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Is religious tolerance a bad idea?

ponderingturtle said:
Sure it is, if it was not they would give them the information and let them decide on the action instead of not telling them about how condoms can be effective
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As far as I am aware, the Church does let people decide on their actions. It also makes people aware of what HIV and AIDS are and aren't, how the virus is transmitted, and what its effects on the human organism are. It also lays out a recommended program of behavior that, I think every reasonable person must concede, greatly reduces an individual's risk profile. Now, this is obviously not the only possible approach to AIDS education, nor necessarily the best. However, I think it is clear that by any reasonable definition, the Church does promote AIDS awareness and education, without sham or pretense.
 
Meadmaker said:
It seems much more likely to me that the Christian missionaries, including Catholic ones, were teaching "Condoms won't protect you against AIDS nearly as well as chastity will protect you against AIDS."
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No. Listen. One more time.

They are teaching that it is a SIN to use condoms. A sin against God. They are not comparing effectiveness of condoms vs chastity. They are teaching not to use them, period.

I am sure to think otherwise is reassuring, but it is false.
 
Meadmaker said:
It seems much more likely to me that the Christian missionaries, including Catholic ones, were teaching "Condoms won't protect you against AIDS nearly as well as chastity will protect you against AIDS."
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I figured that was the point you were making.

I don't have a problem with them teaching the benefits of chastity.

I do have my doubts that they are providing proper information about condoms as long with the chastity lecture.

The Catholics certainly have no desire to talk about condoms, it's against their religion.
 
IllegalArgument said:
I do have my doubts that they are providing proper information about condoms as long with the chastity lecture.

The Catholics certainly have no desire to talk about condoms, it's against their religion.
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That is absolutely true. The Catholics aren't talking about condom use. That was my point about McDonalds. McDonalds isn't talking about condom use, either. Is AIDS the fault of McDonalds? I doubt that other Christian missionaries are talking about condom use, either, unless they are saying "Condoms won't protect you. Chastity will."

You can't blame this or that church for "not talking about condom use". When did that become their job?


They are talking about chastity, which would protect you from AIDS. In doing so, they might be unrealistic, but they aren't spreading misinformation, nor are they causing AIDS.

As I mentioned before, the Catholic church is very influential in Ireland, and condoms are illegal without a prescription. Despite that, there's no huge AIDS epidemic. If it's the church's fault, how do you explain that?
 
Meadmaker said:
That is absolutely true. The Catholics aren't talking about condom use. That was my point about McDonalds. McDonalds isn't talking about condom use, either. Is AIDS the fault of McDonalds? I doubt that other Christian missionaries are talking about condom use, either, unless they are saying "Condoms won't protect you. Chastity will."

You can't blame this or that church for "not talking about condom use". When did that become their job?


They are talking about chastity, which would protect you from AIDS. In doing so, they might be unrealistic, but they aren't spreading misinformation, nor are they causing AIDS.

As I mentioned before, the Catholic church is very influential in Ireland, and condoms are illegal without a prescription. Despite that, there's no huge AIDS epidemic. If it's the church's fault, how do you explain that?
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Hmmmm...... To be accurate, the church IS talking about them. It is saying not to use them. And can be incredibly influencial in places where the average person does not have access to a telephone, TV, newspaper, or internet (unlike Ireland).

And going way back to the beginning of this thread.... No one is saying the Christianity or the Catholic Church are the sole reason people are dying of AIDS in Africa in stupifying numbers. They are just contributing to the problem in a rather signicant way. Being one bank robber of many doesn't make you something other than a bank robber. "But officer, he is commiting the same crime", is no defense.
 
I never said that the Catholic church was spreading misinformation. I said the Catholic church was not providing complete information.

According to CIA World Fact Book,
Ireland (2001) rate of infection .1%
Norway (2001) rate of infection .1%
Japan (2003) less than 0.1% (2003 est.)

It looks like Catholic Ireland fairs even worse than non-Christian Japan.

Though, I'm happy to see low rates in all three countries.
 
