Posted on 04/08/2002 5:52:41 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
Why can't people see the big picture? Christian sexuality is simple...if you're not married, man and woman, in the eyes of God, and/or you can't get pregnant doing it, its wrong. That's Natural Law in a nutshell re sex. That's what God made it for.
Here's a little illustration. If you eat something just for the pleasure of the taste and the texture, then vomit it up, that is called an eating disorder, namely bulimia. It is a disorder because the reason God gave us food is twofold, 1) for our pleasure, and more importantly 2) for the nourishment of our bodies.
If you partake of sex, then vomit forth the natural consequences of that act, it is a disorder, like sexual bulimia. Yes, God made it for pleasure. Equally important, God made it for babies.
The Creation of God serves ONE primary purpose:
the creation of the body and eternal soul of men. Man's last end is God. It was God's first and foremost desire in Creating the universe that men should live forever with Him in Heaven.
And what is scripture's first commandment? It ain't in the Decalogue. It comes much earlier, and it says, "Be Fruitful and Multiply."
If that's what Creation was for, the populating of Heaven with Eternal Souls of men, why can't Christians comprehend what a rebellion and revolt non-procreative sex is?
What do all the sexual sins in the Old Testament have in common?
They are all non-procreative, and/or outside of a covenantal man-woman relationship. They are all a fundamental violation of Natural Law, a violation of the reason God gave us our sexuality, i.e., for the creation of Eternal Souls to populate Heaven.
Only Catholicism still sees this foundational Truth, this family covenantal model. We are here to get THERE, to Heaven. And to bring as many there as possible.
And until 1930, all of Christianity understood this, all of Christianity embraced this, and all of Christianity taught this, universally (see below), protestant, orthodox, Catholic, as well as orthodox judaism and islam.
But if you start teaching that one form of non-procreative sex is OK, while others are not, you introduce schizophrenia into Christian sexual morality.
If you accept one, you no longer have any grounds to condemn the rest.
And no one can contest the relationship between the acceptance of contraception by Christians in this once Christian country, and the legalization of abortion (see below).
Today, equal numbers of RCC and NC Christians contracept.
But there is one vital distinction.
Scripture says that in the end there will be a general falling away, so it should surprise no one that there is gross sin in all churches.
But Christ promised one Church, His Church, would not teach error, and that the gates would not prevail.
Absolute Orthodoxy in moral theology can only come from Absolute Orthodoxy in Salvific Theology. Heterodoxy in Moral Theology will always, eventually, arise from Heterodoxy in Salvific Theology.
If Catholics will reclaim the traditional teaching of Christianity on contraception, a teaching their Church has NEVER apostacized on, and evangelize the culture regarding WHY the Church still teaches it, then we have at our disposal the single greatest evangelization tool in the history of the war between Christian sects. Why? Because Catholicism has never fallen into heterodoxy on moral theology issues. ALL other Christian churches now have.
It is so easy to prove from history that Christianity always uninanimously taught contraception to be inherently evil (see below, Appendix 2). Then it is such a short step to understand that heterodoxy in moral theology completely undermines the validity of the sola scriptura/personal interpretation of scripture manntra that hatched that heterodoxy. This is the foregone conclusion when men reject the authority Christ gave His Church, and replces it with the doctrines of men.
This is the number one reason given why over a thousand protestant ministers have become Catholic over the last ten years. When you examine the culture of death, and the roots of abortion, and the inability to effectively fight the homosexual juggernaut, you realize very quickly there is only one Church that will both bring folks closest to Christ and cure the ills of the culture.
I'm not willing to avoid the contraception issue because its unpopular, taboo, or for fear of offending both Catholic and protestant alike, when this is the single greatest evangelization/apologetics tool ever handed to us on a silver platter by the Holy Spirit.
Plus the obvious...folks who live in sodomitic sin glass houses, where the same type of sin is not only tolerated but taught to be acceptable, better stop to think before they criticize the sodomitic sin in our Catholic ranks, especially when we are the only ones condemning both on the world stage.
Yes, there are sodomites in the Catholic priesthood, and bishops hid them and protected them. They violate the very foundations of sexual morality that the Church STILL TEACHES today.
But the remainder of Christianity has embraced the sodomitic sin of contraception, teaches it as acceptable, and refuses to turn back.
In the end, many on both sides have sinned, are sinning, and will sin. But only one Church perseveres in Truth, both in Salvation Theology and Moral Theology.
Why don't you counsel some engaged couples, and see if your approach allows you to have a fruitful discussion with them? See if it furthers the dialogue you've managed to build up over time.
I've explained to you what I do, but you don't like it. You want me to do what you would do.
No need to blow a gasket because we're not talking about eternal damnation to engaged couples.
After I posted my last one, I regretted it because I figured you would mistakenly associate my numerous questions with "blowing a gasket." I assure you that I'm happily eating my Nong shim noodles as I wade through inches and inches of copy for tomorrow's edition of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. And intermittently I'm thinking of the swell that's supposed to hit the south shore tomorrow and wondering if I'll be able to catch any of it before I have to work tomorrow afternoon. I'm about as far away from blowing a gasket as I am from the West Coast.
They were sincere questions that I posted, and I asked them in earnest; I'm trying to understand your thought process that allows you to withold this truth from them, which in my eyes is a grievous mistake on your part. I'm asking these questions to try to understand better where you're coming from.
