Vatican: condoms don't stop Aids  

Read that earlier today. It is so screwed up its unreal. So irresponsible, backward and sad - particularly with the infection rate in 3rd world countries where the Catholic church holds a large amount of influence being what it is.

Well, sexuality has never been a core competence of the catholic church - and it shows...

well, their arguments are terribly mislaid. but i think you miss the point. promoting condoms in effect promotes sex, without the intent of making babies. sex is a sin (in the catholic definition). so, to say to people to use condoms would be to encourage sin (in their eyes). of course, lying about condoms, and claiming they are laced with terminal diseases hurts their credibility, but i think they are just trying to say "stop having sex." if condoms weren't so widely available, and people know about the dangers of sexual relations with HIV/AIDS, then maybe they won't have sex (or so is my understanding of the catholic position).

The church leaders should be tried for genocide in an international court. There's no other acceptable step to deal with this.

a few notes.

(and understand, i don't agree with them AT ALL on this one)

in theory, if everyone were to follow the church's teachings about sex (not until marrige) the spread of AIDS would grind to a virtual halt. sure, needles and misc. would still spread AIDS to some miniscule extent, but it wouldn't really be the problem it is now.

problem is, theory and reality often don't mix. people will have sex and so should use condoms.

as for the AIDS virus passing through, my understanding was that the virus itself is small enough to fit through the latex, but since it's immersed in fluids it never actually does.

a kernal of truth wrapped in misleading information. who'd have thunk it.

And people balked when I compared the Pope with Bin Laden. Let's see, both believe they know the true will of god, both endorse policies that result in massive death, both consider themselves infalliable, wait... no... that's just the pope.

Oops, I posted about this in Popewatch2 before I saw that the bashing was already underway here. I was going to launch into a full-on rant about it but it looks like you guys have all the bases covered.

Good work. Carry on

Oh and "lock the ****'s up !"

Opps, already posted this in popewatch 2, but i copy it here.


I think that the one who claimed that condoms have holes, have some holes int their brain ...

The fact that something is not proof at 100 % but only at 99,99999 % , is not a reason to avoid it.
As a doctor i may have aids, just by blood contact with let's say my eyes or via needles wounds. Is it a reason to stop my job ?
Many people die for car accidents : should i avoid to take my car, and just walk ?

The vatican should not talk of a subject that they ignore : sex.

Powerdoc, can you or anyone else here (perhaps some of our Catholic posters) hazard the remotest guess why the Christian religion has this massive hang-up about sex ?

No other religion has it as a dogma (ie that sex is somehow dirty or sinful) - I genuinely can't understand where a belief in God (which is to be repected) became intertwined with a belief in the sinfulness of sex (which is not). I mean murder, rape, stealing etc - these are universal 'sins' and rightly so but sex what the *** are they on ???

Editing the edit: it was too lame even for me

I've just thought of another analogy:

It's as if the Catholic church is saying that seatbelts are not 100% effective, so they shouldn't be installed in cars because they cause drivers to drive carelessly because of a "false" sense of security.

It's not just the Pope, because of the religious right in America a third (or possibly two thirds, can't remember off hand) of the American taxpayers' $15Bn budget for fighting AIDS in Africa is directed at agencies that basically just tell people not to have sex.

In fact most of that money is probably funding just this kind of misinformation.

Here's a related link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2708089.stm

Frankly i don't know, i can suggest some explanations, but in fact i have not any clues.

This one of the thing that i canno't buy from the catholic church, and that in fact many catholics do not buy also.
Perhaps this way of thinking appeared in the middle age.

And we thought the golden age of the missionaries to the savages of 'dark continent' were over...jeez.

You could almost hope JC really will check back in soon and sort these idiots out. I'd really love to see that. Not holding my breath though.

Yep and i will continue.

It's not because i strongly disagree with the attitude of the vatican about condoms and sex in general that i will buy your analogies.

As Alcimedes stated (he also disagree with the Vatican on this one), if nobody practice sex, nobody will have aids (at least via sex). This is logical in a theorical point of vue. Of course knowing the nature of people this type of advice is totally clueless and stupid.
But making stupids (read irrealist) advices don't make you a criminal.

