Contraception

I hardly doubt that they would appreciate much about me, least of all my commitment to the revelation of God in Scripture. Guilt by 90 year old association won't play any better than the previous arguments. </font>[/QUOTE]They would use you and beat you like a drum.

 

Aaron,

You nailed it in your last two posts. Excellent.

Bottom line: Blessing control is a lack of faith and trust in God to meet our needs and seems to come from a heart that does not really believe that God can be trusted.

My oh my, what did the Christians do the first 1900 years of church history when blessing control wasn't available?

 

It is not a lack of faith in God, and there have always been froms of birth control.

Faih is not foolishness. Though we ought to trust God, we ought not to be presumptious. When a bad situation would become even more difficult if another child born.

 

You shouldn't kid in posts where you are trying to be serious. EVeryone here knows that this was a wrong statement. YOu have yet to produce one iota of biblical evidence that birth control is wrong. And there is a reason for that, Aaron. There is a reason why you haven't posted any biblical evidence. You don't have any. If you did, you would do more than make the kind of weak unsubstantiated arguments you have made here.

It isn't an accurate jab. It was an attempt to make an argumnet by prejudicial word choice. It was a bad attempt, easy to see through.

What carnal reasoning? I haven't made any.

You are silly, and you konw it. This is no response. When a wife dies prematurely becuase you failed to use birth control, that is not a blessing. The body wasn't built for that.

I'm not.

Nothing to get to the bottom of. You are trying to change the subject rather than answer the argument.

I am the one that said it. But your position is a far removed position from the biblical teaching on the matter.

You did. You have argued in this thread that birth control is wrong. You have failed to support; that with Scripture, and the fact that you have resorted to "blessing control" shows how desperate you have become. You can't win the argument on the merits so you have to change the name in hopes that that will persuade someone.

I don't want it both ways.

 

Stupidity?
Lack of wisdom?

Trusting God in marriage, loving one's spouse, and being blessed with children like Christians have been doing for centuries is now equated with stupidity and lack of wisdom?

 

Right or wrong?

A banker makes change for a customer who hands in a hundred dollar bill.

The banker returns 98 dollars. He was off by two dollars.

This same banker returns 60 dollars to another person under identical circumstances.

Yes, the banker was wrong both times. But which customer would you rather be? Was he not "more wrong" with customer two?

 

No, I never equated trusting God in marriage, loving your spouse, and being blessed with children with stupidity and lack of wisdom. Anyone who reads my post semi-objectively knows that. Why would you pretend differently?

Not sure how this is relevant. You made my point. The was wrong because right and wrong are binary. You either are right or you are wrong. But that is totally off topic.

 

In the 1980s I was an assistant instructor for developmentaly disabled adults, The have physical bodies of adults, but the mind of a child. They have sexual urges, but they don't know how to control them. So their parents have had them streilized, some of the developmentaly disabled adults live in group homes with other DDAs, there is a facillitator whom is not a DDA who stays at the home with them, to assist as needed.

However the DDAs can still get together at times so that is why they are sterilized. The other problem is those who are not DDAs take advantage of a DDA this is another reason for sterilization.

A bigger problem is STDs are prevalent, as they are for those who are not DDAs.

 

Arrows were not involved with David and Goliath, so don't bend Scripture to fit your argument.

The point of the Psalms passage is not the size of the quiver, but what the arrows are used for. I was merely trying to point out that not all quivers are large, some are small.

My arguments were that the Bible says NOTHING one way or another about birth control. I asked you for Scripture to prove to me the contraception is wrong you sir have provided none, so tell me WHO is being "weak and unscriptural?

Secondly your above statment suggests that everyone who practices birth control is doing so for selfish and worldly reasons. This is an unfair generalization.

Also, I was not trying to prove that birth control was right. I was pointing to the fact that the Bible says NOTHING one way or another about birth control! You are the one who made the calim that it is unbiblical, I asked you for Scriptural proof to back up your claim, which you and Paul have failed to do.

 

Larry,

I believe your arguement is: We are to trust God, but not to use birth control is stupid and lacking in wisdom if we judge ourselves to be unable to care for children financially or emotionally.

 

Thank you all for the input about the no. of arrows in the quiver full and I've been thinking.....

when one goes to war, you want to be as well stocked with ammunition as you can so you have more chances at success in the war.

So maybe, (just maybe) how many a quiver can hold really is irrelevant (as in we are not to equate the number to the number of children we are to have?)But rather that a "full quiver" is the obvious preparation a thinking warrior would make sure he has to be well equipt for a battle.

Anyone out there agree?

Another question I would sincerely like to put forth: which woman in the bible had the most recorded number of children and what was that number?

Oh yes! i can think of Job's wife.... 20 in all?
Any other bible woman beat that number?

