Maternal Mortality rate and the morality of contraception

[svoboda]

Tantum ergo:

I understand that most people tend to base their judgments on their “personal” experience.

So somebody who felt “poor” and “underprivileged”, or who felt that her race had been discrimated against, would tend to make judgments regarding moral issues based on their experiences.

It’s “feelings” masquerading as reason.

Not to denigrate feelings–we are all entitled to them–but I would be rather stupid to assume, for example, that just because “I” stayed home with my children when they were young, and enjoyed it, that my “experience” would be every woman’s experience.

But do we do things for a “feeling”, or do we do them for a “reason”? Reason need not preclude feeling, but feeling often precludes reason.

Which explains why couples who are “passionately in love” one day can “hate” each other the next, even though nothing in their lives otherwise has changed.

Whereas, the person who has made a commitment to a spouse who once gave him/her “goosebumps”, but who over the years has lost THAT “feeling”, yet chooses in reason to continue to love, honor and cherish their spouse even if that “passion” has changed, shows real love, which is itself much more than some excited feeling.

“Personal experience” is worthwhile, but it cannot be allowed to exclude reason. Because a person “FEELS STRONGLY” about something or someone does not make the feeling moral or correct.

There’s a little core of insecurity in all of us. Maybe looking at that statistic of mortality FRIGHTENS you, and you attempt to master that fright, not for yourself, but project that fright onto other people. NOW you can “fight” not for yourself, but for those “other women”; even if those women do not share your feelings.

Another poster here is a woman from a third world country, she seems to agree with my sentiment, says that women don’t have much of a choice about family size and when they do they choose small families.

Why do you ignore that?

The desire to stay alive is a basic human desire. People will go through tremenous ordeals to survive (ever hear of the guy who cut off his limb to get out of a trap and live?).

I think those women are just as human as the rest of us, I think they want to live, I think they don’t want to have more kids than they can feed, and since they can’t say no to their husbands (as confirmed not only by statistics and documentaries, but by a poster here who lives in one of those places) birth control is a way out.

I think we have a moral duty to help those women.

If you disagree with birth control, why don’t you sponsor their kids and make sure at least some of them have food and clothing?

 

[Kendy]

You’re missing the key points of my post:

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Why push sterilization or birth control when they do NOT solve the problems or effect ecomonic/health change?

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The assumption that a woman will be “constantly pregnant” is in error. A breastfeeding woman in a 3rd world nation will usually not have a child every year. Usually it’s every 2 or 3 years. Unhealthy living conditions are not known for promoting fertility and breastfeeding may help to lengthen time between pregnancies.

**It’s clear you do think of those women. It appears you think the world would be better if they had never been conceived? **

Oh, don’t give that look. Once a human being is conceived, the question of whether the world is better or worst is irrelevant. We are obligated to love them (which means more than worrying about whether they are using condoms).

However, lots of potential human beings are not convieved. Image how many more people we would have if every woman started having children at 20. Should we mourn the fact that two to three other souls were not born because some started having children at 30? Obviously, that would be silly. I have no trouble respecting the dignity of living person while suggesting that in some instances, it may not be good to bring another human into the picture.

All the Haitians and Cubans who brave the Atlantic to get to America know something life that the church seems to want to deny, which is that while life IS PRECIOUS, some situations are worse than death.

I would not make that call for anyone else, but just like I respect those people he risked life rather than have slowly taken from them by hunger. I also respect those who would say I cannot bring another life on Earth to suffer with me.

Kendy

Kendy

 

[Kendy]

svoboda:

This is an excellent point. I live in Canada, where social services are great. Even in the US so many people don’t have medical insurance and can’t afford to take their kids to the doctor.

Again, great point. Since people here don’t want to let women there use birth control, how about sponsoring some of those children and providing them with food, clothing, and the like?

How many of you do it?

I’m in university now, but once I have a job I plan to, and not for God, but for those poeple.

I sponsor an African girl .

 

[Kendy]

stadre:

In studying our religion, our daughter memorized the following, “Why did God make you? God made me to show His goodness and to make me happy with Him in Heaven.” This is a very simple and accurate statement that I wish I had learned growing up.

This is true of all people He brings into the world. You don’t have to be Catholic or even believe in Him. It is the Truth.

We all have hard times, but I know that my crosses were hand-tested by Christ and that how I handle every difficulty can help me someday become “happy . . . in Heaven.”

