jakee 1,564 #101 January 7, 2009 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuotei personally don't think you're capable of carrying on a rational conversation about this topic, given the way you choose to express yourself. however, i do ask you to do this... go read a package insert on any birth control pill. ask yourself just how freeing you'd feel having to take that every day in order to supress a natural body function, indeed one of THE bodily function that identifies you and being a woman, that is working properly. . That's as ridiculous as claiming pedophilia is a way of suppressing a priest's natural bodily function. BTW, I take a pill every day to suppress my natural bodily function of overproducing cholesterol. the overproduction of cholesterol is not a natural body function. that is hypercholesteremia, which is a medical condition requiring medical intervention, i.e. the taking of medication. it is not "natural." Of course it's natural. A huge percentage of the population does it quite naturally. It doesn't "require" intervention. Same would apply to pills that lower blood pressure. High blood pressure is quite natural, it's just not healthy. 50% of European males have hypertension, and 60% of German males. By ANY definition of normal,male hypertension is a normal, if undesirable, condition. So taking pills to lower blood pressure is by micro's definition thwarting a natural bodily function and immoral. Ugh... you guys are just impossible. Give me a break. If by "impossible" you actually mean "wont let a glaring flaw in my argument pass without comment" then yeah, you'll find that most people in this place are like that.Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
micro 0 #102 January 7, 2009 >>If by "impossible" you actually mean "wont let a glaring flaw in my argument pass without comment" then yeah, you'll find that most people in this place are like that. glaring flaw my ass. you know damn well what i was referring to or you are really, really dense. the banter about "naturally occurring" and "normal" seem to be problems over definitions more than anything else. I miss Lee. And JP. And Chris. And... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,564 #103 January 7, 2009 Quote>>If by "impossible" you actually mean "wont let a glaring flaw in my argument pass without comment" then yeah, you'll find that most people in this place are like that. glaring flaw my ass. you know damn well what i was referring to or you are really, really dense. the banter about "naturally occurring" and "normal" seem to be problems over definitions more than anything else. Everyone knows what you were referring to. The fact that you're getting pissy because your argument isn't anywhere near as good as you thought it was.Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
micro 0 #104 January 7, 2009 QuoteQuote>>If by "impossible" you actually mean "wont let a glaring flaw in my argument pass without comment" then yeah, you'll find that most people in this place are like that. glaring flaw my ass. you know damn well what i was referring to or you are really, really dense. the banter about "naturally occurring" and "normal" seem to be problems over definitions more than anything else Everyone knows what you were referring to. The fact that you're getting pissy because your argument isn't anywhere near as good as you thought it was. You're quite mistaken and your weak attempt at insulting me with an incomplete sentence doesn't bother me in the least. You only demonstrate to me a refusal to think. It's easier that way, it would seem. I miss Lee. And JP. And Chris. And... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,564 #105 January 7, 2009 QuoteYou only demonstrate to me a refusal to think. It's easier that way, it would seem. Your inability to properly address the criticism raised is demonstration of that. Here's a tip, if you find that you keep having to say things like "That's not what I meant" when people bring up objections to your argument, it's time to have a good think about what you did mean, and whether it actually does hold up. People have given you plenty of examples of natural functions that it's ok to suppress. Now, is that going to make you pause and re-evaluate your argument, or are you going to plow on regardless because that's not the kind of natural you meant?Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Butters 0 #106 January 7, 2009 Quote You only demonstrate to me a refusal to think. It's easier that way, it would seem. Because your religion is all about thinking ... Did you ever notice that your Bible is littered with metaphors about shepherds and sheep?"That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nerdgirl 0 #107 January 8, 2009 Quote You and Billvon are trying to pigeon hole me into something I did not actually say. I apologize if my response seemed to be trying to “pigeon hole.” Sometimes it’s hard to not sound snarky via ASCII text, and I’m trying to not do so. And intentionally trying to use neutral, non-inflammatory language. Where is our interpretation wrong? How is what you are putting forth not at its core based on essentialistic arguments in which value is prioritized on one specific view of fertility (your word & the word used in the Humanae Vitae)? Why or what specifically makes other natural processes less valid as indicators? Why are the instances in which I sited less valid or inaccurate? Quote Naturally, one of you will bring up exceptions like women who can't have kids, sterility and the like. Yes, those are the easy ones. He will do that, I will do that ... & so will lots of other folks. Nature of the online forum, eh? Quote These are just that, exceptions to what