I'm discussing this with someone who is about to get married. Somebody who is about to make a commitment to their partner. Somebody who evidently believes that the idea of fidelity is not a fantasy. So why would you hold up something as being non-existent when you are about to buy a one way ticket into that very world? There are practical ways to have sex safely and the Church positively encourages that. To have it within a safe, loving environment.
Not having sex to stop spreading STDs is effective, sure, but its not viable. We're just lucky that when people who were designing the very first cars didn't just decide that not making cars would be the best way of avoiding crashes.
If you have ever read any of my religious threads you wll have noticed I have very little time for tthe church Mainly because of the 'changing' of things to fit eg celibacy for priests. This is financially motivated and not religious However on this issue are the church wrong to stop the use of condoms per se, even in a marriage? YES as I thinkl the 'coitus interruptus' or pulling out principle is itact with a condom However the spread of aids is due to people having lots of sex, which the church forbids. The condom debate is irrelevant here and to say ok use condoms is approving promiscuity
So am I So people are dying because they listen to the Catholic Church in regards to not wearing condoms but not listening to the Churches teaching in regards to fidelity?
I love these kind of analogies whenever this type of discussion takes place however i think the issue here is why does a person disobey the church and have lots of sex with lots of partners, but doesnt use a condom because its 'against his religion'? which part of that is hard to grasp?
I don't know enough about that case in particular. I am not going to go away and learn about it just to satisfy your need to have an argument. Generally the position of the Church with regards to child abuse cases has been very good. Its execution it has been inexcusably poor.
i guess what I am saying, regardless of your beliefs, is that if a boat made for 10 people sinks while carrying 8, its worth investigating. But if its carrying 25 people then theres your answer
That all sounds very well, but there is still an AIDs epidemic in in the poorest and sometimes most religious parts of Africa. The countries which have seen a decline in infections are the ones that have the best sex education schemes, and also maybe by chance the most advanced and secular societies. You can preach to people to stop having sex with different people, but they still are, they always will - there is only one way to get rid of this problem and it's to allow people to enjoy themselves safely - the moral thing is to teach them how to do this.
"I love these kind of analogies whenever this type of discussion takes place however i think the issue here is why does a person disobey the church and have lots of sex with lots of partners, but doesnt use a condom because its 'against his religion'?" I was responding to Rebel who had said earlier that people would avoid catching STDs if they followed the churchs advice. I conceded that while people WOULD avoid catching STDs it wasn't a viable solution to the problem.
Why does someone chose a life in the Priesthood just to end up abusing children? Probably because they can't help their urges - and in the case of Priests I strongly believe they might not be driven to such extreme urges if they had normal human sexual relationships.
Sex education programmes are a dime a dozen in places like africa, india etc and free condoms are widely distributed Statistically the countries with virtually no aids (afghanistan etc) have strict laws around sex So your theory is not true, if anything it proves you cant trust people to do the right thing and a 'higher' authourity is needed
I have addressed this already. The celibacy of priests is financially motivated and is not religious In fact the whole institution of marriage is in place due to mans natural instincts. Sex being the main one Ironically the single person sex argument that you put forward earlier isnt true either, there is (from a religious perspective) no such thing as monogamy, again due to mans natural urges and instincts true religion has answers
sorry if it came across abrupt I am not arguing against what you say as such TBH My point is that the startig point, ie spread of aids due to churches stance on condoms is ludicrous condoms and their usage doesnt come into it for me.
But I like sex, I don't want to live in a society like Afghanistan, I would very much like to have my cake and eat it and there is absolutely no reason why I can't, safely. Apart from that I'm yet to see a single piece of evidence that god exists - I'm still open to the idea, but I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
TBH ciaran the condom argument, should they v shouldnt they, is valid as a stand alone discussion However the aids spreading is no way due to the churches stance
Before I respond, I'd like to note that it wasn't the supposed Religiously minded person who introduced the moral argument. I don't know to which study you are referring when talking about the decline in infections but Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS revealed that the greatest reduction in young people contracting HIV came in Kenya and Uganda (predominantly Catholic) and has been linked (not by me, by the report) to the promotion of behavioural changes in when and how many sexual partners they have. This is in keeping with Catholic teaching on the subject.
This is a different discussion/argument. However I think the one thing that seems to be obvious is that we DO forgo their use, hence the epidemic of aids for example. All societies need a form of 'law' to ensure its wellbeing and man made laws seem to be failing on this one
