has always taught that ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’ applies equally to men and women, and there have always been as many women as men in line for the confessional

If you look at most of history, women have been categorised in one of three ways - virgin, mother or whore. Two out of three of these have been considered ‘respectable’, while the third…well, I don’t really need to go into it. Find me any historical or cultural source that places men into the three categories of virgin, father or sexual predator and I might concede that there is no bias in the belief that artificial contraception has increased the problem of promiscuity.

Men have certainly been placed in the category of ‘depraved and hellbound sexual sinner’, which for a Christian is the only one that matters. For every Mary Magdalene in Catholic tradition there is a St Augustine who reviled his own sexual sins as much as those of any woman, or a St Francis who rolled in thornbushes to control his own sexual desires.

Or a St Catherine of Siena, who frankly discussed her not-inconsiderable sexual temptations without being branded a ‘whore’ for admitting to them. Or a St Margaret of Cortona who became as much a lauded saint as any virgin, in spite of having a colourful past.

The cow analogy was meant to highlight the problematic nature of the church’s teaching on gay sex. Denying one privilege because of supposed ineligibility for a prerequisite privilege seems a little unfair, and certainly discriminatory, to me.

Why? Is it discriminatory to say ‘someone who is illiterate can never be a lawyer, because to be a lawyer requires the ability to read’? Someone who is illiterate might challenge that. They might want to argue that they can use secretaries to read to them and that they can dictate to those same secretaries. They may even be correct. Doesn’t make the statement discriminatory.

The notion of underpopulation being the real problem when we have nearly 7 billion people on the planet also strikes me as laughable. People can say all they like that we just need to redistribute resources, but if the earth’s population keeps growing at the exponential rate that it has for the last couple of centuries, there will be vast shortages of space and resources. Remember, not all the land on earth is habitable for humans… Furthermore, in many of the countries that have immense populations, women are culturally expected to submit to their husbands whenever the men want sex. So much for NFP there, and in any case, NFP only works when it is based on a sound education - something that is also largely denied to the women in many developing countries.

People ‘can say it all they like’ because it’s true. There have always been localised shortages of land, space and resources. There have always been other localities where space and resources are available and people are needed.

The solution is not less people, the solution has always been to move them to where the resources and space are. Hence Columbus heading to South America, or Britons to Australia. Fact is, as population has grown so has technology to make more efficient use of natural resources - and space as well. That’s why there aren’t any societies, even the poorest, where average life expectancy would be lower now than a century or half a century ago.

 

[Sair]

If they have, it’s been in spite of Catholic moral teaching, not because of it. The Church has always taught that ‘thou shalt not commit adultery’ applies equally to men and women, and there have always been as many women as men in line for the confessional

Men have certainly been placed in the category of ‘depraved and hellbound sexual sinner’, which for a Christian is the only one that matters. For every Mary Magdalene in Catholic tradition there is a St Augustine who reviled his own sexual sins as much as those of any woman, or a St Francis who rolled in thornbushes to control his own sexual desires.

Or a St Catherine of Siena, who frankly discussed her not-inconsiderable sexual temptations without being branded a ‘whore’ for admitting to them. Or a St Margaret of Cortona who became as much a lauded saint as any virgin, in spite of having a colourful past.

These are good as individual examples, but they’re just that - isolated examples. Much broader-reaching social attitudes held that women were required to fit into little boxes entitled ‘Virgin’, ‘Mother’ or ‘Whore’ - I suppose I should have added ‘Penitent Whore’ to that list… Also, women were very often reviled by male Christian ascetics who felt that they were a source of temptation.

Why? Is it discriminatory to say ‘someone who is illiterate can never be a lawyer, because to be a lawyer requires the ability to read’? Someone who is illiterate might challenge that. They might want to argue that they can use secretaries to read to them and that they can dictate to those same secretaries. They may even be correct. Doesn’t make the statement discriminatory.

This analogy doesn’t actually hold up, because people can learn to read - unless they’re in a society that does not permit them to learn (like women in some Middle Eastern countries). Then it is absolutely unfair and discriminatory. Also, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that homosexuality is not a learned behaviour, so it’s not to be expected that homosexual people can learn to be heterosexual.

