Catholic sexual morality - indefensible?

[Et_Cetera]

There is simply no sense in trying to prevent pregnancy. It is looking at pregnancy as a disease that should be prevented. No! Pregnancy is not a disease.

There is no such thing as unwanted children. There are only selfish adults.

Yes, there is sense to it if you don’t want children. That’s pretty basic.

 

[agangbern]

No, pregnancy is not a disease. It’s fairly evident that many women want to get pregnant - how many people want to contract a disease? However, from the point of view of unwanted children vs selfish adults, it seems to me that there are many people out there who, for one reason or another, do not want children, and I would never presume to say that every reason for not wanting children is selfish. Sometimes the decision is due to a desire not to pass hereditary conditions on to children; sometimes it is from an honest acknowledgement that you do not have the means to raise children (or another child) in any real degree of comfort; sometimes it’s because you want to pursue other goals that would leave insufficient time to devote to raising children; sometimes it is from an honest appraisal of one’s personality that results in a decision not to become a parent. So far it looks like all these reasons are actually taking the putative child’s needs into consideration - yet you regard this as selfish? Why make such a sweeping judgement when you don’t know the circumstances of other people?

“Not wanting children” here in this thread is manifested by acts contrary to God’s will, by applying contraception and other means to prevent conception. They want to enjoy the pleasure that sex provides, but they would go against God’s will just to enjoy that sexual pleasure. That is a mark of SELFISHNESS!

If one wants to avoid the coming forth of children, not because he does not want a child, but because of economic, hereditary or other reasons, then the method is simple. Do not engage in sex. As I have said in my previous post in this thread:** It is not a duty of man to engage in sex**. In fact it is ideal not to engage in sex at all.

 

[agangbern]

Yes, there is sense to it if you don’t want children. That’s pretty basic.

If you do not want a child, that does not make the child unwanted. The defect or problem is with you, not with the child. The child remains good, beautiful and lovable even if you say you do not want him. God wants and loves that child.

 

[Et_Cetera]

If you do not want a child, that does not make the child unwanted. The defect or problem is with you, not with the child. The child remains good, beautiful and lovable even if you say you do not want him. God wants and loves that child.

You’re not responding to the point at hand. You said it’s ridiculous to prevent pregnancy. I said that is not unreasonable and sometimes sensible.

 

[Et_Cetera]

No, pregnancy is not a disease. It’s fairly evident that many women want to get pregnant - how many people want to contract a disease? However, from the point of view of unwanted children vs selfish adults, it seems to me that there are many people out there who, for one reason or another, do not want children, and I would never presume to say that every reason for not wanting children is selfish. Sometimes the decision is due to a desire not to pass hereditary conditions on to children; sometimes it is from an honest acknowledgement that you do not have the means to raise children (or another child) in any real degree of comfort; sometimes it’s because you want to pursue other goals that would leave insufficient time to devote to raising children; sometimes it is from an honest appraisal of one’s personality that results in a decision not to become a parent. So far it looks like all these reasons are actually taking the putative child’s needs into consideration - yet you regard this as selfish? Why make such a sweeping judgement when you don’t know the circumstances of other people?

Yes, thank you for making sense.

 

[catholic2dacore]

Hello Pete_

If you can, forget everything everyone here has said. This here will prove to you, in no uncertain terms, that the Catholic ‘indefensible’ position is irreproachable - Link(part1) (part2) - no need to thank me. The Catholic Church is guided by God my friend; the Holy Spirit will never allow the gates of hell to prevail (we’ve our Lord Jesus’ promise on that!) so don’t fear that any teachings are wrong - its impossible.

Yours in Christ,

God love you

(P.S. more free talks here on about every subject Sonitus Sanctus)

 

[Sair]

Of course, you don’t see the sex in adultery as the problem, rather the trust, because it defeats your point of extra-marital sex as being healthy. It seems you should re-phrase yourself and state instead that you see fornication as healthy.

Fine. I’ll bite. Fornication - in other words, sex without marriage - is a healthy form of expression. Sex, in and of itself, is a healthy physical action. It is society and the church that choose to redefine it in terms of ‘fornication’ and ‘adultery’.

If you’ve read and understood any of my previous posts, you will see that I have quite clearly stated that the physical aspect of sexual activity is perfectly healthy and normal. It is the circumstances surrounding the sexual activity that might make it unhealthy, and it’s quite apparent that we disagree on what those circumstances are, and whether or not they’re different for different people.

