You have posted no passages from Scripture to me, other than the Genesis passage you misused.
I will title your arguments against artificially controlling conception so we an analyze them easily.
Argument #1 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because children are a blessing
“The only explicit blessings God gives related to sex, are for the kind that has all the begats. It is an exception-less norm in the Bible that childbearing = blessing.
…Here, we agree that children are a blessing. Childbearing is not a blessing, it is part of the curse :-)Argument #2 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because “nowhere are people blessed for blocking blessings.”If your argument is true, then blocking children by any means is wrong. The are always a blessing. I find this argument unrelated to the discussion of artificial conception alone and it does not prove your point.
Again, if you avoid conception by any means, you are blocking a blessing. Scripture never distinguishes between methods of blocking conception. Because of this, I find your argument unpersuasive.Argument #3 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong there is one passage that indicates someone did a wrong thing by blocking conceptionIf you are going to be faithful in practice to your first two arguments, you must accept limitless children, from the time of marriage until the time later in life that you can no longer bear children. Did you do so? Do you advocate couples have limitless children?
“In the one, sole, singular Biblical episode of intercourse where the guy alters it so that reproduction would not occur, the text says God hated what he did and struck him dead.”
Because it was a violation of his duty under the covenant to raise up children to his deceased brother. Instead of doing so, which was his responsibility under the covenant, he routinely took advantage of the opportunity for sex, without being faithful to what God covenanted with Israel.
Glad you pointed out this was the “one, sole, singular Biblical episode” of conception control.There are no commands, no teaching to the church, no examples for the church.
Because of these two points, this passage does not serve as a command to Christians or Jews to avoid choosing not to have children.
This doesn’t carry the force you would need to prove the Scriptures condemn artificial conception control.
Argument #4 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because God condemns perverted sexual practices.
“Regarding all the kinds of jiggery-pokery which cannot result in reproduction (Leviticus etc.) God calls all this intentionally sterile sex abominable.
We agree, but this has nothing to do with artificial conception. It is a perversion of man-woman sex, as God created it.
Argument #5 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because marriage is sacred so you should not suppress either of the twofold blessings - children or pleasure.
“Normal human marriage is identified as sacred (Ephesians etc.) At the very least --- talking moral minimalism here --- that should convey that you don't purposely suppress either one of the twofold blessed purposes for which the marriage act is blessed (procreation and pleasure bonding).
We agree that marriage is sacred. But I find this unpersuasive because the number of children you have does not make it less sacred, nor each child you have less of a blessing, nor sex less pleasurable.And again, the discussion revolves around purposefully suppressing conception. There is no distinction in this argument that will win your point. In fact, this argument could as easily be used to point out the any purposeful choosing not to have children is not fulfilling the purpose of marriage.
You’ve not provided a Biblical basis against artificial birth control, nor a basis to not have limitless children. As such, I do not accept it as a strong argument against birth control.
Argument #6 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because gays make claims to justify their practices, so birth control is wrong.
“Let me point out that the specific objectionable acts don't have to be itemized on the page, if normal people through the centuries "get it".
“For example, there are only a handful of verses that condemn homosexual conduct. None of them explicitly condemn specific homosexual acts, that is, oral or anal intercourse (and the many variations we'd be better off not knowing about.) But Gays today are claiming that God does not forbid anal intercourse, because the text doesn't mention it. God doesn't paint a picture of it and slap it with a big red circle-and-slash.
God condemns homosexuality in many passages. Gays who make this argument are simply ignorant of Scripture.And it sounds a lot like your general argument of ethics derived from the Bible without a specific place they are derived from. :-)
This also has nothing to do with birth control being chosen by a married man and woman. God plans for men and women to have sex and if they conceive, it is a blessing from him.
Argument #7 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because gays argue that the Biblical texts do not use specific words
“If you google Gay Christian commentary on Bible texts --- here, I'll do it for you: Gay Christian Bible texts (LINK) you get 8 million+ results. The 9 out of 10 top ones in the list are scholarly or semi-scholarly commentaries which claim that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. Mostly because it does not use the actual word "homosexual" or the actual words "anal sex."
Again, Biblical ignorance. The Scriptures do not use many popular expressions, but they are clear. This is why we must be anchored in the Scriptures and not making up crap and pretending it is truth.
Argument #8 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because Christians used to believe it was wrong.
“But Christians for 1900 years understood the Bible to be against active homosexual sex relations, just as all Christians for 1900 years understood related texts to weigh in against contraception.”
Which you have not posted to me.
Argument #9 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because pro-gay and pro-contraceptive Christians use the same type of arguments to justify their choices.
“Read some of this. At least the first sentences of the top Google results. You really need to. Because then you'll see that pro-gay and pro-contraceptive Christians are relying on exactly the same form of argument: that if the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words don't actually say "plugs 'n' rubbers 'n' the hormonal patch or putting your semen in baggies or up the butt or down the hatch," it's not really talking about US.
