Pope says condoms make AIDS worse

[Ben1]

I see that you are very angry. That is okay. But...is it so important for you what this old man said? Are you a catholic? Are you an African? Or is it because it is not nonrelevant what the leader of the catholic church says?
By the way: The Nazi tag is not okay.
It is unfair because he was always against the Nazis.

 

[hermanding]

his pronouncment might be met with more respect if it had been made while he was wearing his old hitler youth outfit
ding

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Sexual health advice from the pope? What next, hip-hop album reviews from Bill O'Reilly? Etiquette training with Rosie O'Donnell?

Am I in the twilight zone?

I personally think the religious community needs to drop their hypocrisy and dishonesty about sexual behavior and do more outreach and prevention work. Ya know, stuff that actually gets results.

 

[Kulindahr]

The Pope prefers the spread of AIDs to the possibility that someone might have illicit sex. Catholic politics and Catholic dogma have led to Catholic leaders with an impaired moral sense, if not a downright evil agenda.

The Pope really needs to go back and read St. Augustine, who chastised the pope of his time for wanting to throw everyone out of the church who had illicit sex -- Augustine's response basically noted that the pope's position was unChristian... as is Benedict's.

I honestly miss the last pope(or was it the one before last??), at least he was somewhat progressive with his opinions, as opposed to our Nazi friend here.

John Paul I was amazing (I still think the Curia had him poisoned) and JP II wasn't bad. For starters, both honored Vatican II in both letter and spirit, while Pope Rat seems to think himself above councils (to say nothing of common sense).

Of course his position is unacceptable. But it isn´t new. All popes said that. So, it isn´t a special Benedict-thing. It´s the position of the catholic curia.

To me it's unacceptable because the position disregards the foundational documents of the Church -- the Bible. The whole position of Rome on this issue depends on taking a verse out of context, and believing in magic and 'testing God': the verse is "Be fruitful and multiply", but they ignore "fill the earth" -- it's obviously more thna full, as humans go! -- and they ignore the verses where the other creatures are also told to be fruitful and multiply... those verses help define "fill the earth", because if we're crowding out other species (and we are), then we've "filled" the earth as far as taking up all the space we ought goes. But then they'll say that "God closes the womb" -- another verse taken out of context -- and that if God thinks we have too many people, He'll just slash the birth rate... but that's like sprinting across a ten-lane freeway blindfolded, and saying, "If God wants me to live, He'll protect me".

I would dearly love to see the Catholic bishops in the U.S. issue a statement condemning this idiocy, and telling Pope Rat to either get an education and some good sense, or the U.S. will be choosing its own patriarch, whom they will consider as equal to the bishop of Rome.

In Africa they didn´t hear what he said about condoms. One woman said: "We hope he will say something about poverty. That is our problem. Condoms? Okay, it´s his opinion - we don`t think so.
We need words against our leaders!"

Ratzinger is a member of the Inquisition in his heart; I can envision him speaking out against those leaders about as easily as I can see him performing Mass for a worldwide gathering of naturists, and giving them his blessing.

 

[EwanSF]

I see that you are very angry. That is okay. But...is it so important for you what this old man said? Are you a catholic? Are you an African? Or is it because it is not nonrelevant what the leader of the catholic church says?
By the way: The Nazi tag is not okay.
It is unfair because he was always against the Nazis.

Strong opinions don't always = anger. Whether I'm a catholic, African or an African catholic is utterly irrelevant. I hold these opinions because I don't like seeing people die as the result of what that deluded old cunt says. And, I say again, I'm not calling him a nazi in the litteral sense, I really couldn't give a fuck what his stance on the nazis was or is, I was making a comparison, and a fair one at that.

Sexual health advice from the pope? What next, hip-hop album reviews from Bill O'Reilly? Etiquette training with Rosie O'Donnell?

Am I in the twilight zone?

I personally think the religious community needs to drop their hypocrisy and dishonesty about sexual behavior and do more outreach and prevention work. Ya know, stuff that actually gets results.

That require religious doctrine to have the capability to progress. It's static though, so no dice, I'm afraid.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

That require religious doctrine to have the capability to progress. It's static though, so no dice, I'm afraid.

Tell that to the churches that are helping fight FOR gay rights.

I don't call him a nazi for either of those reasons. I call him a nazi because he's a vile, authoritarian piece of shit that heads an organisation that regularly and overtly tries to subvert the authority of elected governments to suit thier ends, as well as stoking up bigotry and intolerance against us, and attempting to role back the rights of women, among many other things. The tag "nazi" is more than acceptable, it's neccessary.

NECESSARY?!

Anyone with a half-decent vocabulary can carry on a discussion about these public figures without comparing them to Nazis which is intellectually dishonest and prohibits reasonable discourse. That's the oldest trick in the book, exaggerate something and compare it to something greater/worse/bigger/etc....

Godwin's law, live in living color.

 

[EwanSF]

Tell that to the churches that are helping fight FOR gay rights.

Not so much pregression with doctrine as disregarding the bits they don't like or that will make them unpopular.

NECESSARY?!

Anyone with a half-decent vocabulary can carry on a discussion about these public figures without comparing them to Nazis which is intellectually dishonest and prohibits reasonable discourse. That's the oldest trick in the book, exaggerate something and compare it to something greater/worse/bigger/etc....

