[unknown_apostle]

Btw, the Catholic Church is not against birth control because it wants to fill up the planet with people.

The Church is obliged to teach that sex is supposed to be about a man and a woman taking part in God's ecstatic act of creation, a selfless act of love. Sex without being open to life is porn: without the act of self giving and preparedness to receive children, you are left with a corrupted, self-directed form of pleasure.

This is why the Church is not against quite effective natural methods like NFP, because in this method it's the people who change their own behaviour, based on a natural cycle. It's quite effective but does not close fertility in a mechanical way.

Second, if people were really listening to Jesus Christ and the Church, much more people would hear a calling to lead a consecrated life, as a priest or a monk or a nun.

[dr_dshiv]

> Sex without being open to life is porn: without the act of self giving and preparedness to receive children, you are left with a corrupted, self-directed form of pleasure.

Nope. I've had 3 kids. I have emotionally and rationally concluded that having another child is inappropriate; it is a form of excess and inbalance. So, I want to have sex for love now. Really, you are going to tell me that, by stopping at 3, I am going against the will of god?

Also, what's up with believing in a God-man that supposedly rules over 100 billion galaxies and yet is so damn petty about human sex lives and other foolishness? I'm all good with the importance of spiritual fulfilment, an underlying faith in an ineffable oneness of the cosmos, and even in the notion that belief in the eternal Logos gives eternal life (i.e., if i believe that my self is vastly bigger than my bodily identity, then "I" don't die with our body). It's comforting and rational.

But damn. Belief in a petty, spiteful God-man? How can people perpetuate such an idea? Just to scare children?

[leeoniya]

> But damn. Belief in a petty, spiteful God-man? How can people perpetuate such an idea? Just to scare children?

this is something i've always found hilarious. he's all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing. he created us, and now demands our love, adoration, and is jealous. is he lonely? is there nothing else to do in this universe except be concerned with how we live our lives? punish us with plagues? he gave us free will to then judge us in the end based on how restrained we were in exercising it?

it's silliness.

[cmurf]

It's capriciousness. The god of the bible has all the psychological characteristics of man. The slogan is "God made man in His image." But the foundational documents show it is, yet again, another man-made deity. One of thousands man has created and disposed of.

Job is the best book though. God and Satan make a bet...

[akudha]

Religion has always been and will always be a very effective way to control the masses. It is much cheaper and easier than armies and bombs.

Can you get large groups of people to do stupid stuff like don't have sex before marriage, don't swear etc, by any method? The only way, is religion. We can read religious texts and take some good things from them, but following everything a religion (any religion) says blindly is just dumb. Most the time, religious texts are interpreted for convenience and petty agenda anyway, not necessarily for truth.

Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE

[ipaddr]

We have evolved to remove God from religion but we still blindly follow pop-cultural leaders, politicians, appointed experts. Controlling people with mass media is easier than organized religion.

[unknown_apostle]

You're not going against the will of God by stopping at 3. Or by not having children at all.

But if you give contraception a fixed place in your life, to have sex which is fundamentally closed to children, then you have introduced a contradiction into your body and into your life.

And yes, He rules over 100 billion galaxies (more if we live in a multiverse) and cares about such things. If you think this is petty or spiteful, then you think too little of your sexuality and of yourself. These 100 billion galaxies were required for you to exist as a human being, called to (try) living a life that prepares you for Heaven.

[dr_dshiv]

> If you think this is petty or spiteful, then you think too little of your sexuality and of yourself.

No, i just expect more from the unifying principal of the universe. And so should anyone who wants real faith and not myths and fairytales.