Thread: The pope

Originally Posted by adrianxw

I do have views which are diametrically opposite to billions of people, that however, does not mean mine are wrong and theirs are right.

But isn't that what you (you used loosly to mean many people) are suggestion the church do? Church says condoms bad, many many people saying "no condoms good". So just because the people say its good the church should reverse it's position?

I am not a fool. Anyone who believes totally in X without ever questioning it is a fool.

And the condom issue has been questioned and will continue being questioned. I wouldn't be suprised if the pope after next reverses it.

Could you clarify your argument Thantos? Do you believe that the no-condom message does not lead to more cases of HIV/AIDS or do you believe it is a moral message, even with the "side-affects"?

I do believe condoms would help prevent HIV/AIDS. I may be catholic but I am a scientist so I don't dismiss scientific data just because it conflicts with my religion.
However I think church doctorine should dictate what the church considers morally right.

History

As I said I was using "you" very loosly.

Wow... this thread grew since I last saw it... I have no interest in getting involved in vicious flaming, but I suppose I am obliged to finish my earlier point. Mugabe's the president of Zimbabwe, where the AIDS situation is very similar to what GanglyLamb described in another African country. Frequently he has denied permission to enter the country to people who were there to help with the AIDS epidemic or prepare the way for doctors, medications, etc... He says that it's an African problem, and that it needs to be solved by Africa. That point of view has nothing to do with the "fear of condoms" spread by the catholic church, because he said the same thing when the UN sent shipments of Corn Meal for the 80% of the country that is starving. The corn meal never got distributed. I think that in this case, starvation is a decent analogy to the spread of AIDS.

I think it's worth pointing out at this juncture that despite whatever the Pope commands, everyone is still individually responsible for their actions. I don't know of any defensible ethical theory that says "The Pope told me so" can absolve one of their moral responsibility.

Oh, and like I said back in the Reagan thread, after someone's death is a ..........ty time to start ragging on someone. Just wait a month or two and start in on the new Pope rather than bust on a dead guy for crying out loud.

Originally Posted by anonytmouse

All the same, a change of policy by the Vatican could save millions of lives.

That might very well be the effect of that cause, but that doesn't mean that the Vatican is morally responsible for a person who became infected with HIV listening to the Pope. That person was morally responsible for their own actions.

I do believe condoms would help prevent HIV/AIDS. I may be catholic but I am a scientist so I don't dismiss scientific data just because it conflicts with my religion.
However I think church doctorine should dictate what the church considers morally right.

No one can say for sure whether condoms actually decrease HIV/AIDS for the general population. Sure, for a single individual, who knows how to properly use condoms and who always uses condoms, the risk of getting AIDS is reduced. But supporting condoms(ie., the sexual(contraception) revolution) might have changed society's opinions on sex, generally meaning more premarital sex.

anonytmouse, in that case, the moral responsibility lies with the government officials making such poor decisions.

you can't be serious...

I am serious. Couples can naturally space out children if they want to.

I don't follow any religion, really, and I don't really subscribe to any system of beliefs... IMO, your strongest beliefs are the ones you come up with yourself - for example, I'm a vegitarian and try to help out the environment where I can, but I don't tell people I'm an environmentalist...

Well, it's difficult to differentiate between beliefs I'd claim I "came" up with myself and beliefs I read and assented to. What I mean is, both beliefs are formed through my interaction with the environment, the later beliefs only being formed through arguments others have used.

the basic principle in the satanic bible is that nothing should be wrong so long as it doesn't hurt anybody else (unless they want to be hurt).

This principle is the same that forms the wiccan crede. OK, if you could know every balance and every check of every action, you might be able to use such a system. You'd know, too, whether a given action harms yourself, and you'd know also how God(or the state) would punish. But, in practice, you don't know the harm a given action does to yourself. You don't even know how a given person will react.

IMO, the catholic church speaking out against contraceptive use is very detremental to society. without the use of contraceptives, epidemics like AIDS and overpopulation start to rear their ugly heads.

It's the distribution of wealth and food that are the problem--not the size of population. Anyway, couples can use naturally planing methods, and should be able to keep the population size fixed.

any educated (enlightened?) culture will know that contraceptive use is beneficical, and abstinence on a large scale in an unisolated environment will never happen.

Well, it's your opinion of what's beneficial. What's clear, though, is that individuals will generally do what's beneficial for themselves, not what's beneficial for society in general. Some countries even suffered a native population crisis. An example is France. When the native population didn't have has many babies, the state basically started to pay people to have babies. Eventually, immigrants filled the population shortage.