Pope in Africa talking out of his ass - seriously wtf????

This is not true. A non-defective, properly used condom will always protect against HIV tranmission.

The problem is that it's effectively impossible to identify a defective condom before use.




I can understand the logic behind the Pope's statement, but it has emperically been proven false.

Or maybe "can" means a small percentage of the time.

First of all, as I pointed out, there are different types of condoms, and some do allow viruses through, since they are only meant to prevent pregnancies.

Second, it is quite easy to spot a defective condom; if it's ripped or broken it's defective. If it's past its expiration date, don't use it. If it rips while putting it on, its defective.

The problem is that people who are in the process of using a condom either can't/won't/or don't think straight and just want to have sex. Thus their baser urges take over in favor of instant gratification. It is hard to get a person, especially a younger one, to grasp the importance of protecting themselves when they may not die for 10 years from AIDS.

It is also hard to reinforce how important it is to use protection when these same people are worried about where their next meal is going to come from or whether they'll live to see tomorrow.

Frankly, I think the Western world should remove itself from Africa, put strict laws in place on allowing immigration to limit the spread of AIDS/HIV in Western countries, and basically let Africa govern itself. If they cannot resolve their issues internally, then the continent will destroy itself, but the epidemics will stop. Short of establishing a Western-run police state, there isn't much we can do. You cannot force the local people to use safe sex practices, and you cannot root out every warlord or promiscuous person. If AIDS killed you 24hrs after contracting it, the problem would have solved itself by now...

I should have said not necesairly possible. Obviously some defects are visible, but not all are.

Here in South Africa, the Health Department was at one time giving out condoms that were each stapled to a card with printed instructions for use. Stapled!
In some cases, the staple went right through the non-open end of the condom.

All sadly true. People like that don't think 10 weeks ahead, let alone 10 years.

One might think that if they were that short of food, they wouldn't be wasting energy having sex, but then "one" would have to be an intelligence unfamiliar with the psychology of Homo sapiens.

You've got to remember with latex and the like even overly stretching the thing when taking it out or similar can render it useless as far as preventing the spread of virii. A lab-condition condom of the appropriate material could stop HIV, but simple physics means even the tiniest of mistakes or actions can render the things useless.

Actually, this is quite easily answered.....
There has never been a case of a prostitute in Nevada's legal brothels getting an STD (Might have just been AIDS) and one of their requirements is using condoms each time. They have to be regularly tested for this. Counting the number of times they have sex, I would say they make an excellent real world test of condoms.

Unfortunately, this statement by Ratzinger seems to be yet another in a chain of foot-in-mouth events. The last one was reinstatement of that bishop who was a Holocaust denier (he even continued to deny the Holocaust in a TV interview right after his reinstatement.)

Let's face it, this "God's Man on Earth" stuff is just a recipe for silliness, especially when you have some 81-year-old guy trying to spout "wisdom" for the modern era.

The reality is that sexual desire is natural, and that any policy built on fighting our own natural genetic tendencies is going to fail. So to tell everybody to just "hold back" and be abstinent is stupid and won't be adhered to, and to oppose education and distribution of condoms would only help the disease run rampant. Just because the Roman Catholic clergy is based on the recruitment of sexual deviants (pedophiles and others in denial about their own sexuality) doesn't mean that others can be like them. Frankly, I'd tell them to get their own house in order before trying to lecture others.

The difference there is likely that the prostitutes in question don't want an STD even more than the rest of us, or it'll mean their job. Moreover, with their line of work, they'll know exactly how to use them as well, and will probably make damn sure whoever is using it does it properly.

It's not really a brilliant example, it's like asking a class of physics students Newton's Law's of Motion, that they get them right isn't really surprising.

Why exactly didn't the catholic church follow up John Pauls death with someone who could...you know be a nice symbol for the church to have in the modern world?

Instead they pick Darth Sidious.

Yes, this is one of the facts that the CDC refers to when they state that latex condoms have been definitively proven in both laboratory tests and real-life epidemiologic studies.

I don't see what his appearance has to do with anything. I'd hope we'd be above such superficial notions.

