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General Category => Off the Record => Topic started by: garbon on April 14, 2011, 11:53:28 AM

Title: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: garbon on April 14, 2011, 11:53:28 AM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/religiousfauxpasmostcatholicsusecontraception

QuoteCatholic women overwhelmingly use birth control, despite an official ban by the church, a new study finds.

The study, conducted by reproductive health institute Guttmacher, finds that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use or have used birth control other than church-approved natural family planning. Only 2 percent of Catholic women have used natural family planning, which involves tracking the menstrual cycle to avoid sex during fertile periods.

"In real-life America, contraceptive use and strong religious beliefs are highly compatible," Rachel Jones, the report's lead author, said in a statement. "Most sexually active women who do not want to become pregnant practice contraception and most use highly effective methods like sterilization, the pill, or the IUD. This is true for Evangelicals and mainline Protestants, and it is true for Catholics, despite the Catholic hierarchy's strenuous opposition to contraception." [Read: New Surprising Results on Abortion and Religiosity]

The analysis is based on a nationally representative U.S. government survey, the National Survey of Family Growth. Overall, the survey found that 99 percent of women have used birth control, and almost all of of those who don't want to get pregnant use some method of contraception. Eighty-nine percent of Catholic women, 90 percent of mainline Protestants and 91 percent of Evangelicals who are not currently trying to conceive use birth control, Jones and her colleagues reported.

About 68 percent of Catholic women use a highly effective method of birth control, meaning hormonal methods, the IUD or sterilization, compared with 73 percent of mainline Protestants and 74 percent of Evangelicals. More than 40 percent of Evangelicals use male or female sterilization as birth control, outpacing other religious groups by about 6 percent to 9 percent.

Even Catholic women who attend services more than once a month use natural family planning at a rate of only 2 percent, the researchers found.

The study also found that regardless of religion, at least 75 percent of women are sexually active by their early 20s, whether they're married or not. That number was 75 percent for Evangelicals, 86 percent for mainline Protestants, 89 percent for Catholic women, and 79 percent for women as a whole.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Josephus on April 14, 2011, 12:15:24 PM
Bear shits woods.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 12:35:52 PM
Quoteat least 75 percent of women are sexually active by their early 20s... That number was 75 percent for Evangelicals, 86 percent for mainline Protestants, 89 percent for Catholic women

We've gotta get these numbers up people.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Viking on April 14, 2011, 12:41:05 PM
Religion makes people hypocrites, film at 23.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: jamesww on April 14, 2011, 12:43:50 PM
I must be a Catholic, as I'm capable of perfect contraception.  :cool:
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Sheilbh on April 14, 2011, 01:12:34 PM
Most Catholics use contraception.  This is the one Catholic teaching that it's entirely and totally mainstream for the laity to ignore.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Josephus on April 14, 2011, 01:14:50 PM
The "church" ignores it too...or at least turns a blind eye. They are well aware that their parishoners are using birth control
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: dps on April 14, 2011, 01:20:58 PM
Hardly news.  This has been true for at least 30-some years, at least in the States.  And I would assume that it's been true of Catholics in most places in the West, and in the former Communist bloc, for a while as well.  In the 3rd World, probably a lot less so.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Razgovory on April 14, 2011, 01:49:19 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 14, 2011, 12:41:05 PM
Religion Standards of any type makes people hypocrites, film at 23.

Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Viking on April 14, 2011, 01:52:34 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2011, 01:49:19 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 14, 2011, 12:41:05 PM
Religion Standards of any type makes people hypocrites, film at 23.

Standards consistent with reason and reality don't. Morals based on untrue desert fairy tales cannot possibly be realistic. Morals based on reality can. 
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 01:53:53 PM
Can any moral system other than a brutal pragmatism be based on reality? :hmm:
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Martinus on April 14, 2011, 02:02:21 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 14, 2011, 12:15:24 PM
Bear shits woods.

No kidding. Catholics are notorious for flaunting the church's teachings on sex, at least in Europe. It's because Catholicism for Europeans (and I presume European immigrants in the US) is a cultural thing more than a religious one.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: dps on April 14, 2011, 02:03:49 PM
Moral standards based solely on pragmatism would just be redundant.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: The Brain on April 14, 2011, 02:08:55 PM
Quote from: Josephus on April 14, 2011, 01:14:50 PM
The "church" ignores it too...