Again, this doesn’t trouble me in the least, because I am well grounded in the Scriptures. This is a logical fallacy. It does not need to use exact words… but you must be able to point to what it does say. I’ve repeatedly asked you to do exactly that.When you do not, you are also relying on this type of loose argument.
Argument #10 - Artificial birth control is wrong because Christians historically thought it was wrong.
“And contraceptors likewise shrug off 400 years' worth of Protestant teaching highlighting the Biblical case against birth control, from Luther through 1930! (LINKS) Because, as the Gay Christians say, that Biblical stuff is too obscure: it couldn't apply to us!.
(I’m being kind here. We covered this in your #7) Yes it does. “Contractors!” - you’ve got to make up a pejorative word for people who disagree with you??
We need not shrug off history. We must evaluate history by Scripture. It will either stand the test Scripture or it will not.
And you posted no Scripture.
Argument #11 - Here’s a book
“Check out Alan Carlson's book on Protestants and Birth Control (Amazon link)<.a<>> Used paperpack for about $11. --- or look the author up elsewhere on the internet.
:-) I have The Book.“God bless you.
And to you too.
" Argument #1 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because children are a blessing."
" Argument #2 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because “nowhere are people blessed for blocking blessings.”
If your argument is true, then blocking children by any means is wrong.... If you are going to be faithful in practice to your first two arguments, you must accept limitless children.
That doesn't follow.
There are limits to any analogy, but this might be useful: Fruitful flocks and fruitful vineyards are blessings, too --- and not only that, but if our bodies are not our own but are part of the "plantation of the Lord," then the Master does want us to be fruitful --- but not beyond reason. Fruitfulness being a blessing doesn't exclude a reasonable decision to limit your flocks and vineyards if you're really unable to care for them all.
So assuming there's a sound reason to limit your flocks and vineyards, there are good ways and bad ways to do this. A good way would be to refrain for a time from breeding your animals or planting your fields. (That would be periodic abstinence.) A disrespectful way ---considering that the Master really owns the land--- would be spreading poisons so nothing will sprout for a time, or forever (contraception/sterilization.) A really bad way would be burning the place down (abortion).
One mustn't carry this analogy too far (for instance, you could sell off or butcher your animals -----which you can't do to your wife & kids!!) but my point is that if there's a just cause (e.g. you can't survive another pregnancy or you can't reasonably care for more kids) there's a right way and a wrong way to limit fruitfulness. You can't conclude that any limitation on a blessing , by any means, is wrong.
Argument #3 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong there is one passage that indicates someone did a wrong thing by blocking conception
Because it was a violation of his duty under the covenant to raise up children to his deceased brother. ...There are no commands, no teaching to the church, no examples for the church.
Oh really? And here I thought "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).
The punishment was not for the violation of the Levirate rule alone. Judah and Shelah would have been similarly obligated, but they didn't do it and ---though they were in the wrong --- the Lord didn't kill them. In fact, there was a set penalty for violating the Levirate rule by "not doing anything," and that was for the woman to shame the man and spit on him at the village gate. This is not the equivalent of the death penalty.
(Of course, Judah finally did comply later and impregnate Tamar, but it was not voluntarily: it was due to the blessed crafty deception by Tamar. Good girl!)
Simply not doing the Levirate thing by passively demurring was (in a manner of speaking) a misdemeanor. But actually "going through the motions" but evading the natural issue, was a felony. Tamar could have shamed Judah publicly for "what he did not do"; God slew Onan for "what he did": de-naturing intercourse to make it unfruitful.
Avoiding Tamar under the circumstances would be like not coming to a holy banquet (refraining.) Using her for sex but contemptuously wasting the seed would be like eating at the holy banquet and spitting out the food.
That kicked the offense up to a whole new level, because Scripture says that what he did greatly offended the Lord, and He slew him.
Argument #4 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because God condemns perverted sexual practices.
[The various deviations described in Leviticus are] a perversion of man-woman sex, as God created it. We agree, but this has nothing to do with artificial conception.
No so. Natural sex --- man-woman sex as God created it --- is inherently designed around cyclic fertility. Rejecting normal structure and function for contraceptive purposes is like sex-reassignment: using hormones and/or surgery to suppress or impair your natural sex characteristics.
The Leviticus deviations are not natural sex. Contracepted sex is not natural sex. It wipes out the very thing that makes real sex "sex", and far more significant than hugs, back massages or foot-rubs: the recurring potential for procreation.
Argument #5 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because marriage is sacred so you should not suppress either of the twofold blessings - children or pleasure.
We agree that marriage is sacred. But I find this unpersuasive because the number of children you have does not make it less sacred, nor each child you have less of a blessing, nor sex less pleasurable.
You are right in saying that the number of children you have [I think you mean "having less children"] does not make marriage less sacred. However, intentionally impairing the created nature of sex does make it less sacred. It is a belittling or trivialization of your own body.
The way the body is, is good. The way human bodies are, complete in every detail, is very good. Acting against that, is not morally neutral.