Thus your comparison is totally lame.

It's almost depressing.

I'm a Catholic, and I use condoms. I think the majority of American Catholics do. We're kinda a burr under the Vatican's saddle that way.

The thing is, the Catholic Church was on the cusp of some new thinking back in the 60's. John XXIII convened Vatican II and initiated all sorts of reforms in the church (no more Latin, trying to heal the rift with the Protestant churches), and if they had stayed on that course we might have seen women as priests or married priests by now. Unfortunately, when John died they elected a conservative Pope and put the brakes on. After John Paul would appear to be more of the same.

And what of those of us who are currently barred from marrying the person we love, in part thanks to the teachings and efforts of the Church?

Embarrassing... as a once-Catholic type that's about all I can say.

Well, you could only be barred from marrying in church, they can't stop other kinds of ceremonies.

If it were me in this position I would take the view that I didn't want to be part of a club that didn't want me the way I am and thank God for my lucky escape in realising the true nature of the people concerned. It's your wedding for ***'s sake - don't let it be defined by some tawt in a robe who doesn't know the first thing about love, physical or otherwise.

Just have your own ceremony and stick two fingers up at the old farts ! That's my opinion anyway.

Actually, no, I'm barred by law, because I'm gay. And the Catholic Church has teams of folks working overtime to make sure that that situation never changes.

I think people should think for themselves and not listen to the Pope. Sure they can listen to what he says but many times a "Church" is misguided and individuals should make their own choices. My view is that the Catholic Church has distorted the meaning of the Bible to such a degree it is not an entity to take seriously. Nothing against Catholics just their rigid man-made structure.

Fellowship

Well the law and the church are two different things - though both equally pernicious in some ways.

I have some gay friends who got married but they were in Canada so maybe the law is different. In any case, I'd still say the same - no-one can stop the ceremony. But I know there are rights issues too but at the end of the day marriage is in the head (or heart) and not on some legitimised piece of paper from some sanctified old fart.

That's funny Fellowship, they'd say the same about you.

And Muslims would say the same about both of you ! Funny old world eh ? At least we know God must have a sense of humour hehe

The Catholic church doesn't help it's own cause, never has when it comes to sex.

However, the pop-culture "safe sex" campaign, where it seems to focus more on technology (ie, prophalactics) rather than behavior, probably has contributed to the persistence of AIDS. People don't want to hear that they might want to rethink that one night stand, so the technological argument often trumps the behavioral one. AIDS thrives on behavior/practice, not really protection or the lack thereof -- which is only one part of behavior/practice.

The developed world is a different story from the 3rd world, but still, there are cultures that might want to rethink "prostitution, polygamy, and their medical practices aswell.

As for the Church, I thinnk it's pretty clear, that they've completely lost the plot when it comes to sex.

Despite this last rider, this doesn't sound a million miles removed from a Catholic viewpoint imo.

The issue is whether condoms work in preventing disease - if they do then modes of behaviour are irrlevant and a personal choice anyway. To say otherwise is moralism. No other word for it. Well, maybe a few but let's stick with moralism eh

And another thing - I can't really let you get away with this third world stuff. Fact is that people there get little or no education in this matter (except the usual religious offensiveness) and if they happen to catch an STD then they get faced with western prices for drugs (course of the current AIDS drugs runs at $3000 plus a month from western drug companies. Quelle surprise.

Their lifestyles (polygamous or otherwise) have survived for millennia without these problems and now the west sends it FUBAR and tells them they have to change - classic.

I wouldn't call it moralism at all. I'd call it pragmatism. It is possible for a social practice to become outmoded because of new circumstances, just because we've been doing something for millenia doesn't mean we have to keep at it. We've had Empires for millenia, yet many here seem bent against US-Emperialism, shouldn't we continue the Imperialist tradition? It's been working so far, minus the occasional hick-up.

Should we stop handing out condoms? No, absolutely not. But, we've been handing out condoms for quite a while and AIDS is still with us, so maybe there are other factors to consider too?