Teaching people about their fertility and NFP use really is the answer. Now, someone already stated that men in third world countries won’t follow it. First of all, you don’t know that. Secondly, that is underestimating what having this knowledge does for people. The men may surprise you.

Imagine a woman in that situation. She now understands that when a child may be created. Even if she has no say in the actual act and really doesn’t want to have another child, might she be able to approach it differently with a little bit of self knowledge. It is amazing what knowledge does for people.

Certainly, women die from having babies. Those babies get to enjoy eternity and I imagine their mothers as well. After all, “there is no greater love than to give up your life for your friends!” (And doesn’t a woman’s child fit into that definition?)

I seriously doubt that my wife-abusing grandfather would have abstained for ten days a month. Anywho, t’s ok to teach women about NFP. No one is saying that you must exclude NFP.

Kendy

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Man, you’re fast!

I edited my post so it differs quite a bit from what you answered–sorry about that!

Please check the edit because I think it makes the “experience” part clearer and addresses why you, or Kendy, or I have to consider whether our personal ‘experience’ overshadows REASON. Because YOU think or feel a woman “should” do this or that is simply your FEELING; it has nothing to do, reasonably speaking, with what the woman actually feels herself.

Generalizations mean nothing. While Kendy’s experience in observing women in a particular area obviously is first hand, the CONCLUSIONS she draws from it are not necessarily ACCURATE ones. (I am not calling her a liar or stupid, either. It is simply that Kendy’s own particular POV, her own value judgments, impact her OBSERVATIONS.

If I personally felt that all women today were treated as second-class citizens, I would look at every male-female interaction from that POV. And a perfectly neutral action–perhaps of a man opening a door for a woman --might call forth (as it did from a feminist friend of my acquaintance)–a blistering DIATRIBE on the ARROGANCE of that man, of his ASSUMPTION that the woman was “weak”, etc.

THAT is the danger of letting one’s personal feelings override one’s judgment. While my friend was in full spate, the man turned around and told her that his friend had recently undergone carpal tunnel surgery and that opening the handle of the door would have been painful for her.

It silenced her for a while. . . but she more often than not will still assume the worst about a man–any man! and his collusion in trying to “control” women.

I guess as a Christian and a mother I just cannot feel that the ends justify the means. Jesus (who loved us) knew the scriptures, and upheld them. Biblically speaking, abortion and contraception are moral evils, and have been held so by every single Christian church until 1930 when one after another, other churches fell victim, as you do, to the idea that Jesus meant it should only be “wrong” until there was “technology” good enough to make it effective–then, of course, it should be used to “better people’s earthly lives”. Completely ignoring the fact that Jesus never came to give us better earthly lives, but to give us salvation. Satan is clever–he used people’s natural desire to be “helpful” and turned it into a “choice” to do evil, so that people would ignore Jesus’s call for salvation and instead condemn themselves.

That is, after all, what happens when we substitute human teaching for divine.

 

[svoboda]

Tantum ergo:

Man, you’re fast!

I edited my post so it differs quite a bit from what you answered–sorry about that!

Please check the edit because I think it makes the “experience” part clearer and addresses why you, or Kendy, or I have to consider whether our personal ‘experience’ overshadows REASON. Because YOU think or feel a woman “should” do this or that is simply your FEELING; it has nothing to do, reasonably speaking, with what the woman actually feels herself.

Generalizations mean nothing. While Kendy’s experience in observing women in a particular area obviously is first hand, the CONCLUSIONS she draws from it are not necessarily ACCURATE ones. (I am not calling her a liar or stupid, either. It is simply that Kendy’s own particular POV, her own value judgments, impact her OBSERVATIONS.

If I personally felt that all women today were treated as second-class citizens, I would look at every male-female interaction from that POV. And a perfectly neutral action–perhaps of a man opening a door for a woman --might call forth (as it did from a feminist friend of my acquaintance)–a blistering DIATRIBE on the ARROGANCE of that man, of his ASSUMPTION that the woman was “weak”, etc.

THAT is the danger of letting one’s personal feelings override one’s judgment. While my friend was in full spate, the man turned around and told her that his friend had recently undergone carpal tunnel surgery and that opening the handle of the door would have been painful for her.

It silenced her for a while. . . but she more often than not will still assume the worst about a man–any man! and his collusion in trying to “control” women.

