I think that those religions that delve so far into the personal lives of its adherents that they presume to tell a married couple what they can and cannot do in the marriage bed that is undefiled and blessed by God, is going too far. Should couples have all the information available to them about the truth of what happens with these products that help in family planning? Yes, they should and nothing should be hidden or disguised about their choices. Will non-married people take advantage of methods that aid a married couple to plan their families? Of course! Everything God has created, Satan will try to pervert but it doesn't mean no one should be allowed to invent or utilize things that help them to live.
I think the Catholic Church is being hypocritical when they insist that ALL types of birth control are "mortal sins" but then turn around and promote what they call "natural family planning". NFP is a method similar to the "rhythm method" my parents used - but which often failed - and it predicts when a woman is fertile so that intercourse can be avoided during those times. They are telling couples intercourse is for bringing children into the world, yet advise couples they can have sex "safely" without pregnancy as long as they do it the "Church's" approved way. What I think is hypocritical, is they allow a couple to have sex with the intention of NOT having children using this NFP method but call barrier methods sinful, when the result and intention is the same! I agree that abortion is morally wrong and any method that causes the death of the embryo or fertilized egg is equally wrong, but methods that prevent fertilization from happening in the first place are NOT the same and the church should butt out in telling a married couple how they should manage their families. God gave us brains for a reason.
“Barrier” methods, though, such as spermicides, condoms, sponge, or the diaphragm, do NOT, or are not supposed to, allow the event of fertilization to even happen which does not carry the moral equivalence to the other kinds of BC...
NFP is a method SIMILAR to the “rhythm method” my parents used - but which often failed - and it predicts when a woman is fertile so that intercourse can be avoided during those times. They are telling couples intercourse is for bringing children into the world, yet advise couples they can have sex “safely” without pregnancy as long as they do it the “Church’s” approved way.”
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Were you baptized Catholic? Good thing the old rhythm method failed your parents, you wouldn’t be here brother.
God decides life not us boatbums, the reason Birth Control is a sin. Doesn’t matter the method. See why Reverend Mohler wrote what he did? He is convicted, troubled, he knows most all of Protestantism approves of Birth Control.
They have since 1930 but Protestants are waking up, they are seeing and Cafeteria Catholics too, the terrible fruit of Birth Control.
“NFP does NOT refer to the so-called “calendar rhythm method,” which was based on calendar calculations of a “normal” cycle. NFP, instead, based on direct observations of various signs that occur in a woman’s body (changes in the cervix, cervical mucus, and temperature) which tell her when ovulation occurs. These observations are relatively easy to make, take only a few minutes, and work even for irregular cycles. NFP is internationally known and practical and is extremely effective. The medical principles on which NFP rests are being used by more and more doctors for a wide range of purposes.”
“methods that prevent fertilization from happening in the first place are NOT the same”, “does not carry the moral equivalence to the other kinds of BC.”
True, as in IUDs, and if those are wrong then artificial sweeteners or things like Olestra, which also by unnatural means allow pleasure without unwanted effects, would be wrong as well.
But i do believe God has created us so that with pleasure comes effects which require responsibility, and attempts to have all the cake we want without cavities or gaining weight, or the like, have their own negative consequences.
God has designed it so that sexual relations normally result in children, which require sacrifice and responsibility, and which also provide joy, and if a couple are sterile then they lose the joy of at least having reproduced their own.
The difference btwn NFP and a IUD is that the former requires temperance, which is a necessary virtue, while contraceptives and UIDs, etc. allow the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure without temperance and effects which require responsibility and sacrifice.
But as regards religions telling a married couple what they can and cannot do in the marriage bed, there is a limit, but in this context we are basically dealing with a valid Scriptural moral questions which in principle extends beyond the bedroom.
But those so-called church “father’s” which held such beliefs as that marriage is the lesser of two evils, and is no other than a species of fornication, and that all sexual martial intercourse is unclean, and cannot be effected without the ardour of lust, though it is no longer accounted sin in the regenerate, were extreme.