I don't know what commune you live on, but in the real world, even devout Christians use contraception. Not all, of course, but the majority absolutely do.
The Chruch Contraceptive
- Thread starter Liebling
- Start date
I don't know what commune you live on, but in the real world, even devout Christians use contraception. Not all, of course, but the majority absolutely do.
Bells
Staff member
If the Vatican spent as much time, effort and money on eradicating paedophile priests as they do on the reproductive systems of women, child abuse would be a thing of the past within the Church.
Forget child abuse. The Catholic Bishops would rather spend their time, money, and resources on birth control and women's sex lives. The main debate over the past few weeks in the United States has been about birth control. And guess who's dominating it? The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the country's official organisation of the Catholic hierarchy.
The bishops are up in arms over the Obama administration's rule that would have required health insurance plans, including Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities, to offer free contraception. Once the bishops took to the airwaves to criticise the decision, the administration modified its policy so that insurance companies, not Catholic hospitals or universities, pay for contraception. But that didn't appease the bishops - or Republican extremists.
On February 16, House Republicans thought it was necessary, with all the economic problems the US is facing, to hold a hearing on the contraception rule. The panel was comprised of five men - five religious men who without any kind of health background (watch this video, towards the end).
Before walking out of the hearing, Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York said: "What I want to know is: where are the women?"
[Source]
The bishops are up in arms over the Obama administration's rule that would have required health insurance plans, including Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities, to offer free contraception. Once the bishops took to the airwaves to criticise the decision, the administration modified its policy so that insurance companies, not Catholic hospitals or universities, pay for contraception. But that didn't appease the bishops - or Republican extremists.
On February 16, House Republicans thought it was necessary, with all the economic problems the US is facing, to hold a hearing on the contraception rule. The panel was comprised of five men - five religious men who without any kind of health background (watch this video, towards the end).
Before walking out of the hearing, Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York said: "What I want to know is: where are the women?"
[Source]
A health issue that affects women first and foremost and there are no women involved in the decision making... Ah back to the good old days where women had no rights.
For example:
They had a t-shirt printer that was used to put verses. I asked if a printing of a Timothy 2:12 shirt was reasonable. Being Christians, they had never looked that far into the Bible, so they looked it up with their handy dandy on site Bible. When they recited the verse (A woman happened to be the reader of the Bible) they informed me of how disrespectful of their religion I was being. I was unsure of how I was being disrespectful by asking for a verse from their Holy Book.
[Source]
[Source]
The reason I posted that quote above is because it [Timothy 2:12] ties in perfectly with how the Church and Christians in general seem to be treating women in this whole debate.
Timothy 2:12
I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[a] she must be quiet.
[Source]
I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[a] she must be quiet.
[Source]
So printing that on a t-shirt is offensive but a woman speaking up and having a say over her reproductive system is even more offensive. The hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Bells
Staff member
My mother is a strict Catholic and she and my father not only used contraception (condom and pill), but she was the one who also taught me about the whole concept of contraception when I was a teenager after I learned about some of it in school.
Yaweh and Women ....
There are aspects of rape culture within the Church. I always pick on the evangelicals Chick tracts for making this so clear—
—but those who would attend what Norman O. Brown would call "the psychoanalytic meaning of history" will find justifications for misogyny in the opening pages of the Bible:
Not only does the tradition blame women for everything wrong in the world, but it also explains that women want to be sexually harassed and raped: ("I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.")
It is, I suppose, worth noting that sublimated rape culture is not exclusive to Christianity, or even Abramism. Jomo Kenyatta, in Facing Mt. Kenya, includes some African tribal mythology that illuminates the psychoanalytical evolution of clitoridectomy.
So for the Catholics, in a severely repressed psychoanalytic consideration, the molested boys are a question of protecting the church against asset loss in financial and criminal issues, but the question of women and reproduction is a matter of God's will. The Bible is pretty clear, in the psychoanalytical context, that God doesn't particularly like women.
____________________
Notes:
Chick, Jack T. Creator or Liar? Ontario: Chick, 2005. Chick.com. February 25, 2012. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0005/0005_01.asp
Weigle, Luther, et al. The Bible: Revised Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971. University of Michigan. February 25, 2012. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
Bells said:
There are aspects of rape culture within the Church. I always pick on the evangelicals Chick tracts for making this so clear—
—but those who would attend what Norman O. Brown would call "the psychoanalytic meaning of history" will find justifications for misogyny in the opening pages of the Bible:
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."
To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread 'til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
(Genesis 3.15-19)
To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread 'til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
(Genesis 3.15-19)
Not only does the tradition blame women for everything wrong in the world, but it also explains that women want to be sexually harassed and raped: ("I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.")
It is, I suppose, worth noting that sublimated rape culture is not exclusive to Christianity, or even Abramism. Jomo Kenyatta, in Facing Mt. Kenya, includes some African tribal mythology that illuminates the psychoanalytical evolution of clitoridectomy.
So for the Catholics, in a severely repressed psychoanalytic consideration, the molested boys are a question of protecting the church against asset loss in financial and criminal issues, but the question of women and reproduction is a matter of God's will. The Bible is pretty clear, in the psychoanalytical context, that God doesn't particularly like women.
____________________
Notes:
Chick, Jack T. Creator or Liar? Ontario: Chick, 2005. Chick.com. February 25, 2012. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0005/0005_01.asp
Weigle, Luther, et al. The Bible: Revised Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971. University of Michigan. February 25, 2012. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/
Bells
Staff member
Which is probably why they now deny women the right to testify on matters that affect them directly.. If they are in favour of birth control that is.
Three Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule on Thursday to protest Chairman Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) refusal to allow a progressive woman to testify in favor of the Obama administration's contraception rule. The morning panel at the hearing consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations.
A panel consisting solely of men, who are discussing women's rights to access contraception.. Really..
Rush Limbaugh went further, in discussing the young woman who was denied the right to testify:
"Can you imagine if you were her parents how proud...you would be?" he said. "Your daughter ... testifies she's having so much sex she can't afford her own birth control pills and she wants President Obama to provide them, or the Pope."
"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."
"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."
Women who have sex are sluts to these people. Can we be surprised that the right and the Church not only deny women the right to a say in the matter but wish to deny them contraception in the first place?
The American Way
Well, in that case it's the American Way. Think of it this way: We all receive "equal protection" under the law, though some people are demonstrably "more equal" than others. You might see in our halls of justice that if it comes down to he-said/she-said, the courts will side with people like, say, police officers. Your equal protection, then? Well, you can get it—just become a police officer. Then your word will receive that protection that police officers get, regardless of your color, faith, or gender.
It's the American brand of equal protection, where rights are earned instead of inherent.
Indeed, this sort of outlook goes back to the beginning of this country. At the outset, white Protestant males who owned property were the highest valence of equality. Over time, we've argued over implications of the fact that not everyone can be a white male who owns property. The current neurotic bigotry shown by American conservatives is descended from, and thus comprehensible according to, the proposition that white male property owners are the most equal among equals. Yes, Christianity is important, but it should be noted that many Protestants only welcome Catholics when it is politically convenient.
The whole thing about equality and freedom being reserved to white, Christian males of adequate wealth is a founding principle of the United States of America.
I suppose I should also mention Charles Mudede's blog post about chloroform:
In the long run, it's part of a neurosis in Christian faith. I've made the argument before—though it's been a while—that modern Christians are still drawing Jesus' blood because, well, they can—it's part of the deal in being the eternal Redeemer of sin.
Christian theology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries lost any substantial tether to the reality of what is actually written in the Bible. The outcome can be comprehended in the context of the psychoanalyical meaning of history. It's a laborious process, though, that usually leads to neurotic behavior in the analyst, such as banging one's head against the desk in an effort to improve one's comprehension of the material analyzed.
Mudede's question is considerably easier to grasp than some of them, though.