Cello Man said:
I've been lurking on these forums for a while. It's been fun and informatve reading the discussions taking place here. I've had enough of being quiet now, and I'm ready to start picking this forum's collective brain. The point of my first diatribe is as follows:


Religious tolerance is not necessarily a good thing. I don't advocate extreme mindless bigotry such as running mini-vans with Jesus-fish stickers off the road, but permitting religion to place their version of morality on a higher pedestal than human life cannot be excused.

Case in point: AIDS in Africa has become a full-on epidemic. Within certain areas where the only governing authority is provided by Catholic missionaries, people are not being educated about the use of condoms to avoid spreading the HIV virus. The official stance of the Catholic church is that the use of birth control is a sin, and the idea of pre-marital abstinence is being promoted as the sole solution to the AIDS problem.

Let's face it. People are people, and the reason people exist in the first place is because other people had sex. The need to propogate our species is coded into every fiber of our being. Preaching absolute abstinence makes as much sense as telling people to stop breathing. Sure, there will be the small percentage of people who are devout enough to follow the whatever their religion says to the letter, but as statistics on abstinence-only sex education in my own country (USA) show, the idea is doomed to failure from the outset.

If Catholics were somehow forced by an outside government or health care organization to spread educational materials and birth control supplies, they would cry discrimination against their religious beliefs. Surely they'd be as offended as a Muslim being served bacon for breakfast. We cannot let that overshadow the fact that a campaign of misinformation and their unrealistic, outdated, and warped sense of morality is killing people by the thousands, the same people they are trying to "save". The Vatican is unwilling to permit what it sees as the lesser of two evils. Their philosophy of abstinence-only education is misguided at the very best. At worst, now combined with a lethal STD in the equation, I see no reason whatsoever that it's any different from criminally negiligent genocide.

I say that those responsible should be taken to task. If ithis were a truly fair and objective world, leadership of the Catholic Church would have already been found guilty of crimes against humanity.

Anyone else care to weigh in on this?
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Well put, welcome to the forums.
 
scotth said:
And going way back to the beginning of this thread.... No one is saying the Christianity or the Catholic Church are the sole reason people are dying of AIDS in Africa in stupifying numbers. They are just contributing to the problem in a rather signicant way.
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As Meadmaker suggested, it's probably a mistake to try to separate the Church's teachings about condoms from its teachings about fidelity, monogamy and extramarital sex, because they are intended to operate in concert. If you follow one (condoms) and ignore the others, the result is predictably going to be negative. And that's going to be the outcome that contributes to the problem, though for rather obvious reasons it is unjust to lay that at the feet of the Church. All of the other aspects of AIDS-related Church activity (everything from the discouraging of high risk behavior, to awareness education, to substantial investment in clinical and research activity, to providing palliative or other care for something like a quarter of all AIDS victims worldwide) have a positive impact on the problem. Do you really think that the Catholic Church is a net contributor to the problem? That appears supremely implausible to me. The reverse seems far more likely to be true.
 
scotth said:
No. Listen. One more time.

They are teaching that it is a SIN to use condoms. A sin against God. They are not comparing effectiveness of condoms vs chastity. They are teaching not to use them, period.

I am sure to think otherwise is reassuring, but it is false.
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I'm quite confident that you are wrong. The Catholic Church is in fact comparing the effectiveness of condoms vs. chastity. As an easy way to test that, we could link to web sites, sponsored by the Catholic Church, in which that message was explicitly stated.

In fact, I'm absolutely confident, so much so that it isn't worth looking up, unless you make it worth my while. Is there any sort of bet we could make on the subject?

(As an aside, I understand that the Catholic Church does indeed say that condom use is a sin, and that its sinfulness is, in most cases, totally unrelated to their effectiveness or lack of effectiveness. Nevertheless, they quite frequently compare the effectiveness of condoms with the effectiveness of chastity, noting that chastity is much more effective in reducing AIDS transmission.)
 
Meadmaker said:
I'm quite confident that you are wrong. The Catholic Church is in fact comparing the effectiveness of condoms vs. chastity. As an easy way to test that, we could link to web sites, sponsored by the Catholic Church, in which that message was explicitly stated.

In fact, I'm absolutely confident, so much so that it isn't worth looking up, unless you make it worth my while. Is there any sort of bet we could make on the subject?

