good news for all roman catholics... the vatican's chief astronomer has declared that it's OK to believe in aliens! it is now no longer sinful to have a picture of a saucer with the caption 'i want to believe!' as the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes has decided that ruling out the existence of aliens is putting limits on god's creation capabilities. heh.

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

full story


http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/6023/oktobelievefx9.th.jpg

http://imageshack.us/img/butansn.png Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster_2.jpg?

sweet

let me know when they decide to tell the world that safe sex and family planning isn't such a bad idea after all

haha

aliens would still be God's creatures

should do some doorknocking on Europa IV and let them know that our god has a plan for them

Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures

where the f*** was that passage in the bible?

did you read the whole bible teq?

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis/images/cage.jpg

yes paveway, during the 8 years of catholic school which I was forced to attend
I'm pretty sure aliens in the bible would have stood out

haha parabol

the entire bible?

your mum read it to me at night sometimes too

^ lol madc***

lolol

Considering that an alien is a fair definition of a 'god', about bloody time they woke up... slightly.

Also, what trog said.

paveway's mum gets a lot of mentions round here.

yeah she gets around as much as your mum infi

MUMSLOL

almost as lame as religious f*****s

f*****s like teq

OH SNAP

i know you are you said you are but what am i

fark, saxon is getting to everyone!

how can you diss on mum jokes strex

coz yamum does lol

http://www.authenticsociety.com/img/hrGiger.maske.jpg

Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures
...
where the f*** was that passage in the bible?

The Book of Enoch can supposedly be interpreted to be about aliens or such. It speaks of Nephilim, giants born of Fallen Watchers (Angles) and human woman. They ate a lot. It speaks of the Fallen teaching humans how to make swords,shield, mine metals and so on.
Tis good reading.

O, but that Book and many others where decided it shouldn't be in Bible many moons ago. It seems that the almighty and all knowing God didn't do a good job and it needed editing. So apparently you can pick and choose what you want Believ. :P

There is only one true god.

http://casa.nowuckingforries.com/lrh.jpg

And f*** all his clones.

beleiving is a sin, ask the spelling police.

the vatican encourages safe sex practices, stop spreading bulls***. they strongly support abstinence before marriag, which they recognise as a relationship between one man and one woman both of legal age, and stongly encourage strict adherence to monogomy.

if you only have sex with your wife, and she with you, then you are practicing "safe sex"

if you are a womanising whoring scumbag sinner then you may have problems but if you followed the vaticans teaching you would've been fine

snap?

if you are a womanising whoring scumbag sinner catholic then you may have problems but if you followed the vaticans teaching you would've been fine

fixed that for ya... coz sinners wear condoms knucklehead.

we all know well catholic priests adhere to thier own strictures when it comes to sex :p or is there a special sub-claus which prohibits priests from having a wife but allows them to sodomise young boys?

stealth editted my typo! :P

the vatican encourages safe sex practices, stop spreading bulls***.

Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids:

The Catholic Church is telling people in countries stricken by Aids not to use condoms because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass - potentially exposing thousands of people to risk.

The church is making the claims across four continents despite a widespread scientific consensus that condoms are impermeable to HIV.

Church in Africa continues AIDS fight without condoms

Church rejects plea on condoms

They are old articles but they're the first thing I found Googling for "catholic church condoms africa"; I'd love to know that their position has changed now because it might give me some hope that they're not completely disconnected to the real world

Also:

they strongly support abstinence before marriag, which they recognise as a relationship between one man and one woman both of legal age, and stongly encourage strict adherence to monogomy.

Surely you can admit this is a complete and utter waste of time though

They're right, its way better to just risk it and not wear one.
Assure yourself of contracting aids rather than playing the risk game

i was gonna say something too about unwanted pregnancy not being stopped by natslovr's dogma... but then i saw this site! which shows that unwanted prgnancy isn't an issue for christians... just trade that unwanted fetus for a foreign slave!!#! heh.

"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

I liked the famous physicist (as opposed to the transsexual), Einstein's, views on religion:

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

Leave them to their morale lecturing and everyone else can get on with their lives k?

