Supreme Court backs Hobby Lobby re Contraception

[Bruce_Campbell]

So why is NFB okay and using a condom wrong? Sounds like gaming the system to me.

[ChickenSoup]

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.

I have to ask you: are you in some kind of relationship, and how old are you?

Is sex everything? No. However, writing it off as irrelevant to being human, especially with your spouse is a little naive.

And dude. You have absolutely no room for argument in a topic in which you first dismiss birth control as evil because it disregards pregnancy and then, in the same breath, talk about how you can play the game (so to speak) and use NFB to reduce pregnancy risk. It's hypocritical, and I'm not having it.

"You could just test her vaginal mucus--or don't you love her enough?"

Really? REALLY? You're talking to a bunch of people who are either married or engaged and want 1) to be close with their wives and 2) have kids only when they are ready.

I am guessing you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about pertaining to point number 1 there, or at least have little experience with relationships. Or maybe you're married and have had sex every once and again and don't see the point or something, I don't know. In that case, you'd be in the slim minority beyond any shadow of a doubt. I love my fiancee more than life itself, and these guys obviously adore their wives. Do you honestly think that love is a barrier to some birth control practice? Cut the crap.

Moving on from the condescension, I have this to add: the funny thing about people who laud the benefits of abstinence and go on about how "we don't really need sex, guys" is that they're all single, whether on purpose or otherwise. Don't get me wrong--I've been there, and I get it. However, I'm now engaged to my girlfriend of 5 years and I regard any such opinions as largely naive and inexperienced. Am I a virgin? Yes, I've stayed patient. Do I resent a little bit that there's one level of close, soul-connecting passion and love expressed in one complex act that I'm not supposed to do yet? Yes, a bit. Because I recognize that it's a deep, connecting part of what makes us human, and judging it based on how we regard pregnancy is trivializing the issue.

Also, you haven't even provided any Biblical support, man. The first thing Genesis says after God made Eve was how a husband and wife are so tightly connected--"Flesh of my flesh," and all that. And that is why a man leaves his parents and becomes one with his wife, etc. etc.

Not "to further the human race," not "for reproductive purposes," but because they are one.

I hope you can experience that connection with someone someday.

So why is NFB okay and using a condom wrong? Sounds like gaming the system to me.

Because otherwise someone couldn't feel condescending about birth control. I suspect it's the same feeling uninformed people get when they talk about taking gluten and GMOs out of their diets and leaving their kids unvaccinated, or something.

[Bruce_Campbell]

Eh, I'm not going to attack the guy's personal life. He could be happily married for all I know. I just find it insanely hypocritical that he's so gung-ho against condoms because they prevent pregnancy while advocating a practice whose sole intent is to prevent pregnancy. What the heck is the difference?

[ChickenSoup]

Protip: there isn't any.

"don't treat pregnancy like a curse or a disease, guys. Pills and condoms are a sin.

...Just have sex only at the times it is very unlikely for her to get pregnant so you can plan your family naturally."

Wat

[ChesterKhan]

You guys don't know how to read, do you? That's not at all what I said. Thank you for twisting my words, assuming I am a hypocrite and a crazy loon because I am a devout Catholic - or for whatever reason - and lambasting me without even understanding what I am saying. And sadly, I don't think you understand.

I'm done. You guys clearly do not wish to give me the benefit of the doubt. You assume the worst about me. We're unable to talk rationally to each other as it stands.

[ChickenSoup]

You guys don't know how to read, do you? That's not at all what I said. Thank you for twisting my words, assuming I am a hypocrite and a crazy loon because I am a devout Catholic - or for whatever reason - and lambasting me without even understanding what I am saying. And sadly, I don't think you understand.

I'm done. You guys clearly do not wish to give me the benefit of the doubt. You assume the worst about me. We're unable to talk rationally to each other as it stands.

You threw out rationality when you called birth control evil but natural family planning a Godly alternative

[Bruce_Campbell]

Yeah, I'm just gonna say you've made zero attempt to answer why condoms are okay but your method is okay. It's like you're arguing that it's wrong to cut your steak with a steak knife, but if you use scissors it's a-ok. Could you answer that one?

But then I'm about 75% convinced dude is a Poe, so whatever.

[ChickenSoup]

He didn't even put out (heh heh) any Biblical support. I mean, I don't think there is any, but normally there's a least a slew of verses taken out of context to make a point

[ArchAngel]

I'm not so sure biblical support is terribly important to the Catholic mindset. It's more doctrine and dogma. Protestants have no physical authority save the Bible, but Catholics look to the Vatican. At the very core, they have two fundamentally different centers of authority to which they claim the path to God and truth. I find this all very interesting.