I guess as a Christian and a mother I just cannot feel that the ends justify the means. Jesus (who loved us) knew the scriptures, and upheld them. Biblically speaking, abortion and contraception are moral evils, and have been held so by every single Christian church until 1930 when one after another, other churches fell victim, as you do, to the idea that Jesus meant it should only be “wrong” until there was “technology” good enough to make it effective–then, of course, it should be used to “better people’s earthly lives”. Completely ignoring the fact that Jesus never came to give us better earthly lives, but to give us salvation. Satan is clever–he used people’s natural desire to be “helpful” and turned it into a “choice” to do evil, so that people would ignore Jesus’s call for salvation and instead condemn themselves.

That is, after all, what happens when we substitute human teaching for divine.

This is beside the point, regardless of what anyone feels about anything, birth control should be a moral option for those women. Whether or not they choose to use it is up to them.

There are no biblical prohibitions of birth control, there is a verse in the Old Testament when God punishes Onan for withdrawing, but did he punish him because he withdrew or because he refused to impregnate his dead brother’s wife as the law required?

 

[aurora77]

Blarney.

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You want to really improve those women’s lives?

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How about genuine health care? The rate of death due to at least 5 treatable diseases is higher in these women than the risk of pregnancy.

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How about food and access to clean drinking water? This would do more to create healthy pregnancy and extend life expectancy for the entire continient in a single generation than surgical procedures (sterilization) would. And by the way, the most dangerous place to have a surgical procedure done is where there is not health care and the water is contaminated - one has to wonder what the ratio of death for those women would be.

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How about less racists governments and getting rid of the warlords?

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How about education?

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Fact is, people who want mass contraceptives and sterilization of women in poverty don’t really care about those women or their kids. There’s literally dozens of things more important and more beneficial than birth control, but that’s the only method that can eventually rid the world of them for good. And that’s what it really comes down to isn’t it? Wipe them off the face of the earth to make room for the better off populations?

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I find that sad and scary.

Thank you for standing up for the truth!

Birth control is only a temporary solution to a much bigger problem. It’s an easy answer, one that doesn’t require any care, concern, or work on the part of others. Instead of aspiring to raise people up out of desperate poverty, birth control just keeps them down; it doesn’t do anything to help anyone. The women are just as poor, as unhealthy, being taken advantage of just as often.

 

[Rob_s_Wife]

Kendy:

Well, it’s quite simple. Children must be fed and clothe. They often need to go to the doctor. If you are unable to do these things, then you are bringing the child into the world to suffer.

So we shouldn’t want to live if it means suffering? Suffering is a part of life. The bible doesn’t say children are blessing unless… Children are a blessing. Period. The parents may not view it that way. You may not view it that way. Heck, the whole world may feel that way. But that is that’s the way it is.

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Is it really elitist to tell someone not to have a child that she can’t afford knowing that you plan to do nothing to feed that child when they arrive?

Define “nothing”? Those are your views and your words. I don’t feel I do nothing. I give where I can, as much as I can and pray it does some good.

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**Let’s talk missions to help those communities obtain clean water or to open schools or a dozen other much needed things. **I think that does more good than sterilization or birth control.

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If resources are limited (and they always are!) then the question of birth control shouldn’t even be mentioned because the resources should go to what will do the MOST good. There are so many other things those people need that will do more good and create better change that birth control is just not a legit use of the limited resources available.

 

[Kendy]

Tantum ergo:

I understand that most people tend to base their judgments on their “personal” experience.

So theoretically somebody who felt “poor” and “underprivileged”, or who felt that her race had been discrimated against, might be expected to make judgments regarding moral issues based on their experiences, which would differ from judgments made by someone who felt secure, average, or otherwise not discriminated against.

One must be careful to separate the feelings in the experience with the reason involved in making any type of informed judgment.

Not to denigrate feelings–we are all entitled to them–but I would be rather stupid to assume, for example, that just because “I” stayed home with my children when they were young, and enjoyed it, that my “experience” would be preferred by all other mothers, now or at any other time. Likewise, if “I” had NOT stayed home with my children, or had hated staying home, I would not assume that every other mother would have felt the same way.

But do we do things for a “feeling”, or do we do them for a “reason”? Reason need not preclude feeling, but feeling often precludes reason.

Which explains why couples who are “passionately in love” one day can “hate” each other the next, even though nothing in their lives otherwise has changed.