Surely you can admit this is a complete and utter waste of time though

like encouraging child soldiers to franger it when on their raping spree? or people barely scrapping by to pop in to their chemist for a pack of durex's finest?

sex can be plenty unsafe with a condom. it is not only aids people need to worry about. the church is right, monogomy is where it's at, to claim that their centuries of promoting monogomy and the sanctity of marriage above all else is somehow irresponsibly promoting risky practices is just religion bashing. it's base Catholophobia.

if only people followed their teachings rather than critisizing them for accounting for loopholes.

what do you want, a million provisions for every bit of guidance? thou shall not steal, but if you do and you sell the goods before mass and donate half to the first lepper you pass it is ok. c'mon.

:(
i thought natslovr was trolling, now im not so sure

he mite actually believe what hes typing

like encouraging child soldiers to franger it when on their raping spree?

Any solider that is in a mental state in which they're prepared to rape civilians is probably not going to take advice about abstinence seriously.

or people barely scrapping by to pop in to their chemist for a pack of durex's finest?

Poor people already don't care about contraception enough. See: Africa. Why? Because the [Catholic] church has been on an anti-condom rant.

Telling them "oh, just don't have sex then" obviously hasn't worked, and obviously will never, ever work.

sex can be plenty unsafe with a condom. it is not only aids people need to worry about

It's not only AIDS you should be wearing a condom for.

Fact: you're better off wearing condoms than not wearing them.

the church is right, monogomy is where it's at, to claim that their centuries of promoting monogomy and the sanctity of marriage above all else is somehow irresponsibly promoting risky practices is just religion bashing. it's base Catholophobia.

Well, that's a whole different discussion, and it's nothing like the claims that anyone, least of all me, have been making. In fact it's so far off base that I'm inclined to believe you're just having a go now; I thought you were serious but now I'm leaning towards you're just trolling, in which case I consider myself fished

what do you want, a million provisions for every bit of guidance?

no, I just want common sense to prevail

be careful, don't believe the hype, have a sprite.

Fact: you're better off wearing condoms than not wearing them.

Not completely true. The sensation isn't as good.

last edited by infi at 15:59:17 14/May/08

the church is right, monogomy is where it's at

Africans et al do not believe in monogomy, aids or not they believe in having as many kids as possible to prove their fertility/dominance, ensuring their survival etc
its all very tribal really

comedy edit;

Not completely true. The sensation isn't as good.

true - but how would you know?

last edited by teq at 16:02:14 14/May/08

It still completely boggles my mind how people in this day and age can still believe in primitive religions like Christianity, etc. To me it is on the same level as believing in santa or the easter bunny, which I also thought were absurd and insanely retarded concepts when I was a kid. I used to think "how f***ing retarded do you have to be to believe in that?", yet kids my age were all waiting for Santa and s***. What the f*** ..

Seriously, learn to think for yourselves or at least try to help build a model/understanding of the universe (ie, what science does by definition), insteading of pretending you know all the answers from Day 0.

Organised religion (and the people who preach it) really pisses me off.

last edited by parabol at 16:03:11 14/May/08

lol ^

edit: at infi

last edited by paveway at 16:24:03 14/May/08

parabol is right because he is a scientist

scientists are holier than god

edit: an infi

I hope you aren't calling me an infi, that'd be way nasty towards me.

parabol is right because he is a scientist

Besides the fact that you're trolling, I didn't say I'm right.

The whole idea with the scientific method is to:

1. Observe something
2. Build a model/representation of it as best you can
3. Test the model to see if its predictions are accurate
4. Perform corrections, investigate further if there are deviations

It doesn't mean that you understand the 'why', but at least it's an honest attempt to learn the 'what', 'how' and 'when' ... and to further refine your model when something new presents itself.

I think the part that people get confused with is the 'model' part. They think that scientists are talking in absolutes when it's understood among the researchers and in the field that it's just a model and the best representation of the black-box they are observing.

The idea behind religion is to:

1. Come up with and follow absurd human-centric bulls*** without any logic or justification.

(my mind is still boggling)

You're so smart parabol. Other people are really dumb, lol.

