John A. Broussard

If I'm not mistaken, the present stance of most christian churches is that the bible permits contraception, but the catholic church insists that the bible forbids it.

Since both sides use the bible to justify their stand, where are the biblical statements about this issue on which they disagree?

Diogenes the Cynic

I believe that the contraception bugbear is derived from the story of Onan in Genesis 38.

Gen 38:1-10
At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah met the daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He married her and lay with her; 3 she became pregnant and gave birth to a son, who was named Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to still another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to him.
6 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death.

8 Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." 9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.

God kills Onan's brother and then orders Onan to knock up his brother's wife. Onan pulls out porno style instead so God kills him. This passage for some reason seems to get interpreted as a condemnation of contraception rather than what is clearly a story about God's wrath for disobedience.

I think some fodder for the birth control prohibitions also comes from verses commanding the Jews to "be fruitful and multiply." Somehow, some people think they've been commanded to make as many babies as possible or risk eternal hellfire.

John A. Broussard

And this becomes the basis for the papal decree that condoms should never be used, not even by a married couple where one has aids?

That Onan sure caused a lot of misery.

Mageth

The Onan story, perhaps. Also, God's supposed command to "go forth, be fruitful and multiply" in the first chapters of Genesis is sometimes used in the equation against birth control. Other scriptures are used as well. Note that, for the RC church, "natural law" and other such concepts are used in their position on birth control etc. It's not based on any one scripture, but is based on scripture in general and on the "magesterium"/"church tradition" or whatever you call it.

http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodic...11-96/1/1.html

andrewcriddle

IIUC the Roman Catholic Church would justify opposition to contraception on the basis of 'Natural Law' arguments rather than on explicit statements in Scripture.

Historically this is based on the Stoic argument adopted by early Christians that sex is meant for producing children and hence it is a distortion of healthy sexual relations to be having sex and at the same time taking positive steps to prevent having children.

Andrew Criddle

Chris Weimer

The RCC has the best way of circumnavigating problems - they don't rely directly on Scripture, but on tradition as well. So it doesn't matter whether or not it's actually in the Bible, all they have to do is say "well, it's what we always believed" and arguements over.

spin

I was just going to ask where in the bible calculators are forbidden, but this directive to "be fruitful and multiply" suggests that maybe they weren't.


spin

Skeptical

Someone else posted it already, but IIRC the arguments of the RCC are not based on the bible but on "natural law". Basically, the argument is that certain forms of sexual activity: masturbation, contraception, etc. don't "properly respect the purpose" of the sexual act and are therefore immoral.

I wrote a paper on this in college many years ago. Basically the argument boils down to saying the purpose of the sperm is to fertilize an egg, so therefore any sex act in which this cannot take place is immoral.

It's a really silly little argument IMO since it leads to very strange results (form the perspective of the RCC). For example, it would seem that celibacy is more immoral than sex with contraception since impregnation is possible using contraception, but obviously not if celibacy is practiced. I know there are responses to this argument from the RCC, but they all amount to special pleading. The argument is not really logical but people accept it on the force of authority, as usual.

It all seems to stem from the odd view that sex is both necessary and sinful at the same time, quite a predicament.

Harry Bosch

Damn, that was funny!

spin

I guess everything we do is overdetermined.