Nowhere does the Bible command Christians to procreate. (page 2)

moomanchu

I got to get a lime green sweater. He looks so cool in a nerdy way.

If Jehovah wanted us to have sex without getting knocked up

he would have created a condom tree.

StAnn

There was a time when the WTS condemned contraception. I remember that my mother was THRILLED when the WTS lifted the ban and she immediately went on the pill! It must have been in the late 1960s.

The Catholic Church doesn't get "new light" every other week. It is consistent in its beliefs. Just because most American Catholics choose to ignore the Church's teachings doesn't change the teachings.

I wonder if anyone has the old literature on CD somewhere and can research teachings on contraception from the WTS?

StAnn

There we have it, commands in the Old Testament are meaningless if they are not repeated in the New Testament.

Using this reasoning, they should (a) change their name, since it's based on an OT text, and (b) take out all of the insertions of the name Jehovah that they put into the New Testament, since they got it out of the OT and the old testament apparently doesn't apply to Christians.

StAnn

BurnTheShips

There was a time when the WTS condemned contraception.

Prior to the 1930's or so, just about all the mainline Protestant denominations did as well.

The Catholic Church doesn't get "new light" every other week. It is consistent in its beliefs. Just because most American Catholics choose to ignore the Church's teachings doesn't change the teachings.

You are right. There is a continuity there, a passing down. I like that.

BTS

Gordy

From the Watchtower article:

The Scriptures, likewise, do not condemn birth control. From a Biblical point of view, then, whether a husband and wife choose to use some nonabortive method of contraception is really a personal decision
So if a couple should decide to exclude the possibility of a pregnancy by using some form of contraception, that is their choice to make, and no one should judge them.—Romans 14:4 10-13

Then why did they reverse their teaching on vasectomy and say any brother who had one was not eligible to me a MS or Elder.

If its the couple decision "and no one should judge them"

Ténébreux

Of course if they weren't in favour of contraception, they would just say that the Bible "does not authorize" it, and cite the scripture about Onan.

cameo-d

Of course if they weren't in favour of contraception, they would just say that the Bible "does not authorize" it, and cite the scripture about Onan.

Leah gave Rachael mandrake. That is why she was barren. The Bible mentions the use of natural methods.

It is not the bible that authorizes such things. It is the man made institutions.

The degree of priestly hostility toward even marital sex can be gaged by Caesarius' prediction that a woman who had sex the night before going to church, or while menstruating, would bear a child who was a leper, epileptic or demoniac. Similar stories were repeated through the middle ages. [Noonan, 146, 139ff; McLaren, 90-1]

The priesthood spoke in the harshest terms against women drinking herb infusions that prevented conception. Five centuries after Caesarius, bishop Burchard of Worms ordered an unusually heavy penance (ten years of partial fasting) for women who used traditional means of birth control. He added that “an ancient determination removed such [women] from the church until the end of their lives.” [Decretum, 19, in Noonan, 160]

The bishop’s solution for women who didn’t want more children was simple, and ridiculous: get husbands to agree to a life of chastity. [Schulenberg, 243]

Spain was another place where the early clergy tried to repress contraceptive potions and the witchcraft that women used to fortify them. In 546, the Council of Lerida condemned both men and women for using potions to cause abortion.

I think many will really enjoy the documentation in this website.

What herbs did women use for contraception? Most of the knowledge has been lost to centuries of repression, except for what survives in classical Mediterranean writings. We know that the Egyptians used acacia gum (which contains compounds still used in spermicidal jellies) The Libyans made a drink from silphium, a giant fennel. The international demand for silphium was so great that it had become extinct by about 400 CE. The related asafoetida and opoponax were also used, though less effective. So were myrrh, date palm, and pomegrante. [Riddle, Estes & Russell, 30-33]

Several contraceptive plants mentioned by ancient Mediterranean writers were probably among those women used in early medieval Europe: pennyroyal, artemisia, willow and rue. These were all herbs known to the witches, some with rich folkloric traditions. [Riddle, Estes & Russell, 30-33] Some penitentials mention potentially fatal mixtures using such herbs as belladonna and honeysuckle. [Rouche, 523] Northern sources refer to women using vaginal suppositories with cedar oil, or cabbage leaves, or fresh mandrake and other leaves. More recent German folk contraceptives include teas of marjoram, thyme, parsley and lavender (which also abort), the root of worm fern, and brake, known as “prostitute root.” [Noonan, 171]

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/secrethistory/contraception.html

blondie

But the WTS has strongly discouraged it members from having children.......

1941 The prophetic picture seems to set forth the correct rule, to wit: The three sons of Noah and their wives were in the ark and were saved from the flood. They did not have any children, however, until after the flood. They began to have children two years after the flood. (Genesis 11:10,11) No children were taken into the ark and none were born in the ark, and hence none were brought out of the ark. Only eight persons went in and eight came out of the ark. (1 Peter 3:20; Genesis 8:18) That would appear to indicate that it would be proper that those who will form the "great multitude" should wait until after Armageddon to bring children into the world. (Children; 1941; 3,000,000 ed.; p. 312-313)

BurnTheShips

Leah gave Rachael mandrake. That is why she was barren. The Bible mentions the use of natural methods.

This is untrue and backwards, mandrake was used to help fertility, not prevent it. Rachel wanted Leah's mandrake because she wanted to have more children, not less. In the account we see how Rachel was unhappy because of her barrenness in the face of Leah's fertility.

It is not the bible that authorizes such things. It is the man made institutions.

Onan paid with his life.

BTS

snowbird

Cameo-D, that is fascinating stuff.

I knew about pennyroyal as a contraceptive, but the others I didn't.

The Book of Jasher mentions that some of the pre-Flood patriarchs used to make their wives drink a contraceptive potion so that they wouldn't ruin their figures!

If I remember correctly, Lamech (the other one, not Noah's father) made his two wives, Adah and Zillah, drink, also.

BTS is right about the mandrakes; they were viewed as an aid to conception.

Sylvia

Nowhere does the Bible command Christians to procreate.

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