Christ Centered Gamer

Here is your problem.

Everyone has a right to live according to the truth the choose. I'm an anarchist, I agree with this unequivocally. This, by its very nature, means you will also have to accept that others have the innate human right to do the same, even if it's contrary or even blatantly hostile or offensive to your beliefs. You don't see me kvetching about Thor now being a female comic book character.

To insist that they stop, or even that they do so in a more forthright manner is hypocritical in its own right, because it's an insistence that others follow your terms.

Back to the subject at hand, you say you would ban contraceptives outright. I assume you mean as an act of the American government, since the catholic church already bans them (AIDS in Africa? Too bad, we want more children to...play with) at which point you are now forcing large segment of the American population to follow your truth. Yet you complain when an atheist tries to merely convince you of his truth, even though, as you admit freely, you have the option of simply ignoring any opposing viewpoint. This is not only utter hypocrisy it is absolutely egotistical.

The USSC decision, if anything favored catholicism (unless there's some other sect of your young little religion that bans contraception?). DF32 posted one of the Justice's comments that shows that more succinctly than I feel like typing. The fact is, First Amendment be blown from a gun, freedom of religion is an innate human right. And in this country, that's upheld for most Abrahamic religions. If you're pagan, the government tells you to go screw yourself with a baseball bat. Guess how many people fight for creationism to be taught in schools and gaining political traction. Guess how many of those are lobbying, for, say Norse creationism? Ever see the Nine Virtues in front of a courthouse?

All in all, your viewpoint is utterly myopic and selfish to the point of absurdity. Oscar Wilde said it well:

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognises infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses"

To insist that they stop, or even that they do so in a more forthright manner is hypocritical in its own right, because it's an insistence that others follow your terms.

I don't care whether you are pagan, or Lutheran, or atheistic, or Catholic, or creationist, or whatever. As long as you are that, and are that honestly, if not boldly, that's fine. And who knows? Maybe I'm reading Barack Obama, George Soros, etc incorrectly. Maybe they really don't hate Christianity. Maybe they just love their own power. I dunno. But it looks like a hatred of Christianity to me. And if they really do, I wish they'd come out and say it. Don't they have the right? Just because their hatred will be criticised does not mean they are not permitted to hate the critics.

But if you hate something, or love something, you think like it, act like it, and speak like it - otherwise, do you really hate it? I can tell you're fairly genuine in your love, or at least devotion, to your gods. You talk like it. You also talk like a relativist.

I would like to ban contraception not because it's what I believe, but because it is evil. Says my God, yes. Blame my religion or my relationship with God or whatever you like. But the October Revolution occurred because people really believed Karl Marx, Pravda, and Vladimir Lenin would truly solve Russia's problems, not because they were communists. Your fathers worshiped Thor because they really believed Thor was worthy of worship, not because they had the right to worship Thor.

For the same reason, because I believe it to be true, and not because I believe everyone has the right to make up the truth, or believe in a made-up truth, I want you to be free to be Norse. I can't force you to be Catholic; God desires mercy, not sacrifice. Better a merciful pagan than a hypocritical Christian. At the same time, I wish to eradicate contraception because, even from a godless standpoint, it is evil. Not only does the pill insult every fertility god and goddess known to man, but it insults the man (or rather woman) that uses it by making the body sick.

I don't seem to recall there being in any pantheon a god or goddess of infertility, or sterility. Why is it only in the past 100 years we believe there is one?

I think she must have been Simone de Beauvoir.

To be honest I'm interested to hear you arguments against contraception, because I find your claim that its evil to be, well, questionable. Considering that you're calling for an all-out black-and-white society and you'd prefer an all-out war vs. moral/spiritual dishonesty, I'm guessing you're either young or haven't experienced enough actual hardship to know better.

Yeah... I don't get it. It sounds almost as if contraception is an issue of salvation, which is looney even for catholics (because let's face it, whatever the church says, most catholics at least use condoms).

I would rather see an all-out war.

So you'd rather kill me than agree to disagree. Got it.

