So what about overpopulation?

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WillieWonka said:
Common sense spans a far greater population than the sliver of the Catholic population that accepts Church teachings on contraception. That’s just common sense…
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Believe it or not there are people out there that aren’t Catholic and don’t even know the Catholic teaching on contraception who don’t believe in using contraception, because it is common sense.😉
 
Contarini said:
I think you are using “soul” to mean “rational soul.” That’s become the common usage for what I think are very bad reasons.

In Aristotle and Aquinas, a “soul” is anything that makes a body live. There are three kinds of souls:
  1. The vegetative soul: the principle that allows plants to take in nutrition and grow.
  2. The sensitive soul: the principle that allows animals to respond to stimuli. I misspoke earlier when I identified it with mobility. Aquinas clarifies that some animals (such as oysters) have sensitive souls but don’t have the power of locomotion. I had forgotten that.
  3. The rational soul: the principle that allows humans to think and make rational choices.
In Thomistic thought, this last kind of soul is immortal. (Aristotle doesn’t seem to have believed in immortality.)

Aquinas believed that no one has more than one kind of soul. So humans just have a rational soul, but it performs the functions of the other two. Similarly, nonhuman animals just have a sensitive soul, but it performs vegetative functions as well.

Obviously Aquinas’s reason for calling humans “animals” isn’t that they have the same kind of soul–they don’t. It’s that they have bodies animated by a soul that enables them to function biologically like animals (move around, respond to stimuli, etc.). Humans don’t differ from other animals biologically but in their transcendence of the biological through the rational soul. Aquinas was no animal-rights activist (I actually find his teaching quite disturbing and repellent on this score). He thought that animals were not proper objects of moral concern in themselves–it was only wrong to torture them because this would harden one’s heart and make one more likely to hurt other humans. But it did not take Darwin to point out that biologically humans *are *animals. This was obvious to Aquinas. So humans are properly called “rational animals,” which expresses both how they are similar to other animals and how they differ from them.

Edwin
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Okay, I get it now. So do you believe and obey the CC’s teachings on contraception?
 
luvmykids said:
Believe it or not there are people out there that aren’t Catholic and don’t even know the Catholic teaching on contraception who don’t believe in using contraception, because it is common sense.😉
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Now that makes sense. Thank you, luvmykids! 🙂
 
luvmykids said:
Not necessarily, but I believe the Church teaches objective Truth, which IS common sense when you are living in the Light. Does that make sense?:o
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It is a reasonable belief for an individual to hold. However, it is not reasonable to contend those who don’t embrace that belief lack commn sense.
 
luvmykids said:
Believe it or not there are people out there that aren’t Catholic and don’t even know the Catholic teaching on contraception who don’t believe in using contraception, because it is common sense.😉
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OK. Does everyone besides a sliver of Catholics and these folks you mention lack common sense?
 
Willie~

We all lack common sense sometimes!
We are human.
Fallible, broken, human beings.
 
WillieWonka said:
It is a reasonable belief for an individual to hold. However, it is not reasonable to contend those who don’t embrace that belief lack commn sense.
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As lil_flower_luv stated, we all lack common sense at times,but I believe that those who don’t embrace the belief that contraception is wrong or immoral, lack common sense in that area.
 
luvmykids said:
As lil_flower_luv stated, we all lack common sense at times,but I believe that those who don’t embrace the belief that contraception is wrong or immoral, lack common sense in that area.
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OK. What’s the common sense argument for rejecting contraception?
 
lil_flower_luv said:
Okay, I get it now. So do you believe and obey the CC’s teachings on contraception?
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No. However, the question is not closed for me, and I do not regard artificial contraception as ideal. I am not convinced that the use of non-abortifacient contraception to space births is inherently incompatible with being open to life in one’s marital relations as a whole. But I think that the Catholic argument is a strong one and continue to consider its merits. If I were otherwise convinced that I should become Catholic, I would of course submit on this point and would have no serious intellectual difficulty in doing so (at least in my own case–I do have some problems with the implications for such things as married couples one of whom has AIDS). It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that I might embrace the Catholic teaching on this point even without converting to Catholicism. I certainly consider NFP to be preferable.

In short, I think artificial contraception is dubious but not necessarily wrong in all cases. But I’m honestly uncertain about the matter.

Edwin
 
WillieWonka said:
OK. What’s the common sense argument for rejecting contraception?
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It’s just common sense that a healthy young person is made to bring forth life within the sexual act that is suppose to be between a man and a women who love one another. This act is unitive and procreative. It is meant to be that way, otherwise we wouldn’t have children that way. This is the way we were made! I can’t say that enough, because it is so simple, yet people just don’t get it. To explain further, how can you say you love someone enough to fully give youself to them, which is the way it should be in a married relationship, if you are making them “protect” themselves from you. Seeing contraception for what it truly is, it would be insulting and hurtful if my spouse said they wanted to have “relations”, but didn’t want all of me, just some of me. God made us this way…there is nothing sick about it, so we don’t need medication “the pill”, and I don’t need to be protected from my spouse by using a “latex barrier”. A barrier is something that separates, as opposed to bringing together. The other alternative is self-mutilation through surgery. This upsets me whenever I hear someone doing this. I do not judge anyone, I am not upset in a way that I feel angry at the person, or judgemental, but mournful. It makes me sad, because they are destroying a perfectly healthy part of themselves, a sacred part of themselves. It is sad. Not to mention, I believe, physically unhealthy. We all want the instant self gratification, but not the consequences, and if you ask me this is one of those things that has helped the abortion mentality and the downward spiral of our society. We need to learn self control, and respect for others.

