the Church does not teach against “birth control”, i.e. the spacing and planning of children for serious reasons. The Church does teach that contraception is an immoral means of birth control. Abstinence is not.
I’m sorry, the Church does not “teach against” this.
NFP is not the “rhythm method” but it does give the couple information that they can use to decide to have intercourse or abstain from intercourse or make not specific decision at all-- depending on whether they are trying to achieve or avoid pregnancy or neither.
That is NFP.
I don’t understand this “paradox” either, because the rhythm method is de-facto contraception, the act of deliberately avoiding conception?
When you are at work and not having intercourse is that contraception? How about when you are at your kid’s soccer game; is that contraception? How about when sitting next to your spouse in church; is that contraception?
Think of it as you would bodily health in other ways. You can achieve healthy weight by abstaining from fatty foods and over indulging. That’s known as abstinance.
There are lots of threads on this same idea with others explaining the answers to your questions. Maybe you would find good information in those other threads.
Short version: it’s the difference between going on a diet and bulimia. It’s not the end itself, necessarily, it’s how you go about it and why.
When you are at work you are obviously not having sex. When you are in bed with your spouse having sex and deliberately taking measures bot to conceive [by any method] then that is contraception. To suggest anything other than that is a nonsense.
Are you seriously suggesting that a husband and wife making love is a lack of self control and dishonouring the body or god? Sex is a good thing within a marriage and sex between a husband and is wife is the only sexual act that is never condemned in scripture. Even St Paul tells us that when a husband and wife feel the need for sex that we should go and act on that passion so that we can get it out of our system and get back to serving god! He never suggests that the act of love between husband and wife is a lack of self control and there are no passages in scripture telling husbands and wives to abstain other than during menstruation.
Paul was a pretty big advocate of celibacy, but he was very clear that husbands and wives should fullfill there sexual duties to one another. He tells husbans and wives not to deprive not to deprive one another unless by mutual agreement for prayer. He does mention self-controle, but here he tells couples to **do it **. not abstain, because he means that we may seek sexual gratification somewere else. He also tells unmarried people who have sexual desire that they should marry, never does he command the married to abstain, ever! Married couples “fasting” or “abstaining” from sex is unatural and the “ultimate” form of contraception!
You missed the point.
This thread’s about contraception. That is, the act of intercepting the natural course of sex and voiding its natural ends by some sort of interference. That is definitely dishonouring the body and God, for want of self control in ordering your family makeup. Choosing the spacing of children by abstaining during fertile times is not ‘contra’ to conception since abstaining isn’t an active interference with the process. It’s just abstaining for a time. Like fasting is not ‘contra’ to nutrition. It’s just abstaining for a time. That would be opposed to purging what you’ve eaten or eating cardboard (which models do to satisfy hunger without calorie consequences). One dishonours the body and nature. The other works healthfully with the body.
That’s a good point. The design has a primary purpose. With ‘downtime’ a secondary purpose can be fulfilled in the interests of the unitive purposes of marriage… but if that secondary purpose seeks to override the primary purpose of the design, through lust, you dishonour the creation and it’s Creator both.
I’m not making an argument for “artificial” contraception, we don’t use “artificial” contraception. My argument is that the “Rhythm Method” is still contraception by another means, which is the act of preventing conception and children being born!
Try not having sex during the fertile period for six months and it may become more clear.I’m not making an argument for “artificial” contraception, we don’t use “artificial” contraception. My argument is that the “Rhythm Method” is still contraception by another means, which is the act of preventing conception and children being born!
Not having sex during your fertile period is “not being open to life”, its a biological fact, the egg is sitting there with no sperm to fertilise it! I also don’t see how deliberately avoiding birth by artificial means it “thumbing ones nose at god” and avoiding birth by natural means is not?