Contraception

2.5 blessings? Can't we round that to a whole number?

Besides, we need to think about the well-being of our blessings rather than just appreciating our blessedness.

 

Exactally.

 

My wife and I were married 10 years befire we had our first child. When a teenager, she'd had an a urinary tract infection that'd spread into her repro apparatus & she wasn't sure if she could have children. So, when she found herself pregnant she knew we'd been blessed.(I was 36, she 35 at the time.) Three years later, when she became pregnant for the second time, we decided together to "have her tubes tied" at the birth of our 2nd son.

Something a family should consider if they already have several kids...Even if money is no problem, do they have enough ATTENTION to go around?

 

Big families are not always a blessing. You will here of all the lovey-dovey sucess stories form those who oppose contraception, but you never hear the bad ones, and their are bad ones.

 

While I was a cop, I saw many a BAD one; kids produced to pad the parents' welfare checks or to be SOLD to infertile couples on the black market. And the latter wasn't limited to the poor!

I know this has nothing to do with contraception, but it bears repeating.

As for contraception, I believe that's a matter between a couple and GOD. Both partners should be aware it's being used.

And remember, each woman carries MANY THOUSANDS of undeveloped eggs in her ovaries; each has the potential to become a baby. Only a tiny percentage of any woman's eggs ever become mature enough to be fertilized. And each "session" for a man releases MILLIONS of sperm cells, each one capable of fertilizing an egg. No human couple even comes close to realizing their repro potential!

 

Aaron posted "Got to thinking...what is birth control about if it's not about self? "

It is about providing responsibly for the children you have. Will you be able to provide them with housing? Clothing? Food? Will you be able to give them time? Love? A good education?

My best friend's mother had 7 children before her husband decided to vanish into the night. My friend was in high school when she heard me tell my mother, "I love you," and heard my mother respond back with, "I love you too, hon." My friend burst into tears and said, "My mother has never told me that."

That night she went home and talked to her mother who told her, "Of course I love you. I guess I'm just so tired that by the time I stop to think the words you're already in bed."

See, her mom worked as the cafeteria lady at school, and then at whatever part time jobs she could find to feed the 7 kids. The older siblings were raising the younger siblings. The older siblings also resented the younger children every new baby meant less money and less attention. They blamed the youngest child for the Dad leaving.

Right now, one of my best friends is the mother of 4 children. They are a "close" Christian family. Dad is a deacon in the Baptist Church, she is a stay at home mom. Their 3rd child is the age of my daughter. Their 4th child is the age of my son. The 3rd child has told me, flat out, that she wishes she had another set of parents because she feels totally unloved.

She knows, deep down, that her parents do love her, but when she was very little - her brother was born with some health issues. So Mom and Dad focused a lot of attention on him.

When she was a little older, her oldest brother got ready to go off to college and Mom and Dad thought, "He is leaving soon, we really need to be sure he knows he is loved." So they focused a lot of attention on HIM.

When she was a little older, the oldest daughter was the one moving away next, and so instead of the 3rd child's play, Mom and Dad were at the 2nd child's school picnic. Instead of the 3rd child's track meet, they were at the 2nd child's track meet.

Today I talk to my best friend and she tells me that it is very difficult for her because she feels she doesn't really know her 3rd child. She doesn't. She was always too busy caring for the other three children.

The fourth child doesn't have it that easy either. My best friend is older than I am, and her husband is even older. He wants to retire, but he can't. He has to worry about his last son's education. Fearful they can't possibly afford to educate him, they push him to be the perfect student with perfect attendance. Not just an A-student, but THE number one student. That's a lot of pressure for a young man.

There were things he knows his Dad did with his older siblings, but frankly, Dad is just too old to do them.

There are also health reasons involved. Childbrith is hard on a woman's health. It carries risks, even in this day and age. Being pregnant for 7 or 8 years can rob a child of a Mother and make a man a widower.

 

You know, I'd really really like to agree with you on this, but Scripture keeps getting in the way. God has revealed that He sees big families as a blessing. Didn't He say, "Blessed is the man whose quiver is full"?

Does 2.5 arrows make a quiver full? Just wondering, because that just don't make no sense.

Why sure He is! Just as He is sovereign enough to overrule the thieves and murderers and rapists and, well, you name it. He can always overrule an act of self-will, but He doesn't always, does He?

