And while we're talking sex...
Not wanting to spark a huge debate in RCIA class I hadn't questioned (out loud) the whole birth control thing. I don't get though how not having sex during fertile periods on purpose in order to control family size is also being open to life and not doing anything that would obstruct creation.
So is the argument against birth control about the method or the idea of not being "open to life" because if it's the latter I can't think of anything less "open" than abstaining specifically to not chance pregnancy.
And why pray tell is abstaining even an option for family size control. From a biblical point of view it's unsupportable. There is a passage in the new testament about husbands and wives not keeping themselves from each other except for periods of prayer and fasting. Notice the option of to make sure we don't have any(more) kids isn't mentioned. And there is another passage that states that husband and wives don't own their own bodies but are the property of each other and should not withhold themselves sexually from their partners.
It seems to me the edict to have married sex is a recurring theme which is why it baffles me that the only church approved method of birth control is not having sex.
And while I'm thinking of sex how did "the sin of Onan" become synonymous with masturbation? That was clearly a story about directly disobeying God's instructions as laid out culturally in the method of insuring inheritance when a man died without a child. His brother's job was to impregnate the widow and that child be not his own heir but his brothers. I think it kept the killing of brothers by each other in order to inherit the brothers' portion down pretty well since you know even with old dude dead you weren't getting anything.
You'd think readers of a book that declares repeatedly rules for multiplying and celebrating begats and seriously the song of solomon is all about sexual pleasure, that sex wouldn't have become somehow all duty and no play. Given that kids are expensive and childbirth hurts there has to be some incentive to keep couples hopping back into bed against all good sense. Sex being fun is a feature not a bug.
So is the argument against birth control about the method or the idea of not being "open to life" because if it's the latter I can't think of anything less "open" than abstaining specifically to not chance pregnancy.
And why pray tell is abstaining even an option for family size control. From a biblical point of view it's unsupportable. There is a passage in the new testament about husbands and wives not keeping themselves from each other except for periods of prayer and fasting. Notice the option of to make sure we don't have any(more) kids isn't mentioned. And there is another passage that states that husband and wives don't own their own bodies but are the property of each other and should not withhold themselves sexually from their partners.
It seems to me the edict to have married sex is a recurring theme which is why it baffles me that the only church approved method of birth control is not having sex.
And while I'm thinking of sex how did "the sin of Onan" become synonymous with masturbation? That was clearly a story about directly disobeying God's instructions as laid out culturally in the method of insuring inheritance when a man died without a child. His brother's job was to impregnate the widow and that child be not his own heir but his brothers. I think it kept the killing of brothers by each other in order to inherit the brothers' portion down pretty well since you know even with old dude dead you weren't getting anything.
You'd think readers of a book that declares repeatedly rules for multiplying and celebrating begats and seriously the song of solomon is all about sexual pleasure, that sex wouldn't have become somehow all duty and no play. Given that kids are expensive and childbirth hurts there has to be some incentive to keep couples hopping back into bed against all good sense. Sex being fun is a feature not a bug.
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