People ‘can say it all they like’ because it’s true. There have always been localised shortages of land, space and resources. There have always been other localities where space and resources are available and people are needed.

The solution is not less people, the solution has always been to move them to where the resources and space are. Hence Columbus heading to South America, or Britons to Australia. Fact is, as population has grown so has technology to make more efficient use of natural resources - and space as well. That’s why there aren’t any societies, even the poorest, where average life expectancy would be lower now than a century or half a century ago.

Increased life expectancy has contributed to the problem of overpopulation. When we all learn how to stay alive for 200 years, where are we going to put everyone?

As I said, there are many areas on the planet that just aren’t suited to supporting human life, certainly not in any kind of numbers or for long periods. Look at Antarctica, the Australian desert, large areas of Siberia, to name but a few. Can you imagine the cost of supporting human life in these areas? Not only would it destroy native species, but the cost in resources would be extreme - and that would only be for transporting food that can’t be grown in a hostile environment. The expansion of the human race over the globe has already caused extinction of species on a massive scale, greater than any before. Do you propose that we destroy every other species and lay waste to the planet’s natural and often unrenewable resources, just so we can continue to ‘go forth and multiply’?

 

[LutheranDK]

Contraception is a manifestation of rebellion against God! For Christ came that “you may have life, and have it more abundantly.”.
But now here comes you wanting to prevent life! Rebelliousness is a scheme of satan!

You’re not honestly suggesting the procreation is what “life” in that context means, do you? Because that’s just downright dumb. YOU are not, but such an opinion IS…

 

[Sair]

The more I look into the philosophical justification for Catholic sexual morality the more I realise Catholic morality is based upon perhaps indefensible foundations.

Firstly I have never read a single convincing defence of the most basic premises of Catholic sexual ethics and believe me I have looked.

I like Catholic sexual morality, but it genuinley seems unjustifiable. Has no one noticed that virtually no respectable secular contemporary philosophers maintain a Catholic view of sexual morality? Surely this cannot purely because they have ‘hardened their hearts’

I don’t know whether you consider yourself Catholic or not, but at the end of the day, it’s your own choice whether you adhere to church teachings or not. This is why it has always baffled me when people say that if you don’t have religion, you can just do whatever you want. You have that choice anyway - you decide whether or not you keep to the church’s rulings. However, there comes a point where one cannot, with honesty, call onesself Catholic anymore. That’s pretty much what happened to me. I found that I disagreed with so much Catholic teaching and doctrine that I could not, in good conscience, profess to be Catholic anymore.

 

[Snerticus]

Firstly the idea that sexual activity ought to always be ‘open to life’ is frankly ridiculous. What possible reason could anyone have for suggesting that contraception is immoral, whom does it harm? What good does it destroy? It seems that this basic principle is indefensible unless one appeals to some fallacious medieval relic of a teleology. Contraception seems to be harmless and in good sense if one does not want to cause overpopulation.

Contraception, depending on the kind, does harm. Either it harms your soul, another’s soul or a life. Firstly, a condom may not harm anyone, but in effect, you’re saying to God “look, I want my sex but I don’t want a kid. So you can take that soul you possibly have ready for us and BLEEP”. That’s basically how you treat Him. You don’t want a child but maybe God has already created a soul for the act you never should have done in the first place. Now, where is that soul supposed to go? You’ve just deprived it of a body to live in.

Secondly, as for pills and other such contraception. Not only are you denying the soul that God wants to give life to, but most are abortifacients. Meaning the fertilized egg, which is now a little soul just like a fully formed embryo, is prevented from adhering to the uterus and thus dies. It basically is killing the embryo right at the get go. So not only are you saying no, but you’re killing too.

That doesn’t sound to me harmless, nor does defying God sound good.

Has no one noticed that virtually no respectable secular contemporary philosophers maintain a Catholic view of sexual morality? Surely this cannot purely because they have 'hardened their hearts’

Quite frankly, if you read the above, I’d have to give that question a resounding YES.

 

[Pete_1]

You don’t want a child but maybe God has already created a soul for the act you never should have done in the first place. Now, where is that soul supposed to go? You’ve just deprived it of a body to live in.