...

you need to define 'better off' before. you are at far greater risk of exposure to serious dieseases by wearing a condom and having sex with strangers than you are abstaining from sex or being faithful within a monogomous relationship.

condoms fail to protect you from many serious stds. abstinance doesn't, neither does monogomy. in some cases condoms just fail (1-5%? failure rate)

saying those savage africans need to be treated special is as racist as it sounds. what next, they need to be flogged once a day to perform a decent days work??

parabol, how does your model of our existence preclude a creator? many scientists are religious, it doesn't stop them being scientists, so why is it such an affront to you, are you too blinded by your religious-like zeal for 'science'?

modern history has shown the anti-religious zealots are just as bad as those they critisize.

ok this thread is going into the wiki - because it is bound to be epic.

parabol for president.

condoms fail to protect you from many serious stds. abstinance doesn't, neither does monogomy. in some cases condoms just fail (1-5%? failure rate)

That's awesome. Get back to me when abstinence is an even vaguely reliable alternative.

saying those savage africans need to be treated special is as racist as it sounds. what next, they need to be flogged once a day to perform a decent days work??

now I know you're trolling

modern history has shown the anti-religious zealots are just as bad as those they critisize.

Now I REALLY know you're trolling

parabol, how does your model of our existence preclude a creator?

I never said it did, stop putting words in my mouth. My argument is against the typical organised or popular religions.

If there is a creator (I'm not pretending to know if one exists or not), I am sure as hell it's not taking the form of anything related to Jesus or any similar human construct. It could present itself in the structure of the universe or be its own entity, who knows .. I don't. But at the very least I'd like to attempt to understand the universe better through further observation (ie, the scientific approach) instead of pretending I know all the answers already.

Abstinence is 100% reliable. I don't think that is the word you are looking for. Maybe "realistic"?

natslover is the best troll ever

Abstinence is 100% reliable. I don't think that is the word you are looking for. Maybe "realistic"?

It's reliable in the sense that it stops AIDS and babies; its not reliable in the sense that you can rely on people to choose it over actually doinking each other

natslover is the best troll ever

I keep trying to tell myself that, as no one could be that naive, right?

Heres the problem,

Monogamy will stop stds 100% of the time, where as condoms wont.

Telling people to be monogamos (spelling?) and therefore relying on the fact that people will follow through and not have sex works a hell of a lot less.

Here's the one true god:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/extras/oq/images/OQ7wallylewis.jpg

i think the big questions that need to be asked are these, if aliens exist where are they? and secondly what is their opinion on condom usage?

The Batman rule will solve this argument

Batman is:

A) A Christian
B) A Scientist


Thread over

Term can testify that blue aliens do not use protection ... at least not in the "documentary" saint showed us.

if aliens exist where are they?

They're out 'there'.

the vatican astronomer guy said that aliens may or may not need the redemption that Jesus' death and resurrection (which has only happened once and will never happen again) provides

if they don't need redemption, sweet

if they do, then boy are they screwed until our missionaries get some kick arse spaceships

modern history has shown the anti-religious zealots are just as bad as those they critisize.

Now I REALLY know you're trolling

For my side I present the following: Hitler. Pol Pot. Mao. Stalin.

Your turn.

Hitler wasn't anti religious, he hated Jews. Jews frequently consider themselves a "people" or race. He was more of a xenophobe then a anti religious zealot. He left the rest alone (well cept JWs and who doesn't want to burn them on a Sunday morning after being door knocked).

Polpot was a clone of Mao on LSD, so if Mao had said everyone had to turn buhdist and stab out one eye he would made everyone stab out 2 eyes just to be sure and then made a statute to buhda out of the skulls of people who wanted to keep an eye or 2. In essence PolPot was amplifying to distortion Stalinistic principles.

Mao was great buddies with Stalin, or more over idolised him or saw him as the elder statemen of communism and so followed his lead (never questioning him on social directions). Once Stalin died China branched away from the USSR.

Stalin was all about power, he even "resurrected" the church during ww2 to use as a propaganda tool to motivate the people, then he outlawed it again afterwards to gain complete control. It wasn't that he hated religions, he just saw them as a second power structure that might challenge his own.