Pregnancies are rarely a risk when priests have sex.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Viking on April 14, 2011, 02:26:44 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 01:53:53 PM
Can any moral system other than a brutal pragmatism be based on reality? :hmm:

Almost all moral systems are based on reality. Only Divine Command Theory really relies on a non-real source. Religion has had almost nothing to say about morality since the enlightenment while moral philosophers have developed the field in detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality

This only scratches the surface. The supposition that there are such things as Moral Facts is still debatable. I am an moral anti-realist in the sense that I don't believe in Moral Facts while I also observe that certain moral systems reduce suffering and increase flourishing, so I conclude that a moral system can be beneficial. I supposed it makes me a moral utilitarian of some sort, I haven't found a moral philosopher that agrees with me yet.

Quote from: dps on April 14, 2011, 02:03:49 PM
Moral standards based solely on pragmatism would just be redundant.

Pragmatism for who? What is beneficial for me might not be beneficial for somebody else? You (seem to) assume that all persons are rational beings capable of understanding their own interest and in predicting the behaviour of other persons? You also (seem to) assume that short term and long term benefits are not mutually exclusive. Or, at least, those are the assumptions that I would have to make to agree with you.



In my view there are no moral facts (meaning you cannot run an experiment to determine the best moral system) and there are no moral commands (there is no god). There are however certain moral codes which result in more happiness than others. My problem is that I have no clear argument for an individual to follow any "good" moral code I might suggest since in my view a "good" moral code is a set of rules and methods which apply to individuals but benefit society as a whole if everybody follows them.

Thinking that the alternatives to Divine Command Theory are either Nihilism or Egotism are just wrong. 
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Scipio on April 14, 2011, 02:33:50 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 01:53:53 PM
Can any moral system other than a brutal pragmatism be based on reality? :hmm:
I weep for the youth of America.  You and my wife have the same useless blind spot.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 02:38:20 PM
I was kind of kidding.  There certainly is no natural law or morality, but pragmatism and brutality need not, and usually do not, serve the same interests.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Viking on April 14, 2011, 02:45:05 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 02:38:20 PM
I was kind of kidding.  There certainly is no natural law or morality, but pragmatism and brutality need not, and usually do not, serve the same interests.

damn... Poe's law strikes again.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Razgovory on April 14, 2011, 02:47:17 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 14, 2011, 01:52:34 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2011, 01:49:19 PM
Quote from: Viking on April 14, 2011, 12:41:05 PM
Religion Standards of any type makes people hypocrites, film at 23.

Standards consistent with reason and reality don't. Morals based on untrue desert fairy tales cannot possibly be realistic. Morals based on reality can.

Maybe for Robots, not for people.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Sheilbh on April 15, 2011, 02:28:57 PM
Quote from: dps on April 14, 2011, 01:20:58 PM
Hardly news.  This has been true for at least 30-some years, at least in the States.  And I would assume that it's been true of Catholics in most places in the West, and in the former Communist bloc, for a while as well.  In the 3rd World, probably a lot less so.
Even in the developing world.  I mean the birthrate in Latin America's nothing from what it was and I'm fairly sure Brazilians haven't stopped having sex.
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Camerus on April 15, 2011, 02:58:21 PM
Oh shit.  There goes Viking again.   Religion sucks and is a blight to humankind - who knew?  :lol:

Not to pick on Viking, mind, or say anything about the merits of his opinion.  It's just - at what point do we agree that having the same conversation for the 1000000th time where the same people drone on with the same comments on their same pet topics with 0 changes in anybody's perception adds no value anymore? 
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: DGuller on April 15, 2011, 03:02:30 PM
Religion bashing can never be repeated enough. :contract:
Title: Re: Religious Faux Pas? Most American Catholics Use Contraception
Post by: Eddie Teach on April 15, 2011, 03:04:11 PM
Quote from: Scipio on April 14, 2011, 02:33:50 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 14, 2011, 01:53:53 PM
Can any moral system other than a brutal pragmatism be based on reality? :hmm:
I weep for the youth of America.  You and my wife have the same useless blind spot.

I thought Slargos had made this comment til I saw your quote of it. :unsure: