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wax eagle
wax eagle
00:26
@TRiG that's simply amazing
what a difference 8 years makes.
i especially love that one guy holding up the flip phone in 2005, it makes the whole point.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
00:52
@waxeagle Ha, I didn't notice that when I shared it on Facebook last week! :P
TRiG
TRiG
01:38
Reprise: Salem witch trials.
@Alypius How about,
> No one can have a right to deprive others of their important liberty as a prophylactic means of protecting his own.
 
3 hours later…
Alypius
Alypius
04:25
@fredsbend All of the above, and add that it devalues men, children, people in general, and attempts to devalue God.
@TRiG So marriage is a private thing now? Is marriage now the "right to live the most intimate portions of their lives according to their own deepest values"?
Feel free to live that way. But don't expect to get various legal and financial perks for "falling in love".
If you want a discount on "married student housing", get married. Why are you getting a discount? Because you are fulfilling your end of the social contract by being open to creating more humans.
0
A: Why is the Book of Enoch not regarded as canonical?

DavidMaybe I am not understanding something. Who told these church fathers to get these books together. Was it God or was it Constantine. This canon was it God's spirit directing these men. I am just asking a question. Or was it Constantine's fear. To say certain books were not inspiring well it...

El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Alypius So, you're saying that married people should get discounts because they will typically "give back" to society in the form of at least one more working citizen?
Alypius
Alypius
Weirdest answer I've seen come up during my stay here.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Alypius It's liable to be deleted; we're just waiting for the OP to respond.
Alypius
Alypius
@El'endiaStarman Yeah, it's just... very coherent and clear, but I have no idea about what.
@El'endiaStarman It's not as... utilitarian as that. Old people should get respect and assistance because they are old. There's no sense of "for the good of the nation" in that. Same goes for people who marry. Making more humans is a huge deal. If you say "hey, I'm committed to playing my part in that", then you deserve a certain type of respect.
Homosexuals can't get that kind of respect. I find it incoherent when I try to understand it.
Priests can't get that kind of respect either, by the way, since they're celibate.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
04:59
@Alypius They do (should) get respect for choosing to remain celibate.
Alypius
Alypius
@El'endiaStarman Yes. It's a different sort of respect, though. Married people who choose to remain celibate get double respect, by the way. They are both open to having children, and also obedient to their commitment to remain celibate.
Mary and Joseph had this sort of relationship, plus they raised a child, plus Mary was a mother. Of God. (This "double-respect" point is not Catholic doctrine, it's just what I think.)
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
05:12
Hey @TRiG, does your country have a similarly-convoluted counting system, or is it as sensibly-simple as the English? :P (Problems with French Numbers - numberphile)
►
 
2 hours later…
fredsbend
fredsbend
07:40
@Alypius How?
fredsbend
fredsbend
08:05
@El'endiaStarman Those French. Always doing things funny. I record medical conference lectures and this sort of thing is exactly why I do not make transcripts. The numbers for a dose could be dangerously misinterpreted.
Since we sell to a lot of english as a second language doctors.
fredsbend
fredsbend
08:32
@waxeagle I am interested but feel like I am not qualified at this point. I have only been a member for a month and have only read two blog posts. I would be very willing to take the 'fringe' views, like annihilationism.
 
2 hours later…
TRiG
TRiG
10:48
@Alypius I disagree with your assertion that marriage has ever meant that, to anyone.
@El'endiaStarman My Irish is hardly fluent (my French is probably better).
 
