Reply to Something I don't understand about criticism of big families

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]So by the same "logic" and "evidence" do you refuse to ingest artificial sweeteners, because it's morally wrong to separate the gustatory and nutritive aspects of eating?[/quote]

The logic is based on natural law theory.  In order for something to function properly, it must be treated according to its nature.  So if you plant a garden, you water it, rather than pour gasoline on it.  What is the nature of sex?  What is its purpose and meaning?  Two things:  unity and procreation, or bonding and babies.

Modern culture says those purposes and meanings are completely and totally separate.  Natural law says otherwise.

And modern culture screams one other objection:  WHAT ABOUT PLEASURE??  Bonding OR MAYBE babies AND ALWAYS pleasure are the [i]separate[/i] purposes of sex.

But that is mistaken.  Pleasure is the motive and the consequence, but not the purpose.  Pleasure is the motive and the consequence of many activities, but not their purpose:  eating, sleeping, exercising, etc.  God cleverly made the things that are good for us to also be pleasurable.  But that's not the reason they are good.  They are good because they are necessary for survival.  They are good because they keep us well.  And, curiously, they are good only when their purpose is respected.  There are limits to how we should eat, how much we should sleep, how we should exercise...and how we should have sex.

Think of the difference between these two statements:  "I want to have sex with you."  "I want to have a baby with you."  The former sounds casual, the latter sounds...heavy.  Profound.  The fact is, we are not obsessed with sex--we are afraid of sex.  The full, true meaning of sex is INTENSE.  Because if you want to have a baby with someone, you want to give all of yourself to them, and you want them to give all of themselves to you.  You want them to be with you, intimately a part of your life, forever and ever.  You want your love to take physical form.  The consequences are enormous, permanent.  Whatever happens after conception, you can never ever go back to never having been pregnant.  That is what sex really means:  bonding and babies.

God designed sex.  He authored it.  He did a great job.  And when we try to treat it out of accordance with its nature, it's like slipping some poison in our orange juice.  We may not notice anything amiss.  But we're destroying the good by disrespecting the purpose.

As to the artificial sweetener...God did not choose to bring forth new human life by the act of eating.  Now, eating has its own rules, of course, but again, pleasure is not the purpose of eating, though it is attached to eating.  But the moral significance of the human act of sex is that it is how humans participate in the creation of new humans.

That is where the evidence begins.  Humanae Vitae made four predictions, all of which directly contradicted the great hopes (better marriages!  fewer unwanted pregnancies!)  for birth control at the time:  #1  a moral coarsening of society, #2  increased disregard for the physical, emotional, and psychological health of women by men, #3  coercive measures by authorities, and #4  disrespect for human life, or dehumanization, treating humans like machines.  Each of these predictions could be its own post, but they have all been fulfilled, probably more dramatically than anyone could have imagined.

There is further evidence, which is the inherent contradictions of contraceptive sex:  fertility rendered infertile;  the gift of life actually a burden;  self-giving yet withholding;  health disturbed, rejected, destroyed;  unity with a (literal) barrier.

The final evidence is the direct contradiction for the expectations we as a society had for birth control.  Better marriages?  The divorce rate doubled in the ten years after the introduction of the Pill, and no one denies that marriage as an institution is in crisis.  Fewer unwanted babies?  Look at the rate of babies born to single mothers, the steady number of abortions.  Decrease the "need" for abortion?  Even the Supreme Court affirmed the link between contraception and abortion.  In Planned Parenthood v Casey, which affirmed Roe v Wade, the argument was that women have ordered their sex lives on the availability of contraception, and on the availability of abortion if contraception should fail.

Natural law cannot be thwarted.  Just as we can firmly believe our arms were meant for flight, but a jump off a cliff will end badly, we can believe our sexuality was made for pleasure, recreation, and, at its best moments, for bonding, but this disrespects the true nature of sex, and it cannot end well.

Now for your other question...[/quote]

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