Consider fornication, if you will so define it. It’s perfectly healthy for two consenting adults, who both know where they stand and when there is no coercion involved. If one partner is being dishonest in an attempt to get the other to consent to sex, then it’s a problem, and it becomes emotionally damaging, therefore unhealthy. Two sets of circumstances, qualitatively different in that one is healthy and the other isn’t. Your sweeping definitions would call both of these unhealthy because it’s sex taking place outside marriage.

Sure looked like you were trying to change the subject to me. When your point about sex isn’t being made well enough, shift to blaming people for thinking too much about sex.

Any fool knows that man’s wickedness is not confined to sex, so quit stating the obvious as though it makes fools of our argument by not knowing that. It’s a real cheap tactic Sair, but I’m on to you.

Equally cheap - and inaccurate - is your accusation that I changed the topic. It should have been perfectly obvious that my reference to people always thinking about sex was an attempt to highlight the ridiculous premise put forward by a previous post stating that God was the only thing preventing people from having sex all the time, even at work. Furthermore, I don’t see how referring to thinking about sex is actually deviating from a topic that is about sex.

 

[agangbern]

NFP is not as effective as other methods. So if you’re going to try to** prevent pregnancy** why not use the method that works better? If you’re building a house, you want bricks over cardboard right? In my opinion, the Church’s teaching on birth control is backward and dangerous. Ultimately, it can lead to many unwanted children who can’t be cared for properly. I’m pretty sure I’d rather not live than live miserably.

There is simply no sense in trying to prevent pregnancy. It is looking at pregnancy as a disease that should be prevented. No! Pregnancy is not a disease.
There is no such thing as unwanted children. There are only selfish adults.

Yes, there is sense to it if you don’t want children. That’s pretty basic.

If you do not want a child, that does not make the child unwanted. The defect or problem is with you, not with the child. The child remains good, beautiful and lovable even if you say you do not want him. God wants and loves that child.

You’re not responding to the point at hand. You said it’s ridiculous to prevent pregnancy. I said that is not unreasonable and sometimes sensible.

Calm down…you are already putting words into my mouth.

Just recheck the pattern and sequence of that conversation. You might have forgotten what you have previously posted. The conversation concerns of both preventing pregnancy and unwanted children.

 

[Charles_22]

Fine. I’ll bite. Fornication - in other words, sex without marriage - is a healthy form of expression. Sex, in and of itself, is a healthy physical action. It is society and the church that choose to redefine it in terms of ‘fornication’ and ‘adultery’.

If you’ve read and understood any of my previous posts, you will see that I have quite clearly stated that the physical aspect of sexual activity is perfectly healthy and normal. It is the circumstances surrounding the sexual activity that might make it unhealthy, and it’s quite apparent that we disagree on what those circumstances are, and whether or not they’re different for different people.

Consider fornication, if you will so define it. It’s perfectly healthy for two consenting adults, who both know where they stand and when there is no coercion involved. If one partner is being dishonest in an attempt to get the other to consent to sex, then it’s a problem, and it becomes emotionally damaging, therefore unhealthy. Two sets of circumstances, qualitatively different in that one is healthy and the other isn’t. Your sweeping definitions would call both of these unhealthy because it’s sex taking place outside marriage.

You’re trying to put your case now on immediacy. If we should ignore the effects of what we have done it is not wrong. It is not healthy to do yourself and/or others harm, and we have discussed to some degree, as I have twice already the lack of health through this healthy sex you speak of. Even if you want ignore some of the more vague, but ever present threat to such ‘healthy’ sex, From a catholic standpoint the question of sin itself is a very unhealthy one indeed to be thrust upon those who would ignore. Of course, with the unrestricted consentual sex you speak of, you and others like you think the short term effects override the overall and perhaps more gradual effects that work to your detriment, but you won’t listen, to say nothing of the IMMEDIATE effect it has on your soul. Why would anyone with any sense of religion listen to such things amazes me. Pleasure can numb us pretty quick to religion.

Equally cheap - and inaccurate - is your accusation that I changed the topic. It should have been perfectly obvious that my reference to people always thinking about sex was an attempt to highlight the ridiculous premise put forward by a previous post stating that God was the only thing preventing people from having sex all the time, even at work. Furthermore, I don’t see how referring to thinking about sex is actually deviating from a topic that is about sex.

What you did was attempt to score points for your argument (as though you didn’t know this) by making a statement amounting to criticise that poster about referring only to sexual sins that would be committed in a mad world. When the thread is entirely about sex, this shouldn’t had been beyond your scope of understanding, instead, you turned it into a weapon for your cause: “See here, you’re so lame because all you think about is sexual sin, therefore you haven’t sound reasoning”. If this thread had been more in general about sin, you would had a point, however, as it is not, agangbern would, I think, been smart enough not to appear that way so that you could hop all over it. Terribly cheap tactic Sair, really. Perhaps you should ask yourself if anyone would continue to want to debate with you when encountering such subterfuges? Ignore it at your peril.

