Contraception

[The_Professor]

Unadulterated feldercarb!

Nice to hear that awe-inspiring condescending tone! Wow! Do it again. Please. I desparately need another hit.

[Amianthus]

[snip]

One would wonder why an omniscient being couldn't figure all this out. Forgot about geometric progressions?

[Amianthus]

From a time of ignorance (1968 years ago, give or take four years), some posit eternal wisdom.

And our ancestors from 2,000 were not as ignorant as most moderns assume. It's the height of arrogance to assume so.

[sirs]

......From a time when sex was a duty, nay, a chore, some try to perpetuate it as a burden in an age when learning, experience and the needs of society celebrate its naturalness as a regular and integral part of human life, essential in its exercise not its repression.

 

[sirs]

I guess we're to assume that gipper walks in and around his house naked, since by all concepts of humanity, that is as natural as being human can get.  No repression in the gipper household   

[Universe Prince]

So family size has dwindled to where having a large family is looked upon as an oddity. Many married couples see children as a burden and choose lifestyles that exclude them or at the least, minimizes their interaction with their children. Individualism is the name of the game. What gives me self-fulfillment? What choices can I make for me?

And one of those choices is contraception, which is the sin of Onanism and at its heart - one of the most selfish decisions one can make.

That is my position.

Is it your assertion then that sex should only take place with intent to conceive and never merely for pleasure? And if we're going to use Old Testament as our values guide, is ejaculation during sex something that makes the participants unclean?

[Lanya]

OK, this is going to be really uncouth so if you want to skip it, do so.  Beware. 

I have this Monty Pythonesque image of someone going around a village saying, "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"  and abashed, shamefaced boys and men would bring out towels....sheets....whatever the poor dead little sperm were on.

But that's silly. 

Natural birth control is, as I understand it, a method where you figure out when you're most likely to be fertile, and avoid having sex on those days.  So you're deliberately spilling your seed on unfertile ground.  Is this a sin?  Shouldn't you only be allowed to have sex on the 7-10 days a month when the woman probably IS fertile?   

How is this any different from taking the pill?  It has some risk to it?  It MIGHT not work?  Is that why it's approved? 

[Plane]

From a time of ignorance (1968 years ago, give or take four years), some posit eternal wisdom. From a time when propagation was needed, some telescope forward the same rules for a time of human saturation. From a time of primitive-to-nonexisting science, some attempt to bind the human mind and spirit with arcanities from bygone years. From a time when sex was mysterious, we project forward into a modern enlightened time  benighted notions that bedevil our humanity. From a time when sex was a duty, nay, a chore, some try to perpetuate it as a burden in an age when learning, experience and the needs of society celebrate its naturalness as a regular and integral part of human life, essential in its exercise not its repression.

Would it be a good idea to rewrite the diffrence between right and wrong on a regular basis?

[The_Professor]

Already being sone, Plane. On a regular basis. As cultural mores become more entrenched farther away from Absolute Right and Wrong, this process only continues.

As far as an earlier post, did not Onan refuse a direct order from God? If so, this is not his punishment "just"?

Reproductive rights is, in my mind, yet another example of how the god of Technology, is impacting societal issues. Other examples are cloning ("does a cloned person, whih is surely soon to happen, have a "soul"? does it/he/she have al lthe rights of any other citizen? is it/he/she covers by Government programs? and so on), transplants ("I remember Pat Robetrson saying that a person who has a transplanted heart has some spiritual issues now), reproductive techs such as the new male contraceptive) and so on.

This issues will play themselves out in society in various forms from legislative to legal to the workplace and on and on and it will be intriguing to see how society isthereby shaped.

Ad yet, being a Luddite will only get you passed over in the race for supremacy. SO, then, is embracing Technology the correct path? Can we be in some trouble for doing so? And, yet, is it the "right" thing to do sometimes? (as in not allowing the cloning of humans)

[kimba1]

technology is just tool.

it`s how we use it
just because we can clone does not mean we will.
remember we had the nuke for decades and humanity has not used it very often.
it really is something to be proud of.
if it`s religion we`re talking about
would any theocracy say no to genocide of their enemies.

I remember a christian group trying to create a war during Y2K in the middle east
hoping to bring doomdays alittle quicker.

[_JS]

I find that Wicipiedia agrees with me even if Augistine doesn't.

No offense, but I'll take Augustine over Wikipedia any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

Is it your assertion then that sex should only take place with intent to conceive and never merely for pleasure?

No. There is certainly a great deal that can be achieved by love between a husband and wife that transcends pure biological conception. Yet, one should always be open to that possibility.

And if we're going to use Old Testament as our values guide, is ejaculation during sex something that makes the participants unclean?

No. The first clause is a false premise and the second clause is a an issue for Jewish persons.

Natural birth control is, as I understand it, a method where you figure out when you're most likely to be fertile, and avoid having sex on those days.  So you're deliberately spilling your seed on unfertile ground.  Is this a sin?  Shouldn't you only be allowed to have sex on the 7-10 days a month when the woman probably IS fertile?

No one is bound to Natural Family Planning, but it is not the same as contraception for obvious reasons, there is no chemical or device preventing conception.

How is this any different from taking the pill?  It has some risk to it?  It MIGHT not work?  Is that why it's approved?

I think I've explained the technical difference as well as the social ramifications above.

[Xavier_Onassis]

First off, the Bible is simply folklore, a mixture of useful advice mixed with tribal customs that may have made sense 3000 years ago, and quite a bit of ranting. Onan did not get any message from God, and he was not killed by God, and maybe there was no Onan. But back then, the survival of the tribe depended on reproduction.

Life may begin at conception, but HUMAN life quite arguably only begins no0 earlier than the eight month of pregnancy.

People 4000 years ago were no less intelligent on average than they are now, but they were tons more  IGNORANT (ie, unaware of the actual way that things happen i9n the universe).

Whether to reproduce is logically by nature up to those who reproduce. Women are the ones who actually do most of the rearing of children and they do all of the birthing, so it's more up to them than it is to men.

[kimba1]

I prefer the jewish concept
life begins when all the kids moved out of the house

[Amianthus]

Life may begin at conception, but HUMAN life quite arguably only begins no0 earlier than the eight month of pregnancy.

Care to elaborate on this point?

Someone who was born via Cesarean section at 26 weeks is not human?

[gipper]

There's a very serious, momentous and portentous issue, or set of issues, in here, XO, which you've pretty much refined to its essence. Biblical times, viewed by an outsider or wary insider, were mythological times in the full sense of that expression: both myth generating but also mythic themselves. As such, as inherited "lore" as you put it, the signal narratives and statements of moral precepts, divined as a response to then-contemporary times but cast as universals and eternals, which some of them are, can collectively be referred to as Western Civilization's "moral gold standard." With exceptions (time-honored but durable truths, referred to above), many rules are followed because they are rules rather than because of any inherent truth or goodness of the precept. Birth Control as taught by the Catholic Church falls into this latter category.