So I actually think the 4 names you gave weren't great choices.

The were all atheists who's regimes killed millions of believers and non-believers alike.

The were all atheists who's regimes killed millions of believers and non-believers alike.

yep sure sounds like a atheist to me:

Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in Jesus Christ.[81] In his speeches and publications Hitler even spoke of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice".

Atheists are not anti-religious zealots, atheists believe there is no higher power / god. Ben Elton and Wil Anderson are both atheists and I haven't noticed either of those guys running around gassing people.

Hitler quotes... (I'll only throw 2 out there but dead set you could fill multiple pages with his quotes using or talking about faith and religion)

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ...we need believing people.
- Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933

This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10


And as for your 3 communists

Communism was "anti-religious" only in the sense that it forcibly suppressed all religions other than itself.

From: Colin MacCabe, Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy

ah he just said he believes in jesus christ, he didn't say god. could still be an atheist.

If you can't accept that those four men, who fort against various organised religions - as part of wider destructions - and were tyrannical in their nature as being a good example of modern day zealots being worse than the organised religions of modern times (apart from of course, the fabricated topic at hand the, for want of a better word, genocide carried out by the catholic church because it encourages monogamy and abstinence over promiscuity and adultery), then I think I'll have to resort to some slashdot plagarism:

You know, I've come to interpret "I have no counter argument left but to construct a strawman out of the most extreme case of your argument I can think of, then argue against that" as "I concede your argument in its totality."

Good night!

Now you have changed your argument completely.

To fight against an organised religion is not to be atheist ie.against religions. s*** I'd wager a good half of all wars are 1 religion vs another religion.

fort

lolwhat.


Also, let's just forget the crusades shall we? Oh! and the slaves. That was totally not a christian thing.

no religious wars happened before the 20th century duh

you have to take the crusades and slavery in context frakture

they were gagging for it

fort

lolwhat.

lol. well done. you got me. *HI-5*

Also, let's just forget the crusades shall we? Oh! and the slaves. That was totally not a christian thing.

I clearly stated modern. Pretty much the only way the crusades could be considered modern is if you were looking at the history of the earth/universe.

I assume that since you blame 'slavery' on Christians you aren't talking about modern day slavery, which in Africa is predominantly Islamic, and out of Eastern Europe is of no particular religious persuasion, but that's beside the point.

Go on trolls, pick on those two points rather than my defence of the church.

The Pope does not have blood on his hands over African aids. The Catholic Church is either persuasive enough that their message on monogamy and abstinence would be observed throughout Africa, magically saving Africa from aids, or it isn't persuasive enough, which seems to be the counter argument here ("Telling them "oh, just don't have sex then" obviously hasn't worked, and obviously will never, ever work."), in which case any catholic church support for 'safe sex' by promoting condom use, even if taken on as a core tennant of family and sex life within church teachings as they have with monogamy and abstinence, that too would be insufficiently persuasive to magically save Africa from aids.

If you won't stop whoring because the church tells you to, why would you wear a condom with its limited protection from many diseases and well established failure rate just because the pope chants "Aids kills, don't be silly, put a condom on your willy." at the end of every service?

See that argument is good.

I'd avoid using Hitler.

all religion sucks.

/end thread

I wonder if the Vatican will say it is OK to believe in evolution, because that would be the smart thing to do.

I wonder if the Vatican will say it is OK to believe in evolution, because that would be the smart thing to do.

They have for quite a while ...

Evolution as a concept for animals other then humans has been allowed since around 1910 by the catholic church, one of the pius's said something about creation or special creation only being applied to humans.


But it has even been allowed for humans since the 50s

"The Church does not forbid that...research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter."

Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis

The current pope before he was the pope on evolution and creation

To that extent we are faced here with two complementary -- rather than mutually exclusive -- realities.

Cardinal Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall


In other words, the modern catholic church lets the individual decide, so long as you believe "the spark" for it all be it creation or evolution is god.