Whereas, the person who has made a commitment to a spouse who once gave him/her “goosebumps”, but who over the years has lost THAT “feeling”, yet chooses in reason to continue to love, honor and cherish their spouse even if that “passion” has changed, shows real love, which is itself much more than some excited feeling.

“Personal experience” is worthwhile, but it cannot be allowed to exclude reason. Because a person “FEELS STRONGLY” about something or someone does not make the feeling moral or correct.

There’s a little core of insecurity in all of us. Maybe looking at that statistic of mortality FRIGHTENS you, and you attempt to master that fright, not for yourself, but project that fright onto other people. NOW you can “fight” not for yourself, but for those “other women”; even if those women do not share your feelings.

Is this address to me? Oh, I am not frighten about death (misery maybe, but not death) nor was I personally born into suffering. For most of my child, I had a maid and an indentured servant girl. I didn’t learn to put on my own socks till I was nine. I do have personal feelings about watching my mother slap the servant girl who worked for us in exchange for food. I do have personal feelings about watching my little sister make fun of this girl while my mother laughed. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. However, I am not casting reason aside. I am not convinced that contraception is always wrong is reasonable.

Now, since I freely chose to join the church for reasons that I think are more important than having sex whenever I want, I have decided to respect the church’s teaching in my own life. But I would have a hard time selling it to anyone else. I certainly could sell it to anyone of the maids who worked in my house for a $1 a day.

Kendy

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I found this here at CA, from “This Rock” magazine.

First of all, by reviewing the various texts which teach the evil of adultery, fornication, and sodomy, you can most likely get agreement that Scripture teaches that God intends sex should be a marriage act. By a process of elimination, that’s all that’s left.

Only when a couple have entered the covenant of marriage can it be morally good for them to celebrate their love in the sexual union. Why? What is there about marriage that makes morally good the same physical action that would have been morally evil for them the day before they married?

In marriage they pledge to each other and before God and man that they will exercise caring love toward each other, for better and for worse, until death do they part. If they should contract to live with each other for better but not for worse, they would not be married in a moral-religious sense; it would only be a form of legalized co-habitation.

Acts of marital relations must reflect, at least implicitly, the acts of the will that made the couple married in the first place, but there are two kinds of acts which contradict the essence of married love.

NO ONE WOULD HAVE trouble admitting that acts of marital rape are not acts of marital love and that they in fact contradict the whole concept of the gift of self which occurred at marriage. Not so easy to see for many couples because of their own practice is that contraceptive intercourse likewise contradicts the essence of the marriage covenant. Indeed, what is the meaning of marital contraception except, “I take you for better but not for the imagined worse of possible pregnancy”?

If the couple made that act of the will at the time of the marriage ceremony, the “marriage” would be invalid. Similarly, if the couple choose “for better but not for worse” by the practice of contraception, such acts of sex are invalid as a renewal of their marriage covenant. In short, in order for sexual acts to be morally good, they must flow from the marriage covenant (no sex outside marriage), and they must not contradict it (no marital rape or contraception).

THE MARRIAGE COVENANT provides a single, biblical standard for explaining the immorality of the various sexual acts which are condemned by Scripture and Tradition. (Much more on this is developed in my forthcoming Sex and the Marriage Covenant, due out next year.) Regarding Scripture, the Onan account needs more extensive treatment than is possible in this article. Suffice it to say for the immediate apologetic that Onanism was the word for contraception before the latter word was invented, and Onanism was condemned by both Catholic and Protestant theologians alike up until the break of 1930.

The various elements described above can be used to develop an appealing apologetic for Catholic teaching against marital contraception. If one approaches the subject in a true spirit of Christian discipleship, if one understands that this teaching was universal among Christian churches until 1930, if one internalizes the idea that marital relations are intended by the Creator to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant, then the reality of natural family planning can be seen as a real gift of God to those who have a real need for avoiding or delaying pregnancy. And then the Catholic Church is seen not as an object of derision but as the light of Christ for its unwavering teaching of the divine truth about human love and for doing so much to foster the practical help to live those truths in family life today.

What I find most insightful is the fact that until 1930–1930! ALL Christian churches condemned contraception as a doctrinal issue. Doctrine does not change. It can develop–but it cannot suddenly turn around and say, “actually, we were wrong about this, it IS ok”.

Now, if you are a Catholic, you believe in doctrine, right? You don’t think that the Church changes its doctrine or dogma around to suit “modern times”.

