Golden Coconut Award
I’ve decided to have a little fun and create an award for the coconut pro-abortion apologists who spout the most anti-scientific nonsense in the headlong pursuit of butchering babies. Welcome the Golden Coconut to Coming Home. This is a serious monthly award. Please email your candidates for the end-of -the-month award to be given on the last day of each month. It’s a neat little way of doing pro-life apologetics.
While on the net today I came across this little diatribe from a commenter named Anne over at ProWomanProLife:
Making abortion illegal causes astronomical increase in crime, so says silly things like data and facts. Glad you want more crime. Glad you want more kids living the shitty lives unwanted kids live. Glad you care more about your “scruples” than how much pain your scruples cause your society. That’s awesome…or pathological narcissism.
A quick search on Google revealed (not surprisingly), that Anne has it backward. Using Anne’s hypothesis, one would expect a higher crime rate for property and violent crimes in the years leading to Roe v. Wade, and then a gradual descent over time.
The data from the Bureau of Justice speak differently.
US Violent Crime Rate
US Property Crime Rate
In 1960, the crime rate was at its lowest. As the sexual revolution took off (narcissism), and demand for abortion increased (murderous narcissism), so did the crime rate. So it increased for 13 years prior to Roe and went higher as the abortion rates soared. An examination of these graphs indicates that as abortion rates dropped, beginning in the early 90’s, so did the crime rates.
Oops! Sorry Anne, but your argument fails the test of both causality and correlation. The data show a definite correlation in the opposite direction. You get an F on this piece of rhetoric and composition. But it does merit you a Golden Coconut!
2 R.K. Jones et al., "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and Access to Services, 2005," Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 40 (2008):6-16 (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/4000608.pdf; visited March 19, 2009).
So, for her exemplary work in demonstrating the pro-abort tactic of inverting the data in advancing their murderous agenda, Anne is the inaugural recipient of the Coming Home Golden Coconut Award!!
Congratulations Anne, and get well soon.
Don’t forget to send in your nominees!!!
Coming Home 
Dr. (I use the term loosely here so as not to offend those who actually merit the title) Morgentaler of Canada, champion of abortion rights has insisted that legalized abortion is almost solely responsible for bringing down that country’s crime rate. For his efforts (aborting hundreds of thousands of babies) he was awarded the Order of Canada.
I think the veritable Dr. Morgentaler should share the award with Anne.
MC,
Can you get me some more info on the good doctor? He sounds like a good candidate for a special end of the year award.
So Anne and the Canadian government think that preemptive capital punishment in the womb is the answer to potential criminality! If that is the case, the Western Civilization is dead.
“Using Anne’s hypothesis, one would expect a higher crime rate for property and violent crimes in the years leading to Roe v. Wade, and then a gradual descent over time. ”
Instead of a gradual descent, wouldn’t we more likely expect a descent beginning around the time when the aborted babies would have grown to an age at which they would have committed acts that boosted the crime statistics?
And couldn’t that explain the drop about 20 years after Roe, when those aborted babies would have come up age, had they been born?
(Actually, I think the drop could more plausibly be explained by lots of states making tougher crime laws in the early 90’s.)
L,
The crime rate would actually have begun its decline in the early 80’s, as the crime begins with juveniles. It continues its climb into the 90’s.
The point is that it is patently absurd to suggest that those marked for death in their mother’s wombs represent a significant percentage of future criminals. If anything has given rise to the level of crime in society, it is fatherless homes.
The inner city is as bleak and filled with despair as ever before. Illegitimacy among African Americans is upward of 75%! That, coupled with the lovelessness and despair that accompanies abortion fuel the alienation which gives rise to crime. It is simply appalling to me that any thinking individuals could buy such malarky as potential criminality as a justification for murder.
Preemptive capital punishment for crimes as yet uncommitted that may not be capital in nature, and carried out in the earliest stages of human development. If this is what we have descended to, then civilization is dead.
I think there are lots of other reasons the crime rate fell. just from what I remember of the ’90’s. Wasn’t that the time of the Three Strikes laws?
And I think the world is much better off without ME behind bars. Had I not personally contracepted dozens of my own children out of existence, and had more children than I could sanely handle, I would surely have gone nuts and started beating them!
“Had I not personally contracepted dozens of my own children out of existence…”
A bit of an exaggeration? Do you have ESP in regards to your fertility?
Gerard,
Why the cord, etc… attached to the coconut? I can’t figure it out. Thanks.
“Do you have ESP in regards to your fertility?”
No, just an educated guess. I’m highly fertile (or at least I was — perhaps no longer, and no desire to find out). I’ve only NOT used contraception perhaps a half-dozen times, and two out of my four pregnancies only took one try. If you figure 12 ovulations a year, beginning when I was 16….well, you can see why “dozens” is no exagerration.
“No, just an educated guess. I’m highly fertile (or at least I was — perhaps no longer, and no desire to find out). I’ve only NOT used contraception perhaps a half-dozen times, and two out of my four pregnancies only took one try. If you figure 12 ovulations a year, beginning when I was 16….well, you can see why “dozens” is no exagerration.”
glad you fully understand what you have done. You will have no excuses before the Lord!
I understand perfectly. I stand ready for judgement — by God, not by you, MC.
L, that is exactly what I meant. I am not judging you only that you will not be able to stand before God and claim that you didn’t know.
There are some people who have been led to the culture of death – abortion and contraception.
There are many others who freely chose it.
Abortion is different, but I have to say, I don’t know a single person who was “led” to contracept. It is a willful choice involving a bit of preparation by one or both partners.
many women are “led” to contracept because they are not told the truth about their bodies, their sexuality nor about the price they might have to pay for that “freedom”
for many women the pill has led them to the realities of infertility, missed chances of having a family, STIs, cancer, medical problems and even death
contracepting is not being true to the nature of feminity and womanhood
contracepting is not being ecological
contracepting is not being true to thine own self
contracepting is all about burying the reality of what it means to be a woman and to accept our nature and ourselves.
it is a lie.
Contraception is not just the pill.
It is also possible to use NFP contraceptively — abstaining during what a woman knows are her most fertile times.
Contraception, for me, is a blessing, for which I thank God everytime I use it.
Janet,
It’s an amplifier, with cord, volume switch and speaker. A loud-mouthed coconut!!!!!
Hey Gang,
I’m off to DC for a conference and then giving a lecture at Georgetown Law. I’ll catch up with y’all on Saturday. Last one out turns out the lights 🙂
[…] Coming Home has given out its 1st official “Golden Coconut” award to a pro-choicer “spout[ing] anti-scientific nonsense in the headlong pursuit of butchering babies.” The 1st winner insisted that less abortion leads to more poverty and crime – despite statistics that show the opposite. […]
agreed L. NFP can also be used contraceptively and is just as destruction emotionally and spiritually as other types of contraception.
AND it can also cause women to delay childbearing until too late as well. I personally know of a couple who did this and never had children much to the wife’s grief and her family.
That is why I hope a male pill is never developed. There will be very very few babies.
MC, there’s no male pill yet, but there are vasectomies, which are minimally invasive. I have several male friends who never wanted children, who had them when they were young, and never regretted it. This is a choice for those who want it. (I only wish female sterilization was as minimally invasive — I would surely have done it.)
Avoiding unwanted babies by preventing their conception in the first place sounds like a great idea to me, no matter how you slice it.
I have to admit, the whole concept of “using NFP contraceptively” has always baffled me. Either you abstain whenever a women’s fertile, or you don’t. If you know you are fertile, and you have very good reason to believe you’re ovulating, how can it be a sin to abstain from sex? How can it be a sin to abstain from sex in any circumstances?
/I have to admit, the whole concept of “using NFP contraceptively” has always baffled me. Either you abstain whenever a women’s fertile, or you don’t. If you know you are fertile, and you have very good reason to believe you’re ovulating, how can it be a sin to abstain from sex? How can it be a sin to abstain from sex in any circumstances?/
L,
What is the purpose or reason for the sex organ’s?
What is the product of the organ’s?
What is the “by product” of the sex organ’s?
“Turning away from God would not be a defect except in a nature meant to be with God. Even an evil will then is proof of the goodness of nature. Just as God is the supremely good creator of good natures, so he is the most just ruler of evil wills, so that even though evil wills make an evil use of good natures, God makes a good use of evil wills.
– St. Augustine, The City of God, XI, 17”
L.,
Have you ever taken an NFP course, or studied seriously or in depth?
Specific hypotheical question, Astran (and Mary Catherine, if you’re still there):
A woman is very fertile, with very predictable cycles and very easy-to-read signals from her body.
One evening, she is at the peak of her monthly fertility.
She desires her husband.
Her husband desires her.
But knowing what she knows about her own body, she tells her husband, “Wait. Because of [reason here], we ought to abstain to avoid conception this month.”
They abstain.
A child that could have been created at this fertile time, resulting from their union, was not created.
Were they sinful to abstain? Is it EVER sinful to abstain from sexual intercourse?
Or does it depend on the reason?
[I ask this because there was a time when I was at the peak of my fertility and was staying with my husband in a hotel, at a very remote resort — and forgot my contraception. I insisted that we abstain from sex, and even sleep in separate beds so that we wouldn’t be tempted. I often wonder, who would we have created that night?
I have told this story to Catholic friends, who told me that what I did was a mortal sin, and that “abstaining” a baby out of existence is every bit as intrinsically evil as contracepting/aborting one.]
Dr. Nadal: Yes, I have looked into NFP it quite extensively. There is a lot available online now, and even before the Internet, there was plenty of literature available. I once looked into the actual class (Creighton), but it was determined (by the instructor) that I was looking into it “for the wrong reasons,” since I am not in full communion with the Church and only wanted to better understand my fertility so that I could better avoid pregnancy.