You know, I've come to interpret "I have no counter argument left but to construct a strawman out of the most extreme case of your argument I can think of, then argue against that" as "I concede your argument in its totality."

Heh, like using hitler as an example?

The Pope does not have blood on his hands over African aids.

Every single time someone has unprotected sex and contracts AIDS in Africa - or anywhere in the world, for that matter - because of the Vatican's anti-condom crusade, the Pope/Catholic Church has blood on their hands.

The very very brief research I did clearly indicates that health workers and other organisations that are trying to fix the problem think that condoms are a good solution to help scale back the spread of the disease. These people are basing this on the scientific basis that condoms have been proven to be more effective at stopping AIDS than a) unprotected sex or b) relying on people to be abstinent.

The church, on the other hand, just doesn't want people to use condoms for their own ridiculous reasons, under the pretense that its because condoms don't work. First of all, surely we can all agree that contraception is a good thing - planned parenthood is much better than creating a whole life that you don't want to have to take care of, especially in a country that always seems to have too many mouths and not enough food to go around. Secondly, noone serious thinks condoms don't work - there's lots of evidence they're effective.

Oh yeh, and it's even a problem for married couples - from the BBC article I linked earlier:

A leading Catholic newspaper in South Africa had called on the church to relax its blanket ban, saying married couples should be allowed to use condoms in cases where one spouse was HIV positive.

So monogamy and marriage isn't such a silver bullet for the problem after all, because the problem of AIDS is that widespread.

It should also be noted that Brazil - a famously Catholic country - has a sensible attitude towards condoms, in the people and in their leadership, which has resulted in a decline in the spread of AIDS (at least at the time that article was written; that is the first thing I found in Google, but their condom attitude is well-known internationally).

If you won't stop whoring because the church tells you to, why would you wear a condom with its limited protection from many diseases and well established failure rate just because the pope chants "Aids kills, don't be silly, put a condom on your willy." at the end of every service?

Well unfortunately, chances are they probably won't, because like many poor people that are continually exposed to the bias of religion instead of science, they probably don't know what to believe.

Hopefully though if the Church hands out free condoms, they'll just start using them because they're there and readily available, and that'll help stop the spread. They can do this and still preach their fire-and-brimstone stuff while providing a valuable service to people that need it.

There's a strong chance the Church will NEVER change its position on this, because it would be readily admitting they're wrong and that science is actually correct, and imagine the sort of precedent that would set for the rest of their teachings.

In closing, this statement from Catholic.org (although, it might not be written by a Catholic, but the fact that it's on a Catholic website I think is telling):

If men did not stray, if women had rights, if AIDS did not kill, perhaps the church’s strict ban on condom use would be morally defensible. But none of these conditions applies in Africa today. As a consequence, the cost of the church’s inflexibility may mean not only untold human suffering, but the loss of millions of innocent lives.

The current pope before he was the pope on evolution and creation

To that extent we are faced here with two complementary -- rather than mutually exclusive -- realities.

two complementary realities?

Their belief is a reality atleast.

Heh, like using hitler as an example?

Don't be so disingenuous. I gave examples of people who weren't religious persecuting the religious. You gave examples of... not responding to that point and continuing to bat on about the pope being the worse possible. Here let me help you: In modern times the "persecution" of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia might be seen as significant retort to that point. ("persecution" because I don't want fire the trolls up about what actually happened there).

Every single time someone has unprotected sex and contracts AIDS in Africa - or anywhere in the world, for that matter...

Oh come on. There's plenty of places where the Catholic Church is even less influential than you are claiming it is in Africa yet it's to blame for the all of the world's AIDS problems. What about China? It has an aids problem and very few Catholics. What about Thailand? Indonesia?

The church, on the other hand, just doesn't want people to use condoms for their own ridiculous reasons

Show some respect. If you don't understand their reasoning it doesn't make it ridiculous. Would you ridicule the teachings and beliefs of other religions so freely, or is the Catholic Church just seen as an easy target to you? They don't stab back for one thing.

It should also be noted that Brazil - a famously Catholic country - has a sensible attitude towards condoms

It should also be noted that China - a famously non-Catholic country - has an AIDS problem. So does India. Pakistan. BLAME THE POPE!!

