The Funny Side of Religion

kylith

GarIT wrote: »

I myself am of the view that generally religion and their rules/teachings are bad things. However, there is a claim that AIDS in Africa is not helped by the RCC/Christian(some denominations) teaching that contraception is bad/forbidden, but people forget that these religions that forbid the use of condoms also forbid sex outside of marriage, so overall the teachings of the RRC would greatly slow the spread of AIDS if they were followed.

While I see your point, and accept that it is broadly true, it is a stance that completely ignores one of the main biological drives of humanity; to have sex as much as possible. Even in Holy Catholic Ireland in the 30s every one of my grandmother's brothers got married because they 'had to'. If AIDS had been around then we'd probably be looking at a similar health crisis here.

To say that the congregation should abstain from sex is pretty rich from a church whose clergy can't even manage it.

Penn

GarIT wrote: »

I myself am of the view that generally religion and their rules/teachings are bad things. However, there is a claim that AIDS in Africa is not helped by the RCC/Christian(some denominations) teaching that contraception is bad/forbidden, but people forget that these religions that forbid the use of condoms also forbid sex outside of marriage, so overall the teachings of the RRC would greatly slow the spread of AIDS if they were followed.

I agree in principle. The trouble is, it demonstrably doesn't work. Abstinence or sex only within marriage simply doesn't work for them. Now, why they adhere to not using condoms when they don't adhere to other sex-related rules is beyond me, but abstinence and sex only within marriage are what the Church promote over the use of condoms, and it simply isn't working. Freely distributed condoms and other contraceptives would have a much greater chance of working.

If the church did allow the use of condoms (or rather, didn't discourage people from using them) etc, the spread of Aids would be greatly reduced. Does it go against the Church's teachings? Yes. Would it save lives? Definitely. Which is more important?

Penn

Penn wrote: »

If the church did allow the use of condoms (or rather, didn't discourage people from using them) etc, the spread of Aids would be greatly reduced. Does it go against the Church's teachings? Yes. Would it save lives? Definitely. Which is more important?

Just to clarify, that wasn't a loaded question directed at you, GarIT, it was a rhetorical one directed at the church, and highlighting the point of the poster showing the correlation between AIDS and Christianity.

What's the beef with that poster? I can see no problem with the religion one, it looks accurate based on the little I know and wikipedia agrees. Here's a map with proportional data rather that absolute numbers of AIDS victims http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_in_Africa I don't see why anyone would be surprised since the crisis is generally referred to a crisis in Sub-Saharah Africa.

freyners

GarIT wrote:

However, there is a claim that AIDS in Africa is not helped by the RCC/Christian(some denominations) teaching that contraception is bad/forbidden, but people forget that these religions that forbid the use of condoms also forbid sex outside of marriage, so overall the teachings of the RRC would greatly slow the spread of AIDS if they were followed.

I think your forgetting that the whole "abstinence protects you from the bad consequences of marriage" is contradicted in the bible itself:p:D

Worztron

joseph brand

freyners wrote: »

Sorry mods for going O/T but i wanted to address this
As i said before, I highly doubt the graph is accurate, however it does highlight an important thing. Christianity's view towards contraception is not helping matters.

Also don't take me for anti religion. Most of my family/friends have their own faith and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. If people wish to worship whatever deity they want that's fine by me and I wont try to stop them from doing so. However when a religion forces their viewpoint on others or where their stances cause pain and suffering to vunerable people or minorities, thats when I, and I'd like to think most people, have a problem

If religious people aren't bothering you today, they could be, tomorrow. I have friends who don't think about religion. They're atheists, but it doesn't really cross their mind. They might pay more attention if they had kids in a catholic school, making their communion/ confirmation etc.

They rarely keep their religion to themselves. Just last week my dad was spouting on about 'queers' who like to 'bugger' and how they're different from him. "They wouldn't talk to me, or have anything to do with me . . something something . . . ." My mam and I gave him a disgusted look. You see, even in the quiet ones, the ignorance, bigotry, homophobia and general hatred lurks just under the surface.

I say we organise trains for all theists, to take them to death happy camps. :pac:

joseph brand

PopePalpatine

What a certain "Actor" gets up to...

Worztron

Worztron

CramCycle

Worztron wrote: »

I can't see it

Turtwig

Sarky

Bog memes?

Worztron

CramCycle wrote: »

I can't see it

Sorry. I edited the post. Can you see it now?

Turtwig

Worztron wrote: »

Sorry. I edited the post. Can you see it now?

They will if they open up their hearts to it.

Worztron

recedite

Yes, I can see it too!
In the beginning there was nothing, and out of the nothingness came the post. Truly it's a miracle.

Worztron

Turtwig

In town today overhead two people talking about their priest who recently had surgery.
"Ya'd miss the aul crater and his stories."
"Ya shur Jaysus ya would alright. . . But shur I'd say myself though, he makes most of em up."

robindch

A guy in Rome dresses up as JPII - gets arrested and fined:

http://www.thejournal.ie/fake-john-paul-ii-police-rome-904569-May2013/

If this had been a christian, quite possibly there'd be calls of "Persecution!"