 

[Ender]

Sex, in and of itself, is a healthy physical action. It is society and the church that choose to redefine it in terms of ‘fornication’ and ‘adultery’.

If the differences in this debate are merely definitional then neither side can claim to be “right” any more than one could claim that preferring chocolate to vanilla is “right.” The real debate is one of morals, not terms; sex is merely a specific instance of the larger disagreement.

If one partner is being dishonest in an attempt to get the other to consent to sex, then it’s a problem, and it becomes emotionally damaging, therefore unhealthy.

You seem to be defining that which is moral as that which is without (apparent) damage - no harm, no foul. I can accept that you prefer your personal opinion about right and wrong but you should surely see that you cannot claim that different positions are wrong, merely that they are different. You have no more basis for objecting to someone else’s moral beliefs than you have for objecting to their preferences in food.

If the basis for morality is simply personal opinion then there is no justification for objecting to what anyone else believes. More to the point, you have you reason to believe that morality itself exists.

Ender

 

[Darryl1958]

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

 

[Sair]

Of course, with the unrestricted consentual sex you speak of, you and others like you think the short term effects override the overall and perhaps more gradual effects that work to your detriment, but you won’t listen, to say nothing of the IMMEDIATE effect it has on your soul. Why would anyone with any sense of religion listen to such things amazes me. Pleasure can numb us pretty quick to religion.

By all means, please enlighten me as to the detrimental effects of my considering matters sexual independently of religious teachings. Thus far, I have noticed nothing but the benefit of increased knowledge and wisdom through thought and experience, but hey - what would I know?

What you did was attempt to score points for your argument (as though you didn’t know this) by making a statement amounting to criticise that poster about referring only to sexual sins that would be committed in a mad world. When the thread is entirely about sex, this shouldn’t had been beyond your scope of understanding, instead, you turned it into a weapon for your cause: “See here, you’re so lame because all you think about is sexual sin, therefore you haven’t sound reasoning”. If this thread had been more in general about sin, you would had a point, however, as it is not, agangbern would, I think, been smart enough not to appear that way so that you could hop all over it. Terribly cheap tactic Sair, really. Perhaps you should ask yourself if anyone would continue to want to debate with you when encountering such subterfuges? Ignore it at your peril.

Your convoluted attack proves only that you misunderstood my intention. If you look back to the original post to which I responded, it says, and I quote:

They would have sex in their offices during break times or even during working hours. What force would there be shall stop them from doing there thing anywhere and any time?

It should be clear from this that Agangbern is suggesting that the only thing restraining the libidos of every person is their faith in God - not the fact that they might be occupied by other activites or other thoughts, or maybe even realise that their actions might not be appropriate for the situation. There is far more to life than sex, or thinking about sex, even if you take God out of the equation.

But if you think it’s rational to imagine atheists having sex on their office desks during work hours, then by all means assume that I am engaging in a paltry point-scoring exercise. But then again, perhaps the poster of the above would do well to consider the impression made by an argument before making such patently ridiculous assertions.

 

[TX_Michele]

The sad thing about this kind of post is that everyone jumps on the bandwagon and comes to the defense of Catholic Teaching (A good thing), the bad part is it just opens up the forums to an unending stream of idiotic, non relenting nonsense from those that are incapable of logical understanding. So a thousand posts later everyone is wore out except the glib idiot that started the post. And when the post dies a natural death he will be back with more silliness and it starts all over again.

Wow, I am so glad to see that someone else see this for what it is, someone just throwing out some chum and waits to see what bites. Pete (above mentioned glib idiot), has no intention of listening to opposing opinion as he has made it clear by not reading, as far as we can tell, any of the suggested literature. He has failed to state any logical reasoning or cite anything to back his own opinion. He is happy just to respond enough to keep stirring the pond to keep it murky.

I wish I had the knowledge so many of you have in here to find the scripture when needed, but I don’t. It is a journey for me that in reality is at the beginning. However, I do have enough intelligence to know when someone is full of it, as I believe Pete is, and is enjoying spreading it around. After several genuine attempts to address Pete’s absurd beginning post, I honestly can’t see why anyone would discuss any further with him. He was lead to several resources that address to what he was alluding in his post, but either A) totally disregarded because he never intended to be open to it or B) he read them and can’t discuss them on here, because they are reasonable & logical. I believe this for one simple reason. Pete has NEVER address any of those suggested readings. His SILENCE in this area speaks VOLUMES.