Our normal healthy powers are features, not glitches. It's as much a desecration to impair a person's fertility as if it were a bad thing, as it would be to impair their eyesight as if it were a bad thing. More so, inasmuch as for humans, sex is given for the incredibly exalted purpose of cooperating with the Creator in bringing persons into being.
Blocking the human body's inbuilt nature is treating it as something whose design is incidental, not providential; optional, not inbuilt; insignificant, not significant. It means what you are (for instance, a fertile female) can be changed as if you belonged to yourself. But we do not belong to ourselves.
We are the stewards, not the masters, of the sources of life.
Disabling or disconnecting functions which God inscribed into our bodies, pushes the body towards the category of "thing" rather than "person." It turns the marital embrace into pseude-sex, something we find gratifying, but with low sacredness, low significance and low consequence. It asserts a right that we really don't have: to redesign the human body as if our new design is better than God's.
Legitimate medical therapeutics involving drugs, devices and surgery are legitimate because they aim to restore the normal: to cure what is sick, to repair what is wounded, to re-form what was malformed, to strengthen what was weak. We have a right to do that.
Contraceptive technologies do the opposite: they disable or impair natural function. In this, they are like the contra-sexual technologies (I am speaking of transsexualism): to evade the consequences of the way your natural body was made.
Note that I am not saying that the medical use of hormones, devices, and surgery is wrong: the purpose of such use is to restore normal function. Contraceptive use of hormones, devices, and surgery, is the negation of this: its purpose is to suppress normal function.
This is broader than a critique of contraception as something simply "not natural." Periodic abstinence would be natural even if it required a computer; the Pill would be wrong even if it grew on trees. The larger ethical point is that "justice" in action toward the body is to work for, and not against, the Design. Working against the Design will strike you as impious if you think the Designer is sacred, and reflects Himself in some mysterious way in His image, His likeness, His Design.
None of this would be objectionable if you did it to your cats.
Argument #6 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because gays make claims to justify their practices, so birth control is wrong.
Argument #7 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because gays argue that the Biblical texts do not use specific words
Argument #9 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because pro-gay and pro-contraceptive Christians use the same type of arguments to justify their choices.
God condemns homosexuality in many passages. Gays who make this argument are simply ignorant of Scripture.
Not so fast: the most painstaking ones say they "affirm Sola Scriptura and authentic Biblical Christianity" (link to "Gay Christian 101") and they demonstrate their claim by being hair-splitting, even pedantic pursuers of Biblical textual analysis.
They don't lack ways of mincing and tweezing the lexicon. What they do lack is the wisdom of discerning God's deeper intent as historic and traditional Christianity has always discerned it.
I'm going to explain what THEY say. Please note that I am not endorsing this, I am just summarizing the rapidly evolving LGBT "Christian" argument:
For instance: they highlight fact that neither Biblical Hebrew nor Biblical Greek uses any word that translates precisely as "homosexual" or "homosexuality".since the Bible does not classify people in different orientation categories. The Hebrew words Qadesh and Qedeshah are never used in the Bible to mean homosexual, and the O.T. contexts are all about cult-prostitution and shrine-prostitution.
N.T. uses arsenokoitai which refers to interspecies rape, Greek gods committing adultery, and pederasty, not homosexuality per se. Malakoi referred to a person wearing the attire of a harlot, sort of equivalent of talking about a person in shiny hotpants and a halter top, and referred again to temple prostitution or the persons who imitated their looks and their lifestyle.
(Again, please note that I am not endorsing this, I am just summarizing the LGBT "Christian" argument.)
Their point is that the Scriptures use expressions that do not map exactly onto our expressions (their "semantic field" is not identical with ours), and therefore they are NOT clear. This is why the Gau Christian propagandists reject a "hermeneutic of continuity" in discernment, which we call "tradition," and rely on bare text only.
We shouldn't do that. It results in rejecting the Holy Spirit, Who, as promised, never ceased guiding the saints; discernment of His Will through the centuries. Bare Text Only is how you end up in GayChristian101.
Argument #8 - Artificial Birth Control is Wrong because Christians used to believe it was wrong.
Argument #10 - Artificial birth control is wrong because Christians historically thought it was wrong.
(Actually, my argument is not that "Christians used to believe it is wrong," but that "Christians have always and still do believe it is wrong.")
“But Christians for 1900 years understood the Bible to be against active homosexual sex relations, just as all Christians for 1900 years understood related texts to weigh in against contraception.” Which you have not posted to me.
Yeah, but you say you've got Alan Carlson's book. From Didache to Lambeth --- and beyond!
“And contraceptors likewise shrug off 400 years' worth of Protestant teaching ..."
“Contractors!” - you’ve got to make up a pejorative word for people who disagree with you??
I didn't say "contractors," I said "contraceptors." This would be people who do contraception, just like "contractors" would mean "people who do contracts." It's not pejorative unless you think "contraception" has a negative connotation.
“God bless you.
`
And you too.