Entry 971, on 2009-03-22 at 19:57:58 (Rating 5, Religion)
I know its easy to criticise religious leaders whose every action and word is subject to intense scrutiny, but I've got to ask: what's wrong with the Pope? Its one thing being completely out of touch with reality but when, for some inexplicable reason, billions of people follow your advice, you do have a great responsibility to lead those people sensibly.
For some reason the Catholic Church refuses to allow the use of contraceptives, in the current controversy specifically condoms. The Pope said the "cruel epidemic" of AIDS should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence rather than condoms. He continues by saying that the traditional teaching of the Church has proven to be the only fail-safe way to prevent the spread of HIV.
I'm not sure why he thinks his god has allowed this cruel epidemic to exist in the first place - presumably its something to do with deserved punishment or a long-term result of the Fall. Anyway, no doubt abstinence would be successful, but is it realistic? Of course not, and the Church should accept that and put the health of its suckers (uh, I mean followers) ahead of its unrealistic idealistic dogma.
In a related item the Pope has said that Catholics in Angola should reach out to those who believe in witchcraft and spirits. He has a good point. Those people already believe in superstitious mumbo jumbo. They should be quite easy to convert to an alternative form of superstition by converting to Catholicism!
But you can only recruit new members from undeveloped countries for a certain time. It will take a long time but eventually the Church will run out of victims. Killing them off at the rate of millions a year by allowing them to contract AIDS isn't helpful either (neither is having them trampled to death in crowds waiting to hear the Pope speak).
If you look at the Catholic Church's contraception rule (one which many of them ignore, I know) from a social evolutionary perspective you can see why it might have arisen. A church which encourages large families by banning contraception has more recruits from the next generation. It will inevitably win out over another church with smaller families. Note that the Church has extremely effective brainwashing techniques to capture people at a young age.
Its quite an effective system. I don't necessarily think it was planned that way, although it could easily have been, but that doesn't matter. Its evolution in action, but like evolution, it doesn't always lead to the best result. Message to the Pope: we need more intelligent design in the Church!
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