/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

You can't separate the sexual act from the procreative act without being degenerate, subversive and evil.

Read Humanae Vitae

>>799307

If you engage in unnatural, sterile sexual acts what authority do you have in condemning homosexual acts, which cry to heaven for vengeance? Read Humanae Vitae.

>>799354

Do you perhaps watch E. Michael Jones? You're the second person I've seen claim that sodomy "cries out to heaven for vengeance" and I cannot help but wonder, if it's a biblical quote, where it says this in the Bible.

>>799416

Genesis 4:10.

>>799416

>>799416

Nah, all Catholics should use that term. Even in Italy we use those same words.

>>799416

It's in many catechisms, nothing to do with EMJ

>>799320

>>799354

I did and it just confused me more. Despite its attempts, it failed to establish a meaningful distinction between "Acts that frustrate the procreative design of sex" and NFP. Engaging in NFP is a conscious attempt to remove procreation from the sexual act, regardless of whether it is by natural means or not. So is engaging in sex while a woman is pregnant or after she hits menopause. Humanae Vitaes attempts to be more permissive all seemed like rationalizations, and not very strong ones at that. None of the quotes I've seen from the church fathers on the subject were so incoherent. They were very clear that sex is only for conception.

Honestly, if sex is so perilous that the Church is only permissive of it under very narrow and specific contexts, then there's no reason for Catholics to have sex anymore. Just use artificial insemination if you want kids. Anything more than that is like taking a man to an all you can eat buffet and telling him not to commit gluttony. It's cruel.

>>799456

Haven't read HV yet, but about your last point…Anon, that is kind of the point. We are bombarded with temptations from all sides, and we are called to face them with virtue so we don't fall into sin.

Of course, this isn't as easy as it is yielding to them due to our biological nature. Despite this, we fight, sometimes together.There is a cyclical thread in this board dedicated to stop masturbation. This sin doesn't even require a partner, yet the idea is similar: Sexual activity must be performed in a setting that allows for its purpose (reproduction). Otherwise, it would be seeking for pleasure for the sake of itself.

TL;DR: Yeah, it is indeed challenging.

>>799456

Isn’t artificial insemination literal cuckoldry as your wife gets the seed of a sperm donor? Idk maybe that’s not how it works.

It’s strange that most people saying “well how could we only have segs for procreation, that’s extreme” have very few if any kids. Yeah have at least 3 and get back to us. Not saying that’s you but hey. Good things come to those who wait. Delay gratification.

>>799517

>Isn’t artificial insemination literal cuckoldry as your wife gets the seed of a sperm donor?

Nothing stopping you from being the donor

>It’s strange that most people saying “well how could we only have segs for procreation, that’s extreme”

I was saying the precise opposite. I myself am a Catholic and my post was entirely sincere, and I quite frankly hate the Church trying to take some awkward middle ground like this. They either need to come out and say that yes, married Catholics should expect to have sex 10-20 times in their lifetimes and it would be better if they abstained entirely or they should interpret "procreation" to be as broad as possible (for the purposes of building and maintaining a family, perhaps) and be as generally permissive as St. Paul was on the matter.

>>799308

fpbp

>>799521

Historically, people could understand that you're allowed to have sex with your wife, not allowed to use artifical contraceptives, and using whores is discouraged.

Today it almost sounds like we need to describe in detail which sex acts are permitted when. It's nuts. I'm not doing that.

>>799456

There are lots of sex acts other than NFP that don't cause pregnancy and there's no need to go into what exactly is permitted when. The guidelines only with your wife and no artificial contraception were fine for a thousand years. There's no reason to be more specific. We're not legalists, this is virtue-based ethics, and this isn't about sex in itself, it's about marriage and family.

>>799823

>>799827

Yeah, and I'm not asking you to. Only the pope can speak for the church and I think those are the only guidelines one reasonably can follow. I'm just trying to understand what it is the church actually believes, because going off the HV, they actually do care about the details.

I base this off of this part of it here

"This is especially clear in the practice of periodic continence. Self-discipline of this kind is a shining witness to the chastity of husband and wife and, far from being a hindrance to their love of one another, transforms it by giving it a more truly human character."

So going off this, it seems as if the church does not allow sexual acts that do not have a chance of causing pregnancy, at least. If it did, there would be no need for "self-discipline" or "self-denial".

If we accept that, though, it leads to a lot of further questions that the document doesn't address

>>799828

You're still trying to read in this or that thing you might want to do is allowed or not instead of putting sex acts in their proper context. There are lots of reasons to not have sex, it shouldn't be done mechanically all the time. However, one sex act that is open to reproduction is a necessary condition to being married.

>>799836

Don't blame me for what the church does. If they think it's more than just about context, then it is and there's nothing I can do about it other than convert to some other religion.

Now, I fully admit that I might be reading into it too much there and understanding those things as off-limits does contradict some other things in the HV (like how sex between infertile partners is supposedly permissable), but it can't well leave that part out because the self-control required for periodic abstinence is basically its entire argument for why NFP is permissable while artificial contraception isn't. I can only assume that interpretation is correct if it's such an essential part of the document. But again, we arrive at that contradiction, at that not understanding why NFP is permissable (and indeed, it seems like a reckless and sinful act on its face), and asking ourselves why the HV had to be written at all.

>>799860

HV was necessary and only the Holy Ghost could have forced it on the zeitgeist of the 60s.

HV tries to lay out the thousands of years old truth in a way that 60s people could understand. You're reading too much into the ideas of continence and chastity. Chastity means sexual conduct appropriate to your station in life.

NFP is suggested by HV as something to do other than artificial contraception. As you say, infertile couples are allowed to do whatever. HV attempts to argue that NFP is different from artificial contraception and I think that entire line of reasoning is pointless. What you do with your wife in your bedroom is your business, but artificial contraception is forbidden by ancient tradition, since the goal here is to have families, not sex acts.