After John Paul died there was a lot of talk the next Pope, so this one now, would be more like a "placeholder". Pope John Paul, in other words, was so awesome that no one could live up to the expectations of truly replacing him. Or so the theory/conspiracy goes.

Anyway with HIV and AIDS some people may engage in oral/anal sex, the "not sex" sort of sex. Thinking that is okay.

I really don't know if there are any real world example which you would actually accept. Maybe regular guys and gals will not be at 100% perfection but if reduce AIDs then it is a definite plus.....

You know what though, your argument could be used to support a sex education which includes the proper use of condoms. I assume you are against that though :drevil:

A proper 'real world' example would be a straight proportional cut-through of the likely users. Lab-tech's and proffesional whores who have both the experience and the motivation to use them right are obviously not going to screw up (pun not intended) in the main.

Unfortunately, when you're talking about the people who'll actualyl be using them in the situation in discussion (Africa), they'll wreck them, sure they'll still stop pregnancies, but they will be rendered highly ineffective against the HIV virus. A good percentage may succeed, but the increase in random sleeping around because people think they'll be safer will probably cancel out any benefit or reduce it to near-meaningless levels.

Fun fact, pulling one of the thing out and stretching it will probably render is useless as a virus blocker. It's really little things such as this that will kill people.

No, I'm not against condoms, I am against people screwing around at random though and I make no apologies for it.

Ultimately, the Pope has a point, abstinence until marriage and then staying faithful will cut down on the amount of HIV in Africa dramatically. What people want however, is an excuse to screw around and avoid the consequences, because they're stupid, mindless animals when it comes to that kind of thing, and thus I hold such in contempt. (That applies to all humans, not just the Africans in question).

Yeah... the whole 'abstinence only/no sex until marriage' stance, while noble in sentiment, just doesn't work in real life. Any organization that is going to advise people *has to* accept the fact that people WILL have sex outside of marriage, and there's no way around it. Thus, the only logical approach is to make sure that when those people do have sex, they are as prepared as possible to do so safely. Sex ed is one approach, free condoms is another, and encouraging use of other ways of climaxing is another.

It just annoys me when groups try to argue that abstinence is *the only* way to prevent these types of outbreaks. It also annoys me when they act like educating people about safe sex and condoms will encourage sex. If anything, show young people the disgusting results of *not* practicing safe sex, and they may well abstain anyway, (or at least use a condom).

Actually, that's not logical at all. The logical thing is to let those people fuck up, both leterally and figuaratively, and let them die horribly of whatever disease they caught because they were to stupid to control themselves. Also works as a good deterent.

And on the whole the abstinence until marriage route can and does work for a lot of people.

Based on reports on sex before marriage both for people who made purity pledges and those that did not showed no difference in the amount of sex. In addition, the ones which made the purity pledges were more likely to lie about it and were less likely to use protection of any type. We can only presume that the ones which made the purity were more religious.

People promise a lot of things because they think it'll look good. Trying to persuade someone to make a 'purity pledge' at a stall is a receipe for failure before it's even started. People actually have to beleive it's a good and right thing and not just something that will make them look good.

Trying to use some pathetic and poorly thought out high-school/college pledge scheme to sum up the effectiveness and viability of abstinence before marriage is never going to be an honest evaluation.

Anyone who feels the need to have to make some kind of public promise not to do it is in all likelyhood never going to succeed and probably doesn't really mean it. Truth be told they're probably worse than their classmates, who at least screw around and don't try to hide it.

Most people are simply weak minded idiots and should not be offered safety nets for their stupidity, let them screw around and get various diseases, then when no-one wants to touch them and they're probably dieing it might serve as a warning to others not to be quite as stupid as them. Trying to to offer people who want to screw around a way of protecting themselves from the consequences of their own actions is contemptible and ultimately a futile effort.

Apparently, it's the Church responsibility to help people commit a morally questionable act to Catholic understanding in a helpful, safe way.

Remember people, being addicted to heroine is not wrong if we only help drug addicts act responsibly and safely.



Pledges? Utter bullshit. No pledge is going to work when action has no relationship to consequences. Reproductive health is a nomenclature for simply a blank check.

Get pregnant? No problem, have an abortion.

