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Catholicism

Jesus, Mo, and Ratzinger

As a follow-up to Craig’s post about Pope Ratzinger, a Jesus and Mo comic seems exceptionally appropriate.

Jesus and Mo - Visit

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I smell a RAT-zinger!

The Emperor of CatholicismWhy is the head of the world’s largest cult not in prison…you know, the Pope? I’m not sure why the “current” Catholic sex scandal is making such news. It has been known and documented for years that Ratzinger was the author of the Catholic policy to move child molesters rather than prosecute them. The scope of the Catholic child raping may be larger then originally thought but Ratzinger was always known to be the man in charge of the cover up. This has never been in question.

Now, more to the point. Why is the Pope not being prosecuted for his support (by willful inaction) of child rape and torture?

Imagine a school where young children were being raped. Now imagine the Superintendent of that particular school district KNEW that one of his teachers was raping children and that his solution to the problem was to transfer that school teacher to another school within the district. Now,  let’s pretend that this teacher had raped 50 children. Forgetting any legal culpability, would their be any moral culpability on the part of the Superintendent? You’re damn right there would be.  Last but not least, pretend this happened at your child’s school and that your child was one of the 50 children raped!

This hypothetical situation is tame when compared to the real Catholic sex scandals. The real scandal involves   (I’m being WAY conservative) priests and thousands of children worldwide! It has become virtually institutionalized within the Catholic priesthood.

This one goes out to all of you Catholics out there.  How could you voluntarily continue to be part of an organization that would allow this man to act as it’s moral authority? If you really don’t have an answer to that question just ask yourself this. What would Jesus do?

Obama to meet with Benedict XVI

President Obama meets with Pope Benedict XVI President Obama is scheduled to meet with Pope Benedict XVI today. I don’t know if anything interesting will come of it, but it will probably be an intriguing meeting if you were a fly on the wall.

With the conservative vs. liberal views and the disagreements on abortion and stem cell research in particular, there could potentially be some uncomfortable moments, but I trust that Obama will handle it well.

It will be interesting to see if Obama gives another shout-out to non-believers, but I doubt that will happen. It’s probably not the appropriate venue for atheist talk. However, there might be some talk about Islam which could spice up the meeting.

I don’t have much confidence that the meeting will accomplish anything productive or beneficial other than, perhaps, some small modicum of camaraderie. When you meet with someone who thinks that condoms increase the spread of AIDS, wafers turn into flesh, dead men walk, and omnipotent beings communicate via burning shrubbery, it’s seriously tough to get a rational message to have any effect.

Maybe they’ll just talk about helping poor people.

The Pope Seems Pro-HIV

Today, Pope Benedict XVI stated, while en route to Africa to address the continent’s “grave problems and painful wounds”, that condoms do not help stem the spread of HIV, but actually make it worse.

Here’s the quote.

You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem.

In another related quote, he said,

[AIDS] is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems.

The Catholic Church promotes “abstinence education” and opposes methods of birth control, including condoms. Perhaps the Pope was using statistics such as the ones in this article which state that even though the number of condoms has increased, so has the number of people infected with HIV.

[Edward Green] wrote Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning From Successes in Developing Countries and reported that, between 1989 and 2001, the average number of condoms per male ages 15 to 49 in African countries skyrocketed. So did the number of those infected with HIV. South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe had the world’s highest levels of condom availability per man. They also had the world’s highest HIV rates.

At first glance, that sounds bad for proponents of condom usage for AIDS prevention. However, it says nothing about condom usage, only condom availability. The hardest part about promoting condom usage in places like South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe is overcoming the social aversion to condom usage. Education is key, and with church representatives like Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo running around saying things like this

The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the ‘net’ that is formed by the condom. […] These margins of uncertainty… should represent an obligation on the part of the health ministries and all these campaigns to act in the same way as they do with regard to cigarettes, which they state to be a danger.

…educating people is a nearly insurmountable struggle against a increasing rise of deliberately orchestrated ignorance and misinformation. The Catholic Church, because of its adherence to faith-based dogma, is working directly against efforts that are proven, when given the chance, to reduce the spread of HIV.

According to the World Health Organization (information from the same article above), “consistent and correct” condom usage reduces the risk of HIV infection by 90%. Given that the WHO bases their statements on science and research, I’d say that they’re at least a little more reliable regarding medical issues than an organization that bases its beliefs on a 2,000 year old holy book.

The Pope’s statements are irresponsible and ethically bankrupt at best.

Omnipotence in Question

God is omnipotent… or so we are told.

Dictionary.com defines “omnipotent” as:

1. almighty or infinite in power, as God.
2. having very great or unlimited authority or power.

I’m going to go with the first definition since this is the one that would undoubtedly apply to “God” of Christianity and Catholicism and to “Allah” in Islam. I’ve never heard a religious person say that their god has only limited power, so I think it’s a fair assumption that the first definition is applicable.

The question is often posed to theists, “If God (from here on, also meaning Allah) is all-powerful, why is there disease (or imperfection or evil or disbelief, etc)?” The answer invariably boils down to a “free will” argument. Summarized, God created everything in a state of perfection, but gave man free will to choose his own actions. Man then chose the “wrong” path (eating the apple) and that was pretty much the end of perfection. After that, we basically drove off the genetic cliff which explains why some people wear glasses, some get cancer, some need braces, etc.

(I’m going to leave aside the argument that perhaps Adam wasn’t perfect if he was capable of choosing the wrong path, therefore God didn’t make a perfect creation, therefore God isn’t perfect… or omnipotent.)

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