TheJournal wrote:

A SLOVAK STREET performer dressed in white papal vestments has been detained and fined by the police in Rome for bearing too close a resemblance to the late John Paul II, the police said today.

“The problem was that he looked a lot like Karol Wojtyla. He was detained for usurpation of title which is a misdemeanour,” a police spokeswoman told AFP. “The cassock he was wearing has been confiscated,” she added. The man has been released and will have to pay between €154 and €929 euros, depending on a decision by a judge, the spokeswoman said.

Another officer at the station where the 55-year-old man was taken quipped: If he had been dressed like Tutankhamun nothing would have happened. The performer has been working the main avenue leading up to the Colosseum in his white skullcap for weeks — alongside Roman centurion imitators and other performers — but police said they acted following an anonymous complaint.

A vendor selling miniature Colosseum souvenirs on a spot overlooking the Roman Forum said he saw the man being detained on Thursday. “He was right here, near me. He was taken away by two officers in civilian clothes who were pretending to be tourists,” he said.

Obliq

robindch wrote: »

A guy in Rome dresses up as JPII - gets arrested and fined:

http://www.thejournal.ie/fake-john-paul-ii-police-rome-904569-May2013/

If this had been a christian, quite possibly there'd be calls of "Persecution!"

Ha! I heard this on the early morning bbc news - couldn't find an article about it to post here at that hour, but I liked when they said "He was stripped of his vestments".

robindch

Obliq wrote: »

"He was stripped of his vestments"

Kinky!

Worztron

FunkForYourAss

Bannasidhe

FunkForYourAss wrote: »

What the hell is George Washington doing there?

Is it Timey-Wimey stuff?

Worztron

Brian Shanahan

Bannasidhe wrote: »

What the hell is George Washington doing there?

Shows you how little the religious nut-bags in the US know about their own history. The best guess on Washington's religious position was that he was Deist, i.e. he believed in a conscious creator, but he wasn't the nosy busy-body psychopath god of the abrahamic beliefs.

But then again this is the crowd that believe the "wall of seperation" clause means that a certain form of christianity* is the only religion allowed in the US and all non-believers should be rounded up and shot/deported to a CIA torture chamber.

*Depending on who you talk to.

Turtwig

Not sure where to post this but the communion thread reminded me of this.
The following are reasons why communion is not cannibalism.

I've abridged it a tiny bit.(Every attempt has been made to fully reflect context and tone.)

The Eucharist is life. Cannibals eat what is dead. The Aztecs, the most notorious cannibalistic society in history, ate the beating hearts of victims, but they were still eating something doomed to die, and in the act of eating, it did die. By contrast, Christ, is alive. He rose on the third day, and is present in the Eucharist as fully alive (indeed, He is Life itself). . .

The Eucharist is the whole body and blood of Jesus Christ. Cannibals only take a part of their victims. But even the smallest particle of the Eucharist contains the entire body and blood of Christ. . .

The Eucharist is the glorified body of Jesus Christ. . . when a Catholic receives the Eucharist, he is receiving not just flesh but glorified flesh, a resurrected and transfigured “super body” that foreshadows the new reality of a new Heaven and a new earth. Cannibalistic practices don’t do that.

The Eucharist contains the soul of Jesus Christ. Some cannibalistic societies eat the flesh or drink the blood of fallen warriors in the hopes of taking on their “life force” or their courage, or of destroying their spirit altogether. Yet precisely because the risen Jesus is alive, His immortal soul is united to His body and blood, and inseparable from them in the Eucharist.

...
Jesus Christ is true God and true man, His divinity and His humanity are also inseparable. Consequently, in partaking of the human “aspects” of Christ (His body, blood, and soul), we also partake of His divine nature. This stands in sharp contrast to cannibals such as the Binderwurs of central India, whose flesh-eating religious rituals tried to bring them closer to the gods, but made them sink lower than most beasts...
The Eucharist consumes us. When you eat food, it becomes a part of you. With the Eucharist, however, the opposite happens. We become a part of it, that is, in Holy Communion, we are made a part of the mystical body of Christ...
The Eucharist is nonviolent. . . Cannibalism is inherently violent and usually predicated on the assumption that the victim is guilty of a crime against a society (usually they are prisoners of war).

...from a metaphysical perspective, we can consider all cannibalistic customs (as opposed to those induced by derangement or starvation) as a perverse and even demonic mimicry of our Holy Communion with the risen Lord. . .

Most anthropologists believe that cannibalism is intrinsically religious in nature. Just as all pagan blood-sacrifices were distorted knock-offs of the one true Sacrifice of Calvary (even if they took place before the Crucifixion), so too all ritual acts of cannibalism are a distorted attempt to replace the Bread of Life with the mammon of one’s own iniquity. . .

[Conclusion]In this respect Holy Communion is actually the supreme instance of anti-cannibalism, an exposé of all evil impostors for what they are. Jesus made the difference clear enough when He referred to Himself as the “Living Bread”

Source.

Tl;dr. It's not cannibalism because cannibalisms involves eating dead people. The Eucharist is alive and divine flesh. Totally different!

Ok, this is just a random page from the web. It's possible that better defences of the Eucharist exist.
I fecking hope so. Because that, above, is just so friggin silly.
*snigger*

Kivaro