/Specific hypotheical question, Astran (and Mary Catherine, if you’re still there):/
Before I answer your questions, could you please answer mine?
What is the purpose or reason for the sex organ’s?
What is the product of the organ’s?
What is the “by product” of the sex organ’s?
I know, you know the answers, but humor me!
Okay.
The reason for the sex organs are reproduction — continuation of the species. Offspring are the products.
Not sure what you mean by “by products” of the organs.
The Catholic Church teaches that it is sinful to use one’s sex organs for reasons that don’t include — or at least, are not open to the possibility of — procreation.
However, I desire to use my sex organs, and yet never conceive. I desire to use sex solely for bonding purposes (my own pleasure can sometimes be a factor, though I admit that the greatest pleasure is not pleasing myself, but pleasing a partner I love). Therefore, I must artificially remove my fertility, and I have always been profoundly grateful that such means exist.
What is the reason for the human digestive tract? It is to nourish the body. Similarly, it would seem to be a violation of natural law to introduce anything but the most nourishing substances avaiable. To introduce any matter with no nutritional value, consumed solely for the pleasure of eating it, would see to be a grave violation of the digestive tract from what nature intended. And yet, I am sitting here drinking zero-calorie diet lemonade — tricking my body into thinking I am consuming something sweet and life-giving, when in fact it is anything but.
The human race would die out without some natural sexual relations, and humans die if they don’t have access to a bare minimum of nutrients. Taken to an extreme, removing procreation entirely is like removing nutrition entirely: unsustainable.
But in moderation, I believe there’s a healthy place in my own life for both artificially infertile sexual relations and non-caloric “food” and drink.
/Not sure what you mean by “by products” of the organs/
Besides the purpose for the sex organs, which is reproduction, there is another product, a “secondary/by product” that is produced too.
You use the word “desire”, which is a precursor to using the organs of reproduction, although it is not neccessarily a product/produced of the reproductive organs. Desire is a passion, is it not, a emotion detached from the “true” physical sensation?.
Soo, a “secondary purpose” or “by product purpose”, of using the reproductive organs is
a sensation. A physical sensation.
It is said that truth is the mind conforming to reality or purpose. Less truth of purpose or reality condemns one to mistakes of truth, or f a false reality.
“Socrates said in The Republic that virtue can know vice but vice cannot know evil. The penalty for vice is the vice itself, the not seeing the good in its fullness, the good that ought to be there.”
It’s as old as time, the problem of trying to make reality conform to a passion.
You sound as if you’re reducing sex to a sensation, and its bonding purpose to a “false reality.”
I don’t know if you’re married, Astran, or if you’ve ever been in a long-term sexual relationship — or even if you have, I don’t know the extent to which your experience is similar to mine.
I will just say that sometimes, even in the context of a healthy relationship, the word “passion” is relative.
I used the diet lemonade comparison, but I admit I drink diet lemonade only to satisfy myself — I like the taste, but I don’t want to drink all those sugary calories. Switching to speaking more objectively, sex is not just to satisfy oneself, but to satisfy another, and therefore can have a much broader purpose.
To reduce sex to a simple sensation, just because it’s non-procreative, seems like a perversion of “truth of purpose” to me.
/However, I desire to use my sex organs, and yet never conceive. I desire to use sex solely for bonding purposes (my own pleasure can sometimes be a factor, though I admit that the greatest pleasure is not pleasing myself, but pleasing a partner I love). Therefore, I must artificially remove my fertility, and I have always been profoundly grateful that such means exist./
A statement that makes the “by-product” of the reproductive organ the “product” of the organ. The secondary, or by-product becomes the primary purpose.
And your pleasuring, or pleasing the partner is quite common amongst people. It makes it right, since, who can argue with giving pleasure to another person. It’s a good, but not a “good in its fullness.” in matters of the reproductive organs.
“It’s a good, but not a ‘good in its fullness.'” –> Actually, it’s not a good according to Catholic teaching.
And therein lies the rub. It’s one thing to say the sexual act is incomplete with the procreative aspect, but quite another to say it is a mortal sin to engage in non-procreative sex.
It’s similar to saying, “You need to eat/drink something besides that zero-calorie lemonade,” and “It is sinful to consume that zero-calorie lemonade because it contains no nutrients to sustain your life.”
Would you care to answer my question about whether it is a sin to willfully abstain from sex at one’s most fertile times, and “abstain away” the baby that would otherwise very likely have resulted?
/To reduce sex to a simple sensation, just because it’s non-procreative, seems like a perversion of “truth of purpose” to me./
If you really think hard, outside of yourself, you will see the “perversion of reality”, that you accuse me of. Truly it’s you, making simple sensation the primary purpose, and not the secondary purpose of the reproductive organs.
You seek not to use the reproductive organs for their full goodness, to reproduce, but to use the secondary purpose as the reason for the organ.
The reason you “have sex”, is for pleasure, the simple sensation. 99.999% of the time. “Giving pleasure to another” enforces the by-product of the organs, and justifies the lack of reality based on pleasure, or a vice.
As for eating, it gives pleasure to feed another too. You can feed another to they’re fat. Then the fat person blames the one who fed them for getting fat!!!
LOL.
/Would you care to answer my question about whether it is a sin to willfully abstain from sex at one’s most fertile times, and “abstain away” the baby that would otherwise very likely have resulted?/
Well L, when it comes to Catholic NFP, I have no actual/good knowledge. THe true rub is in you using the word “sin”. Converting sin into “wrong” is where I begin. Yes, it’s wrong to not use the reproductive organ to do it’s job, by not using the organ at times. It’s quite hillarious, imagine not using the heart at times. Or the lungs. I figure the Catholic Church still hold’s the position that willfully denying the purpose, and use of a organ, is a “sin”.
The Catholic Church isn’t going to convert a vice into a virtue as did the Mainline Protestants.
“Yes, it’s wrong to not use the reproductive organ to do it’s job, by not using the organ at times.” –>
Would the time I described be one of those times, when it would be “wrong?”
A husband and wife desire each other — both the sensation of pleasure for themselves, and the desire to please the other. The wife is highly fertile, is of prime child-bearing age, and knows she is at the point in her cycle when a baby would definitely be conceived (allowing, of course, for the small chance of hormomal misfire, or the one in five chance of natural miscarriage).
Would it be a sin to deny these natural urges, and sleep in separate beds?
/Would it be a sin to deny these natural urges, and sleep in separate beds?/
First, why sleep in separate beds? There is no need to sleep in separate beds. But, for grins, when one denies the pleasure to another, it ends in one sleeping on the couch. Denying pleasure, to defeat the reason for the organ, confirms the reality based on the by-product of the organ.
As for sin, you mean it’s wrong? A wrong to deny a natural urge? Well, guess when one bases one’s “reasoning” on urges and passions, and not the reality of reason, it makes for a paradox amongst those trying to justify their pursuit of pleasure, with no “by-product” of that pleasure. Which is known as the Hedonist Paradox.
The “reality of reason” is that the encounter would most likely lead to a baby.
Okay, forget the separate beds. Forget ME as the female in question (since we both agree I am a poor example of a NFP practicioner).
The hypothetical couple sleeps in the same bed, but refrains from intercourse. They do not simply base their “’reasoning’ on urges and passions” — maybe they are devoutly Catholic, and are trying to practice NFP in the proper frame of mind.
They are fertile, they are married, they both share a desire to perform a certain act, one the Church allows and even encourages married couples to perform. But they do not, because for (some reason), they do not want the likely result of the act: the baby, at that particular point in their lives.
I repeat: They abstain.
A child that could have been created at this fertile time, resulting from their union, was not created.
I ask again: Were they sinful to abstain? Is it EVER sinful to abstain from sexual intercourse?
Or does this depend on the specific reason for which they abstain?
/I ask again: Were they sinful to abstain? Is it EVER sinful to abstain from sexual intercourse?
Or does this depend on the specific reason for which they abstain?/
Were they sinful to abstain?
Yes.
Is it EVER sinful(wrong) to abstain from sexual intercourse? Yes. This of course excludes those that are not having intercourse from a disease.
Behind it all, is the false reality that the purpose of sex is for pleasure, the by -product of the organ. It is a constructed reality based on the lesser good of the City Of God, and which infects all of Western Civilization.. You know that Japanese women really don’t like sex as much as the Western women, and they’ll lie to be polite to the Gaijin. But, being taught to “please another” is quite normal amongst Japanese women, isn’t it?
Ha, you seem to know more about Japanese women than I do! I think in general, based on my entirely anecdotal, non-scientific conversations with people I know well enough to discuss such subjects, Japanese people (both men and women) have lower sex drives than people in other countries — or perhaps they are just conditioned to repress it, until repressing it is the natural state? Anyway, my observations seem to be supported both by the low birth rate and also by the findings of studies of sexual behavior here that I’ve seen.
So….you think it was sinful/wrong for the couple to abstain, in the example I gave (without even stating their specific reason for abstaining).
As I understand it, based on what you said above, you have a “providential” view of marital relations. A couple should simply do what feels natural to them, and leave everything up to God. Purposely abstaining during a woman’s most fertile time is sinful and wrong.
So may natural follow-up question is going to be it ever NOT sinful/wrong for a healthy married couple to abstain from sexual intercourse, for any reason, barring the example of disease that you gave?
What if only one partner is interested? Is it sinful for the other partner to refrain from satisfying him/her?
By the way…based on my (admittedly incomplete) understanding of NFP, abstaining during times of fertility is a licit way to postpone pregnancy, provided the couple’s agreement to abstain is mutual — and the couple is also open to the possibility of life, whenever sexual relations are resumed.
But as I said, there are “providential” Catholics who believe it is a sin for a couple to “abstain away” a baby, and the only reason a couple should ever abstain is a grave health risk to one or both of the partners. You seem to be in this camp.