>>799866

The worst thing the Boomers did was divorce and the contraceptive mentality according to which sex, and even marriage, isn't about family. Now official marriage is for fags.

Porn isn't even a big deal. Masturbation is a problem. The idea of sex existing for the purpose of fleeting pleasure and life existing for that purpose is the problem.

Which is why I don't want to talk about NFP or whatever. All we need to say is, no artifical contraception, have sex with your wife and have a family. We've lived for thousands of years without further instruction.

>>799863

Yeah, and it it just seems to still be written from the mindset of people who think sex is permissable only if you're trying to conceive a child, and that's all they really had to say. Artificial contraception isn't something that should even be entering the picture here, and all this silly backwards rationalization just muddles what the earlier church had made very clear.

>>799872

> only if you're trying to conceive a child

this procreation only vs pleasure also debate is almost as bad as faith only vs works also. Sex has a dual telos and both parts are important, and after the Boomers did drugs and fornicated in the mud and committed outrageous sacrileges against marriage and then they raised their children to think sexual desire is a sin in and of itself to the extent they raised their children with any awareness of what sin is.

Openness to procreation is essential to sex. Sex with someone you wouldn't actually procreate with is a sin regardless of whether they're accidentally infertile. Artificial contraception is pretty much always a sin, and this has been understood since the earliest days of Christianity, when Christian Romans didn't use contraceptives, and non-Christian Romans committed almost as much sexual sin as the non-Christians of our day.

HV almost seems to be saying, artificial contraception is sinful, but here's a workaround. There's not supposed to be a workaround for a concept being sinful. The point is that virtuous people don't view sex in such a way that contraception is an issue, and are able to control themselves if conception would be a problem.

>>799828

You shouldn't be engaging in NFP because it reinforces the contraceptive mindset. I don't care if the hearts of the masses are hardened, on principle it ought be left to ignorance. Additionally, sex during pregnancy also ought be discouraged. Do you not feel guilty when having intentionally sterile sex? Do you not feel disgusted by your mutually self-gratifying acts? That is the crux of the issue, not the legalism involved. It must be freely consented to and a full gift of the self. If you abuse natural periods of infertility it is not a full gift of the self, for you are taking advantage of the impenetrable infertility.

>>799888

>Sex with someone you wouldn't actually procreate with is a sin

Is that really all "openness to procreation" refers to though?

>>799955

It's the interior direction of man that determines whether or not it is sinful, a flagrant and sinful disregard of the Holy Father wouldn't help much, nor do the Church Fathers even directly speak of contraception, although they do speak against the mind-set.

Even then, the will of man can be misled, and I'm sure you're willing to acknowledge anyone trying to read what they want to read will be misled all the same; for instance, someone reading and noting the Church Fathers don't say nuthin about grand theft auto dawg

>>799955

>we should be reading the Church Fathers

>Church Fathers tell you to listen to the Pope

Ironic

>>799955

>>799969

Ah pooh, here we go again

A perfect, Godly marriage consists of a man and a woman living as man and wife, freely without anything between them, producing as many children as they can.

That is ideal. That is the perfection.

Unfortunately, we are all fallen people living in a fallen world. Society makes it impossible for most to live up to this perfect ideal. Family planning is a necessity when you are living in a metropolitan capitalist society. It's not good how humans have to limit something as natural as the joining of man and wife, but it is a necessary evil. We need to face that reality.

The Catholic Church has always been against contraception because it doesn't conform to this ideal. But when we moved from an agrarian society to an industrial capitalist society, that ideal slipped away. Nobody followed the teachings of the Church anymore, and it got so bad that in the 1950's, the Church finally relented and allowed the rhythm method to limit family size, with the argument that it is more "natural". But it is like Moses issuing writs of divorce. It was only permitted because of the hardness of our hearts. "IN THE BEGINNING… GOD SAID BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY".

We should be aware of the realities of life and society, and be understanding of that. Only as long as we never compromise what perfection is. Be lenient and understanding, and never stop telling people what God's vision is.

>>799871

Porn is a very big deal, anon. How could you possibly say that?

>>799959

They would be against contraception.

I'm just saying it's far easier to be misled reading the encyclicals of a modern pope than it is to be misled reading the church fathers.

HV has not clarified things as shown by the various opinions on it in this thread.

>>799969

The early fathers supported the primacy of Rome of course conditionally, they wouldn't have supported it if it wasn't Orthodox. In their time, it was Orthodox.

>>799871

>Porn isn't even a big deal

Porn leads to masturbation and sexual hedonism, on top of scarring many young girls who accept to star in pornographic movies, it *is* a big deal. There were studies which showed that people who watched porn frequently were more likely to embrace bisexualism than those who abstained.

>>800014

Reality: fertility crash because it's impossible to get married because all the women are trying to have sex with the same men, using contraceptives. It might even be possible for the government to permit each couple to have X children and contraceptives to be used only by married people. Our current situation is just that women, and men, are empowered to make bad decisions, through contraceptives and other means, and bad decisions are suggested to them through government schools and the media.

>>800134

Porn is a problem. The existence of the porn industry is a bigger problem, and that will go away as soon as the law saying no copyright protection for porn is enforced. Beyond that, the problem isn't so much that porn exists, as you say, there are people who masturbate a lot and people who don't, but there's a massive crisis in masturbation, sodomy, contraceptive use, divorce, everything other than chastity. We're always going to have wankers and porn, but when we solve this crisis we won't have porn everywhere.

>>799418

>>799422

>>799434

Hey, I just discovered this!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_that_cry_to_heaven

I think it's pretty neat that it gets its own Wikipedia article.