What do I care what you do with your life? If it's your life, then your will be done. What you do or don't do isn't the issue here, it's what God has said.

 

You know, I'd really really like to agree with you on this, but Scripture keeps getting in the way. God has revealed that He sees big families as a blessing. Didn't He say, "Blessed is the man whose quiver is full"?

Does 2.5 arrows make a quiver full? Just wondering, because that just don't make no sense.

Why sure He is! Just as He is sovereign enough to overrule the thieves and murderers and rapists and, well, you name it. He can always overrule an act of self-will, but He doesn't always, does He?

What do I care what you do with your life? If it's your life, then your will be done. What you do or don't do isn't the issue here, it's what God has said. </font>[/QUOTE]First of all some quivers are smaller than others. I only need one arrow to kill the deer.

Secondly where is your proof that God is against birth control. You calim He said somthing, when He has in fact said nothing. I am still waiting for you to show me a passage where God disaproves of birth control.

 

Why sure He is! Just as He is sovereign enough to overrule the thieves and murderers and rapists and, well, you name it. He can always overrule an act of self-will, but He doesn't always, does He?/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]Are you sugesting that thieves and murderes are are more powerful than God? God in His sovereignty allows them to fulfill their evil actions, if He wanted to stop them He would. This argument is not relevent to the one at hand, since murder, rape, and thievery, are condemed biblicaly, but birth control is not. At least you have yet to prove it.

 

How is "birth control" different from outright abortion?

How?

BOTH seek to prevent a life.

Can one say that God approves of us taking into our own hands this power?

In HIS service;
Jim

 

No Jim, both do not seek to prevent a life. One destorys a life, the other prevents life from happening, there is no life untile the egg is fertilized.

Again God is able to override birth control if He pleases.

Show me Scripture that proves that contraception is sin. Show me Scripture where God disaproves of birth control.

I have asked this a couple of times now and nobody has been able to. Prove your claims the contraception is sin!

 

Actually birth control seeks to prevent life, whereas abortion actually ends life.

IMO, the former is far more justifiable than the latter.

Preventing life in itself doesn't seem to be all that immoral. Is not a single person who decides not to marry preventing life on some level?

 

It wasn't until 1934 that the first liberal denomination, the Protestant Episcopal Church, advocated the use of birth control even though it was STILL ILLEGAL in the United States.

The person behind the birth control movement, Marageret Sanger, was a proponent of free love and freedom from motherhood. Everyone also knew that separating the marriage act from conception would lead to immorality. In 1936 the Methodist Church did not go on record supporting birth control for this very reason, though the records indicate that they did support "ethical" birth control.

Everyone in the 1930s knew that the only reason birth control was being used was for selfish reasons. The eugencists were appalled that the high grade, "superior" folks were using birth control and limiting their family sizes while the low grade, "inferior" folks (80% of the population) were not using birth control.

They pleaded with the well-to-do to stop being selfish and to start having more children.

Imagine what America would look like if God-fearing Bible-believing Christians would have large families and nonbelievers and atheist would have few? God wants his people to multiply and fill the earth. But we ignore God for "selfish" reasons. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes.

We would rather obey Margaret Sanger than the Bible. The truth is, birth control has led us down the road to abortion. We decide when a baby is wanted and when birth control (or the lack of it) fails, we terminate the unwanted pregnancy.

The attitude behind abortion was fostered by the attitude behind birth control.

 

Amen Paul.

Ge 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

Paul33,

What a flawed argument. Unbridled population growth, which is already a fact of life, will overwhelm the planet with people, while resources to feed them can't keep up. We already have massive starvation in parts of the world. Technology can only take us so far.

The fact that Margaret Sanger may have been an atheist has no bearing on the fact that runaway population growth will create pandemics and worldwide starvation.

 

4 His Glory,

Show me Scripture that has set aside the command of God to be fruitful and multiply?

Show me Scripture that declares that children are not a blessing of God and should be avoided so that we can self-actualize?

Show me Scripture that says that limiting families to two kids in the wealthiest country in the world is "using common sense" because we aren't able to meet the needs of more than two?

The facts are that children are a blessing from God and most Christian families limit the size of their families for selfish, self-centered reasons.