Consider, for contrast, the question of whether or not the Fall of Man was part of God's plan; despite Biblical passages suggesting that God wrote the names of the Saved in the Book of Life before time began, and despite anti-abortion advocates arguing passages from one of the prophetic books of the Old Testament that seems to reinforce that notion, the idea that God intended for humanity to fall into sin, thus necessitating the brutal sacrifice of His Only Son in an eternally codependent scheme, is simply impossible. The idea that God actually created an angel named Kasdaye, who, according to lore is known as the "Angel of Abortion", and whose sin in falling was to lead apostate angels in rebellion°, doesn't even register to most Christian anti-abortion advocates.
Yeah, so that's a complicated question.
But while modern Christians complain about birth control and abortion being unholy, the idea of pain reduction in childbirth—a direct opposition to God's will—is just fine with them.
Not that any sensible political advocate in the twenty-first century would argue for a regression of medicine in questions of childbirth, but it is a striking example of how modern faith is neurotically selective. I would think that dying to bring a child into the world can reasonably fall into the duties of the subordinate woman ("... and [your husband] shall rule over you").
So why aren't the Abramists whose arguments include the Old Testament demanding a conscience clause against doctors administering anesthesia during childbirth? I can tell you for a fact, as I was witness, that my daughter's mother was unconscious when our child arrived in the world. As near as I can tell from Genesis, God would demand that either (A) doctors not perform the Cesarian section, thus risking both child and mother, or, (B) doctors perform the C-section in order to bring the child into the world alive, but without anesthetizing the mother. (Nobody should wonder why I don't work and play well with this particular iteration of God.)
That panel of men: For all they have thought about their relationships with God, it would seem that their considerations of the reasons for faith have never been directly juxtaposed against the demands of faith. The alternative, of course, is that they actually agree with the ownership and rape of a dead brother's wife, divinely-ordered genocide, and the torturous spending of women's lives and health as a reproductive vessel. Oh, right. Sorry. That last is wrong. They want women as reproductive vessels, but disagree with God that childbirth should always be painful°.
Faith, generally speaking, is not inherently neurotic; more often than not, however, religious faith in the modern era is nothing more than a collage of neuroses.
____________________
Notes:
° Kasdaye ... "Angel of Abortion" ... lead apostate angels in rebellion — See Davidson, p. 165:
° should always be painful — I'm not taking a stand on the stresses of natural childbirth; I have heard the assertion that men could not endure the pain, but I have also heard from a woman who bore five children without anesthesia, and in most cases without a doctor present—as in on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace with husband, midwife, and, perhaps strangely, the family dog near to hand—that it's not so much pain but tremendous, indescribable physical exertion. To the other, when my partner and I arrived at the hospital after her water broke, one of the first things the birthing staff did was strap onto her any number of devices intended to monitor pain. When they saw the first numbers, they checked the rigging to make sure they hadn't screwed something up, looked at the numbers again, and immediately began administering painkillers because the readings were well beyond what they consider healthy for the mother. God, of course, was sad. Or disappointed. Or angry. Or who the freakity-freak actually cares what God thinks? Quite obviously, that panel of clergymen doesn't—unless, of course, it is politically convenient to their efforts to keep women "in their proper place", so to speak.
Works Cited:
Mudede, Charles. "God Cool With Chloroform but not Cool With Abortions". Slog. March 2, 2012. Slog.TheStranger.com. March 3, 2012. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...l-with-chloroform-but-not-cool-with-abortions
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels Including the Fallen Angels. New York: Free Press, 1967.
Bells said:
Well, in that case it's the American Way. Think of it this way: We all receive "equal protection" under the law, though some people are demonstrably "more equal" than others. You might see in our halls of justice that if it comes down to he-said/she-said, the courts will side with people like, say, police officers. Your equal protection, then? Well, you can get it—just become a police officer. Then your word will receive that protection that police officers get, regardless of your color, faith, or gender.
It's the American brand of equal protection, where rights are earned instead of inherent.
