Onan was killed because he didn’t want to give his brother’s wife children. It wasn’t the act itself but the intention behind it.
The sex is wrong in and of itself apart from procreation because God intended sex to between a human woman and a human man. It is not just wrong because they can’t have offspring!According to whom? I just gave you the Scriptural basis (the Onan story plus the detail of law and punishment found in Dueteronomy). It also happens to match the explanation given in the Catechism. So, if you want me to believe your view is correct, please point me to the credible Catholic source (since we are both Catholic) that supports your opinion.
Please explain. In what way did God show His intent for sex to be soley between a human man and a human woman? You have been bringing up a desire of a couple to be united…to express love, per se, without a desire for procreation. Please explain to me how a loving, yet non-procreative, relationship between a man and woman is any different than a loving relationship between 2 men or 2 women or a human and an amimal.If you can’t see the difference between sex with animals and homosexual sex apart from procreation then you need to learn more.
I don’t find it offensive.
( Although I would be cautious about remaining obstinately contrary to the Church teaching, especially wihtout some sufficiently credible reference to support my position. )No one has said anything about sex being “soley for procreation”. I have seen several instances, which happen to mirror the Church teaching, where it is stated that sex has 2 aspects, unitive AND procreative. Your seeming desire for the separation of these aspects is what leads me to ask you again:
The problem theologically here is that you have absolutely no basis for this claim. The only way we can know for certain that the sex act is only meant to be between a man and a woman is because of its procreative aspect. Natural law tells us that sex is meant to be ordered between a man and a women because this is the only way it is procreative! Sex between members of the same gender, or members of different species, is unnatural because it is non-procreative. There is no other basis for rejecting homosexuality while at the same time supporting a heterosexual couple who wishes to never procreate.
I think married people have the right to decide they don’t want children. And sure the Church is giving people that option with NFP. I can’t really say anything against the method and for all I know it may be better than any form of birth control out there.I don’t find it offensive.
Why do you disagree with the Catholic Church on this one? On what basis is the Church wrong…moral law, or personal opinion?
Do you believe that Christ established the Church to teach and guide us in Truth?
The Church has changed some things. So in effect, it admits that it may have misinterpreted in the past. I don’t see anything wrong with saying it was a misinterpretation. Admittedly I don’t know if they will ever do it with contraception since it is very hard to say you made a mistake after so many centuries of saying otherwise. My belief is based on my own personal interpretation of the Scriptures. Admittedly this is a Protestant belief, but I feel strongly about it. It doesn’t mean I will stop going to Mass when I am a firm believer in at least 99% of what the Church teaches. I think that’s pretty good!
Also I am not alone in this issue. Many Catholics don’t agree with it either.
No one has said anything about sex being “soley for procreation”. I have seen several instances, which happen to mirror the Church teaching, where it is stated that sex has 2 aspects, unitive AND procreative. Your seeming desire for the separation of these aspects is what leads me to ask you again:
Can you please explain to me WHY the whole sexual act is supposed to be between a man and a woman, as opposed to a man+man or human+animal? In your own understanding, what makes man+woman different from man+man or man+animal?
You are both avoiding my question and arguing against something that no one, not even the Church, has stated. Simultaneously, you are putting forward the idea that, if “everyone else believes it”, then it’s okay.
I believe you are avoiding this question because of the natural consequence of the answer that you will give. Likely what you have found, if you put any thought into it, is exactly what Son of Jonah has provided for us:
However, Michelle9, if you believe you have a better understanding that will show the error in this explanation, please put it out here for us to read, so that I might not continue in my error. Otherwise, please cease to continue in yours.
If many Catholics have a problem with a doctrine of the Church, the Church should do something about trying to explain the doctrine. Maybe they should put articles on the USCCB website or maybe the Pope could write an encyclical showing how the doctrine is consitent with both the natural law and 2000 years of Church tradition.
The Hitler thing is not a good analogy.
Just because the majority believe something doesn’t mean it is correct. So the question still remains, who is right, the Church or those who oppose her teachings? In my opinion it is the Church. I have found that the more I tried to understand the Church’s arguments with a truly open mind about this question, the more sense they made to me. If you already come to this argument with your mind made up one way or the other it is much easier to set aside the arguments of one side or the other rather than truly investigating it objectively. Thats why I suggested earlier that you keep an open mind about this issue. This can be ahrder to do when one already uses contraceptives, because being open-minded on this issue will require being willing to consider that one is not acting morally, which is a scary thought and one that can be really hard to face, but I think ultimately worth it in the end. Before this thread began you thought the Church’s arguments about this were illogical, but now you sound as though you are willing to recognize that there is more logic and reasonableness to them than you previously thought. Since at least part of the reason you had previously decided this issue on the side of contraceptives is because you misunderstood the Church’s arguments, maybe it is time for you to look into them again, giving it plenty of time, thought and prayer with an open-mind? Just a thought, but whatever you do I wish you the best. 
You would do well to read this. It presents reality. And shows what a good Catholic is in the minds of its believers. Without any believers there is no Church. I don’t advocate throwing out at least 98 or 99% percent of what the Church teaches. But there is room for improvement.If many Catholics have a problem with a doctrine of the Church, the Church should do something about trying to explain the doctrine. Maybe they should put articles on the USCCB website or maybe the Pope could write an encyclical showing how the doctrine is consitent with both the natural law and 2000 years of Church tradition.
No problem. You are so respectful what could I say to that. If you had known how many things I disagreed with in the Catholic Church before I came back, you would have been shocked! I did not believe in saints, prayer for the dead, Purgatory and Confession. This website has made me change my mind completely about all that!The interesting thing about this statement is that that is exactly what the Church did before wrriting Humanae Vitae, it got a grroup of people to study the arguments for and against contracpetives for the Church to look over again and doublecheck to see if they were correct in their position, the answer coming out of it all, still being that artificial contraception is an illicit means of preventing conception.
I read it - not anything new. What is this supposed to prove anyway? It is about the **opinions **of Catholics in one country - the US, at one point in time. Yes, it presents reality - the reality that there are lots of Catholics in the US who are poorly catechized and/or have drifted from thier faith. Truth is not formed on the basis of public opinion. Doctrine must be based on objective truth; it must be univiersal for the whole Church and not be subject to the wishes of people in a certain decade or even century.
I’ve read the explanation many times. It still doesn’t convince me, sorry.
See, what I’ve found by looking into the Church’s actual reasons more and more so is that it is not at all just based on a fear of casual sex, but is actually intricately bound up and follows from the Church’s understanding of sexuality itself, which, in my humble opinion, is one of the best things about Church teaching. The Church’s understanding of sexuality, when properly understood is, without a doubt, the most beautiful understanding of sexuality that I have ever heard of, it gives sex so much more meaning, importance, and goodness than any other explanation I have heard. Thats actually one of the reasons I find it so funny when you hear so many people talking about how the church hates sex
, they just simply have no clue. But I digress, 
I’m still convinced that the reason you think the Church is wrong is because you don’t fully understand what she is saying, or maybe just the reasons for it, which I think is really understandable because they are not an easy thing to really understand. (And I mean actually understand, its one thing for somebody to shove a syllogism in front of your face, its another for you to realize how the conclusion must be true because of the way reality itself is ) Pray about it and be open-minded, you never know what you might discover. Abstinence is not harmful. There are fertility monitors and several methods of NBR/NFP to choose from that will work or different people with different conditions. This would be a heavy cross to bear…but God gives us nothing that we cannot carry with His Help.