Answering J. P. Holding / tektontv on Quiverfull, Lifespans, Onan, up-dated : and Romans

1) When Looking at Elena Maria Vidal's Book on Daughter of Cesars ... · 2) Answering J. P. Holding / tektontv on Quiverfull, Lifespans, Onan, up-dated : and Romans · 3) Trying to Get Through to Holding · 4) Hesses vs Holding

What I am quoting:

tekton ticker : Perpetual Green Arrow: The Quiverfulls, Part 1
http://tektonticker.blogspot.fr/2016/02/perpetual-green-arrow-quiverfulls-part-1.html

First comment:

"In the OT world, infant and child mortality was exceptionally high."

Especially in the tenth plague of Egypt.

One could argue infant and child mortality were exceptionally low now ... if it weren't for abortion.

Seriously, where do you get your arguments for stats from OT world?

"In addition, the average human lifespan was around 35 years."

Repeating what I already refuted, are you?

My original reply to you:
Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : "in a time when most people died at an average age of 35"
http://filolohika.blogspot.fr/2015/01/in-time-when-most-people-died-at.html

And it's in a series which recently got a part 10:
Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : [forgot to copy title :] http://filolohika.blogspot.fr/2016/05/story-of-cardinals-title-with-pre.html

Unless you want to count this as part 11:
New blog on the kid : When Looking at Elena Maria Vidal's Book on Daughter of Cesars ...
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.fr/2016/06/when-looking-at-elena-maria-vidals-book.html

It links back to two parts of a French series of similar content, which now is on part 12:
Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Lesseps fut aussi à La Pérouse
http://filolohika.blogspot.fr/2015/11/lesseps-fut-aussi-la-perouse.html

"In contrast, infant and child mortality in the modern West is extremely low, with such persons living well into their 80s and 90s."

If you check my probes method stats for older times, you will find that for older times too.

And "extremely low" ONLY figures if you exclude abortion from it.

"Big families were a survival necessity in the ancient world, but in the modern world they are not."

Because old age pensions will take care of that?

Who yo kiddin'?

Japan, Austria, Germany, Sweden, France have ALL found your recipe wanting.

They are ALL starting to get embarassed about old age pensions, due to the age pyramid.

So, large families are a survival if not necessity at least clear asset.

No children, well, I am already living as a beggar, and that is how your old age may look, if you get no children and your pension system breaks down.

"The reader will note here that I have not engaged any arguments regarding overpopulation. Nor will I do so to any real extent, since it requires sociological expertise that I do not possess."

You do not possess the expertise you think you possess for the arguments you did give either!

And if you are quoting your pastor, you can tell him so too.

I note that your post here is from Friday, February 5, 2016.*

My original post in answer to you was from Thursday, January 8, 2015.

You have had more than a year to reassess your pseudo-expertise, but you haven't.

Your comment will be visible after approval.

New comment as per seeing more:

"Campbell misuses the story of Onan as though it were a teaching against contraception (link below)."

It is.

[9] He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother' s wife, spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother' s name. [10] And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing.

[9] Ille sciens non sibi nasci filios, introiens ad uxorem fratris sui, semen fundebat in terram, ne liberi fratris nomine nascerentur. [10] Et idcirco percussit eum Dominus, quod rem detestabilem faceret.

In other words, he was not just unfair against Tamar, whatever the real issues with that.

Thank you at least for noting This concept was later institutionalized in the Deuteronomic law as levirate marriage (Dt. 25).

In other words, Onan was not flouting the law of Dt. 25. It did not exist yet.

Also, not doing what one has been told to do is not per se "a detestable thing".

BUT, your argument in nr 4 (and much of the rest leads up to it) is flawed:

Onan was therefore setting it up so that he would get the inheritance and leave Tamar penniless and helpless. If Tamar had no heir born to her, guess who got the family's inheritance?

Pure guesswork.

No where does it say he was planning to leave her penniless.

They were all living in a kind of Beduin tribe under Jacob (or perhaps still Isaac).

[Admitting, not quite so, since Judah had left his brothers and was living among Canaanites.]

Nowhere is it indicated that Tamar was going to be cast off by Onan. They were living together, Onan was having his fun. Neither was poor.

So, Tamar was provided for, that was not the issue.

The detestable thing was. Namely the repeat offense of an act of contraception.

Which repeated on the mass levels we do experience in the Western World last 50 years ALSO will be leaving quite a lot of oldsters unprovided or ill provided for when childlessness breaks down the pensions systems even further than already the case.

Your comment will be visible after approval.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Sts Prime and Felician
9.VI.2016

PS, I missed a point and so made a third comment:

Oh, I had missed this:

"Campbell's intro writer also claims that Romans 1 speaks against contraception inasmuch as it speaks of those who do things "against nature." However, Paul goes on to quite clearly specify what he means when he says: "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet." This illicitly expands the category from homosexual behavior to "perversion/selfish unbiblical gratification," and under the errant assumption that contraception is one such perversion, wrongly assumes it is condemned by Paul."

If the infertility is achieved by voluntary means other than abstinence, this is indeed a perversion.

"Against nature" means "against conception" or "against conjugal love / conception / pregnancy / birth / breastfeeding / educating children in a loving way and all that" because THAT is precisely what the word "nature" means in the ancient world in such contexts. See C. S. Lewis, Studies in Words, the chapter on Physis, Nature, Kind. And yes, he was a professional philologist, even if in other books he was an amateur apologist.

"The rub of this is that by this reasoning, any couple that is not able to conceive for some reason — whether because of illness or some other cause beyond their control — is therefore constrained to avoid sexual intercourse altogether, since they are not able to use their bodies, as she puts it, for anything but the "gratification" aspect of sex!"

Unless of course God makes a miracle, as with Sarah, as with Hannah, as with St Elizabeth.

In other words, involuntary infertility is not a reason to give up matrimonial intercourse, though St Ambrose thought people who are too old to beget should give it up for the latter part of the marriage.

Your comment will be visible after approval.

PPS, here is a charming little comment from him NOT having approved my comments:

J. P Holding June 9, 2016 at 8:01 AM Hit the road, Hans. I don't advertise for pests who think "I say so" is an argument and whose reading level appears to be grade school texts.

* That is the anniversary of a decent act, as in resissting a state crime in Sweden, but which I went to prison for. J. P. Holding is a prison guard, so he may be in the know about that. That might also be why he did not check out my material but presume he could ignore my arguments.