Indeed, this sort of outlook goes back to the beginning of this country. At the outset, white Protestant males who owned property were the highest valence of equality. Over time, we've argued over implications of the fact that not everyone can be a white male who owns property. The current neurotic bigotry shown by American conservatives is descended from, and thus comprehensible according to, the proposition that white male property owners are the most equal among equals. Yes, Christianity is important, but it should be noted that many Protestants only welcome Catholics when it is politically convenient.
The whole thing about equality and freedom being reserved to white, Christian males of adequate wealth is a founding principle of the United States of America.
• • •
I suppose I should also mention Charles Mudede's blog post about chloroform:
According to ... ChurchinHistory, in the 19th century, the Christian church had no problem with the use of painkillers during birth ....
.... But the Bible actually does say something about labor pains (it's Eve's curse), and nothing about abortions. Why is it fine to ignore a curse unequivocally made by God, and unholy to do something that apparently He had no clear or strong opinion on—abortion and birth control?
.... But the Bible actually does say something about labor pains (it's Eve's curse), and nothing about abortions. Why is it fine to ignore a curse unequivocally made by God, and unholy to do something that apparently He had no clear or strong opinion on—abortion and birth control?
In the long run, it's part of a neurosis in Christian faith. I've made the argument before—though it's been a while—that modern Christians are still drawing Jesus' blood because, well, they can—it's part of the deal in being the eternal Redeemer of sin.
Christian theology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries lost any substantial tether to the reality of what is actually written in the Bible. The outcome can be comprehended in the context of the psychoanalyical meaning of history. It's a laborious process, though, that usually leads to neurotic behavior in the analyst, such as banging one's head against the desk in an effort to improve one's comprehension of the material analyzed.
Mudede's question is considerably easier to grasp than some of them, though.
Consider, for contrast, the question of whether or not the Fall of Man was part of God's plan; despite Biblical passages suggesting that God wrote the names of the Saved in the Book of Life before time began, and despite anti-abortion advocates arguing passages from one of the prophetic books of the Old Testament that seems to reinforce that notion, the idea that God intended for humanity to fall into sin, thus necessitating the brutal sacrifice of His Only Son in an eternally codependent scheme, is simply impossible. The idea that God actually created an angel named Kasdaye, who, according to lore is known as the "Angel of Abortion", and whose sin in falling was to lead apostate angels in rebellion°, doesn't even register to most Christian anti-abortion advocates.
Yeah, so that's a complicated question.
But while modern Christians complain about birth control and abortion being unholy, the idea of pain reduction in childbirth—a direct opposition to God's will—is just fine with them.
Not that any sensible political advocate in the twenty-first century would argue for a regression of medicine in questions of childbirth, but it is a striking example of how modern faith is neurotically selective. I would think that dying to bring a child into the world can reasonably fall into the duties of the subordinate woman ("... and [your husband] shall rule over you").
So why aren't the Abramists whose arguments include the Old Testament demanding a conscience clause against doctors administering anesthesia during childbirth? I can tell you for a fact, as I was witness, that my daughter's mother was unconscious when our child arrived in the world. As near as I can tell from Genesis, God would demand that either (A) doctors not perform the Cesarian section, thus risking both child and mother, or, (B) doctors perform the C-section in order to bring the child into the world alive, but without anesthetizing the mother. (Nobody should wonder why I don't work and play well with this particular iteration of God.)
That panel of men: For all they have thought about their relationships with God, it would seem that their considerations of the reasons for faith have never been directly juxtaposed against the demands of faith. The alternative, of course, is that they actually agree with the ownership and rape of a dead brother's wife, divinely-ordered genocide, and the torturous spending of women's lives and health as a reproductive vessel. Oh, right. Sorry. That last is wrong. They want women as reproductive vessels, but disagree with God that childbirth should always be painful°.
Faith, generally speaking, is not inherently neurotic; more often than not, however, religious faith in the modern era is nothing more than a collage of neuroses.
