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JFonseka
Guest
All the better then, why go for the artificial methods when the God given ‘natural’ methods work better ?
Furthermore, what the poster above said was also right.
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Furthermore, what the poster above said was also right.
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FLCathMom
Guest
We are not allowed to do anything against the natural law.
Humans plan when to plant crops.
If planning was against natural law, then it would be immoral to plan anything.
Humans plan when to plant crops.
If planning was against natural law, then it would be immoral to plan anything.
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Em_in_FL
Guest
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Kay_Cee
Guest
NFP has to do with a woman’s fertility and with her conceiving or not. It has nothing to do with the delivery of a baby.
Montalban, if you can’t understand something that basic, I’m through discussing this with you.
Montalban, if you can’t understand something that basic, I’m through discussing this with you.
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Joab_Anias
Guest
Most certainly are.
A womans time of ovulation is completely natural and being aware of that is not prevention.
Then you err. This is not what Paul says at all. He says its “better to marry than to burn”. This is not saying its better to be lustful in marriage than out. Thats just stupid.
Because you don’t admit or cant understand what is correctly taught and that one is conducive to Gods will and the other is not is not circular. Your lack of understanding is. It points to a lack of prayer if you ask me.
Interesting that you think arguing for the sake of arguing is cowardice. Do you really? It seems like you intentionally troll and antagonize catholics to me. Many ask you questions you fail to answer and its obvious you don’t research the facts. Theres only one thing that would prove you don’t enjoy causing strife among catholics and that would be to cease and assist your provocations. As your from the schismatic mind set I bet that is nearly impossible for you.
What you do isn’t debate. Its spewing your own bigotry and prejudice. You think you can label whole demographics into clam shells and thus have a totally closed mind to even when your wrong because you wont come to try and understand an opposing point of view. Were not talking a dogma here that can’t be changed or organically better understood. Its common sense what everyone here has said to you and like some Moslems you are just as obstinate because you cant see past the fact of who its coming at you from past your “us and them” mentality. Your hardly emulating Christ but are behaving as a Pharasee.
I don’t ignore anything but you have slung so much mud why should I believe such an unfounded accusation from you? Besides even if it were true it would mean nothing. So what if a few catholics may have had a missunderstanding. You dont understand it? The big difference is they want to get at the truth because they know if its Holy Spirit breathed but you care only about pointing out contradiction in someones understanding to re-inforce your own self righteousness and apparently have no desire to learn what is right or not.
You are twisting when you attempt to change the meaing of natural to be contraceptive as you have done all through this thread. You are only sewing confusion and we know confusion is not of God. We never were discussing. Thats my whole point, you don’t discuss. If it makes you uncomfortable to hear my opinions aimed at your psyche then I suggest you try opening your mind and getting in touch with your God and think twice about how your treating people once in a while. Theres a reason you cant drag support form the EO forum over here you know? Theres no place for schism outside your own little world.
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manualman
Guest
Appeal to the masses
I never said this either. I said Paul recognised that we have urges. He also recognised that some may not be able to control those urges and therefore it’s better to have those urges within marriage
- Which, by the way I spent several pages saying it was, because many Catholics argued it wasn’t
You may have missed that- I have never argued that Catholics believe you can only have sex when she’s fertile. Thanks for the straw-man.
Using NFP: Is there a strong chance you will not conceive?
- Which is what NFP does.
con·tra·cep·tion –noun
the deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation by any of various drugs,techniques, or devices; birth control.
dictionary.reference.com/browse/contraception
Yes; that’s the very reason people undertake this
It is a means of preventing conception; it is contra conception.
- That’s simply your opinion on the motives of people who use condoms and other devices. You don’t know that all people think like this. It’s actually rather a smug sense of moral superiority developed by creating a false dichotomy between the means of contraception you practice and that practiced by others.