But remember, the world (I believe the atmosphere) was somewhat different back then... Job lived till 140. Our lifespans have since dropped to threescore and ten...psalm 90:10

 

In battle an archer needed just the right amount of arrows in his quiver for it to be "full". If he had too many he would not be able to remove them and load properly, if he had to few, he would not have enough "ammo" for the battle.

People read too much in metaphors and figurative speech used in the Bible, and often draw conclusions that God never intended for them to draw.

 

Su Wei,

Petrel's research is incomplete. The reliefs are two-dimensional representations, and do not reflect the actual capacities of the quivers. In the latest issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, there just happens to be a photo of an Assyrian relief commemorating their assault on Lachish (2 Kings 18:14). Big as life there is an Assyrian archer and I counted no less than nine arrows in his quiver (10 if you count the arrow drawn in his bow).

Again, It's two dimensional, but quivers are cylindrical, not rectangular. There could easily be 40-50 arrows in the quiver if you imagine it in three dimensions.

The point in Ps. 127:5 is that to be prepared to meet an enemy, you want your quiver stuffed to capacity. You're right. There is not a one-to-one correspondence between the number of arrows and the number of children, but there can be no denying that it implies a large number.

Large families are a blessing. That's how God see's it, anyway.

 

Not always, care to biblicaly prove this statement? There are plenty of large families that are not a blessing and that is obvious by the lives they live.

Small families are a blessing as well.

As to the size of the quiver, again that is irrelevant. We don't know what size of quiver David was speaking of, and besides that is not the point of the passage! We can not assume that the quiver was large or small, only that it was full, and some quivers are smaller than others.

 

I never claimed that my research (I wouldn't even flatter myself by calling it that ) is complete, but it definitely indicates that a full quiver may be a small number.

 

Larry, you're one being silly. God says lots of children are a blessing. He doesn't say polygamy is a blessing, though there are men in Utah that might disagree with Him.

You're doing it again. You say my decision to have a child or not should be based on the amount of money I have.

God's will is the central concern in the life of a Christian, and one does not look to money for the power to do God's will. This is elementary.

The question is, does God will for us to use contraception? To say, "Yes, if you can't afford children," is to beg the question (not to mention faithless). The Scriptures already tell us we can be assured of God's provision once God's will has been determined.

So far, not one Scriptural argument has been offered in favor of contraception.

But He does promise to provide for our obedience to His will. Besides, you're not using Scripture to judge the stupidity or foolishness of the topic here. You're using money.

You have argued in this thread that birth control is wrong.

Would you please link us to the post where I said it was right or wrong?

You have failed to support; that with Scripture, and the fact that you have resorted to "blessing control" shows how desperate you have become. You can't win the argument on the merits so you have to change the name in hopes that that will persuade someone.

Au contraire. I'm jeering and flouting, not trying to persuade. You obviously haven't read my posts. 4His tried to say that children were a blessing, but we weren't compelled to receive them. So I jokingly called it blessing control, and later changed it to blessing prevention. I keep using it because it's a perfect caricature of your arguments.

"They're blessings, but...I don't want anymore than 1 or 2."

So far, the anti-contraception crowd hasn't provided an argument so easily ridiculed.

 

If I was going hunting, 3 or 4 arrows might just do me.

If I was going to war, I'd want a lot more than that. Anyone would. Even if he could shoot like Legolas.

And that's the point of Ps 127:5. You can't get around it. Lot's o' kids are a blessing.

 

The only Scriptural argument given against contraception has been, "God says children are a blessing." You then leap from that truth to "Therefore we ought to have as many of them as possible." The connection is by no means obvious.

 

Why is this couple marrying? And, honestly, is this the reason 99% of Christians use contraception? It sounds a lot like the tactic of the pro-abortion crowd.

Really, the argument about contraception boils down to God's will concerning marriage and the family.

 

Christians are told to show responsiblity in regards to health and finances.

Approximate number of women who die every year in pregnancy: 514,000

Lifetime chance of dying from pregnancy or complications from pregnancy in North America: 1 in 3,700

Number of women worldwide who suffer acute complications from pregnancy: 20 million

Number of children left motherless each year:
1 million

Likelihood that motherless children will die within two years of their mothers' deaths compared with children who live with both parents: 3 to 10 times more likely

If I came to you and said, "We are living pay check to pay check, but in the next few years we want to take on an additional $10,000 debt, beginning with next year." You'd probably tell me not to do it.

The average charge of hospital delivery of a baby is $5,000 now. So that would be two children, without the doctor's fee or the prenantal care fees. Add the obstitrician fees, and then the pediatrician fees, and the post-natal checkup fees, and the diapers - - and how can you be a good Christian in regards to health and finances and not consider whether or not you can afford another child before conceiving one?

And wasn't this attitude of Paul's a heavy contributor in the Andrea Yates case?