Perhaps an alternate title of this post should be, “The Criminality of Unconceiving Children.”
L,
Your Catholic friends were wrong. It was not mortal sin, and it shows their ignorance of what the Church teaches and why. If it were mortal sin to use your natural cycle to abstain from sex during fertile periods, then the Magisterium is guilty of promoting that sin, as such abstinence is central to NFP.
The sin enters when one is using NFP to avoid openness to life altogether and thinks that they have a morally plausible alternative to the pill. A central principle of marriage is the openness to new life, the welcoming of children into the world. Where we get into debate is dealing with “how many are enough?”
If one is saving for a vacation home, I’d say that it doesn’t meet the standard established by the Magisterium.
God reads hearts and is not fooled by clever arguments arising from our self-delusions and denials. We’ll be judged accordingly.
Great post Dr. Nadal.
Self Delusion, a attribute of the Golden Coconut.
Dr. Nadal, I disagree with your answer. The act of abstaining might very well be a mortal sin if the reason were trivial. If the couple abstains because the woman simply doesn’t want to become pregnant again, is that a serious reason? I am not so sure it is.
The church tells couples the reason must be serious. Saving for a vacation home is a pretty high marker for mortal sin. What about saving for a vacation? What about not wanting to lose your figure? What about abstaining because you decided that two children are your cut-off?
Therefore, in order to make such an important decision – one which our eternal existence depends upon, the couple needs to be fully informed on church teaching and should also be in the state of grace so as to properly discern the will of God. (I would maintain that a couple contracepting is not in a state of grace, however, they could still learn the will of God for them)
Perhaps an example from my personal life is in order:
After my third child I was very ill (as was the child). I was so run down that I was constantly sick. There were many other stressors in my life too which I won’t go into here. After months of this and since I was getting older (late 30’s) I reluctantly came to the decision that it was unlikely I would be able to have more children. I was completely exhausted and I was devastated that this might be the case.
About a year later, my husband wanted to have another child. I was aghast! Could he not see how things were? To this day I KNOW his desire for another child was not a proper one – it was based on selfish reasons and simply because another couple had had yet another baby. I could easily have said NO.
, I turned to the Lord in prayer. I asked Him what HE wanted of me. The answer after several weeks of prayer was that there was to be another child but not for another 7 months or so. I would conceive in the fall. I understood that God really did wish this but that he was giving me time to heal and get healthy again.
I told my husband this but he insisted on trying to get pregnant immediately. I did not worry and simply left it up to God. We in fact, did not conceive for another 7 months! Interestingly, all signs of fertility disappeared from my body and returned after the summer! We had that 4th baby who is now 13 years old.
God is not outdone is generosity -EVER! I am thoroughly convinced of this.
That child, instead of making my life harder, made it easier. I cannot divulge the exact reasons but she has been a big blessing to me. The pregnancy was the easiest of all my pregnancies and the delivery only slightly challenging at the end. But I have a daughter who is very kind and with whom I have shared many good times with. She is a joy to her other siblings, very sensitive and sweet.
I don’t mean to make you feel bad L, BUT, you do not know what gift you and your husband may have brought to this world that night. Your generosity might have been the gift of a scientist who discovered a cure for Parkinsons or a musician who composes incredibily brilliant works. Or simply someone’s mother or father in the future.
And that is one of the main tragedies of contracepted sex in marriage. We only know of 53 millions lives snuffed out here – those represent the babies killed by their mothers for whatever reasons through abortion.
Then there are the millions upon millions of children who will never exist because two people decided that their bodies, which are gift from the Creator, are their own to rule without any thought to what God asks of us. We have so much in the West that really we have forgotten the whole idea of generosity, duty and self-sacrifice. We have a chance to create a new life and to be open to the wonderful possibilities God is willing to give us.
Contraception takes all this and much more away. That is what Pope Benedict meant by this generation showing a profound lack of trust in God’s goodness and a fear of the future.
I don’t know what will become of my 3rd daughter – she likely won’t be a famous artist, musician or doctor. But she may very well be somebody’s mother some day. And that in itself is a gift!
I should also clarify that when abstaining one also needs to take into the situation the effect on the spouse. Will abstaining lead the spouse (in this case the husband) to sin?
This is also another important consideration. While sleeping in separate beds might help it might not be enough to prevent the above. This is why marriage is so sacrificial. Sadly both men and women have very little notion of this element of marriage today. It’s more about meeting the needs of ourselves than helping the other get to heaven (and in doing so getting ourselves there too!).
/What if only one partner is interested? Is it sinful for the other partner to refrain from satisfying him/her?/
Again, you base your reasoning on that old sensation, the simple sensation. You have reduced sex to that perversion of reality you accuse me of.
That’s the penalty of vice, which is the vice itself, the not seeing the good in its fullness, the good that ought to be there.
Soo, let’s see, you drink diet sodas, to stave of the results of a natural condition of eating, and use it as a comparision to the reproductive organs. Everybody applauds you, and finds such a action as virtuous, but rarely is one to be found that is on a diet of/from sex. You “see” the vice of gluttony, but just can’t “see” the vice of lust. St. Ignatius wrote that when one sin’s, and continues to sin, the sin eventually is habituated into not being a sin. It’s the penalty of the “wrong”. Truly, a hard concept to understand when one is a Catholic child, who drop’s out from being unable to keep a principle as a standard of behaviour.
/Japanese people (both men and women) have lower sex drives than people in other countries — or perhaps they are just conditioned to repress it, until repressing it is the natural state?/
The Roppongi district seems to make waste of that statement. But, then again, it’s all about pleasing another, isn’t it?
Or as Mick Jagger wrote:
And I’m tryin’ to make some girl
Who tells me baby better come back later next week
Cause you see I’m on losing streak
I can’t get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that’s what I say
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
I can’t get no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction
/Contraception takes all this and much more away. That is what Pope Benedict meant by this generation showing a profound lack of trust in God’s goodness and a fear of the future./
Bingo.
MC,
“Dr. Nadal, I disagree with your answer. The act of abstaining might very well be a mortal sin if the reason were trivial. If the couple abstains because the woman simply doesn’t want to become pregnant again, is that a serious reason? I am not so sure it is.”
First, I believe I alluded to trivial reasons, such as buying a vacation home, or other such materialistic obsession. However, I also understand that we live in an age unlike any other for quite some time. A 50% divorce rate has wreaked havoc in the lives of children who have grown up in a toxic wasteland of endless bitter recriminations between parents. Many enter into marriage ill-equipped for the demands of spousal love and parental love, quickly finding themselves overwelmed. So, I am loathe to pounce on the declaration that one doesn’t want another child. There may be a great deal of instability; maritally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually simmering just beneath the surface of that one.
Add to that he implosion of our clergy in the Catholic Church. Decent preachers and teachers are as rare as water in the desert.
We are living through the implosion of Western civilization. How much subjective guilt that ought to be imputed to people re: birth control is best left to God. As for suggesting to others what gifts they are depriving the world, I think that a bit presumptuous without intimately knowing the couple.
Regina and I tried to conceive for years without success. I can’t tell you the number of people who openly presumed that we were being selfish and using contraception. I could have given them the truth, but I believed then, as I do now, that the bedroom is just big enough for three: God and the married couple.
Astran, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I live right across the street from the Roppongi district. I’ve observed that a high percentage of the patrons here are non-Japanese.
I ask you again: What if only one partner is interested? Is it sinful for the other partner to refrain from satisfying him/her? And no, I am not basing my question on “that old sensation” — the “satisfaction” can include satisfying the wish for another child. It can include many things besides a simple physical release, and let’s assume it does
I’ll ask the same question of Mary Catherine — if a husband wants another baby, is it actually a sin for a wife to seek to abstain from sexual relations during her fertile times?
Oh, and this —
“I don’t mean to make you feel bad L, BUT, you do not know what gift you and your husband may have brought to this world that night.” —>
The reason I wonder about that night is that had we conceived a child then, we most likely would not have had our third child a few years later. I look at our youngest son, and I try to imagine our lives with another child instead of him, and of course I just can’t.
I fact, my husband did (past tense) want a fourth child, but my doctor had told me to stop at two sections and I pushed my luck with a third, so it just didn’t seem wise to push it any further. I lobbied hard for adoption, but my husband and I could not agree on this.
I suppose my devout Catholic friends would likely call it sinful, that I never gave my husband that fourth baby that he wanted so badly. And yet somehow, I can’t believe that a loving, benevolent God would really require women to keep bearing child after child, to the limits of their physical and mental endurance.
A friend of mine put it well — “No matter how many you have, you always wonder what your life would have been like with one more.”
Also, when you ask this, Mary Catherine, “will abstaining lead the spouse (in this case the husband) to sin?” — do you mean to say that if someone wants to abstain, and instead his/her spouse resorts to self-satisfaction (and Astran, I AM speaking here just of a simple physical sensation), then the abstaining partner is complicit in the sin of the other? Is this true even if he/she doesn’t know for sure that the partner is resorting to this?
And Astran, you make the point, Also, Astran, “You ‘see’ the vice of gluttony, but just can’t ‘see’ the vice of lust.”
But how can abstaining — not giving in to “lust” — be a sin?
“I can’t tell you the number of people who openly presumed that we were being selfish and using contraception.” –> Isn’t it amazing, the things that people say out loud?
“We are living through the implosion of Western civilization. How much subjective guilt that ought to be imputed to people re: birth control is best left to God. As for suggesting to others what gifts they are depriving the world, I think that a bit presumptuous without intimately knowing the couple.
Regina and I tried to conceive for years without success. I can’t tell you the number of people who openly presumed that we were being selfish and using contraception. I could have given them the truth, but I believed then, as I do now, that the bedroom is just big enough for three: God and the married couple.”