2 hours later…
wax eagle
wax eagle
12:25
@Alypius no. married student housing exists because married students exist. It exists because married students need different things than traditional single students. This isn't a benefit of the willingness to procreate, it's a benefit of the fact that when you get married your needs change.
@fredsbend tbh we don't vet folks beyond asking them to stick to a coherent perspective. I will say though that right now I'm signing up folks to write for 3 months, if you want to wait and sign up next quarter it might let someone rotate off.
James T
James T
12:54
Making more humans is one thing; raising more humans is the hard part. Even if we are talking about government benefits, you are (probably) not getting any subsidy to help with conceiving - helping out with the expenses of raising a child, plus providing more assurance of stability, is the focus.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@JamesT that's a really good point. The US gov't gives tax breaks for supporting kids, Not for birthing them (though depending on how your state works you can claim a child as a tax credit even if they are stillborn or die shortly after birth).
Caleb
Caleb
@El'endiaStarman I count (forward and backward) quite naturally in Turkish now, and even sometimes catch myself doing it when the lead up or context is English. Basic addition and subtraction also happens quite naturally for me in Turkish, but for some reason when I hit even basic multiplication my brain has to switch over to English to do the crunch the numbers.
wax eagle
wax eagle
And regardless of arguments over the benefits/detriments to the child. No one can faithfully argue that single person or homosexual couple is not capable of performing that support work
@Caleb shopping math ftw :)
Caleb
Caleb
@El'endiaStarman The hilarious thing is that I can no longer handle telephone numbers in English. People are so inconsistent about the way they break down the numbers into sets that my brain can't handle it. And even if I'm jotting down or dialing a number being narrated to me in English, my brain will go convert it all to Turkish.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Caleb What's the Turkish system of counting like?
Caleb
Caleb
13:06
@El'endiaStarman Sane.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Caleb Cheater.
Caleb
Caleb
Once you hit ten, everything is "ten X", no more fancy names. They do have names for everything up to 100 (most of which are nice derivatives of the names for single digits).
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Caleb Aye, that is nicer.
Caleb
Caleb
@El'endiaStarman Even things like the word for "thousand" is use consistently. Being simply "bin" is quite easy to fit in and doesn't tend to get dropped because it takes to long to say like in English.
The only catch in the whole system involves money.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
I actually have a constructed language in the works, but I have yet to figure out how to represent numbers. I'm trying to come up with a system that is as base-free as possible, yet still be useful (unlike Roman numerals). Still haven't got a solution.
Caleb
Caleb
13:11
A few years back, they dropped 6 decimal places from their currency. A lot of people are still in the habit of saying money amounts in the old denominations, which is confusing for people why any number representing money can be said two ways.
@El'endiaStarman That's an interesting experiment. I played around with it for a while once too. Not having bases makes everything unnecessarily complicated.
Turkish is strongly base 10.
And thanks to the French, Turkish uses , (comma) for the decimal separator and . (period) for the thousands place separator.
12.345,67 is in the range of 12k, not 12.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Caleb I first noticed that in a different forum (projecteuler, I think) several years ago, and though I was initially confused, I quickly realized that it was just the opposite of the English system.
Caleb
Caleb
And don't even get me started on dates. Typically they use some variant of DD MM YY notation, but the only reliable thing is that nobody is consistent, so dates can be real head scratchers sometimes.
ISO 8601 was published on 06/05/88 and most recently amended on 12/01/04.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Caleb I wrote dates the proper way after I saw this.
Well, I gotta go. I've volunteered to help out with a career fair on campus. Will be actually going to the career fair afterwards as well.
Caleb
Caleb
@El'endiaStarman I started using this notation a little over a decade ago while learning SQL as part of an Oracle certification course. I've never looked back, and I don't understand why there is still a battle for usage between MM/DD/YY vs DD/MM/YY!
wax eagle
wax eagle
@El'endiaStarman cool
 