Hopefully though if the Church hands out free condoms, they'll just start using them because they're there and readily available, and that'll stop the spread

People use rubber fists, lube and Ben war balls if they are readily available, not condoms. As infi pointed out a few posts back, you don't wear a condom because it makes sex more awesome.

There's a strong chance the Church will NEVER change its position on this, because it would be readily admitting they're wrong and that science is actually correct, imagine the sort of precedent that would set for the rest of their teachings.

Well there's a gold plated troll.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/mar/13/catholicism.religion
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3478943.ece

What about the escalating infection rate of AIDS in young adults, particularly women, in the western world? Is the pope to blame for that too or has the message of the grim reaper just worn off or is this group not old enough to have been even exposed to that campaign, which did so much to alert us to the danger of casual sex outside of monogomous relationships.

I gave examples of people who weren't religious persecuting the religious.

I don't agree that you did, and I think there's been reasonable response to show why.

Oh come on. There's plenty of places where the Catholic Church is even less influential than you are claiming it is in Africa yet it's to blame for the all of the world's AIDS problems.

How come you're twisting words there? You even cut trog's comment short to support your doing that. The part you cut out:

" - because of the Vatican's anti-condom crusade - "

is paramount to trog's comment, and is possibly quite a reasonable stance. Ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions but there's countless legal examples where influence by people in certain positions can remove or cause responsibility to be shared.

two complementary realities?

sounds like a good deal, but whats the catch?

Don't be so disingenuous. I gave examples of people who weren't religious persecuting the religious.

yep, but if you look back, that wasn't what your original point was - you said "modern history has shown the anti-religious zealots are just as bad as those they critisize". Obes already shot you down on that; none of those people were "anti-religious zealots". An anti-religious zealot is someone like Richard Dawkins. You can't then go straight to Hitler and accuse me of being disingenuous.

Oh come on. There's plenty of places where the Catholic Church is even less influential than you are claiming it is in Africa yet it's to blame for the all of the world's AIDS problems. What about China? It has an aids problem and very few Catholics. What about Thailand? Indonesia?

We're not talking about those places. We're talking about Africa and the clear policy the Catholic Church has, in that country, of trying to dissuade people from practicing safe sex and instead encouraging the doomed practice of abstinence.

Show some respect. If you don't understand their reasoning it doesn't make it ridiculous. Would you ridicule the teachings and beliefs of other religions so freely, or is the Catholic Church just seen as an easy target to you? They don't stab back for one thing.

I am happy to ridicule many religious teachings and beliefs if they encourage blind faith over practicality, science, and saving people's lives.

It should also be noted that China - a famously non-Catholic country - has an AIDS problem. So does India. Pakistan. BLAME THE POPE!!

Again, we're not talking about those countries... but OK, the first Google hit I can find for "AIDS china" says that "There are currently an estimated 700,000 people living with HIV in China". Not bad for a country with a billion people. At a glance I see estimates of 25,000,000-30,000,000 in Africa, so we're talking several orders of magnitude of difference.

Again though, that's not the point. We're talking about the Catholic Church specifically telling people not to use condoms in a country rife with AIDS.

People use rubber fists, lube and Ben war balls if they are readily available, not condoms. As infi pointed out a few posts back, you don't wear a condom because it makes sex more awesome.

You sure don't! In a country rife with a deadly disease I guess your first priority should be to wear it because YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE OF AIDS.

Well there's a gold plated troll.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/mar/13/catholicism.religion
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3478943.ece

Just like with the stupid apology our Prime Minister made recently, I don't care about apologies. They're nice if they happen, but they don't serve any real purpose expect to make some people feel a little better. It means nothing if systems aren't put in place to stop whatever the apology was for in the first place from happening again. I only care about making sure things like that don't ever, ever happen again.

It took them almost 500 years to apologise for their treatment of Galileo because of his propensity for wanting to trust the scientific method. All those links show me is that in 500 years the Church might turn around and say "oh, we were wrong to persecute condoms on the grounds that fallible despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary". If we're not all dead of AIDS by then of course.

