Posted on 02/14/2012 8:49:20 AM PST by Jake from AZ
Painting the Catholic Church as "out of touch" is like shooting fish in a barrel, what with the funny hats and gilded churches. And nothing makes it easier than the Church's stance against contraception.
Many people (including our editor) are wondering why the Catholic Church doesn't just ditch this requirement. They note that most Catholics ignore it, and that most everyone else finds it divisive, or "outdated." C'mon! It's the 21st century, they say! Don't they SEE that it's STUPID, they scream.
Here's the thing, though: the Catholic Church is the world's biggest and oldest organization. It has buried all of the greatest empires known to man, from the Romans to the Soviets. It has establishments literally all over the world, touching every area of human endeavor. It's given us some of the world's greatest thinkers, from Saint Augustine on down to René Girard. When it does things, it usually has a good reason. Everyone has a right to disagree, but it's not that they're a bunch of crazy old white dudes who are stuck in the Middle Ages.
So, what's going on?
The Church teaches that love, marriage, sex, and procreation are all things that belong together. That's it. But it's pretty important. And though the Church has been teaching this for 2,000 years, it's probably never been as salient as today.
Today's injunctions against birth control were re-affirmed in a 1968 document by Pope Paul VI called Humanae Vitae. He warned of four results if the widespread use of contraceptives was accepted:
1. General lowering of moral standards. 2. A rise in infidelity, and illegitimacy. 3. The reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men. 4. Government coercion in reproductive matters.
Does that sound familiar?
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
You gotta be kidding. The morality of today is equivalent to the morality of America in the Eisenhower years? Skyrocketing divorce, STDs out-of-wedlock births, blended families etc. You don’t see this as a decay in the cultural fabric? Really.
When does ability to abort become duty to abort and then requirement to abort?
Sure, those problems have been around forever, but they are right that the rise of contraception use, and especially the wide availability and use of “the pill” has made all those problems much worse. You can’t untie the feminist agenda and the sexual revolution, with all their consequences, from the issue of contraception. They won’t allow you to, so why would we let you get away with that?
What exactly are you arguing against? What standards are they imposing on the unwilling? Is the fact that the Catholics comment on their appraisal of the general situation in society, and even express concern about it, some kind of imposition against your rights and freedom?
Sorry if I’m confused, but your arguments, superficially, are sounding like those I hear from the pro-aborts.
Well, that is just the rules of nature. Any successful population eventually will outbreed their resources, and then they have to expand and get more territory and resources, or start feeding on each other. Applied to humans, war is attempted expansion, while “population control”, meaning abortion and a post-feminist sexual dynamic, is our new, “polite” equilavent of eating our young.
I don’t think advocating the latter is the preferable of the two options. As you say, we have to keep the birth rates at a certain level, or it’s cultural suicide. Once you institute population control, though, you have divorced sexual relations from breeding, and you can never guarantee that people will choose to breed at the necessary levels. Also, it’s universal that the poorest, and least successful levels of society will end up breeding more in that system, while the more successful will breed less, so you have the problem of reverse eugenics to deal with now. You also have all the other associated increases in social problem that come along with “sexual liberation”, aka sexual licentiousness, which can be as fatally deadly to a society as failing to breed at replacement levels.
Just saying, basically, “it’s birth control or war” is not a good basis for making a judgement. Let’s look honestly at ALL the negative consequences that go along with choosing population control as your strategy, and then see how that stacks up with the horrors of the occasional bloody conflict.
Also, since we can bend the rules of nature a bit, we have come up with a third option to address this scenario. We’ve tried, from time to time, to shunt excess males into celibate lifestyles of monks, priests, eunuchs, etc, thus helping to mitigate the problem in another way. I don’t think that option is successful enough to be a permanent solution though.
“No image talks back, no image finds you inadequate.”
Well, unless that is what you’re into. I’m sure they’re willing to cater to that niche market :)
If they want an object that talks back, they can find the nearest brothel. or sex shop.
We talk modern medicine for granted, but Hollywood sometimes reminds us that we ought not to. We cannot be sure that nothing like the Black Death or the Spanish flu, or even a resurgence of TB will not overwhelm our defenses. The appearance of AIDS was a cautionary tale, but the male libido managed to get that concern shoved aside. No guarantee, however, that the Four Horsemen will not humble us again.
I am arguing that people using the “Moral” argument take measure with a ruler fashioned by their own self serving hand. It’s a tautological argument.
I argue *against* the Government imposing it’s standards upon the Church — who set their own standards amongst themselves to measure amongst themselves.
I argue *against* the Church accepting government dollars and then not following policy and rules from whence those dollars came.
I don’t disagree with what you wrote, but it really has no bearing on the discussion. Which is how the mandate is an assault on religious liberty.
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(Exempt Catholics) Joe Biden, Bill Daley warned of contraceptive backlash
(Tim) Thomas makes second political statement (Stands With Catholics)
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Boehner vows to overturn Obama’s birth control coverage rule
Boehner: Congress to overturn birth control policy if Obama does not reverse course
O'Brien says Archdiocese of Baltimore won't offer birth control coverage
Archbishop of San Francisco says Obama ruling strikes at religious freedom
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Six Things Everyone Should Know about the HHS Mandate
Santorum: Obama Hostile to Christians
Understanding Oppostion to the HHS Mandate (Part 1): Why the Church Won’t Pay for Contracept
The Bishops Chickens Coming Home to Roost.
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Bishop David Zubik confronts Obama
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Pope hits out at 'radical secularism'
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Letter from Archbishop John G. Vlazny on the matter of freedom of conscience and decisions by HHS
Bishop Olmsted's Letter to Catholics [Catholic Caucus]
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OBAMA’S CONTEMPT FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY (mandates coverage of sterilization & contraception)
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Loss of the sacredness of family life needs to be added to those first four things!
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