2 hours later…
Alypius
Alypius
14:58
@TRiG If you have no clear conception of what marriage means, you will have trouble accepting any definition that does not include "homosexuals in a committed relationship". Do you mean something by the word "marriage" when you use it? I ask because you've suggested that marriage is "just whatever it means to the people involved", and that's just the claim that they should get to define it, not that you use the word in a meaningful way.
@waxeagle Sure. Needs can change. In what way do married students need different things? Again, not willingness to procreate, but willingness to be open to procreation.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius No. It's that most colleges don't permit married students to live with their partners in their dorms. There are different expectations for married students. They have nothing to do with procreation (well at least not directly).
and the needs are largely of the privacy nature.
Alypius
Alypius
@JamesT Yes. Raising humans is exactly the point. You are not considered married if you have intercourse, or produce a child, or raise a child. Marriage, in part, is something shared in anticipation of the possibility of children. It is, from one view, a social and personal support structure put in place before a child is even conceived. Among other things, certain (biological) bonds are formed through intercourse, child bearing, birth, and so on.
wax eagle
wax eagle
it's mostly a courtesy to the other students. married people are gross.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle How is that any different from people who fornicate?
Perhaps the Catholic college should be forced to set up a "love" hotels, like the ones in Japan?
wax eagle
wax eagle
15:13
@Alypius legal status yo. The government/church/scripture has given you a license/mandate to have as much sex as you want (regardless of reasons). Married folks shouldn't have to sneak around to get some...
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle I'm glad you think so, but why should fornicators have to sneak around? On what basis do you distinguish the two? Is marriage then simply a public declaration that, in fact, you "may-or-may-not be having intercourse with this other person, so watch out"?
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius it's certainly that, but it's also a contract that has legal and spiritual ramifications. There is a commitment there. And the legal status granted by it also comes with privileges, and penalties for breaking it.
it's a contract that says "regardless of the reasons we chose to get married, we are committed to stay together and work together" kids aren't part of that contract. They come later.
I certainly didn't sign anything indicating my willingness to have kids.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle Again, it's not about willingness. It's about openness.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius and to me, those terms are synonyms
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle What are the penalties?
wax eagle
wax eagle
15:21
@Alypius equal split of possessions, lengthy court battles, costly attorneys (obviously this isn't universal). In other words, the penalty is headaches.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle This is not a legally imposed contractual penalty. There is no "if contract violated, liable for the sum of".
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius no, it's more social costs rather than monetary ones.
and I'm fine with that.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle A married couple may have intercourse without actively trying to have another child. If a married couple is trying to conceive, they do things differently. But being open to children does not even require a desire to have intercourse.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius what about actively preventing it?
@Alypius isn't a gay couple that want's to adopt "open to children" as equally as a het couple?
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle Again, then there seems to be no difference then between any pair of people who live together in a "committed way" and share possessions.
wax eagle
wax eagle
15:31
@Alypius common law marriage exists in a lot of places.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle This is incompatible with being open to children (in the same way that a complete lack of good works is incompatible with having faith).
wax eagle
wax eagle
when two people have lived together for a set period of time they are considered married for the purpose of legal things.
@Alypius are you by any chance married?
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle Exactly. But common law marriage isn't dropped down on roommates.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius no, although I think it might actually make sense. You've essentially formed an informal (or maybe even formal) social contract based on living in close proximity for an extended period of time that isn't all that different from a secular marriage.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle Being open to adopting is not the same as being open to having children. The latter has something to do with intercourse, the former has nothing to do with it.
@waxeagle I presume you take this to include a roommate of the same gender?
wax eagle
wax eagle
15:37
@Alypius yes very much so. Social contracts form whenever people are in close contact. Whether they are formalized. We talk a lot about them in table top RPGs, but they exist in marriage too
@Alypius sorry. I hold people who only want to adopt in as high regard as I do those who only want to have natural born children, probably actually higher.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle Then you are a supporter of civil unions. What you describe is exactly the appropriate definition of a civil union. I do not support civil unions, because they imply common law civil unions, something that I find absurd. Imagine Holmes and Watson ending up in a civil union. It is ridiculous.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius at the very least. I don't care if any two people want to get married even. As long as the Supreme Court continues to rule that churches are allowed to discriminate I'm basically OK with whatever the courts/gov't decides to do on the issue.
and generally I look back at American history and see the larger church on the wrong side of every major rights debate and realize that it's time to wake up.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle I'm not saying adoption is bad. But in my view, being open to conception implies being open to adoption. Just consider Saint Joseph (whose feast day was yesterday)