Dr. Nadal, I think part of the implosion of Western civilization is in fact due to couples not having the children they were likely meant to have.
I think one can safely say that many (Catholic) couples in Western society can have more than the one or two children they have. The fact is that they choose not to. Why that is, is very complex but many simply have a very different view of life and children than our parents did. Material wealth is coveted to a great degree in our society today. Children are seen as a threat to the self-actualization that we place great importance on.
Many of the reasons I have heard for women not having children are not due to affordability or health reasons. Most are simply the woman’s desire not to deal with the physical inconvenience of pregnancy, the disinterest of the husband for children, and the desire for other material goods, most of which our parents did without.
I find it puzzling that the generation before mine had no problems having 4 or more children and were quite eager to welcome children – this especially among Catholics. Suddenly a generation with many benefits that their parents could never dream of can’t seem to cope with more than one or two. Suddenly, women who have access to very safe deliveries and modern medicine, cannot cope with pregnancy. Suddenly it is deemed impossible to educate more than one or two children (they don’t all have to attend college).
My own children have classmates who are only children. Some of these children might have parents with fertility problems but most of them do not. They are the parents of one child by choice.
And the funny thing is that this situation is not lost on these “only” children. They get it. They don’t want all the material stuff. They’d trade everything to have siblings.
This lack of openness limits God’s actions to some degree in their lives which was the point of my personal story. I couldn’t see this at the time – all I saw was another pregnancy and more health problems which in the end didn’t materialize. But I had the hope that God had a plan. Yet there is no way in my wildest dreams that I could have forseen the benefits God gave me from this child.
It is impossible to live in a contraceptive society an not be affected by that in some way. I know I am.
As for your fertility problems – yes I have had a few relatives experience this exact situation. I think the reason you (and other couples) run into this assumption is BECAUSE so many other couples are contracepting that it paints all couples with this brush. It becomes easy to assume you are just following the path most other couples are taking.
Most couples I know who have had trouble conceiving have politely told others their situation and have asked for prayers. The couple then has a great deal of support for what is surely a huge cross to bear.
My comment was not meant to offend you Dr. Nadal nor to impute sin on anyone, but to express my own opinion on the matter.
“I can’t tell you the number of people who openly presumed that we were being selfish and using contraception.” –> Isn’t it amazing, the things that people say out loud?
yes just like it’s amazing the number of people who have told me they have been spayed.
it goes both ways.
Mary Catherine, I meant the presumptuous things people say about other people, but I guess some people also do feel compelled to share highly personal information about themselves.
“I think one can safely say that many (Catholic) couples in Western society can have more than the one or two children they have. The fact is that they choose not to.” –> I assume by specifying “Catholic” here you mean that they are using NFP to avoid having more than one or two children.
Would you stop short of calling it a sin, to use NFP to time a woman’s cycle to abstain and avoid procreation?
Or would you say, it is a sin for a healthy, wedded couple to refrain from having as many children as they can safely bear and adequately support?
I have found it interesting over the years, the people who are most likely to tell me I have sinned by failing to further procreate are either 1) parents of very large families themselves, who think that what was right for them must be right for everyone, or 2) people who longed for more — or any — children, but were unable to have them.
“I find it puzzling that the generation before mine had no problems having 4 or more children and were quite eager to welcome children – this especially among Catholics.”
One of my grandmothers only had her two, and her sister had one (one born alive, that is). Both had many friends who died of pregnancy/childbirth complications — and many more friends who lost babies in infancy. Three out of four of my grandparents lost infant siblings.
The “eagerness” to welcome children might have been partly due to the high infant mortality rates, and higher maternal mortality rates.
We are blessed to be able to take for granted that barring some statistically unlikely illness or accident, our children will all grow up.
A few generations ago, I likely wouldn’t have survived the unplanned c-section birth of my first baby. But modern medicine allowed us both to live, and even have two more babies.
But was it a sin to decide not to test the limits of modern medicine, and see how many surgical deliveries my body could endure? Of course I don’t believe it was, but there are those who say yes, it was.
If one spouse wants moer children, does the other spouse have a duty to attempt to conceive them?
I cannot tell another person if they have sinned or not. That is between them and God.
I can say that a couple must have a serious reason to abstain and to not have relations. They must have serious reason to avoid having children and they must also take into account the effect their actions will have on their spouse. Will abstaining for example, cause the other person to fall into sin.
A couple must prayerfully discern their situation for themselves AFTER forming their conscience correctly by understanding and learning and ACCEPTING the teachings of the Catholic church. They must trust that the church teachings are wise and the will of God.
And that, IMO is where a great deal of problems have occurred. The position of many couples is that the church doesn’t know what it’s talking about and is behind the times. But there is great wisdom in the teachings of the Catholic church re: sexuality and sexual morality and marriage.
For material mortality rates above, I meant, higher than today — not higher than the infant mortality rate, which was no doubt higher than the maternal mortality rate.
Oh, and one more thing I forgot to say — I know lots of only children (my own nephew, included) who are happy with their families the way they are, and would not “trade anything” to have siblings.
Maternal mortality is part of life. Preventing it by limiting (or avoiding) life-threatening pregnancies seems to me to be a wonderful blessing in and of itself — not a great sin.
Neutral Corners!
Mary Catherine, I believe some of my comments were deleted, too, not just yours.
I am trying not to be rude to you. I think we can disagree without offending each other. We seem to do it all the time here!.
I think it’s kind of amazing that we are able to have a conversation at all about very private subjects such as this one.
apparently we can’t L. And that’s really tragic.
My comment about my grandmothers was not in the least offensive.
If two people can’t discuss something on a blog what is the point of having open comments.
Your comments no longer make sense.
I have enjoyed my discussion here with you and wish you well but I’ve decided not to come back.
Have an nice whatever part of the day is left in your part of the world.
MC,
I think that I have made it abundantly clear that commentary on another’s life crosses the line. While I realize that people point to their own situation in life as illustrative of the point they are making, I don’t expect, nor will I tolerate name-calling, so that’s my “problem”.
I have repeatedly requested that such name-calling as ‘selfish’, etc… not be applied to specific individuals here. It is uncharitable, despite the nobility of its origins. It also dissuades others from commenting for fear that they will come under assault.
That becomes everyone’s “problem”.
I also do not remember specifically calling L selfish.
I do remember posting a comment about my grandmothers.
Maybe we should start over on another comment thread….
I have not lost interest in the subject of whether “abstaining away” a baby is just as sinful as aborting one — and I admit don’t have many chances in real life to talk to people like Astran and MC, who believe that it is.
MC,
I walked the conversation back to a point where it could go forward. I’m not getting into a war over this with you.
L,
Feel free to continue on this thread. 🙂
I’m not interested in “war” Dr. Nadal. I was curious as to why my comments were deleted since I remember making a comment about my grandparents which I believed was part of the discussion.
But I see no point in continuing the discussion anyway especially since I have no idea what constitutes a deletable comment.
And L I never commented on your question and won’t be.
I have no idea what “abstaining away” a baby means. It means nothing to me.
To all: have a nice evening and a blessed Second Sunday of Advent.
“Abstaining away” a baby is refraining from sexual relations when a woman is fertile to avoid or postpone a pregnancy, for any reason.
Astran, above, said (or seemed to say) that this is a sin.
Is this using NFP contraceptively?
I think perhaps Dr. Nadal could have edited both of our comments instead of deleting some of them (since parts about my family disappeared, too), but he was probably trying to be as quick and efficient as possible.
/I ask you again: What if only one partner is interested? Is it sinful for the other partner to refrain from satisfying him/her? And no, I am not basing my question on “that old sensation” — the “satisfaction” can include satisfying the wish for another child. It can include many things besides a simple physical release, and let’s assume it does/
/What if only one partner is interested?/
Happens all the time, when the purpose of “sex” is to seek pleasure from another. And for 99.99% of the time, it’s the reason for using the organ. You see, your asking a question that leads off into rape, or a violation of will.
My only concern is with the truth of the organ, and its purpose, which is denied continuously, until the by-product is the purpose for use. You can’t deny the fact that your question is based on sensation from your “realty” not allowing it any other reasoning for the organ. You already admit to nature demanding a urge to be satisfied. That’s the reason, to satisfy a urge. If satisfying that natural urge ends in the organ being used in its full goodness, your child is still the product of a urge, a passion. It’s about you, and your urges. And the great secret that psychiatrist deal with, is when a child/person understands the fact that their creation was a “by product” of a “urge” in the women. That’s what naturalism ends in.
/It can include many things besides a simple physical release, and let’s assume it does/
I won’t assume anything. The purpose for the organ is 99.99% used for a simple physical release. That’s a fact, and you know it, L.
In fact, your statement is a euphemism, which means nothing. Release? Release what?
/the “satisfaction” can include satisfying the wish for another child./
Why are you concerned with the “by-product” of the organ? The by-product being the gift of life. Again, you are trapped in a reality that demands some “satisfaction” being released. I shan’t be released, until I have another child, and the by-product now becomes the product of another “satisfaction”.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein, (attributed) US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955)
Expecting different results from having sex? Afterall, you do the same thing over and over.
LOL.
Astran, correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe you have just told me that the ONLY reason me and my husband have sexual relations is to satisfy our urges — yes?
If so, if you really insist on believing this of me, after all of what I said above, then I am unable to have a conversation with you.
You are essentially sticking your fingers in your ears, and saying ” It’s about you, and your urges,” over and over again, and somehow, this is supposed to convince me that you are right and I am wrong.
Expecting different results from having sex? Indeed, yes, I do.
And I expected much more of you, too, in this particular conversation.
L,
Yes, I chose not to edit parts, but to delete whole comments. The work is not for me to play surgeon in the comboxes, doing careful dissections. Wholesale deletions effect more self-policing than surgery on my part. That’s hard-won experience talking. I chose to blow up the bridge, denying that road in the future, in an effort to redirect the conversation.
