AIDS as a Security Threat

[Tom Odom]

Has condom use in Africa been demonstrated to decrease AIDS rates of transmission? I'd like to see some good numbers on that from someone who's budget doesn't depend on showing that metric.

Answer: Yes condom use reduces HIV transmission.

Is condom use a tough sell in Africa? Yes due to cultural mores

Does condom use vary according to religion? Yes

Since the Pope believes the soul is immortal, it is not in his interest to throw out a central issue within the church (monogamic sex within marriage) to satisfy people who ignore him and what he stands for anyway....

The point being they as African Catholics do not ignore him when it comes to condom use. Many males use the pronouncement as a reason not to use condoms.

If he did, he would be analogous to the moronic doctor's organizations who decry the private ownership of guns every year. Like the doctors, it's really not his bailiwick.

Agreed. He probably should NOT be addressing health issues as a matter of faith but he did make the pronouncement.

Tom

[120mm]

The point being they as African Catholics do not ignore him when it comes to condom use. Many males use the pronouncement as a reason not to use condoms.

Yet they have no compunction whatsoever to ignore the church's stance on sexual immorality.

Which is not surprising, as humans routinely shoot themselves in the foot and then bitch and moan because of all the blood on the floor.

[Tom Odom]

Yet they have no compunction whatsoever to ignore the church's stance on sexual immorality.

Which is not surprising, as humans routinely shoot themselves in the foot and then bitch and moan because of all the blood on the floor.

Partly true in applying that to the males....

Different matter when it comes to their wives.

Looks different when one realizes that as much as third of a population depending on the country is in the process of dying and many --HIV infected children--ignored nothing.

[George L. Singleton]

And how many angels can stand on the point of a pin?

Of course birth control, be it condums, the pill is a sound and necessary practice, and yes, of course it reduces the spreading of AIDS which happens today we all know between men and women, not just men and men.

We all know in our own families and among our friends good folks who happen to be Catholic who limit and control by use of the condum or the birth control pill the number of children they believe they can afford to raise and educate in today's complex world.

No, I do not support widespread abortion, but I do believe it is up to the woman involved to decide if they can afford mentally, physically, and fiscally to have a child or not. No, I do not support partial birth abortion, but I do support use of the morning after pill for women to be sure that they don't get pregnant when their life plan at that time does not yet include having children, yet.

Yes, President Obama, who I did not vote for, is moving to knock down constraints on stem cell research where fertilization to create life has not occurred. No, I don't support use of fertilized eggs for the sole and specific purpose of doing medical research.

Yes, as one who suffers from diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and other annoying diseases I do support the vast range of possibilities being researched by use of stem cells in medical research. Too, I have family members who suffer from Crohn's Disease and it is possible that stem cell research can help them, too, and I am all for that.

In the Dark Ages "religion" [and I am a conservative Christian Protestant] was used both to help and to control and manage for hierarchial benefit the superstructure of the old Catholic Church. Competititon in religion, as in any other "business" is good and religious competition has helped bring an end to some absurd and false Protestant & Roman dogma while it has also helped enlighten and improve the use of more in common dogma which is sound and Biblically based and justifiable.

Many of us Protesants and Catholics prefer to live religious values by our personal witness and allow others their witness be it the same or different. We are all still Christians. Grace is the operative term in being a Christian, not "law" as was the process in the Old Testament.

The same cannot be said for Islam where the extremists will kill those who they "judge" to be wrong in their belief, understanding, and practice of Islam. Yes, I know, you can point to ancient Christian wars, but I am talking about today, 2009, and don't give a tinkers damn about a handful of idiots in Northern Ireland trying to resurrect the worst days of the old now defunct IRA. That was and is peanuts comparedn to today's religious terrorists and the killings and maiming they continue to inflict.

This discussion can go on and on, endlessly.

What works for one Christian may not always work for another, so we have freedom of religion, and the important feature of our culture, separate of church and state, which I heartily support. I oppose on religious grounds same sex marriages and in the military I oppose homosexuality as a security, health, and in the interests of good discipline threat. I am a qualfied as in limited proponent of abortion "to save the life of the mother" but in general I would like to see abotion avoided where and when possible. But still in the final analysis my belief it that the choice of abortion or not should be left up in the final analysis to the woman involved, not to any cleric or special interest group trying to impose their dogma on all others.

So AIDS is a real threat to the military, abortion while not a wholesale answer to life's problems has a place that I find best determined by the woman involved, but allowing my reservation in that I do oppose 100% partial birth abortions.

Finally, regarding celebacy and ancient church history. One of our family lines is Gillis, and descends from an early 1400s Irish Catholic priest sent from Ireland to the highlands of Scotland, where he married and had 12 children. Priests in ancient history in outlying parishes and nations often married and had families, there was and is nothing wrong with that. Celebacy is a dogma, it is not a scriptual edict. Early Popes were married. Economic considerations to keep the early church going were claimed as an excuse to start the practice of celebacy, together with misinterpretations and/or misunderstandings of the fact that St. Paul seemingly had a miserable marriage and thus advocated celebacy as his reaction to his own miserable marriage.

End of "pontifications" from a separation of church and state advocate who neverthleless is anti-homosexual as such practice is anti-Scriptual but who finds God's williness to grant his grace in circumstances where birth control (condums, the pill, etc.) are a good measure of manage one's own family finances.

[120mm]

Economic considerations to keep the early church going were claimed as an excuse to start the practice of celebacy, together with misinterpretations and/or misunderstandings of the fact that St. Paul seemingly had a miserable marriage and thus advocated celebacy as his reaction to his own miserable marriage.

Celibacy in the priesthood is generally understood by the historians that I hang around with as a way to keep church lands and titles monolithic and to prevent issues (pardon the pun) of inheritance of lands and churchly titles.

Paul himself did not advocate celibacy, despite his own celibate nature. In fact, he warned against it, unless the individual involved just didn't have sexual hunger.

The Bible is pretty clear on what it takes to be a church leader. Married to one wife, with children, and a demonstrated easy temperment and knowledge of the law.

And, Christ did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. All the commandments (but not the dogma or ceremonial law) are still in full effect. But being that even the truest believer sins by their nature, you really can't judge another. Having said that, you also aren't called to be blind to right or wrong.

[George L. Singleton]

Thanks for your opinions on religion.

I am sure you like as I do the great Hymn, AMAZING GRACE.

Have a good weekend.