If you want to serve God with your time, don't get married.

If you want to marry, expect children and attend to them.

Because some abuse marriage and children in no way nullifies God's Word about marriage, family, and the blessings of children.

We will have to answer to God someday for our self-centered ways.

 

I think you are the one with the flawed argument.

There is no population explosion. The western countries of the world are declining in population growth.

We pay farmers not to grow crops. We can feed the world.

There are famines in the world because of cruel dictators who profit at the expense of their own people.

Obeying God and enjoying marriage, spouse, and children, is not the world's problem. Disobeying God, sexual immorality, and a denunciation of marriage and the family is the cause of the world's pain, especially in America!

Sanger's attitude drove her mission, and the American people have adopted her philosophy hook, line, and sinker. You know it and I know it.

Look around you and see the devastation of premarital sex in your neighborhood. In fact, the youth pastors of the churches tell the kids that sex before marriage is NOT wrong.

When we severed the marriage act from conception, we opened pandora's box to an epidemic of sexual immorality.

Free access to birth control hasn't reduced teen pregnancy. It has increased it!

 

Also a flawed argument.

The US government pays farmers right here in Montana to leave fields un-sown(is that a word?). I remember pictures of harvests in Illinois that were so HUGE that they dumped the grain in the streets awaiting room to store and process it. This was BEFORE governmental intrusion and farmer welfare.

The starvation problems you speak of are non existant in America. And the starvation problems in Africa (I suspect this is what you speak of, maybe also Asia) are due more to governmental ineptitude than lack of food.

The "runaway" population problem is an invention. China, which has about a BILLION people has had governmental sanctions upon the size of a family for decades yet they continue to grow. China's problem is NOT about population control. Their problem is about the ineptitude of their governmental system.

India's starvation problem is NOT about "birth control". It is about their stupid Hindu religion. THAT is the cause of their problems.

Africa's starvation problem is NOT about birth control. It is about their stupid tribal fueds which prevents people from getting adequate food and water.

In point of fact, Africa has more resources per sq mile yet they do not produce much. why? Stupid political policies.

And finally: "Unbridled population growth" CANNOT overwhelm the planet. The Bible declares that God will destroy this planet by fire. Not by people!
I don't suppose you have traveled much in the Western US. There is LOTS of unpopulated space. In fact, I saw once that if one were to put every person in the US into Texas, EACH family would have a full acre to live on. One acre of land will produce enough food to sustain that family quite well. My folks' home while I was in high school was on a full acre of land. Easily 2/3 of it was available for gardening space.

Your argument is flawed.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

Pockets of zero population growth, or even negative growth, do not mean overpopulation of the planet is not a problem. It is simple mathematics. Human population is exploding at an amazing rate, and will continue to do so.

As for unpopulated space, I live in Denver, so I know how the west is. However, do you want every square inch of the planet populated? Much of that empty space is producing food. As for growing your own garden, it is a nice thought, but subsistence farming is not for everyone.

As for the argument of God will destroy the planet before it gets that bad, this is simply irresponsible. Jesus said no man knows the day or hour. The earth is not infinite. Good stewardship means acting responsibly with finite resources. Not only irresponsible, but totally wrongheaded.

 

There are so many fallacies and misconceptions in your post I don't know where to begin.

Children are not the center of the universe. We have made our children the "gods" of our homes. We run them everywhere, to do everything. We dote on them. We spoil them.

Dad wants to retire. Well, there's a biblical idea. Show me one place in Scripture where adults are supposed to retire? As we age, we might not work as long or as hard, but retire?

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

Self-centered adults, self-centered kids.

And we are doing it to them.

I have eight children. My wife isn't an emotional physical wreck. Sometimes, I do feel burdened. It's usually because I'm being selfish and self-centered. Kids force me to depend on God, love God, serve God, and put God first. My wife comes second. Our kids come third and they do not rule the roost!

But they play, have fun, work, clean the house, do the laundry, go to college at 16, etc.

We have a great family. My kids observe their friends with one, two, or three kids in the family. Parents running wild to do for their kids.

My kids are allowed to grow up without all of the outside pressures. And guess what? They grow up! They go to college. They make their own way in life, etc.

Large families are great because they force you to focus on what is truly important!