MC,
Jill Stanek and I have discussed the philosophical and practical differences between our blogs and their aims. She welcomes the graded responses to the trolls on her site. Different missions. Different realities.
/Astran, correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe you have just told me that the ONLY reason me and my husband have sexual relations is to satisfy our urges — yes?/
Please understand that you simply represent the “collective you” as I ask questions or discuss the subject of the reproductive organs.
I mean no personal attack upon you, since your the great “collective mind” of Western Civilization’s morality concerning reproduction.
But, yes behind it all, is the naturalism that reduces human beings to a urge or satisfaction. Afterall, it’s your words that I use……urge, desire, satisfaction.
// Is it sinful for the other partner to refrain from satisfying him/her?//
//Would it be a sin to deny these natural urges, and sleep in separate beds?//
//A husband and wife desire each other — both the sensation of pleasure for themselves, and the desire to please the other//
// I desire to use my sex organs, and yet never conceive.//
//Contraception, for me, is a blessing, for which I thank God everytime I use it.//
Which leaves me back to my point, that if one is against life(contraception), then the purpose of the reproductive organs is……..that urge, the passion, the feeling, and is the lesser good that is the by -product of the organ.
To ask questions about not using the organ to bring about the “good in its fullness” of the organ, is meaningless, when the use is already decided by the user of the organ for the lesser good.
The reality is……. 99.99% not to use the organ for its full good. You do it, and your reality demands it. Your trying to make a Catholic into a person against life through NFP. As I said, that’s not my expertise. MC, and especially her third child post, address the issue of NFP.
I can seem to be sticking my finger in my ears, but as thinking person’s, we already know where the conversation and morality is going from previous statements in matters of abortion or use of the reproductive organs to not reproduce. As for you and your husband, naturalism leaves no room for the things that don’t exist outside of nature, the urge to satisfaction. Afterall, some things a Catholic child learns becomes the “false reality” as they become the urge and passion of Naturalism. CONCUPISCENCE, the spontaneous movement of the sensitive appetites toward whatever the imagination portrays as pleasant and away from whatever it portrays as painful.
It’s a bit disingenuous to claim you were only addressing the “collective you” when you say, ” It’s about you, and your urges.”
You seem to have trouble with the word “urges,” and “desire,” and “satisfaction,” even though I explictily said I was talking about more than the simple physical aspect of sex.
You say, “The reality is……. 99.99% not to use the organ for its full good.”
But what if its “full good” includes marital bonding — not the wish to please the self, but the wish to please the other (perhaps even at one’s own discomfort/distress)?
Here is what you said, that suggests to me that perhaps you don’t have the slightest clue what I’m talking about:
“Happens all the time, when the purpose of ‘sex’ is to seek pleasure from another. And for 99.99% of the time, it’s the reason for using the organ. You see, your asking a question that leads off into rape, or a violation of will.”
The purpose I mean can NEVER lead off into rape, or a violation of will, because it is to GIVE — not seek — pleasure. This is what I mean by “expecting different results from having sex” — indeed, VERY different from what you describe.
Are you married, Astran? I’m sorry, you are a total stranger (as far as I know), so perhaps I shouldn’t have assumed you would understand what I meant.
And now you’re mentioning MC’s “third child post” — she said, ” To this day I KNOW his desire for another child was not a proper one – it was based on selfish reasons and simply because another couple had had yet another baby.”
I am not going to speculate on MC’s marriage, and I’m truly glad her beloved daughter was born.
But isn’t the urge, the desire to have a child for selfish reasons something that sex satisfies — another “by-product?” Or do not agree that procreative sex can never be selfish?
And isn’t practicing NFP — and abstaining from sex — also satisfying an urge, a desire to live closer to God?
I don’t know about the NFP part, which is why I asked.
You say, “As for you and your husband, naturalism leaves no room for the things that don’t exist outside of nature, the urge to satisfaction.”
And yet, I was very specifically describing a time when we abstained — when we refrained from acting on our lust and unbridled passion — when we acted against “the spontaneous movement of the sensitive appetites toward whatever the imagination portrays as pleasant” and instead painfully abstained, because we believed it would be more responsible to wait a bit before having another child.
And this, you say, was a sin.
thank you Dr. Nadal for calling me a troll.
You have no further worries. I won’t be back.
Mary Catherine — maybe he was calling ME a troll, and explaining why he “feeds” trolls here.
Anyway, he didn’t call you a troll anymore than you called me a serial killer, in one of your deleted comments. He used the word as an example of different ways of handling dissenting opinions in blog comments.
MC,
I called neither of you trolls. You wrote a comment asking about my standards for commenting and how I respond elsewhere. So, I talked about Jill’s site (the one you referenced) and how Jill feels about me responding to the trolls at her site. How you then make the leap that I have called anyone here a troll is beyond me, especially as I was discussing YOUR responses to fellow commenters here.
At this point, I think you’re looking for a fight because I deleted an entire chunk of conversation. If you wish to leave, so be it. However, last night has not been the first, or even fifth, time that I have had to blow the referees whistle and remind you to stop getting personal with others here. Every time I have had to shut down a thread it has been because of you and another person crossing the line, but it has always been MC as the common denominator.
I welcome spirited debate, but the snide comments, the self-righteous “I’m praying for you” delivered alongside verbal barrages, are a staple of your debates and you consistently resort to them. Yesterday’s comment,
“It is like a serial killer saying that the commandment Thou shalt not kill cannot possibly apply to him because his situation is very special and unique.”
was the trigger for the deletions. It was an atrocious analogy leveled at a commenter who is pro-choice and pro-contraception, and was the beginning of what has become a predictable slide into rhetorical oblivion with you. It happened repeatedly with Asitis and some other fellow whose name escapes me at the moment. Dwell on that in your absence.
Dr. Nadal
I had absolutely NO intention of calling L a murderer.
I was trying to think of a commandment that would be similar and serious enought to the situation we were discussing. In fact I am appalled that you believed that I was liking L to a murderer. That insinuation NEVER, absolutely NEVER crossed my mind. I am deeply offended that you got that out of my example.
I was trying to explain that people who contracept always believe that their situation is exceptional and therefore their position is a moral one.
It could have been a commandment about lying. It could have been any other example but that was the first thing that came to my mind.
I am absolutely not looking for a fight. In fact it was you who used the word “war”! I felt L and I were having a good discussion last night.
I am sorry that you seem to read things into my comments that are simply not meant to be.
as for the troll comment:
She welcomes the graded responses to the trolls on her site. Different missions. Different realities.
That is how I inferred I am a troll.
“instead painfully abstained, because we believed it would be more responsible to wait a bit before having another child.”
L,
If that is what you and your husband believed and you feel that you had a serious reason for abstaining then there was nothing sinful. Only you your husband and God know all the little intricacies of the situation.
What I have been trying to say to you is that it is the duty of a Catholic to fully inform themselves on church teaching (this may mean accepting that teaching even if you don’t completely agree with it or understand it – and then it would be a good idea to talk to a priest about that).
We can’t always know for certain if we have acted 100 percent correctly but if we try our best, I believe that is the important thing. And strive to remain faithful.
What bothers me is that many Catholics simply blow off church teaching and dismiss it as outdated without truly understanding that teaching.
Everything Pope Paul predicted in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae has come to pass. These predictions came true because they are the logical outcomes of people turning away from God and doing what they want.
We dont’ have infinite minds and infinite knowledge – we are not all-knowing. God has all these attributes and we can’t see the blessings he has in store for us. We only see the little picture. I think that is our big problem today.
“Different missions. Different realities.”
And from that you inferred that I called you a troll???????
No Dr. Nadal.
I inferred from the fact that you were talking about me and then began discussing how trolls are dealt with on Jill Stanek.
That is how I made the connection.
As for the murder comment what I would like to say to L as a further explanation and as to WHY I never made the connection to her as a murderer is:
When it comes to contraception, (Catholic) persons believe that they can always step outside the moral envelope and justify their use of said because the situation is special (they will die, their bodies aren’t made for having babies etc.).
We don’t do this in pretty much ANY other area of our lives. We don’t do it with murder nor with adultery (although some men/women do believe that their spouse gave them no other choice)
It would be like Tiger Woods saying, “Ya know I just have such a strong s** drive that I just had to have 2 or 3 women when I was away from home. I just can’t stick with only one woman. So the church’s teaching that marriage is mutually exclusive doesn’t hold for me” He might actaully be thinking that but he would never go out and say this to people. It would be preposterous..
Yet Catholics seem to believe they are a special subset of the population who can remain Catholic AND flaunt their disobedience in the area of sexual morality.
The church teaching on contraception is not outdated nor is it wrong.
It appears wrong to these persons mainly (I think) due to their ignorance and their stiff necks (if I may use that term).
As another personal example:
My mother had a serious heart condition. She was told after her first child to never have anymore children. This worked for about 8 years until she got pregnant on the rhythm method. She not only had that child (me) but she conceived another child 3 months after I was born. She was told to abort that pregnancy but she didn’t.
Now the church teaching about contraception wasn’t wrong. The pill was available at this time but my parents followed their faith.
She had those babies not due to the fault of the church teaching but due to the ignorance of the medical profession. She was not allowed to breastfeed after a caesarian (this is incorrect). She became pregnant again when maybe breastfeeding might have rendered her infertile.
She became pregnant because, although NFP was known at that time, it was not widely known among doctors nor among priests.
And the bottom line is: she did survive and so did we.
/It’s a bit disingenuous to claim you were only addressing the “collective you” when you say, ” It’s about you, and your urges.”/
So be it.
But ,you represent the collective and common morality of Western society. I’m disingenuous to you.