 

[Pete_1]

Wow, I am so glad to see that someone else see this for what it is, someone just throwing out some chum and waits to see what bites. Pete (above mentioned glib idiot), has no intention of listening to opposing opinion as he has made it clear by not reading, as far as we can tell, any of the suggested literature. He has failed to state any logical reasoning or cite anything to back his own opinion. He is happy just to respond enough to keep stirring the pond to keep it murky.

Firstly, It’s absurd to suggest I am a troll, I have nearly a thousand posts on this board, if I was a troll dont you think someone would have noticed by now?

Secondly it is more than a little rash to conclude that I have no intention of listening to opposing opinion based on what I have posted.

Thridly I have given logical arguments for my opinion, mainly that the standard natural law argument falls foul of the naturalistic fallacy and that the so called new natural law theory is inadequate.

I wish I had the knowledge so many of you have in here to find the scripture when needed, but I don’t. It is a journey for me that in reality is at the beginning. However, I do have enough intelligence to know when someone is full of it, as I believe Pete is, and is enjoying spreading it around.

Nonsense.

After several genuine attempts to address Pete’s absurd beginning post, I honestly can’t see why anyone would discuss any further with him. He was lead to several resources that address to what he was alluding in his post, but either A) totally disregarded because he never intended to be open to it or B) he read them and can’t discuss them on here, because they are reasonable & logical. I believe this for one simple reason. Pete has NEVER address any of those suggested readings. His SILENCE in this area speaks VOLUMES.

I cannot read them all, I read the ones that I thought would be most helpfull.

 

[TX_Michele]

Sair,

I don’t know what happened to you that it has turned you off to the church, but I, too, was once away “from home” and have been so incredibly blessed to have found my way back. I know this is “off thread”, but I just wanted to share it with you.

Ultimately, what brought me back was acceptance. IF I was going to believe that Jesus was God made man and the reason He came to earth was to die for our sins so that WE may be reconciled with God, the Father. And IF I was going to believe that, than I had to believe everything he said was the TRUTH, otherwise, what was the point. For Jesus was either a liar, lunatic or the Lord. And IF I was going to believe that, than I had to believe that God, the Spirit, was going to protect this church established on earth, because Jesus said so. And IF I was going to believe that, than I had to believe that no matter what I thought or disagreed with, I had to be wrong. Do you know how difficult that is. But logically and reasonably, I cannot get to any other conclusion. Sure there is always the argument that the bible was written by men, interrupted by men and men are fallible. BUT going back to my reasoning, isn’t GOD, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient? Otherwise why would we consider him to be God?

An omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient God vs. me… hmmmm, I’m going to go with God. And if I am going to go with God, I have to believe that He is omnipresent which means, He has always been and will always be, not an exalted being that became that way. So He knows the future, so when Jesus said, not even hell would prevail against, I am guessing the knew what he was talking about. I also have to believe that He is omnipotent, having ultimate power and influence, and therefore can control what is and isn’t put in the bible in spite of human error and that He can direct the church into a correct interpretation, the church, not individual, because we are incapable of separating our feelings from inspiration. And because He is omniscient, He knows everything, I know just enough to know that I don’t know enough. And when He says something He means it, why bother saying it in the first place if you don’t mean it? So when Jesus, as our Lord, says something, I have to believe it to be true, not what I interpret it to be.

If A = B = C = D, etc, etc, then A HAS to equal D or wherever it ends.

All that having been said, I don’t think you have given up on being Catholic, as I believe you stated very early in this thread. Otherwise, why are you here? And even IF you have given up being Catholic, the Catholic Church has NOT given up on you, it will always be open when you are ready to come home. Wherever you journey is taking, I pray that God bless you with discernment, healing and amazement.

 

[TX_Michele]

Firstly, It’s absurd to suggest I am a troll, I have nearly a thousand posts on this board, if I was a troll dont you think someone would have noticed by now?

Secondly it is more than a little rash to conclude that I have no intention of listening to opposing opinion based on what I have posted.

Thridly I have given logical arguments for my opinion, mainly that the standard natural law argument falls foul of the naturalistic fallacy and that the so called new natural law theory is inadequate.

Nonsense.

I cannot read them all, I read the ones that I thought would be most helpfull.

First of all, I missed the part where someone called you a troll. I don’t believe you to be a a mythical, cave-dwelling being depicted in folklore as either a giant or a dwarf, typically having a very ugly appearance. Although, now that you have defended yourself as not being one on here twice now, maybe there is something to it? However I do believe glib (fluent and voluble but insincere and shallow) to be appropriate, but I don’t think idiot is fitting. So please accept my apology for regurgitating the word idiot.