Except, of course, they're not telling people to not use condoms because they're faulty - it's just a convenient scare tactic. They're telling them to not use them because pre-marital sex is bad and preventing conception is worse.

Also, I was really more referring to their stance on evolution in my troll.

The Catholic Church has a very large amount of power, money and influence.

The Bible teaches that the church should hand out condoms. 'Judge not least ye be judged', 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' and so on.

Condoms protect lives. Humans are sinners. Yes, people should be monogamous and all that moral stuff. However, Humans are sinners, they sin. No human has the right to judge another as a sinner. Therefore it cannot be said by any human that using condoms is sinful, according to the Bible, they have no right to judge anything like that.
The church should be easing the suffering of people wherever they can. Encouraging people to use condoms would be beneficial, couple it with morality teachings of the Bible. Lead by helping people, whoever they are, not by judging them.

Don't be so disingenuous. I gave examples of people who weren't religious persecuting the religious.

No you didn't, you gave the high school debating "evil people" routine.

Hitler was not atheist, and only persecuted a single religion (well 2 if you count JWs but that was more because they refused to serve).

He's even quoted saying good things about muslims, and the whacky japanese shinto stuff.

You have shifted your arguement what 3 or 4 times now. From anti religious zealots, to non religous people.

China - a famously non-Catholic country

Another odd statement, Catholicism has been in and out of china the mid 1200's.

Sure I think the percentage of catholics is small, in the order of 1%... but 1% of the Chinese population is stil multiple millions of people. BBC claims the Catholic church in has 13 million followers... Not bad for a non catholic country(The Roman Catholic church is banned in all but a few provinces I think, mainly because the Roman Catholic church requires the clergy to be resposible to the Pope/Rome not the State)

Understand That Catholics are more then just The Roman Cathiolic Church, each of the orthodox/eastern churchs considers themselves catholic.

I sort of feel sorry for natslovR, having such warped views and then resorting to Reductio ad Hitlerum:

Reductio ad Hitlerum [snip] is a modern fallacy in logic.

[snip]

The fallacy most often assumes the form of "Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad". The argument carries emotional weight as rhetoric, since in many cultures anything to do with Hitler or Nazis is automatically condemned. The tactic is often used to derail arguments, as such a comparison tends to distract and to result in angry and less reasoned responses.

I mean seriously is that the best you've got?

Organised religion served its purpose keeping people under control in more violent and crazy times, but its expiry date is well and truly over. The quicker it is forgotten and left behind, the better off civilisation will be ... and the better off I'll be, not having to face-palm myself reading attempts by pro-religious people struggling to form a logical argument unsuccessfully.

i look forward to the day that science proves that religion doesn't exist and we no longer have these threads.

good luck trying to convince the pope nf, he's more catholic than jesus

i look forward to the day that science proves that religion doesn't exist and we no longer have these threads.

Because that theory has worked so well with smoking

science proved smoking doesn't exist?

science proved that obes missed the joke

Science proves a joke is only funny if people find it funny.

science proves TROLL TROLL TROLL TROLL.

Oh come on. There's plenty of places where the Catholic Church is even less influential than you are claiming it is in Africa yet it's to blame for the all of the world's AIDS problems.

How come you're twisting words there? You even cut trog's comment short to support your doing that. The part you cut out:

" - because of the Vatican's anti-condom crusade - "

is paramount to trog's comment, and is possibly quite a reasonable stance.

It was not a deliberate move to try and change Trog's meaning, at the time it didn't seem relevant to my response, not that leaving it in would in some way diminish my response. It didn't matter what the Vatican was doing, the point was Trog was taking the argument out of Africa.

We're not talking about those places. We're talking about Africa and the clear policy the Catholic Church has, in that country, of trying to dissuade people from practicing safe sex and instead encouraging the doomed practice of abstinence.

You sent it global, not me: "or anywhere in the world, for that matter"

Just like with the stupid apology our Prime Minister made recently, I don't care about apologies. They're nice if they happen, but they don't serve any real purpose expect to make some people feel a little better. It means nothing if systems aren't put in place to stop whatever the apology was for in the first place from happening again. I only care about making sure things like that don't ever, ever happen again.

