Posted on 02/09/2012 10:15:13 PM PST by Brian Kopp DPM
EXCERPT:
...let's turn to another aspect of this. The reason our editor thinks Catholics shouldn't be fruitful and multiply doesn't hold up, either. The world's population, he writes, is on an "unsustainable" growth path.
The Population Bureau of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations sees (PDF, h/t Pax Dickinson) the rate of population growth slowing over the next decades and stabilizing around 9 billion in 2050…and holding there until 2300. (And note that the UN, which promotes birth control and abortions around the world, isn't exactly in the be-fruitful-and-multiply camp.)
More broadly, the Malthusian view of population growth has been resilient despite having been proven wrong time and time again and causing lots of unnecessary human suffering. For example, China is headed for a demographic crunch and social dislocation due to its misguided one-child policy.
Human progress is people. Everything that makes life better, from democracy to the economy to the internet to penicillin was either discovered and built by people. More people means more progress. The inventor of the cure for cancer might be someone's fourth children that they decided not to have.
So, just to sum up:
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The issue is not birth control. The issue is whether the government can force a religion to provide “services” that violate the teachings of that religion. The constitution says no. 0bama says yes. 0bama will lose.
This is the Religion Forum.
The issue IS birth control on THIS thread.
Sooner or later, modern man is going to admit to himself the Church was right all along on birth control, as were ALL the Christian denominations, Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic together, until 1930.
And when modern man does admit to himself the Church was right all along on birth control, he will also realize it really was about birth control all along, not “freedom,” because universal contraception is not “freedom” but licentiousness.
I absolutely adhere to this philosophy.
Human beings are the world's most important natural resource.
Business Insider, a site concerned with financial, media, and tech verticals, has published a piece entitled “Time to Admit It: The Church has Always Been Right on Birth Control,” which the authors acknowledge was inspired by the heated discourse surrounding the HHS mandate, and by their editor’s wishing the Church would eliminate the requirement. While one of the authors was associate editor at The American Conservative, it’s still very surprising to find an article like this published by a thoroughly secular news source.
The authors cite Humanae Vitae, and the four results predicted by Paul VI in the event that widespread contraceptive use was employed: General lowering of moral standards, a rise of infidelity and illegitimacy, the reduction of women to objects used to satisfy men, and government coercion in reproductive matters. That these four results are part and parcel of today’s cultural experience is not hard to argue.
“By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father…In 1960, 5.3% of all births in America were to unmarried women. By 2010, it was 40.8%. Cohabitation has increased tenfold since 1960. And if you don’t think women are being reduced to objects to satisfy men, welcome to the internet, how long have you been here? The idea that widely-available contraception hasn’t led to dramatic societal change, or that this change has been exclusively to the good, is a much sillier notion than anything the Catholic Church teaches.”
If there’s anything about the Church that is most often misunderstood, it is that Church teaching has human happiness and fulfillment in mind. Prohibitive teaching on sexuality is obviously not motivated by anything else: What benefit does the Church glean from such a difficult teaching? When Paul VI predicted the social decay that would result from widespread contraceptive use, it was not an alarmist crank engaging in authoritarian fear-tactics. It was someone hoping happiness for humans.
“...the Church was right all along on birth control.”
Maybe I shouldn’t quibble. But we were told to go forth and multiply by God in Genesis. That said, good for the Catholic Church for not ignoring the obvious interpretation of Scripture in this regard, when applied to birth control. They have taken a lot of heat in that regard in recent years.
The truth is no one wants a celibate to tell them how to be happy in marriage.
Maybe I shouldn't quibble. But please list for me what churches, besides the Catholic Church, still tell their faithful to go forth and multiply and NOT contracept?
Some of the Orthodox.
The Truth is all of Christianity has taught contraception was inherently sinful from the time of the Apostles until just 80 years ago, when some Christian churches caved on the issue. It has nothing to do with “a celibate telling them how to be happy in marriage” and everything to do with a constant universal teaching of Christianity that came from God, not men.
Which church?...
Read the full article at the link.
Here’s a comment on the wwweb:TFS-plh posted on Mar. 24, 2011.
I want to ditto Pat’s gratitude. A female sibling one and one half years younger than I was born with congenital issues that left her a vegetable. She lived 5 years. These were the years my mother needed extra comfort from her husband, but he kept his distance secondary to wanting to maintain abstinence so another child wouldn’t complicate their lives more. Mom had enough to do caring for this non-responsive child, she didn’t need more. At the time all I understood was that I liked the comfort of my mother sleeping with me. At that time in history there were no support groups and because the situation was so painful and no one knew what to do they stayed away. And then Dad kept his distance also. Mom never recovered emotionally. She grew into a screaming, ranting bitter old lady. Dad just shook his head in confusion. Because Mom was such a hand full, though he loved her dearly, during the last few days of his life he didn’t have the energy to deal with her so he refused to have her at his bedside.
Abtinence was the opposite of what my parents needed to survive this life - but because Mom was a loyal Catholic other methods were out of the question.
http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/new-birth-control-commission-papers-reveal-vaticans-hand?page=1
No Catholics worthy of the Name quote the National Catholic Reporter in support of their viewpoint.
Where are the ‘worthy Catholics’ then? Are theY here?-—> “All active and retired bishops in the United States and the Territory of the U.S. Virgin Islands — diocesan, coadjutor, and auxiliary — are members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops USCCB.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Catholic_bishops_of_the_United_States
“Maybe I shouldn’t quibble. But please list for me what churches, besides the Catholic Church, still tell their faithful to go forth and multiply and NOT contracept?
So, when we look at our possibly biggest social issue today, that of taking care of the elderly - be it through SS or family, I guess we have to say the church was right.
50 million aborted (mostly black) and hundreds of millions not born due to contraception has gotten us where we are today.
If each couple has only two offspring, then each of them is going to have to support one parent in old age. We complain about three workers for every retiree. It’s going to soon become one...
Now you hear so much talk about too many people. I challenge you to take a transcontinental flight with a window seat and see more than 20 cities... Look down from 30,000 feet, there’s nobody there.
“National Catholic Reporter” is not a Catholic periodical. It is an anti-Catholic dissenting rag full of yellow journalism masquerading as a Catholic periodical. No one who wants to be taken seriously by Catholics quotes from its pages approvingly.
I posted about this very topic recently: The greatest threat facing mankind is...
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