Is it that birth control is against God's will? Is that the problem?

[renie408]

Cause wouldn't that mean that all medical intervention is also against God's will? And if medical intervention, which is man made, isn't against God's will, then how do the faithful know that God didn't WANT birth control and made it happen? How do they know which man made medical things are OK and which ones aren't??

And does this mean that if Rick Santorum has a heart attack, we get to let him die?

And what about Viagra? If God gave a man a non-functional penis, shouldn't he just live with that? Maybe God is trying to prevent this man's ability to procreate. But I am guessing that none of these old white guys on TV bitching about birth control have any problems at all with taking Viagra.

[Skittles]

1. god's will is MAN'S WILL

they (men) just CLAIM it is god's will - THAT is what religion really is

[renie408]

2. Oh, yeah, I am right there with you.

I am just trying to understand where they are getting this and how they defend it. I am assuming its because no birth control means a nice steady supply of new Catholics, but I would like to hear the what somebody a little less biased than me has to say.

[Skittles]

3. it is patriarchy

they are simply offended by the idea that women have any real power - look at the structure of power within the Catholic church - it is obvious they consider women less than second class citizens

[sufrommich]

7. It's not just the Catholic right wingers who believe this crazy

shit, most fundamentalist religions believe it too.

[OriginalGeek]

22. I don't remember the Fundie baptist church of my youth

having any opinion on birth control. I think they assumed we weren't having sex so there was no need to worry about it - I mean, sex before marriage shouldn't be happening and I mostly heard that what a husband and wife did behind closed doors was their business and I just assumed that meant not get pregnant too. They allowed sex for pleasure between husband and wife as it was part of god's plan that we be happy.

And I suspect they might have felt that way specifically to set themselves apart from Catholics. Most baptists I knew didn't consider catholics to be saved and thought them barely christian.


eta: I don't mean to sound like I'm arguing with you - just pointing out my personal experience with one sector of fundamentalism. You clearly said "most" and not "all" so my limited experience can easily fall outside your groups.

[kestrel91316]

25. Fundie Baptists these days are among the most rabidly anti-birth control

(specifically the pill, which they equate with infanticide though it merely prevents ovulation). That's where the Quiverfull movement came from - Protestant fundamentalism.

[OriginalGeek]

27. Wow, ick!

I thought I had good reasons to leave them - I guess they came up with more!

I don't recall anyone talking about the pill (I graduated from a christian high school in 1981 and left home and church shortly after that) but I do remember more than a couple locker room talks about rubbers - namely that the QB of the football team should have used them instead of impregnating the head cheerleader (and daughter of the Pastor of our church) when they were 17 and 16 respectively. (To their credit, I suppose, they are still married 32 years later - lots of kids and grandkids)(I say "i suppose" because I don't know how much of that is love for each other and how much is the indoctrination of the shame of splitting up...I haven't talked to either of them since high school but I remember he wasn't even seriously dating her at the time of the pregnancy. They had gone out a few times but neither considered themselves "going steady". I am convinced to this day he was made to marry her right away.)

that's a lot of parentheses. It all boils down to they never talked about that stuff with me. Lol, maybe they figured they didn't need to.

I remember "the talk" with my stepfather when I was 14 or 15:

"Ummm, don't get caught with a girl...it could be embarrassing" and that was my sex ed.

And funnily enough, later on when I did get caught with a girl, I wasn't all that embarrassed. It didn't get far enough to worry about pregnancy but I felt like a champ anyway. She, however, was mortified and broke up with me. That kinda sucked.


My daughter has been on the pill since she was 14. I'll do whatever I can to make sure everyone's daughter has the same opportunity.

[OriginalGeek]

28. ICK more!

I was just reading on wiki about Quiverfull:

Early Quiverfull authors


Mary Pride's first book, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism Back to Reality (1985), is credited as helping to spearhead the Quiverfull movement.
Main article: Mary Pride
Also see: Feminism, Anti-feminism, and Birth control
Within that context, Quiverfull as a modern Christian movement began to emerge. While a newsletter by Nancy Campbell espoused Quiverfull ideas early, and Campbell is in measure responsible for formulating them, the movement sparked most fully after the 1985 publication of Mary Pride’s book The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality.
In her book, Pride chronicled her journey away from what she labeled feminist and anti-natal ideas of happiness, within which she had lived as an activist before her conversion to conservative evangelical Christianity in 1977, toward her discovery of happiness surrounding what she said was the biblically mandated role of wives and mothers as bearers of children and workers in the home under the authority of a husband. Pride wrote that such a lifestyle was generally biblically required of all married Christian women but that most Christian women had been unknowingly duped by feminism, especially in their acceptance of birth control.

Bolded parts - yeah we got a LOT of that. Wives obey your husbands. Even that young I never could figure out why they would fall for that dumb shit. The Patriarchs said it was for the women's own good. What fucking bullshit.
Click here to purchase valentine hearts!

[LiberalLoner]

23. +1 It's all about the will of the patriarchy, that's all.