James T
James T
Even common-law marriage requires the consent of the parties, though. You don't end up accidentally married to someone. In Scotland this was called marriage "by habit and repute", ie living in private and public as if you had a properly solemnized married.
*marriage
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius by telling Catholics that they can't use contraceptives the Vatican is prioritizing conception over any other method of child acquisition.
which means they are interfering with people's choices without a good biblical reason
@JamesT fair enough. But there is at least an implied social contract there.
Alypius
Alypius
15:51
@JamesT That is only implicit consent. The point still holds. Watson and Holmes went out together, and chatted together, and so on.
James T
James T
Although this is no longer an option under the civil law, I think it is still interesting for the philosophical perspective of what makes a marriage & the idea that the state can recognize empirically that a marriage exists, despite any procedural defect.
@Alypius They did not treat each other as married which is the critical part of the test.
Nor did they ask to be recognized as married.
wax eagle
wax eagle
and what exactly is wrong with Watson and Holmes having had formed a civil partnership of some kind? Don't they already have an informal one? With some kind of social contract?
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle Yes. Because it has priority. Marriage isn't a joint contractual venture to acquire a child. It is a certain kind of committed support structure in which at the very least you are open to having children with your spouse. Various "biological and psychological" effects also arise (but those should only arise in the context of that "structure").
wax eagle
wax eagle
the other question (and this is the far more important one) is how do we constrain said partnerships to pairs and also unique pairs.
@Alypius still not understanding why a couple shouldn't be allowed from the outset to say "we are not having children" or "we are only going to adopt" or "we'd like to wait a few years before we have kids" I don't see biblical support for the positive or negative of any of these positions, which to me means that it should be up to the couple, not the church to make those decisions.
James T
James T
@waxeagle If they wanted to be married, that's fine by me. I was just saying that the state isn't going to send someone round to 221B Baker Street and declare them civil partners / spouses, against their will.
wax eagle
wax eagle
15:59
@JamesT fair enough
Alypius
Alypius
@JamesT I think that there are civil unions in some jurisdictions even if the parties do not ask to be recognized. This allows for the 50-50 split in case of "divorce". As for treating each other as married, who's to say? Some married people do not have intercourse. They simply go out, and chat together, or some equivalent.
@waxeagle I can only be sarcastic when I say "best of luck".
James T
James T
I am married and I know what my marriage is like "from the inside". I do not have that insight in the case of other couples, but "from the outside" it looks like the same thing, regardless of same-sex, opposite-sex, biological children, adopted children, no children, etc. It seems to me that "God has given his holy spirit to them just as he has to us".
Alypius
Alypius
@JamesT Yes, but many people seem to disagree on what marriage looks like from the inside. But my point is that what I describe in the Baker Street case is, by the standards advanced by people in favor of gay marriage or even civil unions, no different.
If you want to determine if two people are in a "common law marriage", you ask "were you open to conceiving children with this person?"
You would get the blankest of stares from Watson if you asked him this with respect to Holmes, I'm sure.
James T
James T
16:32
Legal practice may vary by jurisdiction. In the old law of Scotland the key question was whether the two people both consider themselves to be married. If not then it stops right there. Whether they have had children together may be part of the evidence in favour, but not having children or intending to have them is not an impediment.
Lack of consent is an absolute impediment.
Alypius
Alypius
@JamesT wax seems to be advocating a practice where even those who don't meet that condition might be married. About your point, there's an issue of determining what counts as "consider to be married" in cases where one person might lie, or try to form absurd definitions. I imagine that if the relations of two male roommates turned sour, and one claimed marriage while the other claimed not, then the court would have no issue deciding. Why? Well... because.
James T
James T
16:52
Hence the requirement of public manifestation of the relationship as a 'marital' one. Maybe a bit like the old rules on nullification of an engagement promise. If the promise was secret and unwritten then it could not be relied upon, when one person wanted to break it off. If it was widely known that a couple were engaged then certain obligations and rights kicked in.
eg per "Sex, Marriage and Family in John Calvin's Geneva", if the fiance ran away then the fiancee could not legally marry anyone else for a year. But if they had only made a private promise it was not enforceable.
Alypius
Alypius
17:32
@JamesT The issue is with deciding what types of "public" relationships count as marriage. Watson probably considered Holmes a close friend. Can we say that he considered him his spouse? No. But why not? What if one party does consider the other as spouse?
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Alypius I'd say it has to be a mutual and self-identified agreement.
Alypius
Alypius
17:48
@El'endiaStarman "Let's get married!" "Well, we have a very close friendship, and I consider that a marriage" "Alright, as you say". My point is that marriage is not a subjective relationship.
James T
James T
18:03
The point of "habit and repute" was really just a concession for couples who had done everything except the ceremony. To demonstrate "everything but" they had to show that they maintained a common household, provide testimony ("repute") from friends and relatives that they acted as if married, documentation where they call each other "husband"/"wife", etc.
In short, evidence of marriage. Having a certificate is evidence too.
OTOH even having done the ceremony and been entered into the registers, some marriages were void or voidable.
Again, one would have to show that despite the presumptive evidence of being married, there is actually no valid marriage.
Stack Exchange
Stack Exchange
18:24
3
Q: At what point should a comment become an answer?

