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[Fishersalwaysdie]

These days you pretty much have to be as fanatically christian as the pope or get married when your 12 to not have pre-marital sex.

But you're supposed to break the rules, that way the chain of guilt will keep you stuck with Christianity.

[LegoLord]

These days you pretty much have to be as fanatically christian as the pope or get married when your 12 to not have pre-marital sex.

I am most certainly not a fanatical christian, nor was I married at 12.  So there.

That said, the current pope is being stupid.  I'll agree with that.

[Andir]

These days you pretty much have to be as fanatically christian as the pope or get married when your 12 to not have pre-marital sex.

I am most certainly not a fanatical christian, nor was I married at 12.  So there.

That said, the current pope is being stupid.  I'll agree with that.

Because what you feel must be the true will of God!  So let's just do what we think is right since there's no real point in being taught by any one thing.  We can't trust the religious leaders, we can't trust the Bible, and we apparently can't trust ourselves (as in the Africans and their feelings.)  Right?  So by that regard, the true God is that which is followed by the majority share of those that agree on right vs. wrong.

I'm not pointing exclusively at you, but that's the mentality you have just portrayed.  The Africans are wrong for not protecting themselves, and anyone that keeps them from doing so is unjust to your "God."  (aka, what you feel is right, making everyone that disagrees with you wrong.)  Sure, this is on the topic of Aids, but this also applies to abortion, marriage age, food choices (beef, vegetables, cats, dogs, other humans...) and many other things.

So if it's not your "feelings" that you portray as the "will" of your god, what defines who's feelings are right?

[ChairmanPoo]

There was this catholic guy I know who actually made a good point in that regard; namely, that while condoms do work, they cost money, and, of course, you dont really solve anything if you send only supplies for one year and forget about the issue. (I guess we could expand this to other simmilar problems, too). Thus, he argued, abstinence education might make sense in that context, insofar it is fire-and-forget.

Personally, I doubt that this will work very well (because abstinence based programs failed in the US). But hey, if they want to try it (and will pay it out of their own pockets) more power for them.

[LegoLord]

Andir, stop being so argumentative.  I hardly see how you got that out of my post without wanting to see it.

[Neruz]

The problem with abstinence education is it doesn't work. When you attempt to abstain from sex you are pitting your will against your genes.

Your genes have had four and a half billion years worth of practice getting the life-form they're riding around in to reproduce. You've had, what, twenty? thirty years? Maybe a bit more if you're older.

Consider this; the genes around at the moment are the ones that were the best at reproducing themselves and killing off all the other ones. These genes are the best four and a half billion years of evolution has to offer.


What chance do you think you have? (Hint: Odds are not good.)

[Vester]

Not just genes. We people have a natural inclination to screw.

I reiterate that the Church is only obsessed with sexual ethics because of Emperor Constantine. That theory is unfounded but it's fun to uphold.

[LegoLord]

Before anyone rages, this guy only has eight-ish posts, all of which have smart alike comments.  Don't take that seriously.
Nevermind, he's already gone.  That was fast.

[Neruz]

Not just genes. We people have a natural inclination to screw.

Which would of course be because of our hormones, which are carefully tailored as a weapon against us by our genes.

The entire purpose of reproduction is to ensure the survival of our genes.

I reiterate that the Church is only obsessed with sexual ethics because of Emperor Constantine. That theory is unfounded but it's fun to uphold.

Actually it's all about control. Your basic desires, or 'needs' are food, drink, shelter, socialising and sex. Not neccesarily in that order. Non-social animals like Cheetahs cut out the socialising requirement of course. If you control people's access to one of these needs, you indirectly control the people themselves.

The church can't really control food and drink, and the local king or baron controls shelter and socialising (to a degree), so the only one left over is sex.


The churches, like any other form of government (and make no mistake, that's what they are), are simply looking for a way to control the people they govern. Controlling sex is an excellent way to do that.

[Vester]

Have you read 1984? That was a great look at exactly that situation.

It really should never have been about sex, though. I remember the gospels had very little to do with them. None of the beatitudes said "Blessed are they who refrain from fornication, for theirs is eternal fornication in heaven". Something must have gotten messed up along the way.

[Neruz]

Have you read 1984? That was a great look at exactly that situation.

It really should never have been about sex, though. I remember the gospels had very little to do with them. None of the beatitudes said "Blessed are they who refrain from fornication, for theirs is eternal fornication in heaven". Something must have gotten messed up along the way.

Of course the gospels aren't about sex; consider the time they were written in. Anyone in ~200 AD (or whenever) saying "You shouldn't have sex until you are married!" would have been laughed out of town.

It wasn't until later, when the church had attained a substantial modicum of power, that it was able to start exerting control over anything much.


