Human Too Human

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Mario Savio, Free Speech protest leader

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Thursday, November 27, 2003

The concept of normality or abnormality always presupposes a given point of view and a relevant orthodoxy developed around it. The most abhorrable (to current sensitivity) acts have been committed in the past and were considered absolutely normal, and many of commonly shared views and behaviours of individuals and nations will be considered abnormal by future orthodoxies, studied, at best, with the indulgent smile of the historian, providing the entertainment typical of the quaint and the different.

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

I have just posted a comment on the PFA association in my other blog. I suppose it would have been more pertinent here, but too late!

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Alohalani wrote an interesting article on sex amongst teenagers and the necessity of a thorough sexual education. The numbers she reports are eloquent and are those from which any policy regarding sexual education should start, rather than proceeding with a top-down approach from abstract impractical views.

Saturday, November 15, 2003

Pharisaical charity

Some Christians wear a feminized facade of piety and devoutness, well displayed with acts and with words, declared, boasted to feed their vanity, their wish to appear, above all to themselves and then to others, morally elevated. They comply with prescriptions and feel that their compliance confers to them a quality, a grace which distinguish them from the rest of the (sinning) humanity.

For such people the respect of a law does not proceed directly from a solid, grounded vision operating within themselves, humble and self-assured, but is s a toll willingly paid (even at the expense of common sense, rationality, or intellectual honesty) in order to receive an immediate narcissistic reward of vanity (self-gratification and halo of righteousness proportional to the performed and exhibited piety, devoutness and diligent respect of religious prescriptions), and secondarily the great reward of immortality. Whereas moral behaviour should be self-sufficient, disinterested, performed independently of any perspective of reward and, above all, foreign to the gratification of one's vanity. The contrary of this is what Christians call negatively a pharisaical attitude, except that, closely looking, some Christians behave exactly like pharisees.

They forget the lesson of St. Matthew ("Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?"), and that of St. Paul, when he stresses the importance that each person be convinced in his or her own mind of the prescription followed (Romans, 14:1-12). Each one is accountable for each actions to one’s own conscience, that is the only area of acceptable moral confrontation, and the only judge is oneself and, for those who believe, God, certainly not the pharisees hypocrites who should learn to show their devoutness with silence rather than with sententious foolish words.

These Christians are a living contradiction of the very Christian concept of charity which should never assume or presume sin or evil in the fellow man, and who should not judge ("Who are you to pass judgment on another’s servant? Before his own master he stands or falls.") or expect a mere unconvinced respect of any law, but only live according to what they think is right, without boastings, and without pious prayers stated and amplified to the whole world to exhibit a revoltingly superficial appearance of charity which, in reality, is only self-indulgence, vanity, arrogance, acridness and hypocrisy. The ironic thing is that even they themselves know of this and yet they indulge in this and judge others. Their bad faith (in psychological terms) is so obvious that it does not fail to be known to themselves and to those who are exposed to their behaviour but don't let themselves be impressed by their pretense of piety.

For these people, the following passage is most appropriate: "You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

Weird how no one of the usual Catholic readers (I am not referring to idiotic 'pious' hypocrites and/or provokers who don't know how to address matters properly and who are not welcome) have had any comment on my post on November 04. Particularly, DrChrist ignored the whole thing, despite the fact that it was obviously a reply to one of his posts. And by a reply from him I mean a detailed point-by-point reply on each single aspect mentioned in my post. The points were five:

On top of the above, in the first part of my post I had explained why the church does not live in the present. Mind you, not that a reply is really necessary, but DrChrist is often quick in saying "this and that are false" etc., but tends to dodge precise point-by-point replies on opposed arguments that prove him wrong. I guess that might mean he agrees!

On the topic of dogmatism, instead of critically replying to my posts (on November 7th, The Evil of Dogmatism, and Again on the evils of dogmatism), he wrote a short sentence to attempt to counteract my argument with a sophism ("Your statement that 'dogmatism in all its forms cannot be accepted' sounds awfully dogmatic to me") and, probably, since that did not produce the hoped effect, only later did he say it was meant "as a joke and not as a rebuttal", and then simply wrote an amusing question such as "what is truth?", which showed he had not even read my posts: my posts against dogmatism were EXACTLY on the fact that a truth is NOT a proposition claimed as true without proof. Which is what dogmatism is about.