Affable GeekSo, per Stack Overflow rules, comments are really something that are supposed to be discouraged in many circumstances that we use them. They are "sticky notes" designed to suggest improvements to an answer, and most importantly, are not indexed by Google. And, as we all know, if it's not google...

discussion
James T
James T
@Alypius If a same-sex couple says "we want the same legal status as our opposite-sex married friends", or "we want our union to be recognized and blessed in church just as theirs was", then I think they are appealing to a non-subjective notion of marriage, one that is not self-defined but which emerges from observation.
There are differences in relationships. But in my view there are more differences already among opposite-sex married couples, than there are between them and same-sex ones. In the end it is the same thing going on.
 
1 hour later…
TRiG
TRiG
19:37
@El'endiaStarman Irish breaks on ten directly (it doesn't have the equivalent of English's eleven and twelve, but goes straight into the teens), but the word you're counting goes in the middle: twelve cars are "two car ten" (singular car: Irish does have plurals, but doesn't bother with them when the word comes straight after a number, so the plurality is obvious).
Alypius
Alypius
19:48
@JamesT If it is not self-defined, then it must have a definition. In all the examples you suggest, we cannot presume to read the minds of the people involved in marriage. But if a court rules "homosexuals can marry", then this is a denial of the idea that marriage has something vital to do with children. Such an affirmation would be in conflict with, among other things, all of human history.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius I disagree with the notion that homosexual marriage is somehow a denial of the fact that marriage has something to do with children on 2 fronts. 1. You can't say that when plenty of homosexual couples do in fact have children, either biological to one parent or adopted. And 2. I fundamentally disagree that marriage itself inherently has to involve children or the intent of children.
Society has mostly affirmed that children are best raised by married parents, but I don't see it penalizing folks who don't choose to have kids.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle They don't "have" children. Marriage is about being open to having children. Why do people marry publicly? Because they declare their willingness to uphold one end of the "social contract" to the rest of society. Why is consummation so important? Why was marriage the mechanism for tying together bloodlines? Why did ancient men seek a commitment of fidelity from women (or whatever)? It all has to do with openness to having children.
@waxeagle And again, openness to children is not the same as having the intent or desire to have children.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius you keep using that word, openness, could you give it a real definition?
TRiG
TRiG
@Alypius (a) I have no idea what you're talking about. Please define your terms. You keep going on about this "openness" idea, with no attempt to clarify, in spite of the fact that more than one person has expressed confusion. (b) When you say that "X is what marriage is about", for whom are you speaking? I'm fairly sure the general societal definition of marriage has little do do with children one way or t'other.
@El'endiaStarman Also, and I should probably have mentioned this earlier, Irish has a whole different set of words for counting people. And you can do this with "number + noun" (if you want to count women, or sentient swans, or something) or just the number and no noun, if you just want to count "people", because "people" will be assumed.
Alypius
Alypius
20:11
@waxeagle Two people (of genders that admit to procreation) are open to having children if they commit to a permanent relationship in which they would not unjustifiably deny each other intercourse (in other words, within marriage, partners have a right to attempt procreation) and in that relationship expose themselves to the possibility of procreation...