Yeah, I'm not really down with a fundamentalist, black-and-white society, either. I think that everyone should be allowed to have their own beliefs, and tolerate others who just happen to have different faiths. As long as it's not leading to murders or rampant crime or whatnot.

Of course, that could be more of the Libertarian in me than any spiritual guidance....

ChesterKhan wrote:I wish to eradicate contraception because, even from a godless standpoint, it is evil.

It's actually a massive social good and a necessary component of modern life. I still can't get my head around how incorrect your claims were. Insult to fertility gods? Makes the body sick? I might just be joining Oro with his claim on Poe's law.
Regardless, you seem to be pretty convinced it's a blatant evil. You're going to have to do a lot more 'splainin for that one.

ArchAngel wrote:

ChesterKhan wrote:I wish to eradicate contraception because, even from a godless standpoint, it is evil.

It's actually a massive social good and a necessary component of modern life.

Ah... so many things were that way in the past... war... slavery... infanticide... male domination... religious dogma... I could go on forever.

But of course, humanity can live without anything it grows accustomed to. Some atheists, and even many so-called "religious" people, are a good evidence; in this life, people seem to get along fine without religion.

Man is adaptable. It could go either way, religion, or the pill. As God, who gave us the Catholic faith, imparts a fixed meaning that isn't arbitrary, I'll take religion.

For whomever said most Catholics use contraceptives, yeah. So what? The Church will not change her teaching on contraception's utter moral evil. She's far too humble to contradict God.

Also at Bruce: The definition of moral and theological relativism - the idea that one religion or morality is as good as another - is that truth of that sort is irrelevant. I don't consider that particularly smart or a wise way to build a civilisation or culture. Much better to fight for this truth or that because you consider it to be true, than to let all claims about truth run wild.

And you agree with me, for we both believe the killing of an innocent, healthy adult is evil - an evil called murder. Most people would agree with this statement. But, if any moral truth is as good as another, what about those few who do not? Do we suspend the idea that "it doesn't matter" for one man? If we do, we have a morality that isn't relative - and we'd better have a reason for believing it.

I still can't get my head around how incorrect your claims were. Insult to fertility gods?

I'll admit to being somewhat poetic. However, what's the point of fertility? Do farmers grow wheat because it looks pretty? A fertility deity is prayed to in sexual matters for the same reason the farmer prays for a bumper crop. So it makes sense to me that not only would God be angry with it, but so would Ceres, Aphrodite, Demeter, Rivania, and any other preternatural being who considers it their duty to make men and their kine fertile - fruitful and multiplying.

Makes the body sick?

For one thing, the pill makes a fertile body infertile. Fertility is a natural, healthy quality of a human body. Pregnancy is not a disease, either. So the pill is not enhancing health by preventing pregnancy. Some also make a woman more susceptible to venereal diseases. All in all, the pill only makes it possible for a woman to have sex without getting pregnant. Not really useful; the side effects outweigh the non-existent benefits.

Hormonal contraceptives are also a class 1 carcinogen according to IARC.

Furthermore, while some people give an image of a woman dead with a coat hanger stuck in her crotch, how many people have had sex, thinking there was no chance they would ever have children thanks to the "magical pill", and the woman finds out she is pregnant?

Actually, it doesn't make your body sick at all. In fact, some birth control can even be used to relieve severe acne and other conditions, INCLUDING menopause-induced osteoporosis!

It gives a week of placebo most of the time, and the estrogen drop-off signals the start of another period. It doesn't interrupt any cycles.

What about condoms? The "timing" method? Pulling out? At what point is it evil? The argument, in my opinion, quickly becomes absurd whether you're arguing from a Biblical basis or an ethical one.

ChickenSoup wrote:Actually, it doesn't make your body sick at all. In fact, some birth control can even be used to relieve severe acne and other conditions, INCLUDING menopause-induced osteoporosis!

Very good! And if it can treat that better than anything else can, very good! Let it do that!