would have occurred but for some anomaly or diversion in nature, disease, etc. Are they? For the sake of the discussion lets assume yes. Over the last 200 years, have such instances become more common? Smallpox, polio in the US, ricketts, whooping cough (re-emerging in small pockets due to decline in herd immunity), Guinea-worm disease, neonatal tetanus, leprosy, measles (another domestic re-emerger), lymphatic filariasis, Chagas disease, onchocerciasis, etc were once all common. Myopia (near-sightedness) was once fairly uncommon among young people; 20th & 21st Ce lifestyles have led to an epidemic of myopia. We change that, sometimes surgically. Physiologically is it accurate to say oral contraceptives “suppress” a natural cycle? Regulate would seem more accurate. Breast-feeding suppresses the menstrual cycle. I suspect you may be aware of some of the newer oral contraceptives that do suppress (cause a woman to skip or eliminate completely) menstrual periods. One of the biomedical based arguments for such oral contraceptives is that throughout most of history, women did not have regular periods as they breast fed until children were much older than is the norm in Western world today. Oral contraceptives are prescribed for suppression of (relatively mild cases of) endometriosis, a natural but painful condition (in the mild ones; dehibilitating in severe cases that require surgery invovling non-natural anesthesia). Another example of suppression of a natural cycle: Western levels of cleanliness … near-obsessive in some cases of (marketing of) anti-bacterial *everything* and a hesitation to let kids get dirty … are thought to be causal (not just correlative) factors in suppressing development of a robust innate immune system, i.e, that’s why American kinds have higher incidence of peanut allergies and kids in the developing world don’t. The immune system doesn’t have an essentialistic component. Imo, those are very different counter-arguments than you and your spouse (of legal age upon entering marriage consentually) in accordance with your personally held religious or other beliefs choosing not to use contraception, allopathic or otherwise. Choosing not to use any contraception is a choice; it is a negative choice (to chose not to use something) and in some cases a passive choice but still a choice. I support strongly your having freedom to make choice, whether it be passive or negative (to chose to not use something). Individual family planning choices do not have the same public health impact of declining herd immunity. I have read the Humanae Vitae – it’s not long and is accessible. It is a normative document, which is consonant with religion as a source of moral guidance ... for some the source. It’s not a positivist document. Neither is a pejorative statement just descriptive. As I wrote before: sometimes these issues get one to unresolvable philosophical differences. It may also get to one part of frustration that I, and I suspect others, are trying to express. If the argument were for quality of life and quantity, one would expect calls for interdiction into and prevention of maternal death, of infant mortality, of female infanticide, of child slavery, of trafficking in children and women, of ‘honor’ killings, of gang rape as fulfillment of civil debt, of self-immolation, of diarrheal diseases, and of malaria. If the issue and motivation were preservation and sanctity of human life, where are all the comments and action on those issues? And, for me, it not an anti-Catholic rant: I’ve repeatedly referenced the Catholic Worker movement, w/whom I have volunteered and to whom I still donate, as exemplar. Even if I do not agree with all their positions, I can still find much value in the philosophy and actions. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 3,080 #108 January 8, 2009 >Physiologically is it accurate to say oral contraceptives “suppress” a natural cycle? Not really. I would also add that one of the reasons oral contraceptives were developed was to give Catholic women a "natural" means of birth control. (Needless to say, the church later disagreed with this.) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
micro 0 #109 January 9, 2009 QuoteQuoteYou only demonstrate to me a refusal to think. It's easier that way, it would seem. Your inability to properly address the criticism raised is demonstration of that. Here's a tip, if you find that you keep having to say things like "That's not what I meant" when people bring up objections to your argument, it's time to have a good think about what you did mean, and whether it actually does hold up. People have given you plenty of examples of natural functions that it's ok to suppress. Now, is that going to make you pause and re-evaluate your argument, or are you going to plow on regardless because that's not the kind of natural you meant? Reading your responses reminds me of the reason I tend to stay away from this place most of the time. You are positively exasperating in your attempts to prematurely conclude that you have won a debate. I won't waste any more than another minute of my time on this but to explain the following, b/c I see from your responses that there is absolutely no point in continuing. You or someone else will cry foul, that I'm retreating in defeat, but I don't care. Such immature responses are expected from a crew like this where banality rules much of the time. That other minute is to explain this: When I said that a condition like hypercholesteremia is unnatural, it wouldn't take but the simplest of minds to understand that what was meant was that it was an abnormal condition. You and some others here are obviously defining "natural" to mean that something