What is the Moral Objection to Contraception?

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I'm with Bill.

Give em some condoms and let 'em screw their brains out. It'll make the world a better place.

Well, now we have one vote from someone who thinks that ejaculant is icky, and should only be emitted when trying to impregnate a woman.

If you aren't w*king, then the material will either be reabsorbed by your body, or be emitted nocturnally, which can also be messy.

From what I understand, a regular outpouring of semen can help reduce the possibility of prostate troubles.

The belief that religious figures should be celibate began long before the birth of Christianity. Ancient Druid priests were thought to have been celibate and Aztec temple priests were expected to remain sexually abstinent. Other pre-Christian sects mandated that the people chosen for their sacrificial offerings must be pure, meaning that they had never engaged in sex.

Jesus lived a chaste life and never married and at one point in the Bible is referred to as a eunuch (Matthew 19:12). Many of his disciples were also chaste and celibate. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, recommends celibacy for women:"To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain single as I do. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion." (1 Cor. 7:8-9) But the early Christian church had no hard and fast rule against clergy marrying and having children. Peter, a Galilee fisherman, whom the Catholic Church considers the first Pope, was married. Some Popes were the sons of Popes.

The first written mandate requiring priests to be chaste came in AD 304. Canon 33 of the Council of Elvira stated that all"bishops, presbyters, and deacons and all other clerics" were to"abstain completely from their wives and not to have children." A short time later, in 325, the Council of Nicea, convened by Constantine, rejected a ban on priests marrying requested by Spanish clerics.

The practice of priestly celibacy began to spread in the Western Church in the early Middle Ages. In the early 11th century Pope Benedict VIII responded to the decline in priestly morality by issuing a rule prohibiting the children of priests from inheriting property. A few decades later Pope Gregory VII issued a decree against clerical marriages.

The Church was a thousand years old before it definitively took a stand in favor of celibacy in the twelfth century at the Second Lateran Council held in 1139, when a rule was approved forbidding priests to marry. In 1563, the Council of Trent reaffirmed the tradition of celibacy.

Several explanations have been offered for the decision of the Church to adopt celibacy. Barry University's Ed Sunshine told Knight-Ridder that the policy was initiated to distinguish the clergy as a special group:"A celibate clergy became the paradigm of separation from the sinful world." A.W. Richard Sipe, a former priest and author of Sex, Priests and Power: The Anatomy of Crisis (1995), told Knight-Ridder that the"question at the time was who is the final power -- the king or the church. If [the church] could control a person's sex life, it could control their money, their employment, their benefice." Garry Wills suggested in Under God that the ban on marriage was adopted to lift the status of priests at a time when their authority was being challenged by nobles and others.

Protestants early on took exception to celibacy, arguing that it promoted masturbation, homosexuality and illicit fornication. Martin Luther singled out masturbation as one of the gravest offenses likely to be committed by those who were celibate."Nature never lets up," Luther warned,"we are all driven to the secret sin. To say it crudely but honestly, if it doesn't go into a woman, it goes into your shirt." American Protestants in the 17th century, fearful of radical religious sects like the Shakers that celebrated celibacy, came out foursquare against the practice.

The Roman Catholic Church's position today is derived from the Council of Trent. Celibacy is considered an important part of the priesthood, a sign of a priest's commitment to God and service. Today, though, there are some exceptions to the rule of unmarried clergy. Anglican ministers who were already married when they joined the Catholic Church are allowed to remain married if they choose to join the priesthood.

The Catholic Church distinguishes between dogma and regulations. The male-only priesthood is Catholic dogma, irreversible by papal decree. The ban on marriage is considered a regulation. As Knight-Ridder put it,"That means the pope could change it overnight if he wished."

The first modern scholar to make a comprehensive study of church celibacy was Henry Charles Lea over a century ago. Lea, a Protestant critical of the Catholic Church, closed his long book with the following statement:

We may be on the eve of great changes, but it is not easy to anticipate a change so radical as that which would permit the abolition of celibacy. The traditions of the past must first be forgotten; the hopes of the future must first be abandoned. The Latin church is the most wonderful structure in history, and ere its leaders can consent to such a reform they must confess that its career, so full of proud recollections, has been an error.

http://hnn.us/articles/696.html



So, it would appear that Lutherans aren't supposed to masturbate, either.

And in all honesty to me, Luther sounded like he was writing more in tongue-in-cheek, which he often did with as much earthy humor as possible.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

The Bible doesn't say anything against Lesbianism--it is only male homosexuality that gets the Lord huffy.

Paul rants about women who "exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, in the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another" in Romans 1:26. After adding things like gossipping and arrogance to the list of things that get his toga in a bunch, he concludes in Rom. 1:32 "they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death ..."

God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known. God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all! They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. They say they are wise, but they are fools; instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles.

And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other. They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever! Amen.

Because they do this, God has given them over to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way the men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing.

Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds, so that they do the things that they should not do. They are filled with all kinds of wickedness, evil, greed, and vice; they are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deceit, and malice. They gossip and speak evil of one another; they are hateful to God, insolent, proud, and boastful; they think of more ways to do evil; they disobey their parents; they have no conscience; they do not keep their promises, and they show no kindness or pity for others. They know that God's law says that people who live in this way deserve death. Yet, not only do they continue to do these very things, but they even approve of others who do them.

Oh, okay. If you look at it that way, then he was hilarious. He was putting his life on the line, but he was just as good as Stephen Colbert.

But, speaking of masturbation, I wonder if the Catholic Church and others have a similar thing about female masturbation?

The Moslem guy above did provide a rather practical view for an unmarried moslem woman, but a woman who is already married wouldn't have anything to worry about.

The Bible doesn't say anything against Lesbianism--it is only male homosexuality that gets the Lord huffy.

As I understand it, Catholics just don't want men to emit sperm that isn't going to be used to impregnate their wives.

A woman ovulates every month. She can't do anything but waste an ovum if her husband doesn't bang her at the right moment.

If you look, for example, at King Solomon's 300 wives and 700 concubines: on average, a member of his Copulation Cabinet would have to wait more than 3 years between refreshments. Were they really expected not to pleasure themselves, nor each other, in the mean time? Such a restriction would be unaccountably cruel.

If the Bible contains passages that might lend themselves to interpretations of being prudish and misogynistic, then aren't modern Christians obliged to be prudish and misogynistic?

If you've heard anything about the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke story, it seems that many "Conservatives" regard contraception as equivalent to prostitution. If a husband bones his wife, and she is using contraceptives, then he is only boning her for fun, and the wife is functioning as a prostitute.

At least Mrs. Limbaugh doesn't have to worry about contraception and being labeled a prostitute.