Pope tells Africa 'condoms wrong'

Originally Posted by Julian

Are they not just guilty of the natural animal instinct for race/tribe survival?

They know a myriad of different things will take many of their offspring, so they produce more to hopefully ensure the continuation of the family tree.

If they failed to do that the future of their race/tribe/creed could be threatened.

maybe they are but if that is the case they do not need our support just let nature take its course

[Maribel]

Most people in Africa do not have education. Priests play important role in Africa. I heard an idiotic catholic priest in South Africa saying Aids can go through the molecules of condoms....

What the Pope is doing, is a massive crime

Originally Posted by Osem

Perhaps if it were affluent European Catholics being struck down by Aids en masse the Pope would have a different sermon.

no he would not it is their doctrine "every sperm is sacrad every sperm is great if a sperm is wasted god gets quite irate"

[lucy7]

Originally Posted by chuzzlemonkey

*takes his 12 pack of mates back to tesco*

Maybe the popes just a big fan of bareback?

Whats bareback mean please?

[Maribel]

Originally Posted by lucy7

Whats bareback mean please?

animal without a saddle it's a metaphor

[chuzzlemonkey]

Google it? Its probably best we don't take this thread down that road.

EDIT:::

Or Maribel can explain for me!

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Ok this is not going to be liked but why do we keep on insisting on helping these people? we constantly see adverts asking for money save a staving child etc. They breed like rabbits its not the rest of the worlds fault. If science is to be believed a very large part of Africa will be uninhabitable by the end of this century all these Africans will be migrating north and south then in the millions the more you keep alive the bigger problem it will be. If they are 3rd world and not trying to help themselves leave them to the mess

Well thankfully £57 million worth of donations to Comic Relief suggests many people disagree with you ...

A high birth rate is simply characteristic of an undeveloped, or developing, society. The birth rate is high because the death rate is high. Families have lots of children, knowing that the chances of all those children surviving to adulthood are small. The same was the case in this country until about the end of the 19th century.

As a society develops, first the death rate falls, then after a lag the birth rate falls as well. That's where India is at at the moment, but only just. They have had decades of high birth rates and falling death rates, which is why there's about a billion of them right now.

Africa has a number of major problems, and some of them are our doing. The major colonial hangover is the fact that what infrastructure is there, was generally designed to allow us to get natural resources from the interior to the coast, so it could be shipped off to wherever we needed it. We did very little about connecting territories together. That makes communications, including trade, between modern African nations more difficult than it should be. We also carved up the land according to the colonial aspirations of European countries rather than the natural allegiances of the native populations. In some cases we created divisions that didn't exist before. That has been a recipe for conflict in Africa's post-colonial era.

And Africa, far from being overpopulated, is actually very underpopulated. As well as lacking financial wealth, it lacks much of the manpower required to haul itself out of poverty.

Anyway, to the topic. I think people are taking a fairly unsophisticated view of why Herr Ratzinger is promoting non-use of condoms. It's as much to do with the Catholic view that Every Sperm is Sacred (cue Monty Python) as it is about making a point about abstinance being the best way to avoid STDs. I'm not saying I agree with him, just that he deserves to be engaged with and argued against on the terms he's set out rather than a distortion of them.

I know this is going to sound callous but you help more of them stay alive they breed like rabbits spread aids and ask for help you help more of them stay alive they breed like rabbits spread aids and ask for help and so on

You says its underpopulated but thats only cuz a good portion of the land mass is pretty inhospitable

One thing that always makes me wonder is when they say such and such has to walk 20 miles every morning to get water. Why aint they just moved nearer the water

No - it's underpopulated because the problems of disease and famine are so severe. There are more people dying than there are being born.

History has shown, time and time again, that if you improve healthcare and living standards, death rate drops, then birth rate drops. People don't have massive families for the fun of it. They have massive families because it's the only way to ensure anyone survives from one generation to the next.

If we help more of 'them' stay alive, in the long term it will stabilise the continent and the birth rate will level out by itself.

until they move north

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by chuzzlemonkey

Agreed, however, they should take responsibility for their own rabbit-like existance.

I have to agree with Zinglebarb on this one, I don't see why others should be asked to pay. Give your charity money to kids in the UK

Or give it to the chuzzlemonkey charity

You do know that for every dollar donated in aid we take four out of the continent dont you? With 'aid' like that coupled with us propping up at times some of the worlds biggest nut jobs is it any wonder the place is a mess, comic relief, the biggest joke of all is that we think our interfering is doing them a favour.

[lucy7]

Rabbit like existance???

What an inflammatory choice of words!

Lack of education and finance and general leadership, and yes at times lack of moral standards maybe, but come on now.....

[chuzzlemonkey]

Originally Posted by lucy7

Rabbit like existance???

What an inflammatory choice of words!

Lack of education and finance and general leadership, and yes at times lack of moral standards maybe, but come on now.....

I meant its cus they hump loads. Not cus they live in rabbit holes! lol

[nomadking]

It's strange that other species are intelligent enough to focus their efforts on ensuring the survival of their existing offspring rather then having loads more of them. The species that have the most offspring tend to be the ones that aren't bothered how many survive and don't take much care of them. Even an amoeba has the 'intelligence' to stop reproducing when times are hard.

If a high death rate is the reason for large families, then surely any new child would be to replace one that died which would mean that although there may be a large number of births the total children alive at any point in time is not large.

Condoms are far from 100% effective against pregnancy, which when you factor in other reasons why a pregnancy may not occur(eg wrong time of fertility cycle) they will be even less effective against HIV. Then there are the times when regular condom users forget, are unwilling, or are unable(eg drunk) to use them.

There was a study that a while back recently found that a third(yes that many) of homosexual men who knew that they carried HIV continued to have unprotected sex. So education and knowledge of condoms doesn't even come close to solving anything.

BBC News Website

A third of gay men who know they are HIV positive are still having unprotected sex, a study suggests.

[Lord Nikon]

This could be the REAL reason the pope is trying to undermine the fight against aids...