[onlyadream]

4. I was just saying the same thing last night

In fact, I'm pretty sure there is nothing in the bible that says you shouldn't use BC. The only thing it says is to go forth and multiply. Well, I think the mission was accomplished.

[renie408]

9. You've got 'go forth and multiply' and that thing about casting your seed...

to the wind, but that is all that is coming to mind for me.

So maybe that Oklahoma representative was onto something when she said that every sperm was sacred.

[SaintPete]

9. Here's the quote you'll hear:

Genesis 38: 9-10 ESV

But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his. So whenever he went in to his brother's wife he would waste the semen on the ground, so as not to give offspring to his brother. And what he did was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and he put him to death also.

[onlyadream]

13. Ew, that's just gross

If I'm reading it right. Onan was doing his brother's wife? Oh my! Gotta love religion (not).

[The Magistrate]

17. Required To By Divine Law, Ma'am

If the brother had died without a son....

[Cal33]

20. In the Old Testament if a married man dies without leaving any issue, it is the duty of the

dead man's brother to impregnate his sister-in-law. The child that is born
will be considered to be not his, but the child of his dead brother. I suppose
this is to continue his dead brother's line? Onan apparently didn't like the
idea of having the child he fathered considered not to be his own, and got
punished for it. Well, go figure!

[Skwid]

5. Since roughly 30% of all fertilized eggs are spontaneously aborted* with no human intervention

it probably makes God herself the most prolific abortionist.

* The term 'miscarriage' doesn't have quite the same connotations as abortion therefore it's used in those cases

[The Magistrate]

6. Many Medical Advances Have Been Met With This 'Against God's Will' Swill, Sir

Anesthesia is a striking example.

There still are people who maintain only faith and prayer are proper treatments for sickness; you read about them in the papers when they kill their children by the exercise of their faith....

[renie408]

8. I think that's crazy, but also logical...in a crazy way.

The all-or-nothing viewpoint is crazy, but at least it sticks to an easily followed train of logic. What the Catholic church is saying is that some medical advances have God's Seal of Approval, but some don't. And, naturally, it's the Catholic church's job to figure all that stuff out for their followers.

[The Magistrate]

12. Mostly, Sir, They Cripple Around Once Everyone Else Is On Board the Train

Rather than be left standing on the platform, they decide to give the advance in health a divine seal of approval.

But they do not consider contraception a medical advance, or even a question of health at all. Their root view is that sex itself is wrong and sinful unless it is between a married man and woman, and the act is performed in a manner in which there is a fair possibility of the woman being impregnated. Otherwise, sex is being misused, since their deity instituted sex for the purpose of procreation, and the pleasure in the act is soley there to entice people to perform the act of procreation, and not to be felt for its own sake. Remember that at the time these ideas were first dreamt up, sexual intercourse was a fairly dangerous proposition, when all the manifold hazards of pregnancy and child-birth and disease are taken into account. The power of the drive to the act, in light of this, must have had something of the quality of a moth flying into a flame to many observers, and seemed something of a mystery demanding both a powerful explanation, and serious safeguards. That it is ludicrous to cling to this in present circumstances is pretty obvious to people who have not had the creeds instilled into them too deeply, but clergy are by definition those who have absorbed the creeds most deeply, and this element is too near the root of the thing for them to ever really let it go.

[madmom]

11. Shouldn't the holier-than-thou repugs stop taking

money from pharmaceutical companies then, since they are the ones making these abominations in the first place?

[MineralMan]

14. Which deity did you have in mind?

There are so many...

[tanyev]

15. No sex unless you're trying to procreate!

[Warren Stupidity]

16. no, it is that women must be put back under control

this is all part of the cultural counter revolution. Undo the 60s! AND THESE FUCKNUTS ARE WINNING.

[LiberalLoner]

24. That's what I wonder about, all the time....are they winning? Or are we? Sometimes I

think we are, sometimes I'm afraid they are. What do you all think? Which side is winning?

[renie408]

29. Over all, we are.

And the more we win, the closer things get to 'better', the harder they fight.

[Aerows]

19. No

This is about men controlling women. That's ALL this is about. They want us to be back in the kitchen, barefoot, pregnant and totally dependent on men because we are pregnant all of the time.

If that WASN'T what it was about, they would support women using birth control for health issues - which many women do, and not for the prevention of sex. Some women TAKE birth control to help improve their fertility, if you can believe it.

But that's not what this is about. They don't give a damn about women's health, all they give a damn about is making sure that if a woman has sex, willingly or not, she can be forced to carry the baby (and of course, they love to shame unwed mothers even more).

This is 100% about making sure women know their place - poor women that is. Poor women are to be baby factories. Rich women have always had access to birth control and abortion, and always will.

[justiceischeap]

21. And some men wonder why we're so pissed off. nt

[kestrel91316]

26. + 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

[Raine]

30. Wasn't Santorum one of those who interferred in the Terry Shiavo(sp?) case

one of those who wouldn't let her die on her own?

[fascisthunter]

31. I don't know... let me ask it

well, well well.... God says it's A-OK!