Why is there no tribute?

[captainusa1]

Springa said:

That's not really realistic, is it?

The Golden Rule doesn't seem too realistic either. Should the Church scrap that one too?

[Circe]

Kabbealompost said:

And of course, limiting sex to breeding. And punishing masturbation with stoning to death.

Do you know the song called "Every sperm is sacred" (from Monty Python)?

Touche! ;D

[captainusa1]

Kabbealompost said:

And of course, limiting sex to breeding. And punishing masturbation with stoning to death.

Do you know the song called "Every sperm is sacred" (from Monty Python)?

Yeah, I saw the movie. You didn't answer my question, though.

[Kabbealompost]

My answer is, people shouldn't follow teachings of the Catholic church or any other churches.

People should discover the mightiness of Common Sense at last.

People should not listen to such crap that "Don't use condoms because it's against God's will!".
Such outdated morals won't do any good.

[captainusa1]

Kabbealompost said:

My answer is, people shouldn't follow teachings of the Catholic church or any other churches.

People should discover the mightiness of Common Sense at last.

People should not listen to such crap that "Don't use condoms because it's against God's will!".
Such outdated morals won't do any good.

In other words, you won't admit that following the Church's teachings would save lives. Common sense dictates that being in a monogamous marriage would be much safer than engaging in dangerous sexual practices in locations where there are pandemics of AIDS. Condoms may or may not prevent infection because they aren't totally safe. It's up to the individual to make the wisest choice.

[Springa]

First of all, the golden rule is more of a broad, subjective principle, not so much an actual concrete policy, so the conparison is not fair.
If scraping the golden rule could actually save millions of lives in a continent that's being desimated by aids we could actually discuss on this terms.
Sorry, but this argument doesn't seem serious enough for a real debate.

Anyway, the point is: people won't stop having sex, specially when they're hungry, poor and uneducated. It may be a bad thing according to your morals, but should they die a horrible death by aids as punishment for not quitting sex? Come on. That's pretty draconian, isn't it? I believe the actual most important principles of Christianity are protecting life and doing unto others what you'd want them to do unto you (the golden rule you mentioned, isn't it?). Wouldn't you like to not die of aids? Don't you think saving lives is actually more important than the rest of the dogmas?

With all due respect, I believe that to rather see people dying than using condoms is cold and inhumane.

Captain said:

The Golden Rule doesn't seem too realistic either. Should the Church scrap that one too?

[captainusa1]

Springa said:

First of all, the golden rule is more of a broad, subjective principle, not so much an actual concrete policy, so the conparison is not fair.
If scraping the golden rule could actually save millions of lives in a continent that's being desimated by aids we could actually discuss on this terms.
Sorry, but this argument doesn't seem serious enough for a real debate.

Anyway, the point is: people won't stop having sex, specially when they're hungry, poor and uneducated. It may be a bad thing according to your morals, but should they die a horrible death by aids as punishment for not quitting sex? Come on. That's pretty draconian, isn't it? I believe the actual most important principles of Christianity are protecting life and doing unto others what you'd want them to do unto you (the golden rule you mentioned, isn't it?). Wouldn't you like to not die of aids? Don't you think saving lives is actually more important than the rest of the dogmas?

With all due respect, I believe that to rather see people dying than using condoms is cold and inhumane.

You're being rather disingenuous by misrepresenting what I said. I never said or thought that it would be better to have people die than to have them wear condoms. You falsely framed my position and addressed the resulting strawman. Perhaps you used that tactic to avoid addressing my real point.

My main point remains the fact that millions of people, who aren't stupid animals, would be alive if they followed Church teachings on sexuality. The Catholic Church is *not* forcing anyone to engage in dangerous sexual activities, and they don't have the power to prevent independent groups from offering condoms and education. Look how well the non-Catholic tactics have worked, especially in places where educated people *refuse* to wear condoms because sex feels better without them.

[Springa]