/You seem to have trouble with the word “urges,” and “desire,” and “satisfaction,” even though I explictily said I was talking about more than the simple physical aspect of sex./
Maybe the confusion and disingenuousness begins with the position I’m taking. The purpose for “sex” is the satsfaction of a physical sensation, preceded by a urge for that pleasure. The organ is to produce self pleasure as its primary purpose. Whether you satisfy another, is a another by-product of your natural drive for self pleasure.
/But what if its “full good” includes marital bonding — not the wish to please the self, but the wish to please the other (perhaps even at one’s own discomfort/distress)?/
Of course for you, and the multi-millions of “you’s”, that is your “full good” of the organ 99.99% of the time you use the organ. But, as old as Socrates words are, you fulfill his defining of vice and its penalty to not understand your “sin” because of your “sin”. Pleasure satisfaction does bond, but so does cooking to please the self and to please another, perhaps even at one’s own discomfort/distress. Now, take that word vice and try to understand the definition in reference to concupiscence.
//And yet, I was very specifically describing a time when we abstained — when we refrained from acting on our lust and unbridled passion — when we acted against “the spontaneous movement of the sensitive appetites toward whatever the imagination portrays as pleasant” and instead painfully abstained, because we believed it would be more responsible to wait a bit before having another child.
And this, you say, was a sin.//
The Hedonist Paradox is touchy. Wanting your natural pursuit for pleasure satsfied, and avoiding the natural product of that good pleasure, leaves one facing the .01% use principle of the organ, as a remembered “painful experience.”
CONCUPISCENCE. Insubordination of man’s desires to the dictates of reason, and the propensity of human nature to sin as a result of original sin. More commonly, it refers to the spontaneous movement of the sensitive appetites toward whatever the imagination portrays as pleasant and away from whatever it portrays as painful. However, concupiscence also includes the unruly desires of the will, such as pride, ambition, and envy. (Etym. Latin con-, thoroughly + cupere, to desire: concupiscentia, desire, greed, cupidity.)
Ironic, that I of all people have become Astran’s proxy for Western civiliation.
Contraceptive sex is not a modern invention. I’m sure men have been withdrawing at the last minute ever since the first caveman made the connection between a man’s “seed” and his offspring.
And Astran, you still don’t seem to understand what I’m talking about — you still say, “Whether you satisfy another, is a another by-product of your natural drive for self pleasure.”
Let’s get back to eating. At this point in my life, I enjoy a good meal more than any other physical pleasure.
Gluttony is a sin. People die of it. They die from obesity-related conditions like diabetes and heart disease, they die from complications of surgery to control the effects of their urges. (A young mother at our Catholic school died around Christmas a couple of years ago, from complications of lap-band surgery.)
And yet our religion doesn’t set forth strict dietary rules, as others do. We are left on our own — with mixed results — to figure out how to best use our digestive tracts.
I’m baking Christmas brownies right now: powdered cocoa, butter, red and green sprinkles. The eggs are healthy, but anyone living on a steady diet of the other ingredients would likely develop health problems.
And yet the Church doesn’t say, you need to use your organs for life, not for pleasure. Your body belongs to God, not you, and every morsel of food that passes your lips must be the healthiest available, or you are sinning, by using your body for purposes for which it was not intended.
There are people out there, who would think that what I doing is child abuse — http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/24/meme-roth-obesity-nutrition
But I think my reasons for serving my kids unhealthy Christmas brownies are valid and justifiable. (The woman described in the article to which I linked above would disagree.) If butter, sugar and sprinkles were outlawed tomorrow, I would still find a way to make Christmas desserts somehow.
I think my reasons for limiting the number of children I bear are equally vaild and justifiable. If all contraception were criminalized tomorrow, I would have to use other means to avoid conception, but I still would do it somehow, as I imagine women in my family did for generations.
The anti-fat crusader described in the article said her father weighs 300 lbs and her mother is diabetic.
Mary Catherine’s story above, about her mother successfully bearing two more children against medical advice, also shows personal experience that likely influenced the way she chooses to live now.
I am from a family that had only a few babies in every generation, despite being Catholic on both sides. My grandmother lived with us, and I knew she had lost her own mother when she was 8, and my great-grandmother who was only 30 died in childbirth. My mother hid her scarred abdomen from everyone — she has a hideous, jagged vertical scar that used to scare me when I was a little girl, from her emergency c-section in 1965.
Perhaps it’s no wonder that I grew up with a different view of childbirth, and no doubt this helped form my ideas about my own body and the reproductive health decisions I’ve made?
So Astran, just for final clarification, you think that abstaining from sex during a woman’s fertile time, to prevent conception, is a sin?
L,
I don’t really like using comparisions when discussing a subject. Eating is nesscessary for life, not using the organ of reproduction. The purpose of the organ of reproduction is to reproduce, and denying its purpose by contraception is nothingmore then a vice. You can recognize gluttony, but not the vice of using the organ of reproduction in a manner that is a vice. It’s the penalty of the vice, to not KNOW the vice.
// So Astran, just for final clarification, you think that abstaining from sex during a woman’s fertile time, to prevent conception, is a sin?//
Yes.
// My mother hid her scarred abdomen from everyone — she has a hideous, jagged vertical scar that used to scare me when I was a little girl, from her emergency c-section in 1965.//
Now we get to the source of your trauma. I wrote to you about pre-trauma, and you seemed unable to understand the concept, but it applies to you.
Within the condition of the Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the stress is the outcome of a phantasmic event, an imaginary episode set in the future; an event that has never taken place. Unlike the PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in which stress comes as the direct reaction to an event that (may) have taken place in the past, within the state of Pre-TSD, the stress is the clearly the outcome of an imaginary potential event. Within the Pre-TSD, an illusion pre-empts reality.
All these sick people, that existed before you in your family(and here it is the universal family) in using their organ for the “good in its fullness” of that organ. Why, it’s gonna happen to you, and millions more of the collective “you”, if you use the organ as designed. Feminist exhibit pre-trauma as a basic principle of their faith.
Oh well, I shall put enmity between you and the women…….. taken to pre-traumatic conditions of the mind, which sets the morality of millions.
Interesting enough, a paradox comes into existence, from the faith of feminism and their appeal to pre-trauma, in the fact that most young women today opt out for a C-section.
Got to get back to work, can’t waste a day extra waiting for the “natural time” birth.
“Mary Catherine’s story above, about her mother successfully bearing two more children against medical advice, also shows personal experience that likely influenced the way she chooses to live now.”
“I am from a family that had only a few babies in every generation, despite being Catholic on both sides. My grandmother lived with us, and I knew she had lost her own mother when she was 8, and my great-grandmother who was only 30 died in childbirth. My mother hid her scarred abdomen from everyone — she has a hideous, jagged vertical scar that used to scare me when I was a little girl, from her emergency c-section in 1965.”
What influenced me L, was the values I was raised with and the sublime belief that God has a plan that often is not apparent to us.
My mother was not without tremendous tragedy in her life. But she never complained. She considered herself lucky and very blessed. That third child was with her when she died and was with my father to comfort him at the hospital. A comfort that would have been denied to my father if he had been aborted his son 34 years earlier.
People can talk as much as they want but it is the living through difficult times that we show what we value and that we learn to love and trust God.
“And yet our religion doesn’t set forth strict dietary rules, as others do. We are left on our own — with mixed results — to figure out how to best use our digestive tracts.”
Funny you should bring the concept about strictness up since I was thinking about this on the way into work today.
I read somewhere that there is a reason why the Catholic Church is so strict in the area of sexuality. And that is because of all the appetites, the sexual appetite has the most propensity to quickly become the most depraved and uncontrolled.
So honestly, I think one really cannot compare the sexual appetite with the appetite for food.
But I don’t recognize gluttony, remember? I consume the contraceptive equivalent: zero-calorie “food” and drink. I get the pleasure of consuming something, without giving my body any nutrition, thereby denying the very purpose of eating and drinking — “nothing more then a vice?” Sinful? I don’t think so.
Ah, your fascination with pre-trauma again. Yes, there were actual childbirth deaths, and my mother’s own experience. Despite this, I attempted reproduction, anyway.
And guess what? Pre-trauma became actual trauma: cephalopelvic disproportion, unplanned c-section. So much for an “imaginery potential event.”
Y’see, I am speaking of realities here — the actual physical body that God gave me. You seem to be speaking of something more….universal, perhaps?
And I don’t mean this as a criticism, just an observation: Your belief that abstaining from sex during a woman’s fertile time is sinful would appear to place you outside the mainstream of Catholic teaching: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource.php?n=1166
But that’s okay. I once knew a very devout Catholic who insisted it was a sin to enjoy sex, even in a marriage. He was a deacon in the parish where I grew up, and had at least half a dozen kids, as I recall. His understanding was outside the mainstream, but it clearly worked for him, and his family. So…if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?
“I think one really cannot compare the sexual appetite with the appetite for food.” —>
Perhaps this is too much information, but…..I can personally compare it very aptly 😉
“People can talk as much as they want but it is the living through difficult times that we show what we value and that we learn to love and trust God.” —>
It is indeed easier to be a believer when everything unfolds according to one’s wishes, and yes, trials are the true test.
My grandmother used to say things similar to that all the time — the same grandmother who lost her mother in childbirth, when she was only 8 and her little sister was only 6. The difficult times deepened her faith, though she never had more than two children herself (both born tiny — she was a heavy smoker, which likely had something to do with it).
At the same time, I don’t think people should go looking for trials, just to prove their faith in God.
And for some women, entering into relations that would bring them pregnancy after pregnancy is asking for trials.
“Interesting enough, a paradox comes into existence, from the faith of feminism and their appeal to pre-trauma, in the fact that most young women today opt out for a C-section.”
Wait, you’re blaming feminists for the high c-section rate? Nice try, but there’s actually a feminist backlash against c-sections, with more women seeking natural births. There is a parallel movement among conservative women, too.
