vasectomy

[Brother Adam]

There is nothing natural about artifical birth control, or ripping your body open and cutting tubes apart. It is 'control' not freedom. By having a vascetomy you have refused to allow God to be in control of your family. Your same rational can be used for abortion. "I did not choose to have this child, so I will you my medical knowledge to kill him/her. It's only natural." I can understand your absolute refusal to be open to the Word of God though, if I was in your shoes I would not want anyone, much less the Word of God to tell me I was wrong, that would require me to let go of my own selfish pride and consider that I am not my own final authority in matters of faith and morals.

Carrie almost hit the nail on the head. Short periods of abstience are healthy for a marriage. You claim you have a healthy marriage, but you have no clue what one looks like. You have not experienced it because you don't understand how to offer up to God the gifts he has given to you, instead you live for yourself. I have a good friend who has 8 children, his wife doesn't work, and he has one full time job at Wal-mart. And he does just fine. They aren't on welfare either. Americans are so used to luxury they no longer understand what 'necessity' means. They believe nice house, TV's, computers, nice cars, and so on are bare necessities when indeed they are not. If you make over 20,000 a year you are filthy rich by over 5/6 of the worlds standards.

You claim that you are following 'God's standards' because you were able to look in the Bible and figure out a way to curse fertility and make it work for you. Good job. People twist scripture all the time, 9/10's of the time not even realizing they are doing it.

Living chaste within a marriage means understand that marriage isn't simply about having sex and getting pleasure from that sex. Chastity does not = no intercourse. Virginity, in a the true sense of the word does not even = a person who has not had sexual intercourse. Our "American" sense of sexual freedom has left millions of people in the bonds of sin. Protestant Churches which seek to be "people pleasers" instead of God pleasers have allowed just about everything under the sun. There were means of contracepting back in the time of Christ, yet the concept of contracepting was considered sinful by anyone who ever carried the name 'Christian' until the 1930's. And of course the Protestant Churches, being people pleasers, said "You want it! We will make a way to make the Scriptures let you have it!" It's why tens of thousands are flocking back to the Church they know seeks God's will every year, including hundreds of Fundamentalist pastors.

A medical procedure to cure a defect that is HARMFUL to LIFE and DESTROYING the means of LIFE are two totally opposite concepts. Saving life through medical practice is a moral good. DESTROYING the means of life in a person, destroying fertility, by every biblical and historical standard, except by Satanists and Pagans is EVIL. "Obviously" as you say, you have no sense of understand what the scriptures say about the SANTITY of LIFE.

[Brother Adam]

There is nothing natural about artifical birth control, or ripping your body open and cutting tubes apart. It is 'control' not freedom. By having a vascetomy you have refused to allow God to be in control of your family. Your same rational can be used for abortion. "I did not choose to have this child, so I will you my medical knowledge to kill him/her. It's only natural." I can understand your absolute refusal to be open to the Word of God though, if I was in your shoes I would not want anyone, much less the Word of God to tell me I was wrong, that would require me to let go of my own selfish pride and consider that I am not my own final authority in matters of faith and morals.

Carrie almost hit the nail on the head. Short periods of abstience are healthy for a marriage. You claim you have a healthy marriage, but you have no clue what one looks like. You have not experienced it because you don't understand how to offer up to God the gifts he has given to you, instead you live for yourself. I have a good friend who has 8 children, his wife doesn't work, and he has one full time job at Wal-mart. And he does just fine. They aren't on welfare either. Americans are so used to luxury they no longer understand what 'necessity' means. They believe nice house, TV's, computers, nice cars, and so on are bare necessities when indeed they are not. If you make over 20,000 a year you are filthy rich by over 5/6 of the worlds standards.

You claim that you are following 'God's standards' because you were able to look in the Bible and figure out a way to curse fertility and make it work for you. Good job. People twist scripture all the time, 9/10's of the time not even realizing they are doing it.

Living chaste within a marriage means understand that marriage isn't simply about having sex and getting pleasure from that sex. Chastity does not = no intercourse. Virginity, in a the true sense of the word does not even = a person who has not had sexual intercourse. Our "American" sense of sexual freedom has left millions of people in the bonds of sin. Protestant Churches which seek to be "people pleasers" instead of God pleasers have allowed just about everything under the sun. There were means of contracepting back in the time of Christ, yet the concept of contracepting was considered sinful by anyone who ever carried the name 'Christian' until the 1930's. And of course the Protestant Churches, being people pleasers, said "You want it! We will make a way to make the Scriptures let you have it!" It's why tens of thousands are flocking back to the Church they know seeks God's will every year, including hundreds of Fundamentalist pastors.

A medical procedure to cure a defect that is HARMFUL to LIFE and DESTROYING the means of LIFE are two totally opposite concepts. Saving life through medical practice is a moral good. DESTROYING the means of life in a person, destroying fertility, by every biblical and historical standard, except by Satanists and Pagans is EVIL. "Obviously" as you say, you have no sense of understand what the scriptures say about the SANTITY of LIFE.

