Ask a Catholic

[Randy Carson]

Because it is true. 

And your evidence for that assertion is ... ?

More than you realize.

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Let's talk about cultural imperialism of the inquisition.  Auto da fe anyone?

Yes, let's talk about the Inquisition. Or better yet, let's listen to atheist Tim O'Neill who IS a historian talk about the Inquisition.

In an article entitled, "Why History Isn't Science (and Why it Can Still Tell Us About the Past), O'Neill writes:

Atheists can often make similar, elementary errors in the criticism of sources as well.  There is no shortage of lurid material on the horrors of the Inquisition, with whole books detailing vile tortures and giving accounts of hundreds of thousands of wretched victims being consigned to the flames by the Catholic Church.  In the past, nineteenth century writers took these sources at face value, and until the early twentieth century this was essentially the story of the Inquisition to be found in textbooks, especially in the English-speaking (i.e. substantially Protestant) sphere.

But much of this was based on sources that had severe biases - mainly sixteenth and seventeenth century Protestant polemical material, usually produced in England which, as a political, religious and economic enemy of Spain, was hardly going to produce unbiased accounts of the Spanish church and crown's use of the Inquisition.  Uncritical use of this material gives a warped, enemy's-eye-view of the Inquisition that has been substantially overturned by more careful analysis of the source material and the Inquisition's own records.  The result is that it is now known that in the 160 years of its operation in Spain, the Inquisition resulted in 3,000-5,000 executions, not the hundreds of thousands alleged by uncritical nineteenth century writers like Henry Charles Lea.  Basing an argument on the earlier, uncritical accounts of the Inquisition might suit many atheists' agendas, but it would be bad history nonetheless.

I suspect that applies to uncritical 21st century forum members, also

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And how many parents were using "protection" that also failed?

Statistics claim less than 1% failure when properly used.
10% failure when improperly used.
I could look it up to give you a proper citation, but I'm sure you know how to use google.

AS for me, 2 failures in 3 years is too much...
Rubber's been working quite well for the past 6 years.

More importantly, I know how to use NFP. The challenge is in saying "no" when you know you should...and that includes when she's saying "yes".

'Nuff said.

[JuliaL]

I suppose we have to begin be defining God.

Good idea there.  But when you include in your definition 'beyond human understanding' or 'ineffible' or 'infinite' you sabotage any further description.  Once God is place beyond knowledge, you lose standing to claim knowledge thereof.
Personal revelation does not solve this.  To judge personal revelation true, you have to be able to judge its validity, a task whose possibility you just eliminated.

Then why bother posting in my thread at all? C'ya!

To see the bug wiggle.
In my model of reality, religions are complicated memeplexes that colonize minds.  They are living structures of information carried in human brains.  They have replicating strategies and defensive mechanisms that have evolved to aid their persistence and replication.  They mutate and adapt.  Or don't and go extinct, subject, as are we all, to selective pressures.  While once strong, religion is being squeezed into smaller and smaller niches.  Will it survive?
As an infected carrier, and potential vector, you are an available experimental subject.  
Poke the bug, see it wiggle.  
I am happy to admit, my model is also a replicating memeplex, but at least it is aware of its condition.

Let's talk about cultural imperialism of the inquisition.  Auto da fe anyone?

Yes, let's talk about the Inquisition. Or better yet, let's listen to atheist Tim O'Neill who IS a historian talk about the Inquisition.

Sorry, I was unclear.

I was referring to the entire expansionist imperialism of the Christian colonizing powers, not simply a few Spanish witch burners.  The reaction of the Catholic church to the perceived existential threat of the reformation was to try to take back its ambulatory memory (re-convert by argument or force) and, were this to fail, fall back on a strategy of replication and expansion into the non-european minds becoming available.  This expansion (missionary work to the heathen) supplanted cultures throughout the globe with attendent license to rape, pillage and murder because, after all, they were doing God's work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiani...olonialism

During the Age of Discovery, the Catholic Church inaugurated a major effort to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the Native Americans and other indigenous people.

And, not at all incidentally, to destroy the extant cultures they discovered.

Adriaan van Oss wrote:

   If we had to choose a single, irreducible idea underlying Spanish colonialism in the New World, it would undoubtedly be the propagation of the Catholic faith. Unlike such other European as England or the Netherlands, Spain insisted on converting the natives of the lands it conquered to its state religion. Miraculously, it succeeded. Introduced in the context of Iberian expansionism, Catholicism outlived the empire itself and continues to thrive, not as an anachronistic vestige among the elite, but as a vital current even in remote mountain villages. Catholicism remains the principal colonial heritage of Spain in America.