By the way, my own mother (a chemist) refused drugs during her delivery, right up to the point of the emergency c-section, because she believed they were harmful and unnecessary. That was a radical refusal, at a small Catholic hospital in 1965.
Coincidentally, this traumatic birth was taking place on the very day that, thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic, Vatican II was concluding. Coincidence, or….CONSPIRACY?
I report, you decide.
/Ah, your fascination with pre-trauma again. Yes, there were actual childbirth deaths, and my mother’s own experience. Despite this, I attempted reproduction, anyway/.
But, you miss the point, as the pre-trauma is about the organ being used for the by-product reason. By seeing that scar, which was from using the organ from its “good in its fullness”, you began the process of hunting for the good in the organ. That good is pleasure, not the full good of the organ. The full good leaves a scar, which is painfu, a painful scar. You fit the bill of pre-trauma.
You admit seeing a scar that traumatized you, which did something to you mentally. Why remember? It’s stuck in your head to the day you die. Feminism began and is based on fear. Fear of a unwanted pregnancy. Fear of losing a economic gain. Fear of getting a scar.
I really don’t keep up with the latest fear pushed by feminism, but the result of feminism was ironically, promiscuity run rampant. A result of the “it’s my body and I’ll have sex(do) with who I want” was the explosion of STD’s. This led to c-sections becoming normal for health reasons. Plus, the convenience of not taking more days off waiting for the natural day of birth. Where have you been L, it’s better to have a scar then wait and take a chance of giving a disease to your child contracted at birth.
My subject is the truth of the organ, and how millions have ended up finding the by-product of a organ is the full purpose of that organ. That you used your organ for pleasure 99.99% of the time, is how it is. Naturalism re-enforces that principle. I’m arguing Naturalism is what is true for the collective you, and it began in seeing harm done by using the organ for the good in its fullness.
I guess it might easier for you to understand the idea of by-product and full good purpose if we return to your dieting comparision.
To be blunt, the by -product of “diet” eating(eating,cooking to please another, bonding, whatever good found), is……………………feces.
If you can’t understand what I’m setting forth, which is the truth of the organ being used for its “by-product good,” 99.99% of the time by you(collective), then the process of the vice is complete. You can’t know. Admit it, L. The purpose of the reproductive organ is for self love, with a side order of pleasing another to get your satisfaction. .
Survey says;
50% of divorce is from sexual incompatibilty.
Maybe higher since women now claim they ain’t getting no satisfaction if they try, like Mick the Lip.
“You can’t know. Admit it, L. The purpose of the reproductive organ is for self love, with a side order of pleasing another to get your satisfaction.” —>
You don’t seem to grasp that your “side order” is my main course. You can’t seem to understand this, no matter how many times I say it, so I should probably save my energy and move on.
I admit, many decades ago, I had sex strictly for pleasure sometimes, and sometimes to satisfy something else (curiosity). This gets boring. Even those of us (the collective “us!”) secular humanists unburdened by moral qualms usually figure out quickly that sex for self-pleasure is not worth the trouble.
“Feminism began and is based on fear?” No, it began with – and is based on — power. Women have power now. And some of us like this power — LOVE it, in fact. And don’t want to go back to the days when we (the collective “we!”) couldn’t vote, open a bank account, or do anything but completely submit to the will of our fathers, and then to our husbands.
Something happens, though, when you give women choices. Some of us (the collective “us!”) make bad choices — destructive, unhealthy, unwise choices. This is why some people (even some women) yearn to return to a simpler time, when no women made bad choices because all of their choices were made for them — by their wise husbands who knew better.
No, thank you.
But I digress.
And you digress, too — the explosion of STD’s led to c-sections becoming normal for health reasons??? You seem to know as much about OB/GYN medicine as you do about marital bonding.
It is not better to have a scar. It is better to have a normal vaginal birth. But this was not going to happen in my (the individual “my”) particular case, nor my mother’s, not my dead great-grandmother’s.
So you can howl at the moon all you want, about how fertile married couples should be open to life, and never refrain from sexual relations that use their organs “good in fullness,” and that barring medical problems, devout Catholics SHOULD HAVE those large families. You can go right ahead and hold this up as your ideal.
And I (the individual “I,” but perhaps the collective “I” as well) will continue to make decisions that involve the physical body I was given, taking into account my family and my personal medical history.
I sense that perhaps at this point I am talking AT you, not TO you, so I should sigh, shake my head sadly, and go eat dinner.
By the way, is this you?
http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Astran
//You don’t seem to grasp that your “side order” is my main course. You can’t seem to understand this, no matter how many times I say it, so I should probably save my energy and move on//.
Of course I do. i’m stating that your the normal Westerner that uses the reproductive organ for pleasure as the prime product, and defeats the true purpose 99.99% of the use.
It’s “painful” to not satisfy your drive to pleasure, if one must abstain from the drive for pleasure. And it’s painful to see a scar on a person/mother from using a organ for its full good.
//I admit, many decades ago, I had sex strictly for pleasure sometimes, and sometimes to satisfy something else (curiosity). This gets boring. Even those of us (the collective “us!”) secular humanists unburdened by moral qualms usually figure out quickly that sex for self-pleasure is not worth the trouble//
That is a a false statement since you(collective) still use the organ for pleasure 99.99%, not for the true purpose of the organ. … the true purpose which leaves scars. But, if you got bored, that is just the outcome of being a Hedonist, finding the paradox of Hedonism.
//Women have power now. And some of us like this power — LOVE it, in fact. And don’t want to go back to the days when we (the collective “we!”) couldn’t vote, open a bank account, or do anything but completely submit to the will of our fathers, and then to our husbands.//
Look a little closer and your power is based on fear. What’s interesting is the memory of the lack of power being associated with a “father”!!! Your justifying another idea that comes from religion and then was adopted by humanist: the cycle of life which begins in innocence, is victimised, is redeemed, and is then empowered. You just did it, and feminism is your methodology to justify your use of the organ for by product use. I was born innocent, was victimized by a male that also was the cause of a scar on a women, but was redeemed by a pre-trauma ideology named as Feminism, and now have the power to do something you didn’t have before.
The collective story is wide spread and it always returns to a traumatic event. That’s what feminism lives on. Trauma and fear of trauma. I have read the same story from feminist women that you have written. My mother was scared or traumatized by using the organ for its full good. My grandmother was to. This one died. Then you deny traumatic events are a factor in your decision to will the organ to please you first and foremost. Interesting that millions are convinced of the same story
//iAnd you digress, too — the explosion of STD’s led to c-sections becoming normal for health reasons??? You seem to know as much about OB/GYN medicine as you do about marital bonding.//
C sections rates have risen. If it isn’t health reasons then it’s something else, which I posit is the convenience of a c-section to return to power. The power of work on time. Where have you been L. It’s common today.
C-sections account for about a third of U.S. births — a big climb from the past, but most babies are born vaginally, and the vast majority of women still seek to do it this way.
I suppose pain, and scars, are pleasurable to masochists, but I am not one. I do not seek unnecessary pain. And I need not fear childbirth trauma, since there are many ways to avoid it — for which I am prfoundly grateful.
It’s impossible to be “pre-traumatized,” when there’s nothing to fear, when trauma can be avoided.
And you are still going on about “pleasure as the prime product…defeats the true purpose 99.99% of the use,” etc.
You see only see two “by-products,” don’t you? Babies and simple self-pleasure. Good or evil, black and white, nothing more.
I suppose I should feel sorry for you, if this is the way you really think of sex.
“I was born innocent, was victimized by a male that also was the cause of a scar on a women, but was redeemed by a pre-trauma ideology named as Feminism, and now have the power to do something you didn’t have before.”
No — I was not victimized by anyone.
The scars I have are because I willingly had children.
Since birth, I have had the power, the means, the support to develop my full human potential. This is something that I likelu would have lacked, had I been born a few generations ago. And not a day goes by that I’m not thankful for it, and will never take it for granted.
With power comes responsibility. I know this, too.
I do not know why you sneer at feminism, and probably never will.
//I suppose pain, and scars, are pleasurable to masochists, but I am not one. I do not seek unnecessary pain. And I need not fear childbirth trauma, since there are many ways to avoid it — for which I am prfoundly grateful. //
You fear pain. Quite natural. But, before you were pregnant, before you were of the age to have a child, you saw, and will/would remember the scar of having a baby in another person. You remember the trauma of another. But, that trauma set up a fear about using the organ for its designed purpose, and assigned the by-product as the full good. You looked for good, and found it lacking in its true purpose. You still do. And millions more have the same thought process that decides to actually measure life as a Manichean. Modern feminism uses that old religion as a dialectic device. I thought you read St. Augustine?
//It’s impossible to be “pre-traumatized,” when there’s nothing to fear, when trauma can be avoided.//
If you see the results of car wreck, and the scar from the wreck, the trauma of the wreck sets in motion a avoidence of that painful experience. It changes the purpose of the vehicle’s only purpose…. in the mind. Even before a person drives a car.
// And you are still going on about “pleasure as the prime product…defeats the true purpose 99.99% of the use,” etc.//
Because it is. 99.99% of humanist use their reproductive organ for pleasure only, 99.99% of the time. It’s true, and you know it. Naturalism agrees with me, and I’m arguing that position exist in “the you” and the multi millions of “yous”, who use the organ as a object of pleasure first and foremost. Really, the use of the reproductive organ for pleasure doesn’t do anything to hold people together in the history of humanity, and either does childbirth. Now, where did I learn that from? Catholics? Or feminist who were the children the trauma’s of their mother, and saw their mother as a victim, and took up the mantle of personal or collective victimhood themself.