You may believe that the third world is just too ignorant, it's possible, but I don't believe it's insurmountable. We should be handing out condoms AND good information, AND challenging social establishments (wherever they are)

from the folks who brought you the Flat Earth at the center of the universe...
burning at the stake Giordano Bruno and other "Heretics" who disputed the Earth was the central sphere
excommunicating Galileo and refusing to look through his telescope at the Proof of Jupiter's Moons

the same band who delivered such logic-stomping hits as "Genesis says it was 7 days",
"What Big Bang?" "Dinosaurs and humans coexisted" and "There is no such thing as evolution"

now planning their first tour since Torquemada and Pisarro knocked the natives dead in the Americas, and potentially reprising their monumental Crusader tours through the Mid-East, Inquisition fans everywhere are asking for more facts.

of course, they're not asking about the potential cause and effect relationships between celibacy, repressive sexual thinking, and sin as applied to a shocking number of cases of pedophile priests and young children. nor are they asking why the "trust us, we're in with the big guy" mentality hasn't led to the big guy punishing said pedophile priests, let alone the church taking actions other than ostrich.

so now the Vatican is caught fabricating bad science (and ethics) again.

willfully retarding intellectual progress by dogmatically promoting errors for ideological gain...

unsurprisingly absurd.

spooky to think they fund and run schools despite such demonstrable lack/denial of reason.
spookier to think this type of fundamentalist mindset survives/thrives in US politics today

tune in next week for our special King Canute tribute... "Tide won't come in."

You cannot separate one from the other, at least not cleanly. Getting guys to put on condoms was one massive change of human sexual behavior - maybe the most drastic in history. And where it took place, it promptly lowered HIV infections. Where it did not, infections are rising.
This shows that promiscuity is a necessary precondition for the spread of HIV, but it is no commensurate condition.

I believe that shaping behavior on the level of low-risk sexual techniques is indefinitely more easy than on the level of promiscuity vs. faithfulness. This is why the churches moronic ideas are so dangerous - they are bound to fail because they go against basic human nature (like it or not).

To the best of my knowledge, no disease has ever been eradicated via behavior change - the ones that have been exterminated (smallpox, SARS) or tamed (plague, syphilis) were beaten by medicine, quarantine and hygiene.

It's legal in parts of Canada. Of course, I'd magically cease to be married the moment I returned to the States. And now the Republicans are even working on a "We Hate Gays" amendment to permanently reduce homosexuals to legal second-class pseudo-citizens. And, of course, abusive religious organizations like the Catholic Church are all behind this initiative.

Which is part of why I shook the dust off my feet and left Catholicism some time ago.

I'd have to check the statistics of this, but I'm pretty sure that pervasive HIV testing and treatment combined with widespread condom use would probably lower new HIV infections to the same point as widespread abstinence. If you combined that with legalized drugs (clinical dispensement for intraveneous drugs) and needle exchange programs (another evil liberal solution) you could probably do even better.

I think I remember reading somewhere that in developed countries people who know they have aides are far less likely to transmit aides than those who don't. In fact, I think it's illegal in most states to not inform a sex partner that you have HIV. Also, current drug treatments for HIV drastically reduce the titer of virus in a person, reducing the risk of transmission.

The simple fact is that the only hope for erradicating HIV is through technology. Testing and profilactics are the first step and vaccine research will hopefully be the last. The biggest behavoir modification we need to make is political and theological.

Smircle, I'm aware of that, and I was waiting for the argument, since it's basically true. However, I do not think that a degree of caution really describes a wholesale revocation of human nature. A little less anonymous fvcking might be looked at as good hygiene and nothing more. It doesn't need moralizing, you can put it down on the same level as eating a proper diet, not binge drinking or smoking. "Look after your health", as opposed to "look after your soul." You say technology is better, but admit that practice counts when you note the example of hygiene.

In truth, untill we move towards each other, we're both wrong, insofar as each of our stances are incomplete. Technology and practice (on a systemic level) are part of the same entity. Think techne which might be something you make, but also something you know how to do/something you do. Technology and practice fold into each other.