But side effects: those aren't disorders in the human body? Contraceptive pills cause a number of symptoms. If we read it, without knowing it was from the pill, it's not difficult to believe they might be from a disease. Or what is nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, irritation of the vagina, discharge from the breasts, or even acne? (Yes, contraceptives can cause acne.)

Granted, even if a pill caused all such side effects, it might still be worth it if it did something for the good of human health. Why, milk of magnesia would not be on the shelves if we feared side-effects. But we take medicine because, whatever disorders it might induce, its benefits outweigh them. Again, I don't see what benefit the pill is offering. It doesn't help the body to overcome a natural disease, or to prevent one.

We can all agree pregnancy is not a disease, right guys?

It gives a week of placebo most of the time, and the estrogen drop-off signals the start of another period. It doesn't interrupt any cycles.

Ah... what do you mean? The entire point of the pill is to delay or prevent menstrual cycles:

http://kidshealth.org/teen/sexual_healt ... birth.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What about condoms? The "timing" method? Pulling out? At what point is it evil? The argument, in my opinion, quickly becomes absurd whether you're arguing from a Biblical basis or an ethical one.

Any method, including NFP (or, as some call it, the "Catholic" birth control) is disordered if the idea behind it is that pregnancy is a disease - i.e, something to be prevented, or "treated" (i.e, by abortion) at all costs.

I think the Catholic Church's understanding - i.e, that all contraception, condoms, etc are evil - works only in light of one subtle but important truth: that all children come by pregnancy and childbirth.

That is how she can at once say every child should be loved, yet also that no child should be killed if it is unwanted - because she does not divorce coitus from human conception.

...does that make sense?

ChesterKhan wrote:Any method, including NFP (or, as some call it, the "Catholic" birth control) is disordered if the idea behind it is that pregnancy is a disease - i.e, something to be prevented, or "treated" (i.e, by abortion) at all costs.

I think the Catholic Church's understanding - i.e, that all contraception, condoms, etc are evil - works only in light of one subtle but important truth: that all children come by pregnancy and childbirth.

That is how she can at once say every child should be loved, yet also that no child should be killed if it is unwanted - because she does not divorce coitus from human conception.

...does that make sense?

So... What do I do when I want to make earth-shattering love with my wife, while also wanting to abstain from having children for the time being?

FYI, I do want children someday, but not any time soon. I have college and a job(as does she) and we would like to get well ahead in life before going down that path. Also, we DO believe that abortion is wrong, and would never do one.

So what do us mere mortals do here? Just not sleep together? Hehe... I don't think she'd consent to that

oregorn1997 wrote:

ChesterKhan wrote:Any method, including NFP (or, as some call it, the "Catholic" birth control) is disordered if the idea behind it is that pregnancy is a disease - i.e, something to be prevented, or "treated" (i.e, by abortion) at all costs.

I think the Catholic Church's understanding - i.e, that all contraception, condoms, etc are evil - works only in light of one subtle but important truth: that all children come by pregnancy and childbirth.

That is how she can at once say every child should be loved, yet also that no child should be killed if it is unwanted - because she does not divorce coitus from human conception.

...does that make sense?

So... What do I do when I want to make earth-shattering love with my wife, while also wanting to abstain from having children for the time being?

FYI, I do want children someday, but not any time soon. I have college and a job(as does she) and we would like to get well ahead in life before going down that path. Also, we DO believe that abortion is wrong, and would never do one.

So what do us mere mortals do here? Just not sleep together? Hehe... I don't think she'd consent to that

Keep it in your pants, of course. After all, the pope knows better than you do what you should be doing in the privacy of your bedroom.

Trying to get yourself to a financial and social stable point in your life before having kids? That's just sick and twisted. How dare you want to provide the best life for your future family. Don't you know sex is pretty much the same thing as kids and that contraception is like infanticide and slavery. You know, because all those things are an "arguable social good."

I'm out. There's no way this can be an serious conversation.

