NFP and anxiety disorder

[whatevergirl]

Go and do some research, and debunk the CCL website, it’s possible…pretty much anything can be proven if you search hard enough.

But walk a mile in the shoes of someone for whom it doesn’t work. Who has to see his wife threaten suicide. To lie awake at night worrying about the future.
Who also is racked with guilt and temptations of the flesh because the unity is gone from his marriage.

Then come back.

I was once like you guys, swaering by it…but live it and then we’ll talk.

We are being told to have babies, use NFP if that doesn’t work or practice abstinence.

If we get babies that result from this teachings, where is the Church to help us support the children?
Catholic Daycare.
Catholic Nurses to assist the poor wifes.
Catholic financial assistance?

Nothing.

Just, “I’m sorry NFP doesn’t work for you, there’s nothing Ican do, except tell you to practice abstinence. But tht will probably ruin you or cause you a life of suffering and heartache and loneliness and yearning…”

Yeah, life is suffering.

But this can be avoided! All logic points to that!

I just don’t know anymore…

PM;

I’m sorry for your suffering, and your wife’s. Your wife is pregnant now, right? I am sorry for forgetting some of your wife’s health details–but is she being pregnant considered life threatening? I’m reading through this thread, and noticed that you have to witness your wife threatening suicide…is this because she is concerned about her health, if pregnant?

 

[PennitentMan]

Do you have a citation to an NFP advocacy group actually proclaiming NFP is 100% effective, or is twisting what has actually been said the best you can do?

See? I rest my case.

And, is slamming me really necessary? I mean, Obviously I’m confused…help me, maybe explain to me, but the meanness is just astounding.

Did I ever attach people personally? I site the CCC, I site websites…
Explain where I’m wrong, and I’ll give my point of view.
But please, keep from being so nasty. It only shows that you get frustrated and angry. Can you not just be nice and explain things?

I know this is a heated discussion, but please, be Christ-like!

I’ll let you cool off now. sheesh!

 

[Ray_Scheel]

See? I rest my case.

The one source you provided did not support the straw man you keep hauling out to try to disparage NFP, and you have not retracted the claim despite repeatedly failing to back it up.

And, is slamming me really necessary? I mean, Obviously I’m confused…help me, maybe explain to me, but the meanness is just astounding.

Pointing out that someone is repeating claims they already knew were incorrect is not “slamming”. Identifying a particular construct as a straw man is not “slamming”. Further, pointing out that those corrections had already been presented to you personally on several prior occasions is most certainly not “slamming”. The most significant “unnecessary” thing in this exchange has been the repeated deliberate use and defense of intellectually dishonest tactics.

Did I ever attach people personally? I site the CCC, I site websites…
Explain where I’m wrong, and I’ll give my point of view.
But please, keep from being so nasty. It only shows that you get frustrated and angry. Can you not just be nice and explain things?

Explaining requires that the other party be willing to listen. Jumping from one false and/or misleading position to another in order to avoid pursuing previous issues to their conclusion is a barrier you have placed in the way of discourse and explanation, not me.

Now, in order to bring one point to its conclusion: do you have support for your claims that it has been proclaimed that “NFP is 100% effective and it will solve all your problems”, or do wish to permanently withdraw that claim and not repeat it again in this thread or any others until you have something better than hearsay?

 

[monicatholic]

PenitentMan,

in peace and friendship, i submit that the Church has two goodwill options–

to teach objective truth with the confidence that, taught with love, truth will bring people in,

or,

to obscure truths with relativism in avoidance of ‘chasing people away’.

Jesus said, “i am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” which option seems more in keeping with Jesus’ proclamation?

you wrote:

I cannot believe that it’s intrinsically evil as the Church labels it.

if you cannot believe that, then may i gently suggest your bigger problem is not so much with the Church’s moral teaching on contraception? instead it seems yours is a difficulty with the teaching ***authority ***of the Church.

 

[PennitentMan]

Now, in order to bring one point to its conclusion: do you have support for your claims that it has been proclaimed that “NFP is 100% effective and it will solve all your problems”, or do wish to permanently withdraw that claim and not repeat it again in this thread or any others until you have something better than hearsay?