I have no doubt that DrChrist finds it more interesting to comment extensively on Britney Spears, and prefers to write quick "jokes and not rebuttals" to comment a post of mine, there is nothing wrong with that. But if so, he should then abstain from implying in his blog that I don't want to reply to a question. First he should read what I write carefully, and only after he should pose a question. And in case he does not agree with something, he should attempt to write a serious rebuttal (not a theologic one, which can be used with his fellow seminarians but not with others, as a theologic argument cannot have a universal scientific reliability) and not sophistic jokes that lead nowhere.

Elementary statements regarding truth


1. Truth is the correspondence of a proposition to a fact or reality.

2. The correspondence between a given proposition and reality must be testable and proved, otherwise the proposition cannot be considered true, but an unverified claim or a hypothesis.

3. Accepting a proposition even if not proved, means one has faith in whom expresses it, but does not make the proposition true. It only means the unverified claim is shared.

4. A proposition always originates from a human being.

5. Therefore any type of faith (acceptance of unproved proposition/s) is merely faith in some human beings and their words and pretensions, either spoken or written.

6. An unproved proposition expressed by "A" equals any unproved proposition expressed by "B": they are all unproved claims, whatever differences they may have in terms of originality, imagination or complexity.

7. In the pursuit of truth, in any debate or investigation, in the building of knowledge, there cannot be any space allowed to unproved propositions. If unproved propositions were allowed then any proposition should be allowed. An unproved proposition should be considered equal to silence or gabbling or noise, in other words is nil.

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Persisting ancient beliefs in magic and in supernatural beings could, in their bizarreness, even be ignored, unless one were interested in the various manifestations of eccentricity humans can have or were conducting anthropological studies.

The only reason why they cannot be completely ignored by anyone with a bit of interest for the well-being of our society, is that such beliefs, with their dogmatism, have an impact in the proper dialectics people should have when debating over a matter. When discussing a given topic (social policies, science etc.), there is always a lunatic that stands up and says :"Hold! This is wrong, because God does not want this". How can you discuss with somebody who self-appoints himself as a representative of a contrived supernatural being?

Why one should not define oneself atheist

The time has come to get rid of atheism. There is undoubtedly something excessive in proclaiming one's belief that God does not exist. It simply gives too much honour to the belief in God. By defining oneself atheist one allows religion to rub off on us the impressive amount of ridicule and absurdity it has accumulated in thousands of years. The belief in humanly contrived supernatural beings should be dismissed, possibly with a good-humoured laugh, without the need of using any label.

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

The obstinacy in believing a product of human fantasy as real is, in most cases, considered a sign of lunacy if not of complete idiocy. Interestingly, in this respect, the above rule does not seem to apply for all products of human fantasy (surely someone has said "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God", eloquent and poetic pretension, but still a human pretension). For some consolidated fantasies, with a complex millennial tradition, people tend to make an exception.

If a bird sings, it is the bird singing.If leaves rustle, it is the leaves that are rustling. If by a turrent we hear the sound of the water flowing, it is the water that produces that sound by flowing. The words of humans, any word, are inescapably human.

Some truths want to enjoy a special treatment compared to others. Usually the special treatment is related to the lack of proof of their claims.

If I state an opinion, it is my opinion in that it is heard from my lips. There is a way to surcharge my opinion and build a shield meant to protect me from any attack: I can just say that my words are not actually mine, or words by other humans, but words of a supernatural being. Moreover, I can also say that even if they don't make sense or have not proof, that is fine because they are beyond human logic, they reflect mysterious plans that we cannot understand anyway. Mind you, all this would still be said by human lips (mine), but they would sound more impressive by the added supernatural content.

Being raised to accept any idea without evidence has incalculable negative consequences: a streak of irrationality becomes familiar with us since childhood. Adults tell us that stories on fairies or unicorns are fantasies, but that other stories are true, even if in both cases no evidence is provided, and even if, undoubtedly, in both cases the content was conceived by a human mind. We are raised to be credulous, to comply with, to bend our head, to be gullible.

One plus one gives two: the concept is proved and can be shared by the others, if they don't reject evidence. Some people express some concepts, and expect them to be accepted as truth without evidence.

Some ideas are like garments in which we one grows snug since childhood, attached to parents' words and kisses, habitual. But a truth is not made true by mere familiarity and comfort.