It's interesting to me, that when I say "rethink" the automatic reaction is that I have said "revoke."

Take the examples of prostitution/polygamy:

It could be rethought via, legalization, licensing, TESTING, and controls, and not neccessarily criminalization. Likewise "polygamy" might be rethought WRT age of consent and spousal/custody rights rather than outright monogamy.

In the developed world, I wold say sexual freedom also needs to be "rethought" and a myriad of guilt assuaged before we can say that we're providing a real balance of safe sex teaching. The guilt heaped on by the church is without equal, but the libertine fantasy of freedom creates it's own problems. I know of kids (young teens) pressured into sex because they are surrounded by a culture that tells them it's not only OK, but that they need to do it because it's everyone else is and it's safe too, so what's wrong with your daughter, dude, why doesn't she put out?

This all goes to my point about suggesting that people look at what they do and not just how they do it. The second you ask people to control themselves, you're automatically branded a prude, a bigot, a consevative moralist... etc etc

The rights and abilities of the person to determine their own behavior can be (and have been) assailed from both sides. I think it is possible for both the religious conservative (moralist) and the laissez faire sexual libertine to fail us when it comes to providing a balanced solution. So far, they both have.

I've never really had a problem getting to know a woman before hopping into bed, wouldn't have it any other way, which is not to say I didn't want to fling myself into a few sacks over the years, but ultimately I've always been able to find a wise balance between sex, (temporary) abstinence, and relationships. I really do think it's a gross exagerration to say that most people can't control themselves enough to slow it down a little, be more selective of their partners, and, yes, put on the damned condoms!

Touché on this point, iBook.

The Catholic Church's problem isn't the way they interpret Biblical events -- in fact that's one of the few strengths because they don't see a need to take everything literally. They believe the Big Bang and Evolution and the rest can have their place in society along side religion.

Their real problem is their incredible pig-headedness when it comes to birth control, women serving as ministers and the like. IOW, with real-world problem-solving. Not Biblical problem-solving.

Balance....... I could not agree more Matsu. Great work!

Fellowship

Well, heres my theory (uh oh):

The Vatican wants to wipe out the black race. Been wanting to for centuries. What a better chance than now.

Excuse me while I return to facializing my 12 year old girlfriend.

Just kiddin', Artman's in a weird mood

Matsu,
yes, I can agree to most of what you say, I mean it's nothing but simple, basic logic that screwing around exposes you to a higher risk of contracting and transmitting a STD.

Nevertheless, I don't believe you are totally right, because:
- usually, the main transmitters of any sexually transmitted disease are a small minority of sexually very active men. Unless you can convince them, you cannot contain the disease. Convincing them is much tougher than convincing the sexually less active, because it is their hobby.

- Of couse, you can try to employ drastic measures to bully them out of their behavior, but if you act in a more Aikido-like style and encourage people to switch to lower-risk sex without changing their overall behavioral pattern, you are much more likely to indeed change behavior instead of earning opposition.

I am not sure how different the rate of polygamism or rather promiscuity is if we compare Africa and the west - I have the feeling it might be surprisingly similar. Nevertheless the higher level of education, the intense (at least over here, in Germany) safer sex promotion and the ready availability of tests and better medical and hygienical standards have lead to very different rates of HIV-infections.

I have heard of peer pressure being a problem with teenagers trying to get layed even though they do not feel it's the right time. However, I don't think it's too meritful to mix this with the issue at hand - there is no real connection.

I find the vatican's idea laughable - however it might not be so funny after all. Strong pressure to be monogamous will only lead to more lies and secret visits to prostitutes - exposing the partners even more.

I'm pretty sure that lesbians have a lower likelyhood than heterosexuals in acquiring HIV.

Personally, I don't know anyone who is against lesbianism, at least bisexual lesbians, that is.

I'm with ya on the lesbians. Cute, lipstick, bi-lesbians!

I do - the Catholic Church is against both kinds (ok I don't know the Church personally thank God but you get the picture)

How did this degenerate into a thread about chics that swing both ways?

You are *such* a protestant!

Cheers
Scott