the "possibility of procreation" means that if a husband and wife "do not want children" but, after spending a nice evening together, decide to "change their minds", they would not, for example, regret having intercourse because they had it simply out of lust
if a couple uses contraception, it is evident that they are not open to children in this way. It is beside the point whether they very much love a child and have "no regrets", because the issue is what their attitudes towards each other and towards procreation are.
At some point in the future, a human (a new soul) is going to become present on this planet. People who are married in the way I describe are at their posts and ready for this extremely important event.
wax eagle
wax eagle
I have a feeling that the people who make these rules don't have kids....
2
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle These are not rules. If you have a situation in mind as some sort of a counterexample, I'll willingly explain
To put it bluntly, if someone wants a gold star for having intercourse, or for promising to love someone forever, or for living with someone for a long time, then they can go to the dollar store.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius Sure. Best one I can think of right off the top of my head. My wife and I had a baby last spring (he's about to be a year). It was my wife's third pregnancy in 4 years. If we don't use some kind of contraceptive method she will get pregnant. The catholic church's options to us are: abstain (patently unbiblical for long periods of time) or have more kids. Neither is viable, so we use contraception.
We cannot really afford more kids than the two we have nor do we particularly want more kids at the moment. And the last pregnancy took a pretty harsh toll on my wife's body.
Contraception is as much about saving our sanity and keeping our marriage healthy right now as it is a choice to not have more kids.
Alypius
Alypius
20:26
@waxeagle I sincerely hope your wife is well.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius she's all right. Thanks for the sentiment.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius My family would be in the same boat as @waxeagle if it weren't for the fact that we agreed to have a surgery done to prevent future pregnancies. (I'm not sure what the current thinking of the RCC is on sterilization, but Bonhoeffer notes in a footnote in Ethics that it was rejected entirely by a 1930 papal encyclical.)
wax eagle
wax eagle
@JonEricson that's a route we've considered, but we're not there yet (partly because she really wants a girl).
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@waxeagle Yep. I think God every night when I get home that one of our twins is a girl. (I also thank Him that we didn't get all girls, but don't tell my wife. ;)
wax eagle
wax eagle
@JonEricson I hear yah, on both counts :)
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
20:38
@waxeagle If our previous birth control method had not failed, we likely would have pursued adoption in a year or two. My wife was convinced that I could not give her a daughter.
Alypius
Alypius
@waxeagle I don't want to comment too much on something personal to you, but the typical route there is to use various forms of "natural family planning". Here is a random thread on effectiveness: forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=634032 Also, if your wife would be in serious trouble, many forms of contraception still leave her open to the possibility of pregnancy. Others mess with her hormones. These are just a few practical points.
wax eagle
wax eagle
@Alypius you know what they call folks who use the rythm method right?
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius Are you married, may I ask?
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson A surgery of that form is considered a mortal sin.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius Point one on my (hypothetical) essay, "Why I am not Catholic." ;)
@Alypius Fine by me. I was just curious. In the meantime, you might want to read my extensive thoughts on the subject:
Eschewmenical - The Christianity Stack Exchange Blog: An evangelical view of contraception
Jon Ericson on March 05, 2012