simply occurs in nature, which is a rather narrow definition of the term. Hypercholesteremia certainly occurs in nature, but under optimal conditions, given a proper diet and proper organ system functioning, it does not. Ergo, it is abnormal, unnatural. That was the use of the term I was intending. You, however, are far too hasty to conclude that my argument is full of crap before we have even begun to fully define our terms. I simply have no time to waste on people like this. I've gotten into these type of arguments on here time and time again and they never, ever come to any benefit. I have no more intention of inducing the unnatural condition of hypertion in the body God has given me. And this is especially true with people like "Butters" who have nothing of substance to add to the discussion but only wish to insult people's beliefs and intelligence. And I find this particularly humorous, given that most people who make these slanderous statements do not have the cognitive muster to get through the first couple of pages of Karol Wojtyla's Love and Responsibility or Thomas Aquinas' Summa or... In fact most haven't cracked the cover of such influential tomes. What is most regretable however, is that there really are some incredibly intelligent people on here. I do not count myself as one, but I do enjoy reading the posts of those like BillVon, Nerdgirl and a couple of others and really learning from them. It's just too bad there is so much riffraff in between. I miss Lee. And JP. And Chris. And... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
micro 0 #110 January 9, 2009 Quote>Physiologically is it accurate to say oral contraceptives “suppress” a natural cycle? Not really. I would also add that one of the reasons oral contraceptives were developed was to give Catholic women a "natural" means of birth control. (Needless to say, the church later disagreed with this.) BTW, the church has always been consistent in it's prohibition against birth control. The same can't be said for some voices of dissent within the church, especially in America. The catholic church has been the only church to consistenly maintain a teaching against BC. The anglicans broke from this unbroken teaching in 1930 at the lambeth conference and later many protestant churches did the same. I miss Lee. And JP. And Chris. And... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 3,080 #111 January 9, 2009 >BTW, the church has always been consistent in it's prohibition against >birth control. Well, not quite. NFP is approved by the Catholic church for birth control. One of the original developers of oral contraceptives (can't find his name right now) felt that since it basically mimicked the natural fertility cycle, the church would have no problem with it. Needless to say, he was incorrect. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
micro 0 #112 January 9, 2009 Quote>BTW, the church has always been consistent in it's prohibition against >birth control. Well, not quite. NFP is approved by the Catholic church for birth control. One of the original developers of oral contraceptives (can't find his name right now) felt that since it basically mimicked the natural fertility cycle, the church would have no problem with it. Needless to say, he was incorrect. I should have said contraception. Even NFP can be contraceptive and the church has issues w/ that. The problem is the willful seperation of the unitive aspect of sex from the procreative. It's not that sex always has to make a baby, but the act of sex should always be open to the possibility of new life being created. Needless to say, very few people in todays society, at least in the west, are of this mindset. Shame, in my opinion. I miss Lee. And JP. And Chris. And... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,564 #113 January 9, 2009 Quote It's not that sex always has to make a baby, but the act of sex should always be open to the possibility of new life being created. Condoms can split. So they should be OK, right?Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Butters 0 #114 January 9, 2009 QuoteQuote>BTW, the church has always been consistent in it's prohibition against >birth control. Well, not quite. NFP is approved by the Catholic church for birth control. One of the original developers of oral contraceptives (can't find his name right now) felt that since it basically mimicked the natural fertility cycle, the church would have no problem with it. Needless to say, he was incorrect. I should have said contraception. Even NFP can be contraceptive and the church has issues w/ that. The problem is the willful seperation of the unitive aspect of sex from the procreative. It's not that sex always has to make a baby, but the act of sex should always be open to the possibility of new life being created. Needless to say, very few people in todays society, at least in the west, are of this mindset. Shame, in my opinion. It's a shame that you (and the Catholic Church) don't think about the consequences of everyone having eighteen kids ... PS: Birth control and contraceptives are not 100% effective and thus there is always a possibility."That looks dangerous." Leopold Stotch Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rehmwa 2 #115 January 9, 2009 I fixed it - I just dumped a bunch of old antibiotics in the sewer. that and I planted a tree for money someone has just GOT to think of the children ... Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skybill 22 #116 January 12, 2009 Hi Andy, Redo your intro line so it looks like this,"Vatican birth control pill: pollutes enviornment." Now, that's better!! SCR-2034, SCS-680 III%, Deli-out Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