That's not what you said earlier:

There's a strong chance the Church will NEVER change its position on this, because it would be readily admitting they're wrong and that science is actually correct, and imagine the sort of precedent that would set for the rest of their teachings.

Based on the Church's apology to Galileo and for many of the wrongs in the past including that science was actually correct and that the church was wrong for condemning him because he was right and they were wrong. So we don't have to imagine the sort of precedent that would be set when the church bows to science, because it has happened. The world didn't end, and the church still exists.

If apologising for their mistakes and acknowledging their wrongs wasn't what you were chasing in that paragraph, by what other means can the church 'change its position'?? How else can they admit they're wrong apart from publicly stating that they were wrong?

It was not a deliberate move to try and change Trog's meaning, at the time it didn't seem relevant to my response, not that leaving it in would in some way diminish my response. It didn't matter what the Vatican was doing, the point was Trog was taking the argument out of Africa.

I don't think you got what I meant, or what trog said:

Every single time someone has unprotected sex and contracts AIDS in Africa - or anywhere in the world, for that matter - because of the Vatican's anti-condom crusade, the Pope/Catholic Church has blood on their hands.

^^ it doesn't matter that it was taken out of Africa, due to the words immediately after the second hyphen, which is why I said they were paramount to trog's comment.



Also, how is this:

There's a strong chance the Church will NEVER change its position on this, because it would be readily admitting they're wrong and that science is actually correct, and imagine the sort of precedent that would set for the rest of their teachings.

..a contradiction of this:

Just like with the stupid apology our Prime Minister made recently, I don't care about apologies. They're nice if they happen, but they don't serve any real purpose expect to make some people feel a little better. It means nothing if systems aren't put in place to stop whatever the apology was for in the first place from happening again. I only care about making sure things like that don't ever, ever happen again.

It's simply not!


It's also worth taking note of the words "There's a strong chance".
Not to mention the fact that it's a really weak argument to say that because 400 or so years later, they finally admitted they were wrong about the earth being the centre of the universe, that they'll be willing to step up and admit all of their other follies.


Found this pretty amusing too:

On February 15, 1990, in a speech delivered at the Sapienza University of Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger cited some current views on the Galileo affair as forming what he called "a symptomatic case that permits us to see how deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of science and technology goes today." Some of the views he cited were those of the philosopher Paul Feyerabend, whom he quoted as saying “The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune.” The Cardinal did not clearly indicate whether he agreed or disagreed with Feyerabend's assertions. He did, however, say "It would be foolish to construct an impulsive apologetic on the basis of such views".

On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture.

The Bible states that all Humans are sinners.
All Clergy are Humans, therefore all Clergy are sinners. Therefore all Churches with Clergy are corrupted by sin. So every aspect of Christianity that is influenced by clergy is corrupted by sin. How could you trust anything any clergy tell you since their sinful mind could interpret the Bible incorrectly.

The answer to this would be that each individual should follow there own beliefs independently of anyone else, as no living human has the ability to tell another what is right/wrong according to God. This would eliminate the need for Clergy/Churches/Organized religion and all the slack that comes with it.

Just like with the stupid apology our Prime Minister made recently, I don't care about apologies. They're nice if they happen, but they don't serve any real purpose expect to make some people feel a little better. It means nothing if systems aren't put in place to stop whatever the apology was for in the first place from happening again

is that why Qgl won't say sorry for there being no more Qgl lans anymore? :P


I had to lol @ those words though...

the sheer number of customer who would come into work right after attending your lan kept us busy for more than a week... dirty dirty Trog virii


;)

This would eliminate the need for Clergy/Churches/Organized religion and all the slack that comes with it.

But who would brainwash the children into christianity?

WHO I ask you, WHO?!

This would eliminate the need for Clergy/Churches/Organized religion and all the slack that comes with it.

but who would teach you to wipe your ass?

this is the price we pay bro..

the trick is not to corrupt the system.



oops... working on that

its ok nf i thought it was funny