First of all, I'm not using any "tactics". This is not a contest, at least not for me, you may think my opinions are absurd, but I'm being sincere here, not trying to "win". If at least I was going to win a prize or something :-)...
Of course you never said that. I said that, and my point was that in the end, the church's position means they'd rather see people die than betray their dogma. And if you subscribe to the church's policies on that matter (do you?), in my opinion you're agreeing to that. I was talking about the church primarly, and you were included in it just as long as you agree with it. If you don't, great.
What I was saying also is that it's useless and rather pointless to base concrete policies and positions on these matters in what you believe would be ideal. Of course "if they just followed the church" and stopped having sex there would be less aids. Just like if street thugs "just followed the church" and stopped robbing and raping people, there would be less crime, if billionaires "just followed the church" and became more giving there would be less poverty and so on. Is it gonna happen? Not really, because apart from the church's teachings there are concrete social and cultural conditions that actually cause and/or stimulate these problems and make it difficult for people to actually think base their actions on pure rational thought and deliberation.
So this line of thought doesn't really make much sense to me, I'm sorry.
About the church not forcing people to engage in unprotected sex, of course they don't. And also, of course independent groups can go there and give people condoms. But there are 3 things:
1-Many people depend on help given by catholic missions/pastorals (is that the english word?). It's priests and nuns who, fortunately, reach places where nobody else goes and give the people medical aid, food, education and so on. These missions are obviously disalowed to give the people condoms and teach birth control methods.
2-Lots of women in Africa are actually good catholics who only have sex with their husbands. But meanwhile, the husbands are having sex with prostitutes, with each other and with whoever's comes along, unprotected, and then spread aids to their wives and in many cases, unborn children. So these women are actually doing what you and the church consider to be the right thing but are contracting aids anyway, which could be prevented if their husbands used condoms.
3-The moral/spiritual subtext and consequence of the church still prefering to see people die than wearing condoms and even resorting to pseudo-science and outright lying (they've published articles "proving" that condoms are useless) to defend dogmas can't be positive. At least I don't see how.

And about your last paragraph, of course people in developed places still refuse to wear condoms and it causes lots of problems. But it would be much worse if they didn't have condoms and sexual education available to them as it is the case in Africa to a lot of people. I mean, just compare the percentage of HIV positive people in, say, Rwanda and anywhere in the western world.

Captain said:

You're being rather disingenuous by misrepresenting what I said. I never said or thought that it would be better to have people die than to have them wear condoms. You falsely framed my position and addressed the resulting strawman. Perhaps you used that tactic to avoid addressing my real point.

My main point remains the fact that millions of people, who aren't stupid animals, would be alive if they followed Church teachings on sexuality. The Catholic Church is *not* forcing anyone to engage in dangerous sexual activities, and they don't have the power to prevent independent groups from offering condoms and education. Look how well the non-Catholic tactics have worked, especially in places where educated people *refuse* to wear condoms because sex feels better without them.

[SensoUnico]

Maybe we should forget dogma and follow the ways of Jesus. He stopped a mob from stoning an adulterous woman and in Samaria at that well, he did not upbraid the woman who had had five relationships but was not married to any of the men, but commended her on her honesty. Be more tolerance and less judgemental. He never mentioned abortion, yet it must have happened then or homosexuality or that it was wrong to avoid pregnancies or anything sexual. The Bible is the answer not old men in fancy dress in palatial buildings removed from reality.

[KLI]

SensoUnico said:

Maybe we should forget dogma and follow the ways of Jesus. He stopped a mob from stoning an adulterous woman and in Samaria at that well, he did not upbraid the woman who had had five relationships but was not married to any of the men, but commended her on her honesty. Be more tolerance and less judgemental. He never mentioned abortion, yet it must have happened then or homosexuality or that it was wrong to avoid pregnancies or anything sexual. The Bible is the answer not old men in fancy dress in palatial buildings removed from reality.

Thats called faith, something which is a confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing that also does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. The same kind of faith is exhibited by Muslims, yet you find faults in that religion and if I recall, called it heresy. Unless you can prove your faith right, and other's wrong you cannot say "the Bible is the answer not old men in fancy dress..."

Now, im as faith driven as you are, but I long ago came to the conclusion that my faith cannot be proven by concrete methods, so why bother

[molika]

I believe the problem is related to people's perception of what other believers do. Most people, and I am generalizing here, base their view of God on other people's actions, behaviors, beliefs. Of course people are going to let us down. People are not perfect, nor are they God. Unfortunately, this rarely leads us to the concept that hey, there must be something wrong with us! This rarely leads us to repentance and reconciliation with God which I believe can only come through the redemptive power of Christ.

We continue to say, oh we cannot change. We behave this way because such and such happened to us in the past. We must maintain the 'right' to have sex outside marriage because we 'deserve' this luxury. If you believe the bible, upon which christianity is based whether it be catholic, protestant, orthodox, sex is for a husband and wife. The 'rules' to live by are written in the bible. Sometimes religions use these rules, twist them, bend, them or negotiate them out of existance. I am glad the catholic church stands up for the right to life and abstinence, if it didn't it would be contrary to the bible. The bottom line is that if we follow these rules as it is written in the bible our lives become simpler, things like aids, unwanted pregnancies and other ills of society cease to exist. I would like to live in such a world.