ChesterKhan wrote:

ChickenSoup wrote:Actually, it doesn't make your body sick at all. In fact, some birth control can even be used to relieve severe acne and other conditions, INCLUDING menopause-induced osteoporosis!

Very good! And if it can treat that better than anything else can, very good! Let it do that!

But side effects: those aren't disorders in the human body? Contraceptive pills cause a number of symptoms. If we read it, without knowing it was from the pill, it's not difficult to believe they might be from a disease. Or what is nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, irritation of the vagina, discharge from the breasts, or even acne? (Yes, contraceptives can cause acne.)

and it's all variable per person. Let them decide if it's worth it. Also, many side effects sort themselves out after a few weeks.

[/quote]Granted, even if a pill caused all such side effects, it might still be worth it if it did something for the good of human health. Why, milk of magnesia would not be on the shelves if we feared side-effects. But we take medicine because, whatever disorders it might induce, its benefits outweigh them. Again, I don't see what benefit the pill is offering. It doesn't help the body to overcome a natural disease, or to prevent one.

We can all agree pregnancy is not a disease, right guys?[/quote]

The pill offers you a relatively easy way to keep yourself from conceiving a child before you're ready to have one. Of course pregnancy isn't a disease--however, two college students making a combined 10 grand a year are perhaps not prepared to raise a child.

It gives a week of placebo most of the time, and the estrogen drop-off signals the start of another period. It doesn't interrupt any cycles.

Ah... what do you mean? The entire point of the pill is to delay or prevent menstrual cycles:

http://kidshealth.org/teen/sexual_healt ... birth.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What are you talking about? The point of the pill is to act as birth control. That's why it's called birth control. Their effectiveness is comparable to condoms, except without the annoying "wearing a condom" part. Most common pills come in either a 21 or a 28 day pack. The 21 day pack leaves out the last week, and the 28 day pack has the last 7 pills as sugar pills, or a placebo. This is because the pills are estrogen, and the estrogen dropoff signals the female body to start the menstrual cycle. Some women find the regularity more appealing. There are pills that put off having a period for a while, but those aren't the most common.

Also, "kidshealth.org" is scraping the bottom of the barrel for sources in an argument like this.

What about condoms? The "timing" method? Pulling out? At what point is it evil? The argument, in my opinion, quickly becomes absurd whether you're arguing from a Biblical basis or an ethical one.

Any method, including NFP (or, as some call it, the "Catholic" birth control) is disordered if the idea behind it is that pregnancy is a disease - i.e, something to be prevented, or "treated" (i.e, by abortion) at all costs.

I think the Catholic Church's understanding - i.e, that all contraception, condoms, etc are evil - works only in light of one subtle but important truth: that all children come by pregnancy and childbirth.

That is how she can at once say every child should be loved, yet also that no child should be killed if it is unwanted - because she does not divorce coitus from human conception.

...does that make sense?[/quote]

No, it doesn't. You keep insisting that people who use birth control treat pregnancy as a disease, but no one is actually arguing that. Heck, I've been to 3 different colleges and even the party-hardy people didn't argue that. Some people either aren't ready to raise a child, do not desire a child (whether at the moment or at any point in their life), or know they don't have the means to properly raise one. Calling a decision evil because someone is trying to be responsible is foolish.

And by the way, there are certainly many, many more reasons for coitus than conception. That's another argument entirely, though.

ArchAngel wrote:Trying to get yourself to a financial and social stable point in your life before having kids? That's just sick and twisted. How dare you want to provide the best life for your future family. Don't you know sex is pretty much the same thing as kids and that contraception is like infanticide and slavery. You know, because all those things are an "arguable social good."

I'm out. There's no way this can be an serious conversation.

I hear ya.

oregorn1997 wrote: So... What do I do when I want to make earth-shattering love with my wife, while also wanting to abstain from having children for the time being?

FYI, I do want children someday, but not any time soon. I have college and a job(as does she) and we would like to get well ahead in life before going down that path. Also, we DO believe that abortion is wrong, and would never do one.

So what do us mere mortals do here? Just not sleep together? Hehe... I don't think she'd consent to that

Oh man. I love you.