[Brother Adam]

There is nothing natural about artifical birth control, or ripping your body open and cutting tubes apart. It is 'control' not freedom. By having a vascetomy you have refused to allow God to be in control of your family. Your same rational can be used for abortion. "I did not choose to have this child, so I will you my medical knowledge to kill him/her. It's only natural." I can understand your absolute refusal to be open to the Word of God though, if I was in your shoes I would not want anyone, much less the Word of God to tell me I was wrong, that would require me to let go of my own selfish pride and consider that I am not my own final authority in matters of faith and morals.

Carrie almost hit the nail on the head. Short periods of abstience are healthy for a marriage. You claim you have a healthy marriage, but you have no clue what one looks like. You have not experienced it because you don't understand how to offer up to God the gifts he has given to you, instead you live for yourself. I have a good friend who has 8 children, his wife doesn't work, and he has one full time job at Wal-mart. And he does just fine. They aren't on welfare either. Americans are so used to luxury they no longer understand what 'necessity' means. They believe nice house, TV's, computers, nice cars, and so on are bare necessities when indeed they are not. If you make over 20,000 a year you are filthy rich by over 5/6 of the worlds standards.

You claim that you are following 'God's standards' because you were able to look in the Bible and figure out a way to curse fertility and make it work for you. Good job. People twist scripture all the time, 9/10's of the time not even realizing they are doing it.

Living chaste within a marriage means understand that marriage isn't simply about having sex and getting pleasure from that sex. Chastity does not = no intercourse. Virginity, in a the true sense of the word does not even = a person who has not had sexual intercourse. Our "American" sense of sexual freedom has left millions of people in the bonds of sin. Protestant Churches which seek to be "people pleasers" instead of God pleasers have allowed just about everything under the sun. There were means of contracepting back in the time of Christ, yet the concept of contracepting was considered sinful by anyone who ever carried the name 'Christian' until the 1930's. And of course the Protestant Churches, being people pleasers, said "You want it! We will make a way to make the Scriptures let you have it!" It's why tens of thousands are flocking back to the Church they know seeks God's will every year, including hundreds of Fundamentalist pastors.

A medical procedure to cure a defect that is HARMFUL to LIFE and DESTROYING the means of LIFE are two totally opposite concepts. Saving life through medical practice is a moral good. DESTROYING the means of life in a person, destroying fertility, by every biblical and historical standard, except by Satanists and Pagans is EVIL. "Obviously" as you say, you have no sense of understand what the scriptures say about the SANTITY of LIFE.

[Carrie]

Thank you Bro. Adam. You have very eloquently expressed what I was trying to convey.

[Brother Adam]

I apologize for the repeats...over....and over....and over again. lol. I blame the school computer for it


and blah, the keys don't work well on those keyboards. SANTITY should of course read SANCTITY.

It can be frustrating at times when a person cannot fully express the inexpressible. I come from a marriage that started in the Baptist denomination, and we used birth control. Our marriage was happy, and we loved each other, and we exprienced joy in our marriage. But the depth to the joy and the intimacy that we discovered when we followed God's plan for marriage and procreation is staggering. It is inexpressable and beautiful and I could only want the same beauty for every other married couple that I know. I'm finishing an exposition on spousal love for my philosophy class and will expand that to understand the theology of the body and why contraception is an intrinsic evil and post it on my website towards the end of the summer after Greek is over. I urge Protestants to consider even the founders of their own religions and what they say about birth control in the book "The Bible and Birth Control" by a protestant named Pavon.

And it is unfortunate that Protestants think Catholics are completely against planning a family. Totally the opposite. It is irresponsible not to appropriately plan a family. However, something that is evil cannot be used to try to reach a means that is good. Basic moral principles. Natural Family Planning today is encouraged, it is scientific, it is natural and moral, when used correctly it is 95-99% effective, and best of all it is free. And I think even better through planning a family naturally a man and woman learn about their bodies, who they are, and who they are to each other in such deep ways it only increases their love and joy for each other all the more.

Edited April 15, 2005 by Brother Adam

[Renz]

I had a vasectomy about three years ago when I was non-practicing. At the time, I didn't really think about it being a mortal sin because I hadn't kept up with my faith and my wife and I all ready had two daughters, so I had it done.

I regret it now and if I could do it over again, I wouldn't. I had never confessed that sin before today. The priest told me that I could get it reversed, but that it wasn't an obligation. He absolved me of the sin and now I've been forgiven.

Edited April 17, 2005 by Renz

[Brother Adam]

Welcome to Phatmass.

All of us have things we have done in the past which we thought were right at the time, but that is what is so amazing about God's grace, it's always here, always waiting for us.

