martino:
Alan (we meet again!), do you realize that you just spent 3 or 4 paragraphs trying to persuade others to your opinion that the Church is wrong on this point,and then finish off by warning them how dangerous it is to disagree with the Church on this exact point?
Dear Martino,
No, actually I didn’t realize that, but it’s been a while since I wrote that and now rereading it with a whole new outlook I can see how it would appear that way to you.
What you actually were witnessing there, represents a corner in a major turning point in my rhetorical attitude toward all this stuff whereby I am hereby about to announce a brand new concept (new for me anyway) that I have recognized and cultivated for a few hours now while driving around town on errands, partly alone and partly with my children.
First, the punch line. Within a context that I have not completely defined for myself, so I cannot tell you whether it matches yours, I have decided to quit claiming that the Church does not have “infallible” authority on faith and morals. I say this not because I believe the Pope has any more direct line to the Spirit compared to the rest of us as I thought several hours ago, but as a rhetorical concession because the very definition of “morality,” if not completely personal, needs a standard for sake of discussion – and why not let the Church be it, since after all, she wrote the Bible and everything. Now I am free to think what I want to think about it and say what I want to say, and the Church, government, or other people can think what they want; only I know my intentions and only God knows my heart.
Now with that out of the way, my earlier post to which you referred was my attempt at telling these people that arguing with logic and reason to try to prove y’all NFP-lovers and Church-believers wrong is pointless. I could argue all day for or against “why” NFP is morally equivalent to ABC, and others cannot convince me they are different in that they can “prove” it to me, even if I accept the Bible and some fairly generous interpretations of it as premises.
My real point in the first few paragraphs was supposed to be, then, it comes down to a matter of what do you believe? The Church teaching is clear: NFP and ABC are morally different. You can accept it or not, but you can neither prove nor disprove it – unless there are some really great arguments I haven’t heard yet.
The last paragraph I intended to be a disclaimer. I do not mind being the only one in a crowd who thinks of things a certain way, even if it makes me different from the “leaders” and “scholars.” That doesn’t make me right or wrong, but if you wish to go against the given teaching then you have to accept the backlash. For that matter, as Jesus prophesied, if you wish to go
with his teaching you will also receive backlash. Either way, as Ted Nugent once said, “if you aren’t making waves then you aren’t paddling.” I think this is related to why God hates the lukewarm.
Remember, just because you were not convinced by the Church’s teaching doesn’t mean that you ought to lead others astray, especialy since “anybody who knowingly and consciously differs from what the Church teaches does so at his/her own risk.”
I fully understand that, and I accept that responsibility.
If my calculations are correct, I should be gradually starting to make more sense to you about now.
Alan
If you’re going to be a cheerleader for “we don’t have to buy everything the Church teaches on Faith and Morals”, I hope you’re positive you’re right or you’ll have some explaning to do later. There may be a millstone with your name on it (don’t have a heart attack here! Alan and I are the sarcastic types! 
)
, it combined all forms of non-artifical birth control. There is a major different to one the charts and follows the rules, and another who simply thinks she ovulates on day 14 no matter what.
!