Don't want an abortion? No problem, have the baby at the taxpayer expense. No job to support the baby and no father in the picture? No problem, we'll just enroll you in welfare.

Are you comparing a biological function inherent to keeping our species in existence, to illegal drug use?

Guess what - the only reason the church keeps this whole 'sex is bad/original sin' thing going is because it has a problem w/ people doing things that feel good. Give me a break already! If it wasn't for sex, there wouldn't be any people, and there certainly wouldn't be a church.

As far as I am concerned, sex is a natural part of life, and humans start becoming interested in it during puberty. I'm not advocating that everyone should have as much sex as possible, but it isn't something to be scared or ashamed about. Should we prepare our young people for everything they may encounter? Absolutely. Should we perpetuate the stance that sex is bad and keep our young people ignorant, so when they actually do have sex they are unprepared? Absolutely NOT!

The problem w/ leaving people to their own devices is that many STDs/AIDs take a very long time to become apparent, and they may well have sex w/ others while they still appear healthy, thus spreading it to many unsuspecting partners. It also kinda goes against the whole "humane" thing we try to promote for our species.

Ah, the desperate fallacy of someone grasping at straws, try and make up some dark evil motive for the other side!

Guess what, I decided long ago I would not have sex until I was married, and you know why? Because I know it feels good, and I'm not scared or ashamed about it. I just want to share it with somone who actually means something to me.

Taking morphine has it's place in society as well, but there is also a time when it's bad to be taking it (when you don't need it and/or addicted), so yes, you're essentially taking the same moral standpoint that drug abusers are fine, as long as we make sure they can do it responsibly and safely.

Speaking about evil and dark, I would have to state that your whole post here is both evil and dark. I don't exactly know where you are going here but it seems to be that only your religious sect should survive because you seem to think that they are special.

No, I am a humanist...I work towards improving the human race, even those I disagree with. Humans are mammals and they survive by having sex. In historic times, they needed to have as many children as possible so a few might survive. Now this is not needed but it is still in our biology. As an important aspect of all of us, sex is something which should be discussed openly and understood as much as possible

Tons of people dying of AIDS are probably going to put excess strain on society. Especially if you don't go the whole moustache-twirling cartoon villain route and deny them access to the medical system (which in the real world is going to have most people dismiss you as a twisted ghoul - and rightly so if you ask me).

Edit: and if you do deny them medicine, what do you do about people who got infected through no fault of their own, like say spouses who got infected because their partners were cheating on them? Are you going to set up some sort of virtue test you have to take before you can get antiretrovirals? Or are they going to just be collateral damage in the righteous war against the Darwin Award winners? If you don't do this, as I said, not bothering trying to stem the spread of AIDS is going to put a lot more stress on the medical system.

A punishment-based "let them die!" policy is hardly logical in the real world, leaving aside how ethically questionable it is (and that's stating it mildly - I'd call it something a bit stronger than "questionable" myself).

Let's see, if sex feels good but excessive sex can cause diseases, ruined relationships, failed marriages, etc... then, any logical person would assume sexual licenses should be taken in moderation.

However, in this thread, we can assume two possibilities.

People are not logical about sex and have low impulse control and have poor future time orientation.
Or 2, OMG Blame Ze Evil Catholics.

Excessive sex does NOT cause disease; unsafe/unprotected sex w/ an infected person does that. Excessive sex does NOT cause ruined relationships; cheating, demanding sex from your partner, or other relationship issues cause that. Excessive sex doesn't ruin marriages; the same things I mentioned before, that ruin relationships, does that. You could have sex all the time, and if you take the necessary precautions to do so safely, then you'll be fine.

You are correct on the first point, but you are missing the point on the second; the church is actively fighting attempts to educate people on how to have sex safely. You simply cannot assume that if you tell people strongly enough not to have sex, that they will obey. It doesn't work. People will have sex, and you must change your approach accordingly. You must prepare them and educate them on how to do so safely so they don't spread disease. Just as good parents and other institutions teach children to wash their hands and to keep a cut clean, sex ed and condom use should be taught.

The church isn't bad because it's the church, it's bad because it preaches ignorance which is killing thousands of people.