Godwin's law, live in living color.

I don't subscribe to godwins law, being as it can be used to silence legitimate comparisons. The RCC has always been utterly totalitarian in its outlook, its main aim always political power and control, using ignorance and religious indoctrination to do this. The reason it has lost so much of its direct power over the people is because of education. Mass education is the worst thing that's ever happened to them, but it now wields equaly an insidious indirect control. If it's not a purely spiritual organisation, why do they have nation-state status, embasies and a seat at the UN? To sum up, it's a state, with a fairly large totalitarian bent, The Rat being the head of that state. Ergo, the comparison is fair.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Holla back when they start throwing people in ovens, raping women, and shooting little children.

 

[TX-Beau]

Well we can start with raping children then collaborating to cover it up. Plus I don't see how forbidding the faithful the use of condoms, in areas where the HIV infection rate is at epidemic levels is all that different from shooting them in the back and burying them in pits. The bullet is probably kinder actually and it only kills the person you shoot.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

He's not directly affecting anyone's life. He's not buying condoms en masse and burning them, he made a statement.

A bullet is kinder than a sound byte? The pope's comments don't cause AIDS, unprotected sex and intravenous drug use does. He isn't forcing anyone to make a decision, one that many of us are educated against.

I worry if we're reverting to a population that blames other people's words for our own decisions. The pope isn't there when you're taking your clothes off, nor is he there at the clinic when the doctor tells you he's got some bad news.

This is hysterical and irrational.

 

[TX-Beau]

I know you're not that simple.

 

[EwanSF]

Holla back when they start throwing people in ovens, raping women, and shooting little children.

They've done just as bad as that down the centuries. And then we have the present atrocity, as Tex pointed out.

He's not directly affecting anyone's life. He's not buying condoms en masse and burning them, he made a statement.

A bullet is kinder than a sound byte? The pope's comments don't cause AIDS, unprotected sex and intravenous drug use does. He isn't forcing anyone to make a decision, one that many of us are educated against.

I worry if we're reverting to a population that blames other people's words for our own decisions. The pope isn't there when you're taking your clothes off, nor is he there at the clinic when the doctor tells you he's got some bad news.

This is hysterical and irrational.

This is sub-saharan Africa we're talking about. Standards of education are fairly low (the way the RCC likes it,) and believe it or not, followers of that religion do take what the pope and his minions say quite seriously. He has the power to change it. If he explicitly said that condom use is essential, changed the position of the church, then who knows how many would be spared a lingering death. Not gonna happen though, for two reasons. Doctrine forbids it, and any major amendments to doctrine makes people question things, which is the last thing he wants.

 

[construct]

I'm just waiting for sensible Catholics everywhere to take planes to Rome and buy pitchforks. Until that happens we're in for more of the same.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

They've done just as bad as that down the centuries. And then we have the present atrocity, as Tex pointed out.

So have white Americans, so can I call all white Americans Nazis?

This is sub-saharan Africa we're talking about.

Out of curiosity, how much clout does this guy hold in sub-saharan Africa?

 

[EwanSF]

So have white Americans, so can I call all white Americans Nazis?

White Americans are a race. They do not have a clearly defined ideology. The RCC does and it's presently responsible for the spread of AIDS.

Out of curiosity, how much clout does this guy hold in sub-saharan Africa?

Any non-muslim counties that were previously french colonies have large catholic populations, the DRC for example. It's not just Africa though. You need to take the Phillipeans and latin america into account. Again, areas, or containing areas, of social deprivation, therefore lower levels of education, therefore fresh meat for the dogmatic proppagnda machine.

Here's a map dude, should be of some help.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Well what are you doing, Ewan, to stop these Nazis? Are you registered with any school organizations? Do you protest or promote sex education vs. abstinence? Is there anything you do to stop these Nazis aside from gliding your fingers across the keyboard?

 

[EwanSF]

Snappy comeback. I live in the UK, there are no abstainance programms here, with the exception of catholic schools, where they wouldn't permit some dirty, blasphemous fagmasexual such as myself to promote these AIDS-carrying condoms.

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

Snappy comeback. I live in the UK, there are no abstainance programms here, with the exception of catholic schools, where they wouldn't permit some dirty, blasphemous fagmasexual such as myself to promote these AIDS-carrying condoms.

They won't allow you to do it at Catholic schools? What about outside of Catholic schools? I appreciate your [strike]excuses[/strike] response. Carry on.

 

[EwanSF]

Excuses fuck all. State schools in this country have no abstainance programmes. And if you meant outside catholic schools in the litteral sense, as in standing at the gates, trying to talk to school kids about safe sex, I'm fairly certain I'd be branded a nonce and battered by a mob of angry parents. Can I ask though, do you go out an proactively involve yourself in every single thing you have a strong opinion on?

Didn't think so.

 

[TX-Beau]

Well what are you doing, Ewan, to stop these Nazis?

Why does he have to be doing anything to have an opinion? What he might, or might not be doing has no relevance to the validity of his point. If you want to set the standard for freedom of speech at only people “who are doing things,” I fear very few get to talk on any subject. Who gets to decide who is doing things and who isn’t? You? Me?

…But but but if he’s going to complain…

Please, people argue all the time about their opinions. No one is on these boards to promote social activism including yourself, and if you want to apply that standard to him then we all get to apply it to you.