Compared to this, a policy of hiding pedophile priests from due punishment is pretty weak meat.

[Foxaèr]

The only question any catholic should be asked is quite simple.

Where is your definitive proof of god?

[rexbeccarox]

Statistics claim less than 1% failure when properly used.
10% failure when improperly used.
I could look it up to give you a proper citation, but I'm sure you know how to use google.

AS for me, 2 failures in 3 years is too much...
Rubber's been working quite well for the past 6 years.

More importantly, I know how to use NFP. The challenge is in saying "no" when you know you should...and that includes when she's saying "yes".

'Nuff said.

But what is the point of denying yourselves sex when you could just wear a condom?  How is NFP any different (besides effectiveness) from other forms of birth control?  You're still trying to "control" when conception happens.

[Randy Carson]

I suppose we have to begin be defining God.

Good idea there.  But when you include in your definition 'beyond human understanding' or 'ineffible' or 'infinite' you sabotage any further description.  Once God is place beyond knowledge, you lose standing to claim knowledge thereof.
Personal revelation does not solve this.  To judge personal revelation true, you have to be able to judge its validity, a task whose possibility you just eliminated.

How well do I have to understand physics in order to get the general idea of the Big Bang or multiverses or black holes or dark matter?

Do I need the comprehension of these things that Stephen Hawking has? Or would some basics be sufficient for me to accept that these things are reasonable explanations based on what we know so far?

Do I need the comprehension of the trinity that Thomas Aquinas had? Or would some basics about God's attributes be sufficient for me to accept that God must exist?

Personal revelation does not solve this.  To judge personal revelation true, you have to be able to judge its validity, a task whose possibility you just eliminated.

Why? If a being far beyond my comprehension reveal himself to me, how is it that I cannot know with certainty that the being exists even if I cannot begin to comprehend Him in all His depths?

In my model of reality, religions are complicated memeplexes that colonize minds.  They are living structures of information carried in human brains.  They have replicating strategies and defensive mechanisms that have evolved to aid their persistence and replication.  They mutate and adapt.  Or don't and go extinct, subject, as are we all, to selective pressures.  While once strong, religion is being squeezed into smaller and smaller niches.  Will it survive?
As an infected carrier, and potential vector, you are an available experimental subject.  
Poke the bug, see it wiggle.  
I am happy to admit, my model is also a replicating memeplex, but at least it is aware of its condition.

I see.

I was referring to the entire expansionist imperialism of the Christian colonizing powers, not simply a few Spanish witch burners.  The reaction of the Catholic church to the perceived existential threat of the reformation was to try to take back its ambulatory memory (re-convert by argument or force) and, were this to fail, fall back on a strategy of replication and expansion into the non-european minds becoming available.  This expansion (missionary work to the heathen) supplanted cultures throughout the globe with attendent license to rape, pillage and murder because, after all, they were doing God's work.

Oh, sure...raping and pillaging and murdering do have a way of winning over the hearts and minds of the indigenous people. Nothing says, "We're here to preach a loving God" quite like a good bloodbath.  

And, not at all incidentally, to destroy the extant cultures they discovered. Compared to this, a policy of hiding pedophile priests from due punishment is pretty weak meat.

By teaching headhunters that killing neighboring tribesmen was wrong? Yeah, that was unnecessary...we coulda left that in place.

Guess you decided to drop the bit about the school systems doing the same thing then? Or was that JennyA?

Maybe I have the two of you confused.
[/quote]

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The only question any catholic should be asked is quite simple.

Where is your definitive proof of god?

More importantly, where is yours?

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More importantly, I know how to use NFP. The challenge is in saying "no" when you know you should...and that includes when she's saying "yes".

'Nuff said.

But what is the point of denying yourselves sex when you could just wear a condom?  How is NFP any different (besides effectiveness) from other forms of birth control?  You're still trying to "control" when conception happens.

The Church teaches that there is nothing wrong with controlling "when" conception occurs.

There are valid reasons for avoiding pregnancy. 

Why it does or does not is more important since even NFP can be used selfishly. 

Of course, having sex or abstaining (or denying the spouse) can be used selfishly, too.