[Sstavix]

I'm not so sure biblical support is terribly important to the Catholic mindset. It's more doctrine and dogma. Protestants have no physical authority save the Bible, but Catholics look to the Vatican. At the very core, they have two fundamentally different centers of authority to which they claim the path to God and truth. I find this all very interesting.

Actually, Arch, I think you may have something there. It's possible that there is some "failure to communicate" because we're working with different source material.

CK - can I call you CK? I keep wanting to call you "Doctor Khan because of your avatar. Anyway, I can sympathize with your plight a bit. As one of the (three?) Mormons on the site, I often find that my own understandings and interpretations are a bit different from the majority here. Most of them come from Protestant traditions, so they have little interest in the goings-on of our own spiritual leaders (for you and other Catholics, the Holy See, for the Church of Latter-day Saints, this would be the Prophet and his Apostles), and likely don't recognize their spiritual authority. I personally have found that, when I'm citing things unique to my faith, that it helps to point this out in my post similar to what I've done here. Of course, when I'm talking about things that are my own personal beliefs - and NOT an official church position - I try to point that out, too. I am not a church authority (I don't even have a calling in the bishopric of my branch), and as a convert, there's still quite a few things I don't completely understand right now.

But one thing to keep in mind is that, despite our differences, all of us (well, most of us) are all brothers and sisters in Christ and share a testimony of the gospels. We all know and recognize the Old and New Testaments and can use that as common ground in our religious discussions. But when we venture outside these common grounds, we should explain our sources and be fully prepared for the rejection of those opinions. But that's all we can offer is our own opinions and interpretations. And just because others may have different opinions or interpretations doesn't mean we should love them any less. Even those who are not Christians on the site. Come on guys, group hug!

~ ~ ~

Anywho, related to the actual topic, I read an article that the Satanic Temple is now insisting on religious exemptions based on the Hobby Lobby decision. As DeepFreeze pointed out much earlier in this thread, Ginsburg implied that this kind of thing might happen. Now if anyone could find a practicing Satanist who also owns a business that's willing to take the case to court (if they can even find a case, that is), then who knows what would happen? I personally think that's a slim likelihood (mainly because any CEO who comes out as a practicing Satanist will likely see their business dry up really quick), but it could happen....

[Bruce_Campbell]

Sstavix, there is definitely something to that. I grew up in various Protestant denominations, and they tended to be very centered on the (Protestant) Bible. I assume the birth control thing is probably from something outside the Bible (I'm not familiar enough with Catholicism to say where).

Heck, my youth pastor once held up his Bible and say, "This is God. We worship this." Most pastors may not be so blatant about it, but from a Protestant point of view he really wasn't far off, at least in practice. I seriously doubt that sort of thing would fly in Mormon or Catholic circles!

[Sstavix]

Heck, my youth pastor once held up his Bible and say, "This is God. We worship this." Most pastors may not be so blatant about it, but from a Protestant point of view he really wasn't far off, at least in practice. I seriously doubt that sort of thing would fly in Mormon or Catholic circles!

Eesh... that sort of thing sets off my spiritual "spidey sense," as it were, and would have even before I was a member of the LDS. We should worship God, not the Bible. The Bible is a useful guidebook, definitely, and should not be discounted in terms of its value in a spiritual journey... but to worship it? That seems dangerously close to violating the Second Commandment.

[Bruce_Campbell]

Heck, my youth pastor once held up his Bible and say, "This is God. We worship this." Most pastors may not be so blatant about it, but from a Protestant point of view he really wasn't far off, at least in practice. I seriously doubt that sort of thing would fly in Mormon or Catholic circles!

Eesh... that sort of thing sets off my spiritual "spidey sense," as it were, and would have even before I was a member of the LDS. We should worship God, not the Bible. The Bible is a useful guidebook, definitely, and should not be discounted in terms of its value in a spiritual journey... but to worship it? That seems dangerously close to violating the Second Commandment.

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking at the time, even as a teenager. Even now as an atheist, I'd say that it makes more sense to have leadership (the pope, prophet, etc.) that hears directly from the horse's mouth than to rely solely on a book that was written a couple of thousand years ago. And yeah, it smacks of idol worship too.

[ArchAngel]

I, personally, am more of a fan to the decentralization in protestant methodology.

[ChickenSoup]

I do my own thing mostly because a few years ago I began to hesitate associating myself with most denominations