What do we do when there are too many people on the planet?

[JimG]

NFP would be contraception only if not having sex is contraception.
Not having sex never results in pregnancy.

 

[buffalo]

I will start with - “Trust that God anticipated this” He said, “Be fruitful and multiply” .

Also -
Matthew 6:26 26 Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are?

27 Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life?

28 And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin;

29 yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these.

30 Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith?

31 So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? What are we to wear?”

32 It is the gentiles who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all.

33 Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God’s saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well.

34 So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’

 

[anon65111186]

That is why you’re a deacon and I’m a layman. Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut and insight, that is probably the clearest post on here about “open to life” yet. Thank you Deacon Jeff!

 

[Vonsalza]

I’ll take a stab, but I’m not sure I’ll convince you

NFP works with God’s design for the woman’s body.

Contraception works against the design of the body of whichever partner is using it.

If so, then the answer is that the Catholic definition of contraception is much more specific than, say, Oxfords;

“The deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse.”

NFP would most certainly fall under “other techniques” as most would comfortably interpret it.
As such, I guess Voltaire was right. It boils down to semantics.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Vonsalza]

In and of itself, I wouldn’t argue.

But I think the “abstinence” of NFP is much more deliberate and targeted.

your snark…

None offered. But nothing I can do about your interpretation.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Vonsalza]

NFP is not chemical contraception but Natural…

It seems that’s ultimately the Catholic line on the issue.

Artificial contraception is wrong, but “natural” contraception is ok (insomuch as you can call ovulation tests “natural”). And obviously onanism is at least non-artificial, but is also prohibited.

It’s an interesting target to hit.

 

[Vonsalza]

Flatly incorrect sir. Please re-read.

“the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse.”

No one’s arguing that the majority of the contraceptive methods used require some sort of object or artifice. No argument there at all, from me at least.

But the presentation that contraception is exclusively artificial is a falsehood rooted in ideology and bias. Onanism is quite obviously contraceptive and obviously non-artificial, if not “natural”.

As a last concern, have a gaze at the etymology of the word itself.

However, given the obvious threat to the views of some that a less ideologically encumbered definition of “contraception” presents, I offer the information as gently and charitably as I can.

 

[IWantGod]

Flatly incorrect sir. Please re-read.

“the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse.”

There’s no getting around the fact that NFP is a form of birth control. It’s just a natural form. To suggest otherwise is just a game of semantics and i agree with you on this point.

So someone has to argue why a natural kind is good and an unnatural kind is bad. I think its a legitimate debate to be had even if by obedience to the faith we reject unnatural forms of birth control.

Better somebody say i don’t know, because the arguments given so far are not quite clicking for me just yet.

 

[Vonsalza]

As an aside, I have difficulty accepting the notion that ovulation tests are supposedly in accord with Gods plan - particularly how novel they are as applied to the 99.5% effective executions of NFP.

Before modern medicine got a hold of it, “when does my wife ovulate” was largely a guessing game shrouded in mysticism.

 

[buglady]

Long ago, I read a fiction book “Boom!” and it was pretty good. It was about a time when people who were getting on in years had to make a decision. 1.) Live their life as long as they are able to. 2.) OR agree to suicide if they live to 70, thus increasing the benefits they receive for promising to end it all.

It was at that time a stupid premise. How could they enforce someone in committing suicide if they changed their minds? Now I am not so sure that it won’t happen. I have read that there are more older people on earth than ever; because of abortion, there are not enough young people to carry on. Our earth is not overpopulated. Too many people think it is, but people die every day and there are a lot of disasters.

 

[IWantGod]

I could be wrong, but i think it was Pope Benedict who said it was acceptable to use a prophylactic when the sole intention was to “reduce the risk of infection” from Aids.

So it is at least not wrong in every conceivable instance.

For example if my wife has HIV, surely i would not be committing sin to use a condom, because in that instance it is not being used as a contraceptive but rather to protect my life.

Again, i could be wrong, and i accept any correction on the matter.

 

[Elizabeth3]

As someone who has also tried it, vaginal temperature readings, cervical mucus viscosity comparisons and the fact that literally any old thing can throw it off (like certain antibiotics, as an example) makes it a less than ideal solution.

As a poster in that thread pointed out, she found using it to be a great way to get pregnant.

Let’s support the science that will allow us to detect ovulation with better precision and accuracy, even in women whose cycles aren’t regular, so that NFP is a more reasonable solution for couples who need to use it for serious reasons AND if the population situation on the planet ever gets so dire, the Church will be able to tell us the moral thing to do about it when the time comes.

 

[IWantGod]

AND if the population situation on the planet ever gets so dire, the Church will be able to tell us the moral thing to do about it when the time comes.

I’ve got a bad feeling the Church is going to say no sex for anyone anymore. Everybody stop. Lol.

 

[Vonsalza]

Here’s what I know, buglady.

There were fewer than 1 billion folks on the earth for all of human history until 1800.
Now there’s 7.6 billion of us.
The earth is only so large and folks are only so willing to surrender their freedoms in order to accommodate additional people.

“Over-populated” is a subjective term. Are we over-populated when we’re observably changing the composition of our atmosphere? We’re already there.

Are we over populated when every non-agriculturally useful animal is extinct an 100% of arable or near-arable land is being used to feed us? No. We’re not close to that hellscape yet.

 

[anon65111186]

The earth is only so large

Watch this, interesting point about the amount of space on earth.

 

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

The earth is only so large

Watch this, interesting point about the amount of space on earth.

I saw it in the other forum. And it makes an interesting point.

I saw another one in some place that stated that all the human beings on the planet could be packed into a cube the size of a large building or something like that.

It’s a nice conversation starter, but if the government comes along to ask you to do that, you gonna oblige?

I wouldn’t…

 

[anon65111186]

It’s a nice conversation starter, but if the government comes along to ask you to do that, you gonna oblige?

I wouldn’t…

Unless they paid for everything, probably not. Depends on how luxurious it was and what amenities etc were there. I wouldn’t mind living in it if it was like a resort and I could travel outside freely.

 

[IWantGod]

At the very least if everybody was packed in the same space, the use of a nuclear weapon would be completely off the books.

 

[IWantGod]

 

[anon65111186]

At the very least if everybody was packed in the same space, the use of a nuclear weapon would be completely off the books.

It would be like America on steroids, without immigration problems haha. It would have to be one world government, if it was one world city. If God had His way, I think it would be a City of God, where Catholicism was the state religion.