____________________
Notes:
° Kasdaye ... "Angel of Abortion" ... lead apostate angels in rebellion — See Davidson, p. 165:
Kasdaye (Kesdeya, Kasdeja)—a fallen angel who teaches "a variety of demonic practices, including abortion." Kasdaye is one of 7 angels reputed to have led the apostate angels, according to The Book of Enoch (Enoch I), p. 69.
° should always be painful — I'm not taking a stand on the stresses of natural childbirth; I have heard the assertion that men could not endure the pain, but I have also heard from a woman who bore five children without anesthesia, and in most cases without a doctor present—as in on the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace with husband, midwife, and, perhaps strangely, the family dog near to hand—that it's not so much pain but tremendous, indescribable physical exertion. To the other, when my partner and I arrived at the hospital after her water broke, one of the first things the birthing staff did was strap onto her any number of devices intended to monitor pain. When they saw the first numbers, they checked the rigging to make sure they hadn't screwed something up, looked at the numbers again, and immediately began administering painkillers because the readings were well beyond what they consider healthy for the mother. God, of course, was sad. Or disappointed. Or angry. Or who the freakity-freak actually cares what God thinks? Quite obviously, that panel of clergymen doesn't—unless, of course, it is politically convenient to their efforts to keep women "in their proper place", so to speak.
Works Cited:
Mudede, Charles. "God Cool With Chloroform but not Cool With Abortions". Slog. March 2, 2012. Slog.TheStranger.com. March 3, 2012. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...l-with-chloroform-but-not-cool-with-abortions
Davidson, Gustav. A Dictionary of Angels Including the Fallen Angels. New York: Free Press, 1967.
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Because It's That Important: Bishop of Sioux City calls for violence
Because It's That Important ....
Bishop Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City, recently explained to the Family Research Council in a webcast about contraception and the Obama administration, that people of faith need to "violently oppose" federal policy.
So much for rendering unto Caesar. So much for the "Prince of Peace". Christians should, in the Bishop's outlook, rise to violence in order to prevent women from having mandatory access to insurance coverage that includes birth control.
However, there is still no word on whether violence is needed to compel insurance companies to stop covering Viagra.
So it comes to this.
____________________
Notes:
Mantyla, Kyle. "Bishop Nickless: Contraception Mandate a Plot by the Devil that Must be Violently Opposed". Right Wing Watch. February 14, 2012. RightWingWatch.org. March 3, 2012. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conte...-mandate-plot-devil-must-be-violently-opposed
Because It's That Important ....
Bishop Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City, recently explained to the Family Research Council in a webcast about contraception and the Obama administration, that people of faith need to "violently oppose" federal policy.
So much for rendering unto Caesar. So much for the "Prince of Peace". Christians should, in the Bishop's outlook, rise to violence in order to prevent women from having mandatory access to insurance coverage that includes birth control.
However, there is still no word on whether violence is needed to compel insurance companies to stop covering Viagra.
"The power of evil is going to try any way that it can to get a hook into our world and the values we hold as so dear and so important as believing people. And the power of evil, the Devil, can certainly look—is looking—everywhere to find places where they can, where the power of evil can make a difference. To tear us apart. To get us to look at just the worldy values and forget about, you know, that there is something more important than just the values of the world. And that's why we've got to stand up and violently oppose this. We cannot let Darkness overshadow us. We've got to be men and women who proclaim the Light. And we've got to tell the truth. And we've got to be transparent. And we've got to say that government cannot do this to us."
So it comes to this.
____________________
Notes:
Mantyla, Kyle. "Bishop Nickless: Contraception Mandate a Plot by the Devil that Must be Violently Opposed". Right Wing Watch. February 14, 2012. RightWingWatch.org. March 3, 2012. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conte...-mandate-plot-devil-must-be-violently-opposed
Meh. I'm almost numb to these death cult wackos at this point. I mean, obviously he should be tarred and feathered for such comments, but I don't seriously believe he's going to rally any of his flock to action.