(As an aside, I understand that the Catholic Church does indeed say that condom use is a sin, and that its sinfulness is, in most cases, totally unrelated to their effectiveness or lack of effectiveness. Nevertheless, they quite frequently compare the effectiveness of condoms with the effectiveness of chastity, noting that chastity is much more effective in reducing AIDS transmission.)
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They don't get to read many websites in Sudan.
 
Meadmaker said:
So no bet?
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Yes, I am sure that on websites intended for an audience that has a nearly unlimited number of information sources, the church is nearly forced to cover more information. They know they would be called out for it, otherwise.

I know numerous people who grew up in Africa. A couple of them were children of missionaries. I regularly get to hear from several sources what things are like in Africa today. In huge sections of Africa, the population is so ignorant it is difficult to even imagine. Religious missionaries are frequently their main source of information coming from outside their village. Imagine how influencial these missionaries would be. Even the most ignorant missionary would probably know much more than anyone most of the villagers know.

Missionaries from a number of sects teach that using condoms is a sin and that is about all that is said. AIDS isn't even part of the discussion.

I have a hard time seeing how it should not be considered murder.

I could go on about health organization volunteers hardly being able to give condoms away because the people know that you go to hell if you use those.
 
scotth said:
I have a hard time seeing how it should not be considered murder.

I could go on about health organization volunteers hardly being able to give condoms away because the people know that you go to hell if you use those.
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It would be interesting to hear the opposite side of that conversation. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if they were talking about going to hell for using condoms, part of the reason would be related to what they were doing while using the condoms.

It might also be interesing to compare the rate of incidence of AIDS to the rate of Catholicism

Top ten Aftican countries for Catholics: (By % population)

10.Mauritius
Tanzania
Zambia
Uganda
Gabon
Rwanda
Angola
Congo
Burundi
1.Equatorial Guinea

Top ten countries for AIDS

10.Central African Republic
Malawi
Mozambique
Zambia
South Africa
Namibia
Zimbabwe
Lesotho
Botswana
1.Swaziland

It seems that the Pope is most effective at murdering Protestants and Animists. His own strongholds are relatively low on the list of AIDS victims.
 
ceo_esq said:
As far as I am aware, the Church does let people decide on their actions. It also makes people aware of what HIV and AIDS are and aren't, how the virus is transmitted, and what its effects on the human organism are. It also lays out a recommended program of behavior that, I think every reasonable person must concede, greatly reduces an individual's risk profile. Now, this is obviously not the only possible approach to AIDS education, nor necessarily the best. However, I think it is clear that by any reasonable definition, the Church does promote AIDS awareness and education, without sham or pretense.
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Mabey, I don't know that much about how the church teaches about aids. But if they are getting funding from the US government they must be teaching abstenance only programs and not teaching condom use. That is a fact and it is also a religiously motivated teaching, it is just not catholic in nature but other christians.
 
scotth said:
No. Listen. One more time.

They are teaching that it is a SIN to use condoms. A sin against God. They are not comparing effectiveness of condoms vs chastity. They are teaching not to use them, period.

I am sure to think otherwise is reassuring, but it is false.
Click to expand...

After all if I am cheating I am commiting one sin, why should I compound my problems by useing condoms and comit two sins?
 
Meadmaker said:
It would be interesting to hear the opposite side of that conversation. I would bet dollars to doughnuts that if they were talking about going to hell for using condoms, part of the reason would be related to what they were doing while using the condoms.

It might also be interesing to compare the rate of incidence of AIDS to the rate of Catholicism

Top ten Aftican countries for Catholics: (By % population)

10.Mauritius
Tanzania
Zambia
Uganda
Gabon
Rwanda
Angola
Congo
Burundi
1.Equatorial Guinea

Top ten countries for AIDS

10.Central African Republic
Malawi
Mozambique
Zambia
South Africa
Namibia
Zimbabwe
Lesotho
Botswana
1.Swaziland

It seems that the Pope is most effective at murdering Protestants and Animists. His own strongholds are relatively low on the list of AIDS victims.
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Typical poor reasoning and dishonest tactics from you.

That is at best a correlation. That's as spurious as claiming that since states with the lowest murderer rates administer the death penalty, the death penalty is a good deterant (Which is untrue by the way. Texas kills people constantly, and they have a high murderer rate.)
 
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