For my first post to the Eschewmenical blog, I have two goals: define my tradition (Evangelical) and explain our position on contraception.  But the second task will require extensive work, so I will simply point to the definition supplied by the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College:

For my purposes, “biblicism” stands out.  My approach follows the (unofficial) motto of The Evangelical Covenant Church: “Where is it written?”

When it comes to contraception, we Bible-thumping Evangelicals are at a disadvantage.   Until recently, contraception was unreliable, unscient …

Alypius
Alypius
20:47
@JonEricson Yes, but your choice of religion does not change whether something is a mortal sin. One way of putting it would be: God was not kidding around when he gave the first commandment.
wax eagle
wax eagle
time to go home. I'll be back later
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius You misunderstand. Jesus has made it possible for anyone to receive forgiveness from any sin. All sin is mortal if not atoned for.
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson The difference between mortal and venial sin is that a venial sin will only damage charity (love), and atonement is easier with charity. But a mortal sin mortally wounds charity (it does not kill it), often leaving the person in an obstinate state before God, with a hardened heart and a self-deceptive view of one's own sins.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius Explain to me how submitting to sterilization hardens my heart toward God.
Alypius
Alypius
Taking a pen and not returning it is a sin, but not mortal. Of course, stealing a pen in order to spite God's commandment almost certainly is mortal.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
21:00
@Alypius What about wanting a pen that is not mine? Is that not a sin?
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson I do not know how or if it would harden your heart against God, I am not trained as a confessor. Sterilization does damage to (or inhibits) the normal function of one's body, and does so in a way that is in direct opposition to God's command. If God says "multiply" and we take that at least to mean "multiply when I call on you to multiply"...
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius I believe I have done my duty there. ;-0
Alypius
Alypius
then this is not much different from... intentionally spraining your ankle so as to avoid some task.
@JonEricson You are not the judge of that, and neither am I. (By the way, having a lot of kids is excellent, I have no objection to that.)
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius Given the nature of the task, I would suggest there are considerable differences. ;-)
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson That is a sin too. Venial. But if you fully commit yourself to wanting it in order to spite God, then it is probably mortal.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
21:10
@Alypius But back to this... The issue is the heart, right? So how is using temporary contraception different than not performing the task? If I withhold sex from my wife, is that not a sin? It's my duty to perform as her husband.
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson God told Moses to speak to the rock. Moses decided to do it his way, and hit the rock with his staff. Moses did not make it to the promised land. A person can retain abilities to accomplish a duty, but it's still a question of what exactly the duty was that God set before him.
@JonEricson Yes, denying intercourse is a sin. Temporary contraception is also sinful, but less so because it is not as permanent. It takes a greater force of decision to commit to something permanent.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius "For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." Paul specifically is talking about coveting.
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson Paul would know how it was in his case. And there he is explicitly talking about his case.
So coveting can be mortal. But this is a tangent.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius And I can tell you that what my wife and I agree upon has allowed us to praise God for His excellent mercies. We have been greatly blessed through sterilization and had we been under the authority of the Catholic Church, our hearts would certainly have been hardened.
@Alypius Not at all. You understand neither Paul nor sin nor the grace of God.
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson There is no comment that I can make on the hardness of your heart.
@JonEricson I disagree!
Many people enjoy a splendid life full of many things they enjoy and like. These graces come from God. All of them. God makes the best even of unutterable sin. He grants these graces even to those who reject Him completely.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
21:27
@Alypius But you can about Paul's?
Alypius
Alypius
@JonEricson Paul tells us, and Paul's word is scripture.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius "The rain falls on the wicked and the righteous." But which is the righteous: the one who curses God for the rain or the one who praises Him?
Alypius
Alypius
The one who curses the day he was born, but never God.
Jon Ericson
Jon Ericson
@Alypius And so, I have praised God for the wonderful gifts He has given us (three children) and have made arraignments to avoid cursing Him. It's as if we got tired of getting cold and wet (as wonderful as it can be at times) and went inside. Why stay outside being miserable?
I think I'll let this be my final word for now. I'm getting too agitated to type without spelling mistakes. ;)
Alypius
Alypius
21:43
@JonEricson Sometimes, God would have us be outside, cold and wet and even miserable. Whose house does one enter in this life? We enter the house of the Lord only at death.
@JonEricson I don't mean to agitate you. I have absolutely no comment on your personal situation. Take everything I say to not apply to you.
El'endia Starman
El'endia Starman
@Alypius "What I'm talking about applies to EVERYONE (except you)."
Alypius
Alypius
@El'endiaStarman It's not clear that it applies to this particular case at all. That is not up to me to figure out, but if the question is about contraception in general (which it was), then I have an... opinion.
Incidentally:
Eschewmenical - The Christianity Stack Exchange Blog: Responsible Parenthood: The Catholic Take on Contraception
Peter Turner on March 12, 2012

This is the Eschewmenical blog so in the spirit of Eschewmenism, I won’t be mincing any words. What I seek to present is an authentic Catholic stance on what said church teaches on the role of contraception in the family. I am a lay Catholic and not even remotely a theologian, so what I write is my opinion. But it is the opinion of one who both seeks to learn what his faith teaches and be obedient to it.

No.

In practice, many priests will instruct people to follow their consciences, but a well formed conscience, a well formed Catholic conscience, a properly catechized and well formed Ca …

Peter's post which came after Jon's (linked above) is quite good.
 
2 hours later…
fredsbend
fredsbend
23:38
@Alypius is the safety pull against rcc teachings?
@Caleb I started using there date format years ago because folders will now sort chronilogically. It really is the best way. I still occationally do month/day/year when writing.

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