- All catholic moral teaching is consistant with Natural Law. Not all CATHOLICS (including me) know all the philosophical underpinnings and can explain them and defend them in detail. I read your posts. You twisted the definition of Natural Law to the point where you lead some unwitting catholic posters to reject the Natural Law underpinnings of Church teaching of contraception based on YOUR faulty definition of Natural Law. I suggest you spend some of your prayer / examination of conscience time today discerning whether you take greater joy in people learning the truth or in undermining people’s catholic faith by any means availabe.
- I never said you did. Thanks for the ad hom. You separated this section out, but it is organically connected to the next. Read it again all together. I’m making the point that IF (and I’m glad you agree) it is not immoral by Natural Law for a couple to have relations in the non-fertile time and IF it is acceptable to couples to abstain during fertile time by mutual consent (which you also seem to agree) THEN we have already proven that NFP is not a violation of Natural Law because those two elements SUM UP NFP.
- No it doesn’t. Read this next sentence twice. In contraception, the couple DOES have sex regardless of whether it is the fertile time or not. In NFP, the couple does NOT during the fertile time. If you don’t see any difference, you need to spend more time in your own ascetic tradition. Secular dictionaries do not make catholic moral distinctions.
- No, it is not my opinion and it is not about MOTIVE. This is what catholic moral theology predicts the EFFECTS of contraceptives use on the couple will be. Sin isn’t sin because it is an activity on an arbitrary list. It is sin because it damages the human soul and its ability to give and receive love.(Humanae Vitae is a quick read - try it out) Again, think and reflect about the difference in light of other ways in which our faith considers the interaction between the physical and spiritual (fasting for example). Rebukers always come off as smug to those being rebuked. We can try and mitigate it, but you can’t eliminate it. This is why scripture so often shows people trying to kill the prophets.
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DanteAlighieri
Guest
The use of a condom or the pill or some other type of ABC is a rejection of God’s design for the sake of immediate gratification, as evidenced by the fact that **affirmative steps are taken **to PREVENT the egg and sperm from meeting.
On the other hand, abstaining from sex is not a refusal to conceive, per se; it’s a mutual sacrifice in which man and wife go without sex because there is grave reason to postpone pregnancy. No affirmative steps are taken to prevent conception, because there is not intercourse.
Do you not see the difference? ABC enables a couple to thumb their noses at the natural, at God’s will; NFP enables a couple to embrace the natural. The couple sacrifice for and with one another when necessary – not when it’s expedient – thus maintaining their own and each other’s dignity AND remaining open to God’s will.
Perhaps a distinction is needed: natural in this context does not mean animalistic or biological. It has more to do with the nature for which we are to strive.
Peace,
Dante
On the other hand, abstaining from sex is not a refusal to conceive, per se; it’s a mutual sacrifice in which man and wife go without sex because there is grave reason to postpone pregnancy. No affirmative steps are taken to prevent conception, because there is not intercourse.
Do you not see the difference? ABC enables a couple to thumb their noses at the natural, at God’s will; NFP enables a couple to embrace the natural. The couple sacrifice for and with one another when necessary – not when it’s expedient – thus maintaining their own and each other’s dignity AND remaining open to God’s will.
Perhaps a distinction is needed: natural in this context does not mean animalistic or biological. It has more to do with the nature for which we are to strive.
Peace,
Dante
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manualman
Guest
Dante makes a superb point that dovetails with one I made.
The ‘Natural’ in NFP does not refer to a lack of applied intellect or planning (animalistic, he put it), it refers to the fact that it is harmonious with Natural Law (properly defined!).
In NFP used to avoid, the couple has sex during infertile time (proved above to be OK with NL) and abstains during the fertile time (also proven OK above).
With contraception (catholic definition), the couple engages in sex during the fertile time, but uses teachnological means to defeat the natural procreative function of human sexuality. THAT is what violates NL. As I pointed out long ago, it is morally the same difference as between dieting to lose weight and binge/purging to lose weight.