I will partially retract it.
By partially I mean that the quote I gave is most probably not effectve, HOWEVER I’ll not back down from the fact that NFP has been hailed by many here to be more effectve and problem free than it really is. It may not have been stated exactly as I have said, but it has been implied.
If you need backed up, quoted proof of that, I’ll have to start searching all the threads here to find it.

 

[rayne89]

Right.

That’s the harsh truth about the matter. That is what the Church teaches. Sucks don’t it? For people that absoutely cannot have another child…they have to abstain. No ands, if’s or buts.

Some folks proclaim that NFP is 100% effective and it will solve all your problems. But that’s not right. It’s not 100% effective and there is no other recourse for Catholics. It’s a heartless teaching and it’s potentially (and in some cases, actually) damaging famililes.

There is absolutely nothing “heartless” about Church teaching. How on earth could you believe the Holy Spirit could guide the church to teaching that is harmful or heartless?

Please explain to me if NFP is so useless why for the last 11 plus years I have used it I have not become pregnant despite the fact that we have a healthy sex life. I have no fertility issues, I became pregnant the first month we actually tried to become pregnant -over 12 years ago. And yet for the last 11 plus years I have followed NFP and not become pregnant.

I will not survive another pregnancy, my heart is failing. It’s having a hard enough time sustaining me right now. No NFP is not 100% effective but it is more effective than condoms -infact it is at least, if not more effective, than all artificial birthcontrol methods. And this is the method allowed by the church so I place myself in the hands of God. The odds are in my favor.

 

[PennitentMan]

PenitentMan,

in peace and friendship, i submit that the Church has two goodwill options–

to teach objective truth with the confidence that, taught with love, truth will bring people in,

or,

to obscure truths with relativism in avoidance of ‘chasing people away’.

Jesus said, “i am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” which option seems more in keeping with Jesus’ proclamation?

you wrote:

if you cannot believe that, then may i gently suggest your bigger problem is not so much with the Church’s moral teaching on contraception? instead it seems yours is a difficulty with the teaching ***authority ***of the Church.

It’s the other way around actually.

I cannot understand how they can teach that. It does not make sense. I cannot understand any of the reasoning used to arrive at that teaching. the reasoning if just not right.
And beacuse I question that, I’m starting to question other things too.

 

[PennitentMan]

There is absolutely nothing “heartless” about Church teaching. How on earth could you believe the Holy Spirit could guide the church to teaching that is harmful or heartless?

That’s my problem…how can they?

Please explain to me if NFP is so useless why for the last 11 plus years I have used it I have not become pregnant despite the fact that we have a healthy sex life. I have no fertility issues, I became pregnant the first month we actually tried to become pregnant -over 12 years ago. And yet for the last 11 plus years I have followed NFP and not become pregnant.

You are of course one of the cases for NFP. Good for you. All I’m saying is that it doesn’t work for everyone. And for those that it doens’t work for, we are stuck up the creeck without a paddle.

For us other contraception would be way more effective thatn NFP. For you, not. That’s fine…But the statistics cannot be nearly as high as 99% effective as they all claim

 

[Em_in_FL]

It’s the other way around actually.

I cannot understand how they can teach that. It does not make sense. I cannot understand any of the reasoning used to arrive at that teaching. the reasoning if just not right.
And beacuse I question that, I’m starting to question other things too.

The teaching is not about submitting to authority or any of that…
It’s about TRUSTING GOD.

The God who created this entire universe can be trusted in everything… even your wife’s health, even your marital embrace.

Do you TRUST GOD?

 

[PennitentMan]

The teaching is not about submitting to authority or any of that…
It’s about TRUSTING GOD.

The God who created this entire universe can be trusted in everything… even your wife’s health, even your marital embrace.

Do you TRUST GOD?

I do trust God but I disagree that this teaching comes from Him.

I trusted the CHURCH and it caused serious reprocussions.
How sure are you that God inspored this teaching?

THAT’s what I’m struggling with.

 

[kage_ar]

It does seem that perhaps a new thread should be opened? This one is far afield from the original.

BTW - if I could not trust the Church founded by Christ… where would I go

 

[whatevergirl]

I do trust God but I disagree that this teaching comes from Him.

I trusted the CHURCH and it caused serious reprocussions.
How sure are you that God inspored this teaching?

THAT’s what I’m struggling with.

Because the moral good outweighs the temporal suffering.