Second, my conclusions weren’t rash, but based on what I had stated in my first post, by my observations of your responses.

Thirdly, your logic isn’t really that logical and you still aren’t backing it with anything to defend your position, but you want us to jump thru hoops and ‘prove’ our defenses. And when we do, you NEVER alluded to any of them. This is the first post that you mentioned having read any them.

So since I believe you to be a stirrer of the pond, I don’t think I will be responding to this thread anymore. But you have fun!

God Bless!

 

[DGendreau]

In reading what I have of this thread, it seems to me that the most fundamental teachings of Christianity have been missed. We are all created with free will to choose to return to our creator or not. Those who choose God choose to surrender to his will. Those who do not are free to do as they please, but in doing so risk their eternal destiny.

Sexuality is created by God for the continuance of His human creation and bonding of the core of that creation, the human family. As a matter of faith it is accepted that each human life is not simply a matter of biophysics but an interaction between man and God. In choosing to be open to life we choose to accept God’s will in determining the outcome of the sexual act. In practicing natural family planning we are reducing the likelihood of the outcome but it is still a matter of God’s will in the end and the believer’s surrender to that will. Artificial birth control rejects God’s will by destroying or biophysically interfereing with the potential outcome and displays a choice of our own will over God’s

It seems obvious by his arguments that Pete has not yet come to faith. Pete is free to do as he pleases, but should the day come when he may decide to surrender his will to that of God, he may wish to revisit this issue.

 

[mdaeges]

One of the main reasons that the Catholic Church teaches that contraception is immoral is that it prevents the couple from fully giving themselves to each other in the act of sex. When a married couple has sex and is using contraception they are withholding something from each other. When they do not use contraception, they do not hold anything back. Contraception demeans the sacred act that God created it to be in the context of marriage. This eventually causes problems between the couple, problems that they may not be aware of because they lie beneath the surface.

 

[Roy5]

A FEW SIMPLE THOUGHTS RE CONTRACEPTION

1. The Catholic position on abortion is generally good, though there are extreme instances when abortion may be acceptable as the lesser evil. For example, if a mother of several children is likely to die if she delivers another baby, it can be argued that her life should be saved so that she can raise her other children, etc. I am even open to the possibility that abortion may be preferrable to bearing a grossly misformed baby if the abortion is early enough. It could be argued that such an infant is better off in heaven than brought into a world where he or she will only live a life of suffering for himself and his family. God, after all, seems to perform millions of abortions ammually, which we call miscarriages. I know first hand. My beloved wife had two.

 2. However, the position of Catholicism on contraception is ridiculous. One of the supreme gifts of God is sexual relations between husbands and wives. It is an important glue - pardon the analogy - that can often serve as an expression of reconciliation between spouses. To essentially force couples to risk another child, when they may have as many as they can properly provide for already, is just silly. Husbands and wives should be able to joyously enter into this intimate delight without anxiety that can overshadow the beauty and mutual pleasure of the act.  

  3. One special problem arises in Catholicism because this rule (disallowing artificial birth control) has been made by celibate men who know little if anything from first-hand experience as husbands. The notion that scripture condemns modern methods of birth control is absurd. 

   4. The Catholic teaching against pre-marital sex is wise when dealing with teenagers and should be the norm. But today most couples who are older and are in steady relationships will indulge in sex. This may be unfortunate, but it is a reality with which the Church must deal.

    5. The Church's authority on matters sexual has been undermined in millions of minds by the scandalous behavior of priests and their bishops. Predatory priests who exploited children and youth should have been exposed and jailed instead of hidden and even moved from parish to parish! Their bishops who covered up are equally guilty.  

    I haven't read all the postings - not enough time - and perhaps these points have been noted already.

    Keep the faith, but don't make it a straight-jacket that imprisons instead of liberates!

 

[mdaeges]

For points 2. and 3. I would suggest you see “The Theology of the Body” by Pope John Paul II. If you really want to understand the Catholic view on sexuality, you need to read this document and refer to the Catholic Catechism.

For point 4, one does not have to have first-hand experience to understand the why God has given us the gift of sexuality - this may enable them to see where the Holy Spirit is leading us regarding the issure of sexuality. The person who has established the views of the church, Pope John Paul II, or at least clarified them, references the Holy Spirit as his source.

Lastly, regarding the credibility of the Church, The fact that some priests have greatly offended its members does not mean that the Church does not speak the truth.

What it comes down to is, are you willing to do the research to truly understand the positions of the Church