BIRTH CONTROL OF ANY SORT TAKES LIFE

[Aryeh]

Pregnancy, the normal way, includes a lot of sperm racing for the female's egg. Do you know which one God wants to win the race? Or do you know God's will after you see what has happened? If the latter, then how would you know that God has ordained any of them to reach the egg at all, because LOTS of times none of them do?

Human beings are in partnership with God. They have certain responsibilities and God has other responsibilities. God did not make every individual sperm to find an egg, which means MANY sperm die according to the biology that God gave us. If a sperm can die without moral fault, then cells can die without moral fault. Our responsibility changes when the cells transform into a human, in part due to the fact that a human can survive and grow. But an individual sperm or egg cannot.

What constitutes a fact, like everything else, is open to interpretation. Labeling your interpretation as the correct one means nothing (John 5:31). God does not subscribe to any human's beliefs—we are stuck with only communicating what we believe, even if God gave you a revelation of the truth.

(I've addressed only the biology, and have not addressed the situation of sex with the intention of not producing a child. We can sin all kinds of ways with our intentions even without doing anything at all.)

Just for perspective, most all Western, or technologically advanced nations are in a constant state of destroying life - related to the OP.

HOW?

Radiation. WiFi, smart electronics, cars and appliances, smart meters, cellular/GWEN towers...

Infertility will become us - the more technologically advanced we become.

Isn't that irony? It is almost like we are being told, "if you want to act like your own gods, then you can figure out how to reproduce yourselves like gods."

Indeed, humans are playing God making animated entities (not necessarily life) in the laboratory.

But, we are so degenerate to begin with, we actually can't tell the difference between animation, and life.

 

[Meowzltov]

Well, yes. But not every commandment is given to everyone.

My sense of this is that a commandment given to the first human couple doesn't apply to everyone once we have seven billion people in the world. We have successfully filled the earth.

Since this commandment was spoken to Adam and Eve, it was given to all of humanity, not Israel.

 

[Paidiske]

I'm not arguing for a limitation to Israel. I'm arguing for a limitation to primitive humanity, before we had reached the population level we have now.

 

[Meowzltov]

If God had commanded that every married couple have children, he would make it possible for them to obey that command.

That's bad logic. That's like saying if God meant for all Israel to keep the Sabbath perfectly, he wouldn't have made children to jump all around, poop in their primitive diapers, and need to be fed.

 

[Meowzltov]

And if every command WAS given to everyone, we'd have to convert to Judaism to be accepted as God's people.

I never said every command was given to every person. Many commandments were given only to Israel. But this command was spoken to Adam and Eve, the Father and Mother of all humanity.

 

[Meowzltov]

What is the difference between the 10 Commandments and a commandment otherwise as you state them?

The 10 commandments are the first commandments that were given to Israel. They were written by God upon tablets.

Other commandments were written by Moses as God dictated.

And yet other commandments were given by God to Gentiles like Adam and Noah and not written down but passed on orally.

 

[Meowzltov]

That is then putting it all on one equal platform the way you use 'commandments' as being anything.

The commandments are NOT equal. When they come in conflict with each other, one will win out. For example, if saving a life comes into conflict with keeping the sabbath, saving the life wins. If saving a life comes into conflict with not being idolatrous, not being idolatrous wins.

So a child is to honor their father and mother, and also to keep the sabbath. What if the mother doesn't want them to go to church? Explain your answer.

 

[Meowzltov]

I'm not arguing for a limitation to Israel. I'm arguing for a limitation to primitive humanity, before we had reached the population level we have now.

Are you saying that God's commandments are temporary? Will a time come that we can murder? Or steal? Commit adultery?

Have you read my previous posts on this thread? Do you know what I mean by open to children?

 

[Paidiske]

Are you saying that God's commandments are temporary? Will a time come that we can murder? Or steal? Commit adultery?

I don't see those as the same kind of commandments. I see the command to fill the earth as being a bit like the command to build an ark; it was necessary at that time to bring about God's will.

But we've filled the earth (and then some) and what needed to be said to the original human pair hardly needs be taken as a personal command by every married person.

Have you read my previous posts on this thread? Do you know what I mean by open to children?

I'm quite familiar with Catholic teaching on this point, which you have summarised clearly. I just don't agree with it.

 

[Philip_B]

Of all the commands that God has ever breathed surely 'Go forth and multiply' is the one we have most accomplished. Since the rise of urbanisation, the industrial revolution, and better health and infant mortality, we clearly have a responsibility to think about what we are doing in this area.

 

[scottyp588]

Birth control saves lives.
Protection from the spread of diseases is important, especially in African countries where they are taught, by the church, that birth control is a sin.
Imagine how many more people wouldn't have suffered through these diseases if ignorant teachings weren't forced upon them by people they assume have authority.

 

[Meowzltov]

But we've filled the earth (and then some) and what needed to be said to the original human pair hardly needs be taken as a personal command by every married person.