 

[paperwight]

I think I would find it easier to accept the Chuch’s teaching if anyone would point out where Jesus spoke on the subject.
Surely if it is such an important part of Christian marriage, He would have preached about it?
Contraception in some way or other has been known about since the Ancient Egyptians, and it’s not fanciful to assume that some knowledge was picked up during the time of slavery in Egypt.

 

[Em_in_FL]

I do trust God but I disagree that this teaching comes from Him.

I trusted the CHURCH and it caused serious reprocussions.
How sure are you that God inspored this teaching?

THAT’s what I’m struggling with.

If you trust God… you need to trust Him in ALL things… not just “avoiding pregnancy”.

If it really is essential for your wife’s health and well-being that she does not become pregnant… PRAY for this.
God does not abandon us on this earth and wave goodbye and say “oh good luck… here’s the book of rules”…
He guides us… He’s WITH us… and He asks us to follow the teachings of the church that Christ Himself gave to us!

How do you know that your wife’s issues may not be curable?
How do you know that another child isn’t the miracle that your marriage was waiting for?
Are her health issues 100% fatal (I know you love statistics )?

Prayer… trust… pretty fundamental spiritual gifts. Ask God to be with you and He will.

 

[Ray_Scheel]

I will partially retract it.
By partially I mean that the quote I gave is most probably not effectve, HOWEVER I’ll not back down from the fact that NFP has been hailed by many here to be more effectve and problem free than it really is. It may not have been stated exactly as I have said, but it has been implied.
If you need backed up, quoted proof of that, I’ll have to start searching all the threads here to find it.

Actually, we are all still waiting on something statistically significant to back up your earlier claims that the actually touted method effectiveness rates were inaccurate, rather than your previous habit of just pointing to isolated failures within a huge pool (and further making no effort to distinguish user failures from method failures in the examples of that which you had provided). As far as I can tell, your switch to saying some had claimed 100% was a red herring to draw attention away from not being able to substantiate your prior criticism when it was challenged.

There are dozens of studies consistently showing 95%+ effectiveness rates for the “modern” methods (Billings, STM, Creighton, Marquette), so it is going to take a lot more than identifying a few particular examples of failures to prove that the touted success rates are incorrect

 

[PennitentMan]

BTW - if I could not trust the Church founded by Christ… where would I go

Welcome to my world.

Confused.

I started asking why NFP went to very wrong for us. I researched HV, and listened to Christopher West.
I started wondering about the reasoning in the teachings.
Then I learnt about the Papal Birth Control Commission.
Then I started questioning the infallability of this teaching.
Then I started questioning infallability iteself, since it was self-proclaimed in 1870.
Then I started reading the Early Church Fathers and got even more confused and concerned

Right now I have to question weather this teaching is from God or from people.

 

[kage_ar]

Please, find a local NFP teaching couple and talk to them. Real live in the flesh human married people who have taught many couples or contact the Pope Paul VI institute and make an appointment.

 

[Em_in_FL]

I have just one very basic question, PM…
If you are looking into using non-abortive contraception (condoms, etc)…
Are you willing to risk your wife’s life (if she were to become pregnant) at a higher margin of error than NFP?

Save a hysterectomy or total abstinence… there is no contraception that exists that is 100% effective.
So realistically, no matter WHAT you decide to do, there is a chance of conception…

Would it still be the church’s fault if she became pregnant while using condoms? (or for that matter… since you’re investigating Orthodoxy for that purpose alone… would you then blame the Orthodox faith?)

 

[Ray_Scheel]

I started asking why NFP went to very wrong for us.

Simple statistics here - you were in the 1% where the method fails. Over and over again your objection appears to boil down to taking personally being caught by a long shot failure and lookign for someone to blame.

Most NFP failures are actually user errors though, either through not paying sufficient attention to the actual rules or declaring personal exceptions on their own initiative (and then wondering why it didn’t work out the way they thought it should).

Perhaps we need to settle another loose end here: Do you acknowledge that if you require 100% effectiveness at avoiding pregnancy, then 100% abstinence is statistically the only available recourse whether you are Catholic or not (outside of truly dramatic things like elective hysterectomy or castration)?

 

[PennitentMan]

Sorry I’m away for a bit, I need to get something done on a deadline, I’ll be back shortly.