[Briguy]

Brother Angry, I mean Adam, soory they both start with "A" and I got confused. You say I have refused to let God be in control of my family. I say I have exercised the control given to me as the head of my family, by God. I did what was irght for my family, after prayer and and mutual agreement with my wife. God has set me at the head of my family. Conception is a natural process of a spern coming together wi an egg. A beautiful process constructed by God. It is not some magical finger snap by god with no physical or scientific explanation. One sperm wins the race and the fight into the egg and that is conception and the start of life. If God wanted control over every conception then we would not see unwanted prgnancies. We would not see multiple conceptions in test tubes (or wherever fertiltiy people do those type of things), couples who wanted babies and were ready to raise them God fearing would not have problems getting pregnant. No, the world we see has those things above any many other fertility/conception things, including sperm donors, etc... If God were controling that conception would be perfect and only for deserving married couples. It is SIN for a non married couple to make a baby yet it happens all the time. Does God bless the couples sinful act????? No, but because conception is a natural process it happens just because it happens. That is what we see in the world. In that light God would allow His child, me in this case, to plan my family in the way I see fit, as long as it keeps within His written word. Adam, you have offered no scripture which directly refutes a vasectomy. You can't use OT Law as we are not bound by that anymore.

Next, you say that one could reason the murdering of an unborn baby with my same reasoning. What???? I can't even respond to that as it is so far out there.

Then you say in your words ""You claim you have a healthy marriage, but you have no clue what one looks like. You have not experienced it because you don't understand how to offer up to God the gifts he has given to you, instead you live for yourself""

The difference between you and me Adam is that I would not take a shot at your relationship with your wife. I would not tell you, who I don't really know at all, anything like you have said to me. You are showing a side of you that i never saw on the BB. There is a harshness that is unbecoming of who you are in Christ. You have taken several shots at me and my marriage throughout this thread. Have I done the same? toward you or Carrie or anybody else? No, I have not. I have asked some tough questions and challanged on some incomfotable points but I would not throw who I am in Christ "out the window" no matter how much I thought I was right and how much I wanted to drive my point home. Just thought you needed to know that. Go back and read how many times you came against your brother (me, that is) in this thread, it may surprize even you.

Adam, before I go on I need you to answer a question from before. Can the couple who the wife had a hysterectomy, before the marriage have sexual relations?? Please just yes or no, based on official CC doctrine. Also, can Renz and his wife have sexual relations?? according to CC doctrine. Again, just yes or no. If another Catholic wants to answer, feel free but I want the CC position not opinion. Thanks.

In Christian Love,
Brian

[Briguy]

Sorry about the all the typing errors in my last post. I wrote it quickly without proof reading.

Hoping for a reply!!

In Christ,
Brian

[cmotherofpirl]

A hysterectomy, done for medical reasons [not contraception] is not a sin.
The unintended effect is sterility, but the direct effect was health of the mother, so the couple can still have relations.

Renz confessed his sin and was absolved for it, so he can still have relations.

Happy relating

Edited April 19, 2005 by cmotherofpirl

[Briguy]

cmotherofpirl, thank you for clear answers. There was those before that felt like a vasectomy disqualified the man from having relations. What if the priest had not absolved the "sin", then would he have to wait? What if one man goes to one priest and another man to a different priest and one priest absolves and one does not (assuming they both had vasectomy's for the same reason). Then the one absolved goes home to normal relations with his wife while the other goes home to abstinence. Is that a possibility? Don't priests vary giving absolution based on personal biases? One more scenario. What if the man goes to a priest and does not get absolved. Can he seek out another priest and another until he finds one to absolve the "sin"???

I know, wierd questions, but I think fair.

In Christ,
Brian

[Mary's Knight, La]

bri i talked to a holy holy priest what he said is after the sinful(assuming the purpose was birth prevention) operation whether it's vasectomy or hystorectomy (sp?) the man/woman basically then has a medical condition. Having sex is fine provided they do it with the understanding God can still provide the miracle of a child.

no priest *should* vary whether absolution is given on a personal bias the decision is not theirs the variance may come in whether the priest discerns the penitent to have truely repented but then if you have not repented the absolution even if offered is without effect.

Recap:
1. the act of going against conception/birth is the sin not the intercourse
2. intercourse outside of marriage is still sinful
3. intercourse for improper reasons is still sinful
4. the decision of whether to absolve is not based on bias
5. true repentence is necessary even when absolution is offered

[Briguy]

MKL, Thank you for the Kind, and Good (I may add) post. You did not muddy the waters as other have.

more later,
Brian

[Briguy]

Next question: Is every conception hand picked by God? What I mean is, Does God cause each conception by direct intervention?

Will wait for reply.

In Christ,
Brian

[Brother Adam]

God is the author of all creation. Thus, God is the author of all new life. Every human being if known by God even before their conception.