tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post4813037916806132158..comments2009-04-11T06:18:25.501+01:00AMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-91510835448531210542009-04-11T06:18:00.000+01:002009-04-11T06:18:00.000+01:00A useful link, to which I am indebted to Damian O'Loan for providing.<BR/><BR/><BR/>http://belfasttobrussels.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/the-popes-contribution-to-neo-nazi-propoganda/AMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-39450814649144447552009-04-02T23:54:00.000+01:002009-04-02T23:54:00.000+01:00Anonymous said: "But you would be shutting down an awful lot of hospitals, aid, medicine, nurse workers, and people who go into the areas of Africa others won't". I think one has to recognise that catholics who dedicate their lives to humanitarian aid are probably representative of people who would spend their life in this type of work anyway, whatever their religion or lack thereof. After all there are many other organisations like Medecins Sans Frontiers, Oxfam or Emergency which are not moved by a religious ethos and which are staffed and supported by no less worthy individuals. The official doctrine of the church is, on the other hand, promulgated by a group of male celebates who often live together in obedience to certain rules. Have you ever wondered why they seem obsessed with sex and human reproduction while sins against other commandments seem to get much shorter shrift? <BR/>AlexAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-49534670825044105832009-04-02T23:48:00.000+01:002009-04-02T23:48:00.000+01:00Anonymous, some interesting comments. There is a much better link on Green than the one you provided. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/03/aids_expert_who_defended_the_p.html .<BR/>While he is not without merit his defences did not bear up too well against the scrutiny and probing of Crawley. <BR/>For those of us who are not scientists but who take our lead from science because it really has no competitors that explain the world, the scientific evidence is heavily in favour of the use of condoms as a strategy of prevention. Green, despite backing Ratzinger, nevertheless diverges from him on his position on condoms distribution. Point is, whatever view Green holds, with the evidence available should condoms be made available or not? The answer seems a clear yes and Ratzinger is contemptible in opposing it. There is nothing wrong with his other recommendations, even if made for reasons that have more to do with religious observance than with real life situations, but to suggest no condoms, and to undermine aid packages if they contain condoms, seems malign.<BR/>Yes, there are good people in the church who do good work abroad. I give to SVP because I see them doing good with my own eyes. But if you are suggesting that there is some necessary link between behaving ethically and religion, I reject that entirely.<BR/><BR/>Hitler Youth – debunked? It’s hard to see this comment as something other than an attempt to mislead. Given the weak Green link I would have expected at least some link showing, as you clearly imply, that Ratzinger was not in the Hitler Youth. It would have taken you at most five minutes. Are you telling me he was not in it? Because that is what a literal interpretation of your remarks would conclude. I said nothing other than that he was. So there is no space to debunk anything other than the comment that he was in the Hitler Youth. I guess you will search google for five years without coming up with evidence that Ratzinger was not in the Hitler Youth. I defend my Hitler Youth comment on polemical grounds rather than analytical ones, for its scorn value above shock value. It can hardly have been said for shock value given that no one can be shocked. It is probably more of a shock to learn that he was not in it so I await your link. Hopefully you do not give me a link telling us that he was in it ‘but, however, yet, nevertheless …’ That would only sound like ‘While President Clinton smoked a joint he didn’t inhale.’ To which I would only say, ‘aye, right’.<BR/>Moreover, the Hitler Youth comment invokes wider imagery of the church’s disgusting stance during the war including the German church and the Vatican. And in a more nebulous way it drifts into the totalitarianism of Ratzinger and the way he operated purging dissidents within the church. <BR/>Of course I would like to see the back of the church; it disbanded and its clerics decommissioned. But the only way of achieving that would be draconian so I would not go for that option. It has the right to exist like any other body of opinion, should it be a football supporters club, a Satanist society, or a tree worshipping group. So I would not lobby for it to be banned. I would oppose faith schools of all types including CMS. It is not just the involvement of Catholic clerics in widespread chid rape and the hierarchy’s complicity in the cover up that makes me loathe to see them near schools, simply my own view that schooling should be the responsibility of the state in society not the clerics. Religion could be taught in schools but only as a phenomenon and not as a truth. <BR/><BR/>So I can write about the peace process all I want but get back into my box when it comes to superstition? Not a chance.AMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00559413440743290550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4807238897188927967.post-64386690522512115062009-04-01T02:54:00.000+01:002009-04-01T02:54:00.000+01:00Anthony,<BR/><BR/>While I understand that your desire to promote secularism frequently leads you to attack the Catholic Church, the merits of this particular issue are far far more complicated than you allow in your post or indeed what the papers would have us think.<BR/><BR/>While I will not defend Cardinal Trujillo's absurdities, Pope Benedict's comments deserve a fairer hearing. Edward Green, AIDS researcher at Harvard University agreed with the Pope's remarks, (http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=102138) While plenty of assertions have been made about the Vatican's influence and destructive attitude on this issue, no one has presented one shred of evidence that Catholic populations have higher rates of infection than Africa's Muslim, animist, or atheist populations? Do Mass goers, those you know most likely to actually listen to the Pope acquire the virus in a higher proportion than non-Mass goers? There is no evidence of this whatsoever. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps you would like the Catholic church to shut down and fold up. Fair enough. But you would be shutting down an awful lot of hospitals, aid, medicine, nurse workers, and people who go into the areas of Africa others won't. I'm sorry that's not been your experience with the Church, and that's fine but realize that not everyone's experience. It is supreme foolishness to pretend that only the Catholic church has a set of pre-existing ideas on sexual matters that it embraces as it does its work, the liberationist sexual ethic that flourishes in the West (and undergirds many aid organisations) is just as much a pre-existing cultural belief, that amounts to imperialism in its own way when exported to other areas of the globe which reject that ethic.<BR/><BR/>I regret that your writings on the Church is undermined by ridiculous juvenille comments (the Hitler Youth comment is as debunked as can possibly be for someone who takes 5 minutes to research the facts, but I suppose that would get in the way of the shock appeal, no different than a Rangers supporter in that regard), whilst your writings on the North and the "peace process" are brilliant models of clarity and rational discourse.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com