You can't win.
If your faith is in an institution or organization, it should be shaken. If it is in Christ alone, it cannot be shaken. But really, why would the virginity or lack thereof (after Christ's birth)of Mary shake your faith. The miracle was the Incarnation and the virgin birth and those are not brought into question.
And we wonder where liberals get the idea that "conservatives" and especially the "religious right" want to pry into and control what happens in our bedrooms.
It's a cultural thing. When I was in my early twenties, all the non-practicing couples I knew wanted to have a "church wedding."
So, let me ask you directly: Do you believe that to contracept is to sin?
Secondly, do you belong to a church which teaches it is a sin to use artificial birth control?
Have you ever prayed for anyone? Have you ever asked anyone to pray for you?
The Egyptian priest Manetho associated the Jews with the Hyksos and Moses with the Egyptian priest Osarsiph. It was at this time that the belief the Jews worshipped an ass – an animal holy to the Egyptian god Set was established. Both the Jews and the pagan Egyptians used the labels (i.e., Satan, Set, Seth, or "Set-hn" as spoken in the ancient Hebrew) to defame each other. How fitting that amidst this epic struggle and bloody conflict, the entity known as Satan was born into the World. Such conflict continued through the Maccabean period (with Antiochus Epiphanes), and continues into modern times on several fronts.
There is a recurring theme that alludes to the hostility between the pagan Egyptians and the Judaic. Often it is claimed by the Neo-Pagans that Satan is only found in Christianity. How can this be if Satan is undeniably a Hebrew word adapted from the name of the pagan Egyptian god Set? The Jewish synod of rabbinical authority will deny that Satan even exists. How do they reconcile that with the fact that it is a Hebrew word?
The point is that in avoiding their true pagan roots, the Neo-Pagans are participating inadvertently in a Judaic word-fetishism. This should give some of the Judaic/Christian community cause for reflection and cooperation.
Food for thought...
From Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan:
Part III. Of a Christian Commonwealth. Chap. xxxviii. Of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, and Redemption.[12] And first, for the tormentors, we have their nature and properties exactly and properly delivered by the names of the Enemy (or Satan), the Accuser (or Diabolus), the Destroyer (or Abaddon). Which significant names (Satan, Devil, Abaddon) set not forth to us any individual person, as proper names do, but only an office or quality, and are therefore appellatives, which ought not to have been left untranslated (as they are in the Latin and modern Bibles), because thereby they seem to be the proper names of demons, and men are the more easily seduced to believe the doctrine of devils, which at that time was the religion of the Gentiles, and contrary to that of Moses, and of Christ.
[13] And because by the Enemy, the Accuser, and Destroyer, is meant the enemy of them that shall be in the kingdom of God, therefore if the kingdom of God after the resurrection be upon the earth (as in the former Chapter I have shewn by Scripture it seems to be), the Enemy and his kingdom must be on earth also. For so also was it in the time before the Jews had deposed God. For God's kingdom was in Palestine, and the nations round about were the kingdoms of the Enemy; and consequently, by Satan is meant any earthly enemy of the Church.
Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness. Chap. xlvii. Of the Benefit that proceedeth from such Darkness.
[21] For from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretense of successsion to St. Peter, their whole hiearchy (or kingdom of darkness) may be compared to the kingdom of fairies (that is, to the old wives' fables in England, concerning ghosts and spirits and the feats they play in the night). And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily percieve that the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. For so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen empire.
[23] The fairies, in what nation soever they converse, have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope.
No, we don't wonder where liberals get that idea. Liberals came up with the idea themselves. They have been prying into bedrooms for generations now. They have been very effective in capturing the territory and any opposing view is seen as a serious threat. Population control groups, fem-nazi's, pharmaceutical companies, latex corporations, etc., etc. All have a stake in keeping the awareness of natural law and Christian morality under wraps. It is a typical liberal ploy to cry foul, when what they protest is exactly what they practice. So complete is their victory in this arena, that even conservatives have bought into the lie.
Not only do they want into the bedroom, they want to post "sex police" at the door to keep watch that your not engaging in activity that they disagree with.
Do you, or do you not, believe all forms of contraception to be sinful.
If you do not, on what scriptures do you base your belief?
If your church does not teach contraception to be sinful, by whose authority did it change the continual teaching of Christianity on the subject?
If it did not have such authority (which it obviously does not and cannot) then your system is in apostacy, and you have no grounds whatsover to challenge the scriptural interpretations and doctrines of Catholicism. Period.
Do you, or do you not, believe all forms of contraception to be sinful.
If you do not, on what scriptures do you base your belief?
If your church does not teach contraception to be sinful, by whose authority did it change the continual teaching of Christianity on the subject?
If it did not have such authority (which it obviously does not and cannot) then your system is in apostacy, and you have no grounds whatsover to challenge the scriptural interpretations and doctrines of Catholicism. Period.
If you do not, on what scriptures do you base your belief?
If your church does not teach contraception to be sinful, by whose authority did it change the continual teaching of Christianity on the subject?
If it did not have such authority (which it obviously does not and cannot) then your system is in apostacy, and you have no grounds whatsover to challenge the scriptural interpretations and doctrines of Catholicism. Period.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.