Saturday, November 08, 2003

A new evidence of the existence of God !

Mike: Math is not an opinion, math gives sure results.

Theologian: Hey you are being dogmatic!

Mike: Hey this is logic, dude: one plus one always equals two, and dogmatism means claiming that an unproved statement is absolutely true.

Theologian: You see? You see? You have been dogmatic ...twice! First you said that math gives sure results, then you even dared say that one plus one always equals two. Blatant dogmatism! Therefore if we consider legitimate your dogmatism, we should also consider legitimate my dogmatic statement that God exists, as well as angels, arcangels, the Holy Ghost, the fallen angels, the apple, the serpent, Adam and Eve. And the ark, the Holy Ever-Virgin Mary, immaculate, assumed in the sky and...

Mike: Yeah, right.



The observer: (Thinking to himself) Where do some people live with their mind? What sad abysses of non-reasoning can be reeached?

Friday, November 07, 2003

Again on the evils of dogmatism


I my previous post I explained why dogmatism cannot be accepted. I received the following comment by DrChrist:

Your statement that " dogmatism in all its forms cannot be accepted." sounds awfully dogmatic to me.

Well, the above comment sounds awfully poor and sophistic to me, disappointingly so.

It is an attempt to suggest that any stated principle, even of method, even when universally shared and reflecting the very logic of our thinking, is always dogmatic and that therefore, by the same token, any dogmatic statements should also be accepted and considered valid and legitimate: eveything goes! Such an approach is quite dangerous as it does not allow that there should be precise criteria to define a statement as true. If one does not agree on some elementary criteria to define a statement as true there cannot be any sure knowledge, let alone simple discussions, and all becomes an absurd clash of arbitrary forces. Being against dogmatism simply means being against statements claimed as true without sufficient proof. Either one agrees on this or not, there is no way around it, no possibility of escape or elusion. If one agrees, this shows respect for the very structure of human reasoning. If not, one ventures himself into arbitrariness and arrogance.

But DrChrist eludes the question and simply accuses of dogmatism those who simply remind that reasoning should follow certain rules, and in such a way he finds a poor justification for those who want to keep wallowing in arbitrariness and false claims, and avoids to really reply to the points I raised in my previous post.

For a seminarian, DrChrist, appears very promising in that it already shows the feature that priests have of eluding matters and relying on curt meaningless sophisms and trying to circumvent legitimate points.

Beings against dogmatism is a central human and civil criterion in life and relations and represents an important value of our society. It reflects a way of proceeding and relating to others not a principle that can be subject to personal preference, unless one wants to step in unacceptable arbitrariness. It is what makes a true communication possible and allows things to evolve and progress. It is worth reminding that in science dogmatism leads nowhere and every assertion requires to be testable and with evidence in order to be considered true.

Those who don't want to share a criterion of antidogmatism, and therefore think being dogmatic is fine and think they hold absolute truth exclusively (for which no true proof is even needed), place themself beyond any possibility of true communication and true knowledge. With arrogance, they expect others to believe their words without providing proof for them. Why should some people be treated as special and being waived from providing evidence for their claims? Where would such a way of proceeding lead in our society if everybody felt "special" and expected that any claim should be accepted without proof? Providing evidence for one's words is the basics of communication and the pursuit of truth. I tried to explain these points in my previous post.

Being antidogmatic, and respecting criteria of rationality, is a matter of civility and respect for others and the fundamental prerequiste for the progress of true knowledge. Conversely, dogmatism (of any type, religious or political) is abominable and a cause of conflict and intolerance: it is the residual of ancient times of arrogance and violence, when ignorance and irrationality raged and people were more prone to giving up the respect due to elementary criteria of reasonability in order to be soothed and reassured by myths and fantasies, or simply to survive under arbitrary powers that required absolute obedience, times in which the scientific method was not yet known and people were more likely to let pass any absurdity, relying on and fearing the power of the speaker. I think the times have changed a bit.

The evil of dogmatism


Sometimes the definitions of a dictionary provide important elements for reflection on matters that we take for granted. Let's consider for example the word dogma. This is the definition of the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company:

dogma

NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. dog·mas or dog·ma·ta (-m-t)
1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church. 2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See synonyms at doctrine. 3. A principle or belief or a group of them: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present” (Abraham Lincoln).