ChickenSoup wrote:

oregorn1997 wrote: So... What do I do when I want to make earth-shattering love with my wife, while also wanting to abstain from having children for the time being?

FYI, I do want children someday, but not any time soon. I have college and a job(as does she) and we would like to get well ahead in life before going down that path. Also, we DO believe that abortion is wrong, and would never do one.

So what do us mere mortals do here? Just not sleep together? Hehe... I don't think she'd consent to that

Oh man. I love you.

Ditto. Totally did not expect that from a MC-kiddie.


As for the rest of this discussion, well, there's no cure for being a queynte I guess.

oregorn1997 wrote:
So... What do I do when I want to make earth-shattering love with my wife, while also wanting to abstain from having children for the time being?

You figure out when her body is at its least fertile. There are several methods of doing this, which are collectively called "Natural Family Planning". Some methods involve vaginal mucus, for example, among other things. But all of them determine how your wife's body works biologically, and what the best way is to keep it running optimally. So it can be used not only to prevent pregnancy, or to increase the health of your wife's reproductive and urinary organs, but also her whole self. It can even be used to increase the likelihood of pregnancy.

How can it do all this? Basically the same way any scientist does something: by getting to know it. NFP is intended to help you get to know you and your wife's bodies, and thereby to control them.

Contraception of any form looks like the blind faith atheists often accuse Christians of - and which many Christians often profess. NFP, done properly and for the right reasons, should be an act of philomathy and mutual love.

Or do you not love your wife enough to get to know her body?

And you forget about one other thing: whenever you have sex - even with the pill, even with a vasectomy, you always have a chance, however small, of producing another human being from that act. What will you do when that happens?

If you really are not ready, don't take the chance. Just stay away. Abstinence is the only absolute way not to get pregnant. Period. All other methods can and do fail. Don't let yourself become a statistic. You could be the one out of a thousand. Do not let it happen to you. Don't let your child become a statistic, that once again shows that contraception is not the foundation of a good family or raising children well.

So what do us mere mortals do here? Just not sleep together? Hehe... I don't think she'd consent to that

Will you die if you don't have sex? Will your child be unable to eat if it were born into the world nine months from now? You have a lot more power than you think. And if you don't, if you really are eating Ramen noodles every night and driving a clunker, society is more willing to help you. There are food banks, charities, that would more than willing to help you in your need.

Even if that weren't a concern, even if you just want sex without life, you'll have to take it up with the guy who invented the human anatomy. For some odd reason, He thought it prudent to mix pleasure with reproduction. My guess is because happiness, at its best, is a creative force. You can try and divorce sex from babymaking. The body will fight it. And what will you do if your best efforts to wall sex and children from each other collapses? What will you do if you bring a child into the world despite your efforts to prevent that from happening?

I'm not saying you should just give in and have all the sex you want. Nobody needs sex to live. It is a need of the species, but not of each member thereof. Anyone can do without it. Priests, monks, and especially bishops in the Orthodox Churches are abstinent all the time. There was actually once a group of Christians called Shakers where none of the members ever had sex. Granted, most people are not called to such a life all the time.

But if we can give up two hours of our lives standing in a line for some concert or something we'll forget about a year from now, or if we can give up a month of our lives working in drudgery for the sake of a weekend in Honolulu with our beloved, or give up sixty years of our lives for a blissful, carefree retirement, why can't we give up part of a month for the sake of our spouses, our children, and their welfare? Are you so strong in matters of money, but so weak in matters of sex?

If so... we personally - and probably as a nation - seriously need help. I know I do. I know my own weaknesses, and I am not proud of them. You should get to know what you're doing, and what threat it might pose to your future children, to your spouse, to your society. Even to yourself.

And you would not be the first one who said they didn't want children, and they wouldn't abort, but who did so anyway. Half of all unintended pregnancies end in abortions - Guttmacher says that. We are capable of much if we have a reason to do so, however stupid. Don't tempt yourself. It's not worth it.