The fact that the whole 'sex is unclean' thing remains in the majority of western culture today shows you just how much control the church successfully exerted.

[ChairmanPoo]

The problem with abstinence education is it doesn't work

Yeah, said as much

author: Myself
Personally, I doubt that this will work very well (because abstinence based programs failed in the US). But hey, if they want to try it (and will pay it out of their own pockets) more power for them.

The guy  based himself in some very flawed statistics from Uganda to try to support abstinence-based education (they were very flawed because they didnt take into consideration the fact that Uganda happens to have the cheapest condoms in all Africa which, you know, might be confounding the effect of the abstinence thing)

Nevertheless, the supplies problem that he brought up is a real problem. A problem not easy to address, unfortunatedly

Actually it's all about control. Your basic desires, or 'needs' are food, drink, shelter, socialising and sex. Not neccesarily in that order. Non-social animals like Cheetahs cut out the socialising requirement of course. If you control people's access to one of these needs, you indirectly control the people themselves.

I think that while there might be related to this to some degree, for the most part one should apply Hanlon's razor to this issue (Dont attribute it to malice if stupidity explains it well enough). They follow this simply out of dogma.

That being said, the christian mindset (and particularily, some of its nastier details, such as thoughtcrime) have played a significant role in events, I would say. But it's likely this is due to those ideas ending up becoming popular rather than some conscious design (I simply doubt they had some special insight into human nature).

I reiterate that the Church is only obsessed with sexual ethics because of Emperor Constantine.

Emperor Constantine invented  the church. He gathered the rabble-rousing christian cultists and made them into a very successful political lobby (for his own purposes, of course).

Anyway, I don't think they removed chunks out of individual books.

They did. http://rotten.com/library/religion/bible/historical-construction/new-testament/secret-gospel-of-mark/   (SFW)

They just removed whole books from canon.

Ireneus pretty much made canon in the first place. But you cant really blame the guy. There were lots of gospels made by every little christian cult. He chose for his holy book the ones that mostly fit with his own beliefs, obviously.

By the way: goes without saying that the gospels were NOT really written by Matthe, Mark, Lucas and... whoever...

Actually what I mostly care about is the basic "social justice" message. If the Catholic Church ever completely loses sight of that it can go right to hell.

The Catholic church was created by Constantine as a feudal power lobby (and he succeeded beyond anyone's expectations at that). They have never been very big on social justice. Except the "Liberation Theology" guys. Who were not many to begin with and are getting cracked down by the current heads.

[Neruz]

I think that while there might be related to this to some degree, for the most part one should apply Hanlon's razor to this issue (Dont attribute it to malice if stupidity explains it well enough). They follow this simply out of dogma.

That being said, the christian mindset (and particularily, some of its nastier details, such as thoughtcrime) have played a significant role in events, I would say. But it's likely this is due to those ideas ending up becoming popular rather than some conscious design (I simply doubt they had some special insight into human nature).

Ah, but somone had to create the dogma. And i'm not attributing it to malice; if you're in charge of a group of people, you will want to control them. Hell that's what being in charge means. And in the time periods when the churches were founded and become mainstream, controlling sex was an excellent way to control people.


It also seems highly unlikely that almost every religion known to man all latched onto the same method of control (via sex) completely by accident. You don't need a deep and meaningful insight into how people work to realise that by controlling sex, you control people.

[ChairmanPoo]

It also seems highly unlikely that almost every religion known to man all latched onto the same method of control (via sex)

Every religion? I thought the abrahamic ones were the only ones to get obsessed over the matter.

Ah, but somone had to create the dogma. And i'm not attributing it to malice; if you're in charge of a group of people, you will want to control them.

Yeah, but I think that attributting such psychological insights to the religion founders is giving them too much credit. I think they started it out of puritanism, and it turned out to work nicely.

[Neruz]

It also seems highly unlikely that almost every religion known to man all latched onto the same method of control (via sex)

Every religion? I thought the abrahamic ones were the only ones to get obsessed over the matter.

Ever read the Koran? Or hell, read Islamic law? Large chunks are dedicated to controlling women (and through them, sex.)

Yeah, but I think that attributting such psychological insights to the religion founders is giving them too much credit. I think they started it out of puritanism, and it turned out to work nicely.

It doesn't take much of an insight to realise that power over basic needs conveys control. Feudal leaders have been exerting power over food, drink and housing to keep their peasants in line for thousands fo years. Tribal leaders did the same thing (and in some cultures they did the same thing with sex as well, having the tribal leader designate wives and approve relationships). Control of sex = control of people is by no means a new idea.


Hell, animals show that. What do you think the leader of a Lion Pride is doing when he fights off a young male who wants to mate with the lionesses? He's securing the future for his own genes, and he's exerting control over the male. Animals do the whole food and drink thing too; see Wolves.