The ban against contraception existed throughout CHRISTENDOM for 1900 years. Isn’t that a little long for God to say, “Eh, let them have it wrong for a couple of millennia before they figure it out?”

 

[svoboda]

Tantum ergo:

I found this here at CA, from “This Rock” magazine.

What I find most insightful is the fact that until 1930–1930! ALL Christian churches condemned contraception as a doctrinal issue. Doctrine does not change. It can develop–but it cannot suddenly turn around and say, “actually, we were wrong about this, it IS ok”.

Now, if you are a Catholic, you believe in doctrine, right? You don’t think that the Church changes its doctrine or dogma around to suit “modern times”.

The ban against contraception existed throughout CHRISTENDOM for 1900 years. Isn’t that a little long for God to say, “Eh, let them have it wrong for a couple of millennia before they figure it out?”

I am not a Catholic, I used to be but I lost faith.

All of those are arguments, not scriptural support of a prohibition of birth control. I allege that there are none, but you can prove me wrong.

I think the Church has a lot of good teachings it has acquired over the years, but I think it also has a lot of teachings that doesn’t make sense.

Would God allow people to be wrong? Why not? People in the present state have been around for some 60,000 years (some scientists will say longer, our species is I think 200, 000 years old). There have been many religions, Buddhism and Hinduism predate Christianity and are major religions in their own right. Natives on the American continents had strikingly different beliefs.

God didn’t correct them, why correct anyone else? Even the Church didn’t always forbid slavery. And did some things (i…e Inquisition) that are morally reprehensible. God didn’t come down and correct them. So I wouldn’t exect him to come down and say that those women can use birth control.

 

[bear06]

Kendy:

I seriously doubt that my wife-abusing grandfather would have abstained for ten days a month. Anywho, t’s ok to teach women about NFP. No one is saying that you must exclude NFP.

Kendy

Yeah, and your wife abusing grandfather probably wouldn’t have wanted to use a condom either and, either way, your grandfather would probably still be wife abusing. It’s not a solution to the problem.

 

[svoboda]

And just for the record, here is Onan’s story found in Genesis 38

1 About that time Judah parted from his brothers and pitched his tent near a certain Adullamite named Hirah.
2
There he met the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua, married her, and had relations with her.
3
She conceived and bore a son, whom she named Er.
4
Again she conceived and bore a son, whom she named Onan.
5
2 Then she bore still another son, whom she named Shelah. They were in Chezib when he was born.
6
Judah got a wife named Tamar for his first-born, Er.
7
**But Er, Judah’s first-born, greatly offended the LORD; so the LORD took his life. **
8
3 **Then Judah said to Onan, “Unite with your brother’s widow, in fulfillment of your duty as brother-in-law, and thus preserve your brother’s line.” **
9 **
Onan, however, knew that the descendants would not be counted as his; so whenever he had relations with his brother’s widow, he wasted his seed on the ground, to avoid contributing offspring for his brother.
10
What he did greatly offended the LORD, and the LORD took his life too. **

Onan withdrew becuase he knew that the children would not be his. That’s what offended God, avoiding contributing offspring for his brother.

This is the quote from the article you gave me:

THE MARRIAGE COVENANT provides a single, biblical standard for explaining the immorality of the various sexual acts which are condemned by Scripture and Tradition. (Much more on this is developed in my forthcoming Sex and the Marriage Covenant, due out next year.) Regarding Scripture, the Onan account needs more extensive treatment than is possible in this article. Suffice it to say for the immediate apologetic that Onanism was the word for contraception before the latter word was invented, and Onanism was condemned by both Catholic and Protestant theologians alike up until the break of 1930.

If you ask me, they deliberately didn’t mention “the Onan account” which really lasts 10 verses, becuase it has nothing to do with contraception and they know it. To me their omission seems deliberately dishonest.

 

[Rob_s_Wife]

Kendy:

Oh, don’t give that look. Once a human being is conceived, the question of whether the world is better or worst is irrelevant. We are obligated to love them (which means more than worrying about whether they are using condoms).

Then why are you so preoccupied with worry over birth control for them? I’m not. I think on things like food and water!

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I also respect those who would say I cannot bring another life on Earth to suffer with me.

Yeah, but do you respect someone who says they are glad God has given them someone to share their suffering who may grow up to make the world better? Somehow I doubt it.