I’m sorry if I went into too much detail, but it is hard for me to explain, because the simple answer is never enough to most.
 
luvmykids said:
It’s just common sense that a healthy young person is made to bring forth life within the sexual act that is suppose to be between a man and a women who love one another. This act is unitive and procreative. It is meant to be that way, otherwise we wouldn’t have children that way. This is the way we were made! I can’t say that enough, because it is so simple, yet people just don’t get it. To explain further, how can you say you love someone enough to fully give youself to them, which is the way it should be in a married relationship, if you are making them “protect” themselves from you. Seeing contraception for what it truly is, it would be insulting and hurtful if my spouse said they wanted to have “relations”, but didn’t want all of me, just some of me. God made us this way…there is nothing sick about it, so we don’t need medication “the pill”, and I don’t need to be protected from my spouse by using a “latex barrier”. A barrier is something that separates, as opposed to bringing together. The other alternative is self-mutilation through surgery. This upsets me whenever I hear someone doing this. I do not judge anyone, I am not upset in a way that I feel angry at the person, or judgemental, but mournful. It makes me sad, because they are destroying a perfectly healthy part of themselves, a sacred part of themselves. It is sad. Not to mention, I believe, physically unhealthy. We all want the instant self gratification, but not the consequences, and if you ask me this is one of those things that has helped the abortion mentality and the downward spiral of our society. We need to learn self control, and respect for others.

I’m sorry if I went into too much detail, but it is hard for me to explain, because the simple answer is never enough to most.
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Sounds like those are your personal preferences and opinions. Do you presume your personal ideas of love, sex, comfort, and relationships are the only ones?
 
WillieWonka said:
Sounds like those are your personal preferences and opinions. Do you presume your personal ideas of love, sex, comfort, and relationships are the only ones?
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I wouldn’t, if they were my just my personal opinions, but they are not! Sorry!
 
luvmykids said:
It’s just common sense that a healthy young person is made to bring forth life within the sexual act that is suppose to be between a man and a women who love one another. This act is unitive and procreative. It is meant to be that way, otherwise we wouldn’t have children that way. This is the way we were made! I can’t say that enough, because it is so simple, yet people just don’t get it. To explain further, how can you say you love someone enough to fully give youself to them, which is the way it should be in a married relationship, if you are making them “protect” themselves from you. Seeing contraception for what it truly is, it would be insulting and hurtful if my spouse said they wanted to have “relations”, but didn’t want all of me, just some of me. God made us this way…there is nothing sick about it, so we don’t need medication “the pill”, and I don’t need to be protected from my spouse by using a “latex barrier”. A barrier is something that separates, as opposed to bringing together. The other alternative is self-mutilation through surgery. This upsets me whenever I hear someone doing this. I do not judge anyone, I am not upset in a way that I feel angry at the person, or judgemental, but mournful. It makes me sad, because they are destroying a perfectly healthy part of themselves, a sacred part of themselves. It is sad. Not to mention, I believe, physically unhealthy. We all want the instant self gratification, but not the consequences, and if you ask me this is one of those things that has helped the abortion mentality and the downward spiral of our society. We need to learn self control, and respect for others.

I’m sorry if I went into too much detail, but it is hard for me to explain, because the simple answer is never enough to most.
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Interesting way of putting things. I admit for me though I personally feel more loved if I am protected from that part of my husband if you know what I mean? And I know my husband feels that same way too. So for us it would actually be less loving to give ourselves fully to each other then to protect ourselves from each other. But I can understand how if you wanted your spouse to give themselves fully and they did not how they could be less loving.
 
luvmykids said:
I wouldn’t, if they were my just my personal opinions, but they are not! Sorry!
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But I donlt see how they arent? I mean I just showed you in my post beforehand that not all people feel this way. So how is it not just an opinon?
 
lil_flower_luv said:
That is right. And that’s why we have good alternatives…letting God provide or NFP. Or both.
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The thing is God doesn;t always provide. IN fact in general he seems too basically leave us on our own. As for NFP…well yes assuming it works for the couple. NFP doesn;t work for everyone.
 
Calliso said:
The thing is God doesn;t always provide. IN fact in general he seems too basically leave us on our own.
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He will never leave us on our own…it is us who turn away from Him.
As for NFP…well yes assuming it works for the couple. NFP doesn;t work for everyone.
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Common sense doesn’t work for everyone either. 🤷
You know, it is artificial birth control and abortion that really don’t work for you, IMO. Whether they eat away at your body or your soul, they find a way to ruin you.

Blessings,
Therese
 
luvmykids said:
I wouldn’t, if they were my just my personal opinions, but they are not! Sorry!
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OK. Whose opinions are they? You said it was the common sense argument. Is it a common sense argument, or an argument from authority?
 
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