There are three commands. Only one is fulfilled:
1. Be fruitful
2. Multiply
3. Fill up the earth

 

[Strong in Him]

That's bad logic. That's like saying if God meant for all Israel to keep the Sabbath perfectly, he wouldn't have made children to jump all around, poop in their primitive diapers, and need to be fed.

And, sorry, but that's a bad example.
God said they should rest from their work on the Sabbath. It was the religious leaders who decided what counted as work. They were the ones who made ridiculous distinctions; not God. As Jesus correctly said, if their animals - i.e their livelihood - fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, they were allowed to pull them out again. They were also allowed to walk to their Synagogue to worship. Natural bodily functions were certainly not work, nor was eating nor dressing.

And I don't see how my example is bad logic.
People don't create themselves or choose to be born with healthy/unhealthy reproductive systems. So to command someone to have children, knowing they had not been made with the ability to carry out that command, would be pretty daft, wouldn't it? You might as well demand that a woman be circumcised or a man become pregnant. (Yes I know that some people try to carry out the former, but it was never intended that that should be so.)

Why would a loving God command everyone to do something that he knew some people would find physically impossible? That's not how Jesus behaved. Jesus told us to love our enemies, and demonstrated that when he laid down his life for sinners. He told us to put God first, and his commitment and obedience to God's will led to the cross. He told us to forgive our enemies, and prayed "Father forgive" as the soldiers drove nails into his hands. He told us to humble ourselves and serve one another, and stooped to wash his disciples' feet. If Jesus told/commanded us to do something, he demonstrated it in his own life. I doubt he would have said to the leper, "God's plan for you is to live in the middle of the town and participate in society" - under the law, a leper could not do that but had to be isolated and declare that he was unclean. But it may well have been God's will for that leper to live in society - so Jesus healed him so that he could do what God wanted for him.

 

[Strong in Him]

And if it really WAS a command from God that we have children, there's nothing I can do about it now.

 

[ToBeLoved]

There are three commands. Only one is fulfilled:
1. Be fruitful
2. Multiply
3. Fill up the earth

I don't think we can feed the entire world now, so is having children to watch them die of disease, AIDS or starvation in that plan?

Plus, why would the Catholic church not have clergy and or nuns marry then? Seems like a huge contridiction.

 

[Meowzltov]

And, sorry, but that's a bad example.
God said they should rest from their work on the Sabbath. It was the religious leaders who decided what counted as work. They were the ones who made ridiculous distinctions; not God. As Jesus correctly said, if their animals - i.e their livelihood - fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, they were allowed to pull them out again. They were also allowed to walk to their Synagogue to worship. Natural bodily functions were certainly not work, nor was eating nor dressing.

It is not a bad example. The judges did exclude things like caring for children from keeping the Sabbath, and indeed saving a life excused one from keeping the commandments -- it took priority, but not in the case of idolatry.

So it sounds like from your reply that you also believe that not all the commandments are of equal importance.

 

[Meowzltov]

I don't think we can feed the entire world now, so is having children to watch them die of disease, AIDS or starvation in that plan?

Plus, why would the Catholic church not have clergy and or nuns marry then? Seems like a huge contridiction.

I'm not saying we should add to the population. I simply said married couples need to be open to children. My husband and I had exactly the two children spaced three years apart that we planned, using Natural Family Planning (Periodic Abstinance), not Artificial Birth Control.

Be fruitful and multiply applies to married couples, not singles. I am unmarried now, and so I am to be celibate, not having babies. So it is for priests and nuns.

 

[Strong in Him]

So it sounds like from your reply that you also believe that not all the commandments are of equal importance.

A command from God is a command from God - but it depends on who it was/is addressed to. Were God's commands to the Israelites to circumcise your sons, or to wear clothes of only one fibre, or his command not to eat pork or seafood, addressed to you - as someone who was personally rescued from slavery in Egypt? Do you keep them?

God told Adam and Eve, and Noah's family I believe, to go forth and multiply. But when we got married, no one - and certainly not God himself - said, "this is a commandment you HAVE to obey". Whether or not to bring children into an already overcrowded world, and whether or not a couple believe that having children would enhance/complete their relationship is, and always has been, a matter of choice.

No one has ever told me, nor has the Spirit ever convicted me, that not having children was a sin. If God had commanded us to have children he would have made sure we knew abut it, and children would have arrived - in spite of our feelings about it.
But they didn't, and I can't do anything about it now anyway.

 

[Meowzltov]

A command from God is a command from God - but it depends on who it was/is addressed to. Were God's commands to the Israelites to circumcise your sons, or to wear clothes of only one fibre, or his command not to eat pork or seafood, addressed to you - as someone who was personally rescued from slavery in Egypt? Do you keep them?

Because I am a Daughter of Israel, yes, I keep them out of love for God.

 

[Meowzltov]

God told Adam and Eve, and Noah's family I believe, to go forth and multiply.

That's like saying only the Israelites at Mt Sinai needed to keep the commandments. Obviously they were representatives for all Israel ever, just as Adam was the representative for all of Mankind.