Why on earth should I believe this?

Secondly, as for pills and other such contraception. Not only are you denying the soul that God wants to give life to, but most are abortifacients. Meaning the fertilized egg, which is now a little soul just like a fully formed embryo, is prevented from adhering to the uterus and thus dies. It basically is killing the embryo right at the get go. So not only are you saying no, but you’re killing too.

I agree with you about the pill.

 

[Snerticus]

Why on earth should I believe this?

I’m sorry but I don’t have the Bible passage. It’s something like “I knew you from the foundation of the world”. Or “I knew you since before your mother’s womb.” It’s been on EWTN numerous times. Mother Angelica spoke a few times on how God knew us from before we were concieved.

But even if I misinterpreted the passage, which is quite possible because I’m not a scholar and obviously can’t even remember it, we’re stil saying “too bad big Guy, I’m doing what I want whether it’s a sin or not”. That’s pretty much saying “no” and defying God. Which of course, is a sin… therefore not good. (Sorry, I worked the night shift last night so I’m not thinking too straight right now - but I’ll try to put some passages in this post before I head off to sleep)

A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting “in order to be seen by men”).
The object of the choice can by itself vitiate an act in its entirety.** There are some concrete acts - such as fornication - that it is always wrong to choose, because choosing them entails a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil**. CCC 1755

There are a great many kinds of sins. Scripture provides several lists of them. The Letter to the Galatians contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit: “Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.” CCC 1852

Sins can be distinguished according to their objects, as can every human act; or according to the virtues they oppose, by excess or defect; or according to the commandments they violate. They can also be classed according to whether they concern God, neighbor, or oneself; they can be divided into spiritual and carnal sins, or again as sins in thought, word, deed, or omission. The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the teaching of the Lord: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man.” CCC 1853

Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children. Moreover, it is a grave scandal when there is corruption of the young. CCC 2353

The tenth commandment unfolds and completes the ninth, which is concerned with concupiscence of the flesh. It forbids coveting the goods of another, as the root of theft, robbery, and fraud, which the seventh commandment forbids. “Lust of the eyes” leads to the violence and injustice forbidden by the fifth commandment.Avarice, like fornication, originates in the idolatry prohibited by the first three prescriptions of the Law. CCC 2534

I’m not going to comment on them, I’m just too tired. They’re all from the Catechism and two give NT passages.

I really have to go, my eyes won’t stay open… :yawn:

 

[HappyRevert]

The issue of sexual promiscuity has always been biased - whether for or against women depends on your point of view, but the fact is that while men have been exercising sexual freedom for centuries, because they can, like it or not, it took women exercising a comparable level of freedom for people to start calling it a problem.

If you look at most of history, women have been categorised in one of three ways - virgin, mother or whore. Two out of three of these have been considered ‘respectable’, while the third…well, I don’t really need to go into it. Find me any historical or cultural source that places men into the three categories of virgin, father or sexual predator and I might concede that there is no bias in the belief that artificial contraception has increased the problem of promiscuity.

The cow analogy was meant to highlight the problematic nature of the church’s teaching on gay sex. Denying one privilege because of supposed ineligibility for a prerequisite privilege seems a little unfair, and certainly discriminatory, to me.

The notion of underpopulation being the real problem when we have nearly 7 billion people on the planet also strikes me as laughable. People can say all they like that we just need to redistribute resources, but if the earth’s population keeps growing at the exponential rate that it has for the last couple of centuries, there will be vast shortages of space and resources. Remember, not all the land on earth is habitable for humans… Furthermore, in many of the countries that have immense populations, women are culturally expected to submit to their husbands whenever the men want sex. So much for NFP there, and in any case, NFP only works when it is based on a sound education - something that is also largely denied to the women in many developing countries.

I have to disagree on your first point. The Catholic church has always said the promiscuity whether by a male or female is wrong and a problem. The fact that men have abused this over history is certainly not the fault of the Catholic church so although you can certainly fault Western society in general for “allowing” men to behave like this. It was certainly never encouraged by the Catholic Church.