[rexbeccarox]

So... then what's the point of teaching not to use a condom?

[Randy Carson]

So... then what's the point of teaching not to use a condom?

Would you agree that God made...oops...sorry, forgot...okay, would you agree that there are times of the month when a woman is fertile (a really small window, actually), and other times when she is not?

Now, God...can you just bear with me on this for a moment for the sake of the discussion? Now, God made the infertile time just as much as He made the fertile time. Having sex during the infertile time is perfectly permissable...as is sex during the fertile time, of course. 

Now, if you have "unprotected sex" during the fertile time, then you know that you're "open to life" because sex is procreative. If you choose to have sex and have kids, then you have respected and used your sexuality in one of the ways that God intended it to be used.

Alternatively, you may have sex during the infertile time, and you know that you're still "open to life" (even though conception is not possible), since nothing prevents the seed from seeking out its counterpart (which won't be present, of course). If you choose to have sex in this way, you have also respected and used your sexuality in another way that God intended it because sex is highly unitive. You have taken advantage of God's design to enjoy the unitive aspect of sex without the possibility of the procreative aspect coming into play.

Now, if a couple chooses to have sex during the fertile phase (and frankly, that's when all kinds of hormones and pheromones are doing their thing) AND use contraception, then they are NOT open to life and they are not using sex as God intended it to be used: as procreative and unitive. The latter, sure, but only at the expense of working against God's design by contraception, and second, barrier methods prevent the woman from receiving the full gift of the man (and there are hormonal benefits that the woman does not receive if a barrier is used - but that's another discussion). So, the couple has chosen to go against God's design by blocking contraception instead of working with God's design by abstaining during fertile phases (if that is the goal). Worse, there are birth control methods which are abortifacients, so a life is ended with their use.

But what of the couple which decides not the have children and uses NFP instead of contraception? Well, again, there are some valid reasons for not having children or more children depending upon the circumstances. Age, health, ability to raise a(nother) child, etc. But the couple which chooses NFP to prevent pregnancy without just cause has also sinned against God's design for marriage and sex. IOW, they have done no better (though at least there was not abortion).

[rexbeccarox]

Ok. I think that's bat-shit insane, but thank you for answering honestly.

[rexbeccarox]

Oh wait. Here's another one: since I entertained the "God" idea while you were explaining that, could I ask you to pretend you don't believe "God" exists? Would you still use NFP, or would you concede that there's nothing wrong with copulation and contraception?

[The Grand Nudger]

Its against the natural law.  Recall the story of Onan?  

Heres the catechism regarding what you are discussing.  

2368  A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of births. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood.

It isn't that the church is against controlling birth.....they are against what they deem to be immoral methods of achieving that.  The church has decided (infallibly), that methods which are deliberately contraceptive are sinful. 


Catholic Answers has this to say, as deeper commentary:

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Is contraception a modern invention? Hardly! Birth control has been around for millennia. Scrolls found in Egypt, dating to 1900 B.C., describe ancient methods of birth control that were later practiced in the Roman empire during the apostolic age. Wool that absorbed sperm, poisons that fumigated the uterus, potions, and other methods were used to prevent conception. In some centuries, even condoms were used (though made out of animal skin rather than latex). 

The Bible mentions at least one form of contraception specifically and condemns it. Coitus interruptus, was used by Onan to avoid fulfilling his duty according to the ancient Jewish law of fathering children for one’s dead brother. "Judah said to Onan, ‘Go in to your brother’s wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.’ But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also" (Gen. 38:8–10). 
The biblical penalty for not giving your brother’s widow children was public humiliation, not death (Deut. 25:7–10). But Onan received death as punishment for his crime. This means his crime was more than simply not fulfilling the duty of a brother-in-law. He lost his life because he violated natural law, as Jewish and Christian commentators have always understood. For this reason, certain forms of contraception have historically been known as "Onanism," after the man who practiced it, just as homosexuality has historically been known as "Sodomy," after the men of Sodom, who practiced that vice (cf. Gen. 19). 

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Condoms are effectively, according to the church, onanism - and look at what god did to onan...... Now,that's trouble with asking a traveling apologist for an explanation for this shit. You're going to get some happy go lucky bullshit like the above rather than the raw deal..lol. God is so disgusted by onanism that he's liable to fucking kill you for it. That's why, that's it, that's all there is.