NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/alt/callahan/13818

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-18 | 2.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re:  Science and god:  Are they incompatible?  If so, why?
Date: 18 Nov 1992 20:13:51 GMT
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Lines: 47
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>,<[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol1.gps.caltech.edu

In article <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail] (Michael S. Schiffer) writes:
=In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
=
=>Current state of the churches - the Catholic church is still (as fas
=>I know) saying that you shouldn't use a condom even to stop AIDS.
=>This can kill people.
=
=    "To be fair, they're hardly saying that people should go
=around having unprotected sex.  Their line is that the main point of
=sex is procreation within a monogamous marriage, and that sex which is
=_not_ directed towards that is sinful.

StM corrects him, "I'm afraid you're a bit out of date, Michael.  The new
catechism (released a couple of days ago; so far the only version is in French)
allows that sex for pleasure within a marriage is not a sin, if done in
moderation.  At least that's what the newspaper article I read about it says."

=So, yes, to use a condom in
=sex is a sin by that reasoning, since clearly such an activity could
=have no procreative purpose.

"However, despite allowing that sex for pleasure need not be a sin, the
catechism STILL makes use of artificial birth control devices a sin.  So I'm
afraid that the Roman Catholic Church doesn't seem to be quite as reasonable as
you want them to seem."

=However, I suspect that it would be
=regarded as a greater sin to knowingly put another at risk for disease
=in the first place.  Basically, Catholic doctrine _already_ classes
=any activity in which a condom would save lives as being sinful on its
=face, so I don't entirely understand how the additional prohibition of
=condoms themselves should have any effect.

"As I said, if the newspaper stories are accurate, then your information is out
of date."

=The participants have,
=after all, already chosen to engage in something sinful under Catholic
=doctrine-- and in fact I don't know whether Catholic belief
=distinguishes _at all_ between fornication using contraception and
=fornication without.  I'd guess that it's all lumped in, along with
=masturbation, oral sex, and other nonprocreative or nonmarital
=instances of sex, as the misuse of sexuality.

"Non-procreative and non-marital are two entirely different adjectives, and the
new catechism DOES distinguish between them."