ETYMOLOGY: Latin, from Greek, opinion, belief, from dokein, to seem, think. See dek- in Appendix I.

"An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true". A mathematical postulate, such as, for example, the Transitive Property (if a=b then b=a) has an undubitable validity, nobody would argue on the fact that such a property is true, contrarily he/she would be considered crazy. By the same token, we should consider not particularly endowed with lucid and clear thinking faculties those who have the pretension that some moral or religious assertions can enjoy the same rational indubitability as that of mathematical postulates.

Those who claim, for instance, that what can be read in a book written by human hands thousands of years ago, was inspired by a supernatural entity express a claim that is totally ungrounded and unverified and cannot be considered absolutely true. One can have faith in it, but such faith, or the mental habit developed through upbringing in a given cultural environment, are not sufficient to transform human claims into an absolute truth. In this respect, the meaning of the greek word "dogma" is revealing, the above-mentioned dictionary says "opinion, belief", and the translation of the verb dokein from which dogma derives is even more enlightening: to seem, think.

In other words a dogma is an "opinion", "a belief". A human claim. When dealing with religious matters this is too often forgotten. What does all this mean? That when somebody believes a dogma is an absolute truth, he / she merely complies with what the mind of another human being has developed: an opionion, a belief. But a belief can be reasonably accepted only if it can be verified, only if such belief is testable, conversely believing is irrational, is a mere passive compliance to the mental elaboration (claim) of other human beings. And such mental elaboration does not enjoy by any means the characteristics of absoluteness that are conferred. It is made of mere human words. Ungrounded, unverified, arrogant, and creepily delusional in their attempt to find validity in an unverified metaphysical origin that is merely stated. The stated metaphysical origin is simply an attempt to 'surcharge' human words prying on ignorance and prejudice. A dogma tries to "force" the natural filter of reasonability by establishing itself beyond reason. Quite handy indeed.

If one accepted the same procedure in every aspect of everyday's life, this would generate (as it does) all sorts of conflicts as anybody could say, more or less: "what I say is true, and I don't even need to prove it, I was told that by God, and it is absolutely true, so shut up!". Of course theologians are not so apparently bully, and the rustling gowns and the fluted voices might delude on that, but the concept is the same. And it is not by coincidence that religion causes wars: it is the domain of arbitrariness and arrogance, where the moderating influence of rationality is not allowed.

That is why dogmatism in all its forms cannot be accepted: it exploits, and fosters, ignorance, prejudice, and irrationality, and is a cause of intolerance and conflict.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

An informative article on safe sex from BBC Health (the picture if from the same page)











I still wonder, the almost 50% of the Roman Catholic priests who are sexually active (according to studies), and who commit mortal sin (but, oh well, they can cleanse themselves through confession as often as they have any clandestine intercourse), not to mention their hypocrisy of preaching against premarital sex, or homosexuality* (a large number of priests are homosexuals, read here for further information): do they use condoms and thus get two...sins with one stone, or not?

[*you can read my comment on the position of the Roman Catholic Church as regards sex, contraception, homosexuality and divorce in my previous post]

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

DrChrist: “my task is not to live in the past, rather to live in the present”…”the Church wants people to have sex”

The above statements, quite surprising, were made by DrChrist in his post “And What's Wrong With Genital Sexuality Anyway?” and are both false. In this post I will explain why and tackle the following topics for which the position of the Roman Catholic church is particularly unreasonable:

- premarital sex

- masturbation

- homosexuality

- contraception

- divorce

First of all a premise. DrChrist complains that one should not quote ‘saints from centuries ago’ and claims he “lives in the present”. This is a quite interesting point, because it is the very core of the matter. In fact in my opinion, not only does the Roman Catholic Church not live in the present, but has developed and spreads a pathogenic vision of the tangible reality.

The church does not live in the present

Dr Christ writes: "I don’t know where you get the idea that the Catholic Church thinks that there is something wrong with genital sexual activity? I’m sure you will quote some saint from centuries ago, or a Church document from an even earlier century without taking into account the context in which it was said. But my task is not to live in the past, rather to live in the present, and the fact is that the Church wants people to have sex. It encourages it rather strongly in most situations."

