NetCynics Blog

A reasonable article highlighting some of the troubles with the Roman Catholic church: Pope says condoms are not the solution to Aids - they make it worse -Times Online

I can only second the opinion that those who don’t know what they’re talking about should stay quiet on the matter; and yet it’s not as though the Pope doesn’t have advisors so one would expect a little understanding to creep in somewhere.

I notice the inconsistency in position within the hierarchy - “use of condoms could sometimes be exceptionally condoned” - make your collective minds up, either their use is a sin or not, and we don’t go in for seeing it as this “lesser of two evils” rubbish.

Reading on “condoms had tiny holes in them” and referring to condoms as a `”net”‘, complete with scare-quotes, smacks of crude urban myth

There are two ways of looking at this that come to mind:

• First, this shows a lack of refinement in collective thought. There is no attempt to say “this is the best data we have, let’s plan accordingly”; the message is unclear. The message muddies the facts: there is some merit in saying that sexual abstinence will eliminate the spread of HIV+AIDS through sexual means, of course. That doesn’t take into account the facts that people still go at it like rabbits, or that there are other means of transmission that also need tackled. The message that condoms increase instance of the disease is completely wrong; it spreads because of those who, believing the RCC’s message, do *not* use condoms, rather than those who do!
• Secondly, it shows the RCC uses sex as a vector for control rather than freedom.

I doubt it’s the first, but it’s the first one I’ve noticed. A petition that doesn’t really understand the difference between a theory and a hypothesis.

It seems to start out well:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Expand the teaching of Scientific Hypotheses in schools.

Fine, if schools are teaching various hypotheses then, by all means, teach a few of them, and teach what it means for something to be a hypothesis. Sadly, very quickly, the detail of the petition descends into nonsense:

Darwinian Theory, as has been taught in schools for decades, is generally accepted as fact

Fair enough, and with good reason.

To be fair, we ask the Prime Minister to make it mandatory that Intelligent Design be taught as an equally plausible hypothesis.

Equally plausible to what exactly? The theory of evolution through natural selection? Hmm, okay, I wonder why you might think that makes perfect sense…

Evolution is taught on the basis of the religion (atheist)

Ahh, that’ll be why you think it makes sense. You think that a) atheism is a religion (it isn’t) and that evolution is taught because schools are, what, run by evil atheists? But, no matter, tell me why you think ID needs to be taught too, what’s the backing for that idea?

so Christians and others should be allowed to have their beliefs supported

Because there are no Christians who think that evolution is a good theory that explains the evidence, right?

And there IS scientifically valid evidence for ID, just as there appears to be for Evolution

Cute. Notice how there is evidence for ID but there appears to be evidence for evolution?

If this country bans one religion’s belief on how we came to be, we should abandon all religious beliefs - even atheist beliefs (evolution) and therefore, have no basis to question our existence- just accept it and move on. Thus putting and end to “science.” This is not recommended, however.

It’s hard to know where to start with this bit. First of all the author makes the normal mistake of thinking that atheism is a religion, then she makes the mistake of thinking that a belief in the theory of evolution is a required belief for an atheist and, worse yet, she also thinks that no Christian would ever believe that the theory of evolution is a sound theory.

I suggest the author go back to school and learn a) what an atheist is, b) learn what a Christian is, c) learn what a hypothesis is, d) learn what a theory is and, finally, learn that the world isn’t as black and white as she might think.