// No — I was not victimized by anyone.//
//but completely submit to the will of our fathers, and then to our husbands//
In the collective sense, that’s a victim statement. Submiting is a lack of power, and lacking power fits into the cycle of life:
Born Innocent, submits to power and realizes their victimhood, moving them on to stopping that victimhood by redeeming their powerlessness, and ending in power themself.
Dr. Nadal has a photo of a child touching the tummy of her mother. Good in its fullness, the good that ought to be there.
But, not for you(collectively), it is a signifier
of trauma. Pain.
.//You see only see two “by-products,” don’t you? Babies and simple self-pleasure. Good or evil, black and white, nothing more.//
One product by design, one by-product by design. 99.99% of the use of the organ is for the by-product only.
The by product drives the use, and not the product. They should never be separated, as the collective you has done.
Astran, Astran, Astran.
Your statements are getting so bizarre that I am not even going to bother responding, point by point again. You declare my “victimhood,” my “trauma” — you pick apart arguments I didn’t even make. (e.g., “Really, the use of the reproductive organ for pleasure doesn’t do anything to hold people together in the history of humanity, and either does childbirth.”)
And then you resort to the saying, “It’s true, and you know it.” But what I know is that it’s not true.
I think the “collective me” is becoming a straw man, and this is no longer a dialogue.
L,
My point has always been the truth of the organ.
//One product by design, one by-product by design. 99.99% of the use of the organ is for the by-product only.
The by product drives the use, and not the product. They should never be separated, as the collective you has done//
Socrates said in The Republic that virtue can know vice but vice cannot know evil. The penalty for vice is the vice itself, the not seeing the good in its fullness, the good that ought to be there.
That is the basis of my argument.
On one hand, you mention personal experience to justify a truth of your mind, which sets the actions of your life. When I use those personal actions to point out your actions, which are collectively universal, you seem to be unable to process them from a person outside of yourself and their conclusions. My conclusions are incapable of any truth. The mind shuts down.
Your the typical person of Western society.
Millions have come to the same “idea conclusions” that you hold.
Dr, Nadal is quite gracious in allowing me to post, and I thank him for that previledge.But, he makes it a point to not make it personal, and yet you offer personal information in justifying your actions and ideas. You asked me if i was married, and I didn’t respond to those personal questions, because it has nothing to do with my statements of my argument.
Fact is, I have already mentioned the status of my being married or not, but you find no interest in remembering my personal statements to you. Fine.
Have a good day.
“My point has always been the truth of the organ.”
That’s funny, astran, because my truth has always been the point of the organ.
GMN, I’m trying to learn about religious principles here and biblical intepretation to inform daily life, but I do occasionally also like “watching” the EFC (eccumenical fighting championship) action here on your blog. This may seem a silly suggestion, but in all seriousness I do think the regular posters should have “cage” names, you know, for those highly pugilistic situations. “The Rhetorical Obliviator” is an example. “The Insaner Abstainer” could be another. How about “The Pointed Truth?” What do you think of that one, astran?
Can I be “Devil’s Advocate?”
If that’s taken, I’ll settle for “Blighted Ovum” or even “Miss Hemlock.”
Of course, it is your choice. I’d stick with “Insaner Abstainer” if I were you. “Blighted Ovum” is unlikely to put the fear of anything in anybody… although international sales of egg McMuffins might suffer.
Actually, though, I’m (ahem!) usually not much of an abstainer.
Whenever I see the letters NFP, I think “non-farm payrolls.”
You people have gone and done it now!! I’m going to start a systematic treatment of what the Church actually teaches on sexual morality and ethics.
Paul,
Pick a cool name for me!!
//How about “The Pointed Truth?” What do you think of that one, astran?//
Good one. LOL, especially the EFC idea.
Tonight, it’s the Truth or Consequences cage match featuring Astran, the Metalmaster and possesser of Magnetokinesis, taking on L Dopa, from the Forbidden Planet.L Dopa being genetically identical to Robbie the Robot, and Dr. Mobius. L, might be in trouble since Astran’s magnetokenesis can psionically manipulate metallic substances.
I do like L’s, comic book picture of me too.
Ooooh, can I be “El Contracepta,” then?
And Astran, did you notice that website said “The Astran planetary government is theocractic, while three-quarters of the populace are either priests or artists?”
Shoot — I just realized that according to that website, Astran has the ability to manipulate copper IUDs.
But not latex!
//And Astran, did you notice that website said “The Astran planetary government is theocractic, while three-quarters of the populace are either priests or artists?”//
Yes, what happen to me is I escaped the theocracy run by Prototestant, Episcomalvians and their counter creation known as Seculoids. They worshiped a God that
blessed their being against life, and in return thanked God everytime they practiced being against life.
But, I thought only Altairia escaped the Forbidden Planet. Somehow you escaped L, and being genetically identical to Robbie The Robot face the trauma of rust. Soo much for copper and your body. Ahh, the sweet smell of WD40 in the morning. A unusal anti-deodorant choice.
Morbius. Morbius!
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: What?
Robby: Something is approaching from the southwest. It is now quite close.
[they run to the windows and look out, but see nothing]
Commander John J. Adams: Could Robby be wrong?
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: No. Never.
[an invisible force rips down the trees; Morbius closes the steel shutters over the windows]
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: I feel sorry for you, young man.
Commander John J. Adams: Feel sorry for your daughter, Morbius.
Altaira: It’s listening.
[the monster pounds on the steel shielding, denting it]
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: Alta, go into my study.
Commander John J. Adams: You still refuse to face the truth.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: What truth?
Commander John J. Adams: Morbius, that thing out there – it’s you.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: You’re insane. How else would you have led it here, where Alta must see you torn to pieces?
Commander John J. Adams: You still think she’s immune? She’s joined herself to me, body and soul!
Altaira: Yes, and whatever comes, forever.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: Say it’s a lie. Shout, let it hear you out there! Tell it you don’t love this man!
Altaira: Not even if I could.
[the steel shielding begins to break]
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: Stop it, Robby! Don’t let it in! Kill it, Robby!
[Robby shorts out]
Commander John J. Adams: It’s no use. He knows it’s your other self.
[steel shielding breaks; they run]
[to Altaira]
Commander John J. Adams: Alta, about a million years from now the human race will have crawled up to where the Krell stood in their great moment of triumph and tragedy. And your father’s name will shine again like a beacon in the galaxy. It’s true, it will remind us that we are, after all, not God.
Commander John J. Adams: Whatever you know in here, your other self knows out there.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: [angrily] I’m not a monster, you…
Commander John J. Adams: [grappling with Morbius] We’re all part monsters in our subconscious, so we have laws and religion!
Commander John J. Adams: What is the Id?
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: [frustrated] Id, Id, Id, Id, Id!
[calming down]
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: It’s a… It’s an obsolete term. I’m afraid once used to describe the elementary basis of the subconscious mind.
Commander John J. Adams: [to himself] Monsters from the Id…
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: Huh?
Commander John J. Adams: Monsters from the subconscious. Of course. That’s what Doc meant. Morbius. The big machine, 8,000 miles of klystron relays, enough power for a whole population of creative geniuses, operated by remote control. Morbius, operated by the electromagnetic impulses of individual Krell brains.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: To what purpose?
Commander John J. Adams: In return, that ultimate machine would instantaneously project solid matter to any point on the planet, In any shape or color they might imagine. For *any* purpose, Morbius! Creation by mere thought.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: Why haven’t I seen this all along?
Commander John J. Adams: But like you, the Krell forgot one deadly danger – their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: The beast. The mindless primitive! Even the Krell must have evolved from that beginning.
Commander John J. Adams: And so those mindless beasts of the subconscious had access to a machine that could never be shut down. The secret devil of every soul on the planet all set free at once to loot and maim. And take revenge, Morbius, and kill!
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: My poor Krell. After a million years of shining sanity, they could hardly have understood what power was destroying them.
[pause]
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: Yes, young man, all very convincing, but for one obvious fallacy. The last Krell died 2,000 centuries ago. But today, as we all know, there is still at large on this planet a living monster.
Commander John J. Adams: Your mind refuses to face the conclusion.
Dr. L Dupa Morbius: What do you mean?
See, L, your mind too, refuses to face the conclusion.
BTW, L,
Good old Leslie Nielsen played JJ Adams, who just died. God bless his soul.
I want Sigourney Weaver to play me, okay?
“And for some women, entering into relations that would bring them pregnancy after pregnancy is asking for trials.”
which is why NFP is such a blessing from God! We can use our intellect and our will to space our children so that such a scenario really can be a thing of the past.
Careful — I don’t think Captain Astran approves of people using their intellect and their will to space their children (or send their children into space? hmmmm….).
There are some Catholics out there (on blogs – never met any in real life) who believe that using NFP to space children is sinful, that it should only be used in cases of “grave” risk to a woman’s health. And there are those who believe that preventing a baby by abstaining when fertile is just as sinful as contracepting/aborting that baby.
One problem with NFP is that every woman’s body is different. Some women can’t get pregnant while breastfeeding, and this naturally times their family planning — but others can, and do all the time. Some women can predictably chart their ovulation, but with many others, it’s a shot in the dark.
I respectfully disagree L.
Since NFP is based on a woman’s daily symptoms of fertility EVERY woman can learn how to use the method. Ovulation is NOT a shot in the dark. It is preceded and followed by a serious of symptoms that are recognizable for virtually every woman. A woman trained to understand HER body and HER fertility symptoms.
Even if a woman has very irregular cycles it is possible. Women whose fertility returns early during breastfeeding also use the method quite successfully. It is a little more challenging but with mentoring by an experienced teacher-couple it is not only possible but has been successfully accomplished the world over.
Mother Theresa of Calcutta was able to teach illiterate women to understand their bodies and therefore manage their fertility in a positive way.
What you have expressed is a myth that is commonly perpetuated by many.
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