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Bottom line for me: The easiest way to make a better world, is to “make” better people in it. Children are hope. And the world needs all the hope it can get, imo.

 

[Kendy]

Rob's Wife:
Rob’s Wife,

Obviously, you can expect suffering in life, but we also trying to minimize. when you get a headache, you take an aspirine to make it go away. I am only suggesting that you should go around trying to increase your and other people’s suffering by having children that you watch die of malnutrition.

Kendy

P.S. Good to know that you are giving where you can. That’s obviously a big part of the solution.

 

[bear06]

svoboda:

I am not a Catholic, I used to be but I lost faith.

All of those are arguments, not scriptural support of a prohibition of birth control. I allege that there are none, but you can prove me wrong.

I think the Church has a lot of good teachings it has acquired over the years, but I think it also has a lot of teachings that doesn’t make sense.

Would God allow people to be wrong? Why not? People in the present state have been around for some 60,000 years (some scientists will say longer, our species is I think 200, 000 years old). There have been many religions, Buddhism and Hinduism predate Christianity and are major religions in their own right. Natives on the American continents had strikingly different beliefs.

God didn’t correct them, why correct anyone else? Even the Church didn’t always forbid slavery. And did some things (i…e Inquisition) that are morally reprehensible. God didn’t come down and correct them. So I wouldn’t exect him to come down and say that those women can use birth control.

Yes, there are scriptual references against birthcontrol. See:
catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp

Also, your arguments on slavery have been corrected on other threads. You chose not to listen.

 

[Kendy]

bear06:

Yeah, and your wife abusing grandfather probably wouldn’t have wanted to use a condom either and, either way, your grandfather would probably still be wife abusing. It’s not a solution to the problem.

I think Svodaba was refering to methods that women can use independently.

Kendy

 

[aurora77]

Kendy:

Rob’s Wife,

Obviously, you can expect suffering in life, but we also trying to minimize. when you get a headache, you take an aspirine to make it go away. I am only suggesting that you should go around trying to increase your and other people’s suffering by having children that you watch die of malnutrition.

Kendy

P.S. Good to know that you are giving where you can. That’s obviously a big part of the solution.

I know this isn’t addressed to me, but I have to ask–why not work to prevent that malnutrition? Why isn’t that the top priority? Taking an aspirin works if you have a simple headache, not a brain tumor. Poverty is like that tumor, we can bandage it, with contraception, but contraception does nothing to stop the underlying problem.

 

[bear06]

Kendy:

I think Svodaba was refering to methods that women can use independently.

Kendy

No, he was referring to methods that can be used without a husbands knowledge which a woman would be hard pressed to find. He doesn’t seem to realize that the sterilization process is a surgery and that you don’t just hide those. Not only that, it’s dangerous for a women to have marital relations after surgery and if the situation is so abusive, this is not likely to happen.

You just said that you are against the pill and I’m assuming the IUD. I don’t believe Svodaba said the same thing. Once again, try and find a method a husband won’t find out about and beat his wife for. Contraception is not the answer.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

1. The Church always forbade chattel slavery (which is the owning of a person). St. Paul referred himself as a “slave of Christ”. I myself made the De Montfort Consecration over a year ago and am a Slave of Jesus in Mary.
2. Which Inquistion? There were several. There’s also a lot of “misinformation” about the Inquisition, most of based on the idea that the “Spanish Inquisition” was all about persecuting Protestants and burning witches (it was not), or that “The Church” killed heretics (the GOVERNMENT carried out the relatively few death penalties, and the Church officials actually called for lesser punishments than the government did.)

Did individual church members make personal peccable errors? Sure they did. Did they TEACH error? No.

1. I am sorry you chose to reject your faith, and I pray that you may accept it again. The Church has the fullness of truth. Pride can keep us from acknowledging it–oh, how often we want to think that if we can just rationalize the Church into “just another organized group”, and pick what we like, and discard the rest, that WE are the true chosen, we have the truth, not the Church.

It’s kind of a standoff then. If you don’t accept that Jesus established the Church, no wonder that you feel you can “not accept” anything else in teaching you don’t . No wonder you are so passionate in trying to promote your point of view.

Of course I can’t really know why you feel as you do about the Church; neither can you understand why I have faith, I suppose.

Such a sad loss, especially because you obviously have a real zeal to “do good”. . .and what good you might be able to accomplish if you only knew and believed. . .