The Pope has said while in Africa that condoms may increase AIDS problems. What? He is so insulated from science that even the most basic application of science to our problems eludes his comprehension. Who the fuck advises the Pope? (besides the Bible, that is. If it is just the Bible, we have gotten to the bottom of this already).
Redemption for the Pope? asks The Lancet condemning the Pope's ignorance.
Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear. But the comment still stands and the Vatican's attempts to tweak the Pope's words, further tampering with the truth, is not the way forward. When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide.
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hello;
I am not a Catholic, but I am a Christian.
I think this outrage by the unbelieving scientific community is comical and has taken the Pope's message out of context.
As a formerly single man, and a former bartender/hedonist. I agree that condoms can help stop some sexually transmitted diseases initially. But, what man hasn't gotten comfortable with the woman that he is with and ended up removing the condom? How many men have had a condom break? I know I have.
The Pope's message is that a lack of morality is the cause behind HIV. A condom is not going to stop those who are sexually immoral from disease, they will continue their behavior until they have played out their fantasies of the flesh. The Pope was talking to believers in Christ. It's Funny how the scientific community has distorted his message and attack him because he has something that they don't . A belief in GOD.
Those same people should have a different focus in life (GOD-JESUS CHRIST)and turn from their immorality to a life of morality, love and abstinence until they found the right person.
thanks for the post
JB
Religion, particularly the Catholic church, caters to and gathers power from ever larger numbers of poor, sick, dispossessed people who are driven to irrational reaches of faith and superstition by their ever more hopeless situations.
Condoms represent a risk to the Catholic power base because they offer a real and practical, as opposed to useless and metaphysical, way of relieving the overpopulation and misery that typifies Catholic nations and the populations where Catholics find the most followers.
As any good Madison Avenue advertising executive knows the way to keep people loyal and coming back is not to cure the ills of the suffering but offer treatments that offer, for a price, momentary distraction and relief while carefully avoiding any real cure. Going to church and intense prayer offers distraction from daily suffering and all it asks in return is time, money, and the sanctification and glorification of the same suffering they seek to get away from. The Catholic ideal is the love and worship of a vengeful and angry God that brings pain, suffering and death because he loves his unworthy children. Thank-you sir, may I have another. The properly indoctrinated slaves reflexively kiss and cherish the whip that draws their blood.
Condoms threaten this cynical and systematic shakedown by offering a measure of rationality, health, political empowerment, and control over ones body and individual destiny; an effective way of managing and reducing the overall level of despair and suffering.
No right-thinking Catholic would want that. It just wouldn't be good for the church.
Today in the Washington Post, Edward Green says that the Pope made evidence based statements about HIV and condoms in Africa. And that everyone who criticized the Pope was waging war on science in order to get in political/religious pot shots.
What is your take on this article?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR20090…
"In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary in HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called "Reassessing HIV Prevention" 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa." "
Mike, thank you for pointing to the article. One does not have to be an expert in the field (and I am not) to see that article is muddying (intentionally or otherwise) the waters so as to make the Pope come out clean. The studies quoted in the article talk about effectiveness within the context of usage levels and strategy, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. The Pope spoke within the context of abstinence and fidelity, a perfectly bullshit thing to do. The Vatican changed with his words online at their website and this is not something who has evidence on their side would do. Needless to say, the Pope does not have effectiveness of strategy in his mind, he is more occupied with all things pious. And condoms are, as Art points out above in his comment, quite unpious.
The pope was right. He wants no condom because he never uses it.(just kidding). Anyway, to get to the bottom of this, yes, the roman catholics are just so connected with the bible that anything that contradicts will never go unnoticed.