Your second paragraph I think also confuses our culture with the Catholic Church. The Church as far as I know has never categorized women in three categories or men. I agree in society that tends to happen, but the Church is supposed to be “outside society” in a sense. It is supposed to provide the moral teachings. In this case, it has always been that the only proper place for sex was within marriage (defined as between a man and a woman). How society ended up using that to bludgeon women into behaving is not the fault of the Church.

You did totally lose me on the cow analogy, but now that I see what you are saying, again I have to say the Church’s teaching is unbiased. Although we like to think we are exempt from our biology and our normal psychological underpinnings we still must acknowledge that the foundation of all societies past and present is the family. From the family, the next generation is created and taught. It provides cohesiveness to society as well as ensuring the current generation naturally attempts to prepare the world for the next - thus giving them a more long range view for making decisions. Because of this reverence for the family, changing it in order to comply with a current world view which is completely at odds with anything history has ever taught us, would be insane. Why would we trade something which is tried and true and has worked for millenia for something that at best will affect one generation (since a gay marriage won’t produce children)? As individuals I feel badly for people who suffer from Same Sex Attraction. Our Catechism states that it is a trial for them. However, we still can’t say it a good thing to go out and be promiscuous because you are saddled with SSA. To state that it is morally okay to sleep around would be medically irresponsible if nothing else and obviously morally irresponsible. We are not ONLY sexual beings, but partly sexual beings. Our gifts are not just of our sexuality, but of everything about us.

I know all of this goes entirely against our culture. The Church takes a bad rap on much of this because they are brutally logical about it. I know it is brutal, but sometimes the truth is difficult. We are unused to morals being put down in a consistently logical manner and then being expected to live by them. I truly now believe that what they have taught is completely true. I have seen the fallout from our current culture’s thinking and it is wrong.

 

[HappyRevert]

Unfortunately, Yes, the philosophy underpinning modern explanations of Catholic sexual morality is incoherent and based on unsound premises. Read Humanae Vitae and Theology of the Body to get a taste of how worthless the reasoning is. For better reasoning, go back to earlier thinkers who didn’t try to reinvent Catholic tradition in their own image.

Could you be more specific on which underpinnings of Humanae Vitae and Theology fo the Body are worthless? I have to assume you disagree with Natural Law, but I am unsure due to the vague nature of your posting.

Also, could you provide the “earlier thinkers” so we could all take a look and see what they said?

Thanks

 

[agangbern]

You’re not honestly suggesting the procreation is what “life” in that context means, do you? Because that’s just downright dumb. YOU are not, but such an opinion IS…

Life there includes every aspect of life…and procreation is part of life. If what Christ said is as you said dumb, then show us what is not dumb. Refute Christ’ words, if you want, reasonably and clearly. The word “dumb” is not a valid argument. If I ride with your strategy then we could become like dogs barking at each other here.

 

[agangbern]

The first refutation I could provide is the prophetic pronouncements (I like alliteration ) from Humanae Vitae. It stated in there, that once we remove the procreative aspect of sex, we will end up denigrating women (using them as sexual objects and not respecting them.

One way of doing such “removing” is through contraceptives or vasectomy or tubal ligation

The first position is easily refutable. What you’re basically saying is that women are only valuable because they can bear children. This was a position held throughout most of our history, and it’s only recently that women have emerged from centuries of social and psychological repression. Also, it seems like you’re denying the role of the father in the procreative process. Why should men automatically start seeing women as sex objects because they don’t end up pregnant after every act of sex?

I don’t agree to the statement that the first position of HappyRevert above says “that women are only valuable because they can bear children”. It does not say that! What it says to me as I see it is that: When man performs obvert acts to assure the prevention of the coming forth of new life, if not the destruction of one about to come, then man is rightly denigrating not only women but even men. For the normal course of nature is that a living thing ought to preserve and protect life. So when man starts to act contrary to his nature, when he starts preventing the coming forth of new life or destroying one that is already there, that is no long normal of him.

 

[mlchance]

That people reject as “indefensible” rules that they prefer not to follow has long been a problem. I believe it formed the crux of the serpent’s argument to Eve.

– Mark L. Chance.