The ‘Natural’ in NFP does not refer to a lack of applied intellect or planning (animalistic, he put it), it refers to the fact that it is harmonious with Natural Law (properly defined!).
In NFP used to avoid, the couple has sex during infertile time (proved above to be OK with NL) and abstains during the fertile time (also proven OK above).
With contraception (catholic definition), the couple engages in sex during the fertile time, but uses teachnological means to defeat the natural procreative function of human sexuality. THAT is what violates NL. As I pointed out long ago, it is morally the same difference as between dieting to lose weight and binge/purging to lose weight.
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JFonseka
Guest
So far we have had
montalban lost this debate.
- bad definitions of natural law
- incorrect understanding of ‘natural’ in the context of intimacy and parenthood
- chaos theory
- bad analogies
- assumptions that what is planned is always unnatural
montalban lost this debate.
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ForeverAdam
Guest
Of course.
The “natural” outcome of marital relations is for the marital relations to be done according to God’s plan. If his plan is for couples to never attempt to keep procreation from occurring in the marital act, then both NFP and non-abortive ABC are condemned. What is “natural” in the human schema only has value insofar as it is a reflection of God’s eternal law.
God created the infertility, but you introduced it into the marital act, thus you deliberately made the act non-procreative. Without your use of NFP, that marital act would have possessed a fair chance at being procreative. God creates the infertility in NFP, just as a factory creates the latex in condoms. However, the responsibility comes in when we use these things to deliberately make the marital act infertile.
God bless,
Adam
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mercygate
Guest
The couple does not “introdouce” the infertility. The infertility would be there whether or not they knew it and whether or not they came together in the conjugal act at that time. The infertile period is simply a fact of the human fertility cycle.
No, it would not. THAT particular marital act, during an infertile period, whether planned or unplanned, would have the SAME chance of being procreative.
Not even the most enthusiastic supporter of barrier contraceptives could fail to see the fallacy in this statement.
The COUPLE does not MAKE the act infertile. They pursue the marital embrace in the same way they would during a fertile period. They do not obstruct, thwart, interrupt, or distort, or add a foreign contraption or chemical into a natural human act of intercourse.
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BeeSweet
Guest
I have not deliberately made the act non-procreative, it exists as it does because God made it that way. No matter when I have sex with my husband, he’s always fertile, so there’s your fair chance. I could possibly ovulate outside of what we understand to be my normal cycle, yet another fair chance. That’s the point of NFP. We are still open to possibility of having another child. We are so open to it, we know exactly the right time to have sexual relations to increase our chances of having another one.
The only thing different between a couple who practices NFP, and those who either use contraception or rely on divine providence is a knowledge of the woman’s body and how the shared fertility between a man and a woman works. This knowledge is beneficial for more than just planning sexual relations to determine when you will add children to your family. This knowledge is beneficial in knowing the woman’s overall health. I don’t see why folks get so up in arms about a couple abstaining from sexual relations. It’s a shared decision. I’m not holding out on my husband, or he on me as it would be if either of us practiced contraception. We are there for each other just as God made us, and we enjoy each other at our own discretion just as God intended.
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manualman
Guest
Adam, your argument would only make sense from a NL basis if humans worked such that EVERY act of sex caused the woman to ovulate and potentially become pregnant. Some species work that way. Humans don’t. Human females are only fertile at certain time, yet they are also able to be aroused during non-fertile times (though its harder!). Thus, Natural Law does not indicate that every act of sex should lead to new life, nor does the Catholic Church teach this. Instead NL shows that it IS morally fine for couple to go for it during infertile times. It does NOT necessarily follow that this grants the couple license to RENDER the woman infertile during a fertile time for the convenience and passion of the couple.
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agangbern
Guest
I, too, don’t believe that planning makes an act unnatural. In fact, it is part of man’s rational nature to plan. Man, for example, plans at what age he may get married; where and when he and his partner may have sex. The plan does not make them unnatural.
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Julian_Peters
Guest
Thank you to all who have participated. This thread is now closed.
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