I agree that religion does not take care of the worst things in this world, in some cases religion creates the worst things in this world. However, God is not a religion. Jesus is not a religion. Religion if based upon the bible, nothing more and nothing less, can be used to educate, to bring people to repentance and acceptance of Christ, help the less fortunate, and provide a good example of what it is like to be christian. However, the bulk of this responsibility really falls on the individual and most of the time we fall quite short.

What we must remember is that religion is a human invention and is therefore flawed.

[vela]

molika said:

I believe the problem is related to people's perception of what other believers do. Most people, and I am generalizing here, base their view of God on other people's actions, behaviors, beliefs. Of course people are going to let us down. People are not perfect, nor are they God. Unfortunately, this rarely leads us to the concept that hey, there must be something wrong with us! This rarely leads us to repentance and reconciliation with God which I believe can only come through the redemptive power of Christ.

We continue to say, oh we cannot change. We behave this way because such and such happened to us in the past. We must maintain the 'right' to have sex outside marriage because we 'deserve' this luxury. If you believe the bible, upon which christianity is based whether it be catholic, protestant, orthodox, sex is for a husband and wife. The 'rules' to live by are written in the bible. Sometimes religions use these rules, twist them, bend, them or negotiate them out of existance. I am glad the catholic church stands up for the right to life and abstinence, if it didn't it would be contrary to the bible. The bottom line is that if we follow these rules as it is written in the bible our lives become simpler, things like aids, unwanted pregnancies and other ills of society cease to exist. I would like to live in such a world.

I agree that religion does not take care of the worst things in this world, in some cases religion creates the worst things in this world. However, God is not a religion. Jesus is not a religion. Religion if based upon the bible, nothing more and nothing less, can be used to educate, to bring people to repentance and acceptance of Christ, help the less fortunate, and provide a good example of what it is like to be christian. However, the bulk of this responsibility really falls on the individual and most of the time we fall quite short.

What we must remember is that religion is a human invention and is therefore flawed.

And how do you reconcile the fact that practically all those flawed religions (in Christianity) claim to be based on the Bible with the same arguments that you have presented here?

[molika]

And how do you reconcile the fact that practically all those flawed religions (in Christianity) claim to be based on the Bible with the same arguments that you have presented here?

Easy, don’t follow religion, follow God. If you follow God, you do not have to reconcile any religion.

If I believed that Adam and Eve existed and were expelled from the garden of eden for eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but that fruit gave them mystical powers where they could travel into outer space producing offspring for millions of planets in millions of galaxies. Then they returned to earth to fulfill the biblical prophesy of producing a bloodline to Noah which would eventually lead to Jesus. But you see Noah was actually a descendant of Eve from an affair she had with an alien from Mars so Jesus was really not of this world. So now all I have to do is produce is a set of ‘lost’ books of the bible purportedly found on an exploratory mission on Mars ‘proving’ my theory and bingo you would have a religion. A totally fictitious, blasphemous and ridiculous religion ‘based’ on the bible.

Now how do we know when something is truly based on the bible? We read the bible. We study it. Is that enough? Nope. If you do not repent of your sins and accept Jesus you do not receive the Holy Spirit. If you do not realize that you must repent you cannot understand why you need Christ. If you do not accept Christ you do not get the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit the words of the bible are little more than a story, Jesus little more than a man. With the Holy Spirit you read the words and believe and see the truth and validity of the Word, the deity of Christ. God does this on purpose. He wants you to choose Him. He wants you to seek Him. If we could just read the bible and say I am christian then we would have a lot of christians in this world, but does that make us followers of Christ? Does that make us right in the eyes of God?

Anyone can be ‘religious’. Not everyone follows God’s Word. My plan is to have life eternal with my Father in heaven so I do what He says to the best of my feeble, human ability.

[SensoUnico]

Actually, I only know the Bible as it is part of my "ethnic" group and I had no choice in the matter. I have no faith as such. I am a lapsed Christian. Islam, the submission to the way, is a heresy in Christian terms. The treatment of Jesus, his mother and other important Christian figures is herectical. Arius claimed Jesus was not the same substance as the Almighty and he was put down. To repeat, I have no religious faith, I am just offering an opinion to believers.

[vela]

molika said:

Easy, don’t follow religion, follow God. If you follow God, you do not have to reconcile any religion.
...
(TEXT TRUNCATED)
...
Anyone can be ‘religious’. Not everyone follows God’s Word. My plan is to have life eternal with my Father in heaven so I do what He says to the best of my feeble, human ability.

Your faith is praiseworthy, Molika. I'm sure that if you do your best as you say eventually you'll get the fruits of your labor!