Concerning ‘saints form centuries ago’ it is irrefutable that they have had and still have a fundamental importance in the elaboration of Catholic theology (which unlike science, is typically conservative and based upon dogmatic a priori concepts). And no matter when they wrote their texts, they are actively studied, quoted and a source of constant reflection. In short, they still act within the Church at a distance of thousands of years, in that very often their ancient teachings are actually consistent with the teachings of the Church nowadays. Even the Bible was written thousands of years ago, but in most cases Catholics take its content literally, without considering the historical context in which it was written. So if DrChrist truly believes that his task is to live in the present, he should clearly state that teachings of the Bible can be refused if they are clearly the result of the times in which they were written and do not apply nowadays. But of course he would not go as far as that. But let’s consider the following text, written in 1930:

14. For although Christian spouses even if sanctified themselves cannot transmit sanctification to their progeny, nay, although the very natural process of generating life has become the way of death by which original sin is passed on to posterity, nevertheless, they share to some extent in the blessings of that primeval marriage of Paradise, since it is theirs to offer their offspring to the Church in order that by this most fruitful Mother of the children of God they may be regenerated through the laver of Baptism unto supernatural justice and finally be made living members of Christ, partakers of immortal life, and heirs of that eternal glory to which we all aspire from our inmost heart. (From CASTI CONNUBII (Encyclical of Pope Pius XI, 1930) (emphasis mine))

DrChrist claims he lives in the present. But the Roman Catholic Church asks people who live in the present to believe blindly what some other men, with great effort of fantasy (but they would call it “Holy Ghost”) wrote thousands of years ago. People are asked to believe in the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, Satan and the fallen angels, the fact that the tangible world was “virtually inundated by sin” (Catechism 401) due to the choice of Adam, and that henceforth “The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.” And “Death makes its entrance into human history.” (Catechism, 400) (This last sentence is quite revealing of the actual purpose of religion: that of coping with the anxiety of death). And of course “All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: ‘By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners’: ‘sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned’." and “By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.” (Catechism, 402).

People are asked to believe, or worse they are brought up in the idea, that sin is everywhere, that we are born sinners, everything is sin in the Christian vision. Anybody who has not been brainwashed with these ancient guilt-ridden prehistoric myths can easily understand how pathogenic and twisted such a conception is, which considers the tangible reality as inexorably and irrevocably stained and imperfect and where even love between a man and a woman is made imperfect and ‘marked by lust and domination’.

Let’s analise the ‘modern’ teachings of the Church on sex

DrChrist says the Church wants people to have sex, and that would appear to be good news, in principle. But unfortunately, looking at the actual situation more closely we can easily find out how that is not exactly true.

Let’s see some examples. The Catholic catechism establishes that:

“pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” (2351)

This is a traditional view that is inconsistent with the real sexual dimension of human beings. There is nothing wrong in seeking pleasure isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes. And if two people are not married and decide to have sex (with or without penetration) they should not be stigmatised and considered morally disordered. This can have severe consequences on their psychological and physical equilibrium. I believe that any psychologist would agree with the fact that expecting that the physical expression of sexuality be acceptable only within marriage is an absurdity and may lead to severe neurosis. But in this, the Catholic Church has not progressed from the time of St. Augustine. Despite the fact that DrChrist says he lives in modern times and allows (he says in a comment) that “we have advanced in our understanding of science, psychology, etc... “. He mentions psychology, but what psychology does he mean? Perhaps the “psychology” of the Roman Catholic Church emerging from texts like the Casti Connubii mentioned above?

“[…] masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action." […] "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose. […] conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability." (2352).

Even on this matter the Catholic Church does not show a mature understanding of human sexuality, in the light of what we know about human beings. Here too, any psychologist would stress how dangerous it can be for adolescents to be exposed to teachings that talk about “culpability”, demonize masturbation, and talk about sin for something that is natural. Here too, the Catholic church gives priority to ancient theological positions, ignoring science, and such is utterly irresponsible. And of course, if I were a Catholic, I would be considered subject to anathema for affirming that the Catholic teachings are wrong on this.

“Fornication is carnal union between an unmarried man and an unmarried woman. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of persons and of human sexuality which is naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children.” (2353)

As I have said in a previous comment, Here too, we are told how sinful it is that a man and a women should have sex if they are not married because sexuality is "naturally ordered to the good of spouses and the generation and education of children". Here we find again the usual procreation-oriented concept of sexuality. On the grounds of such a concept, two adults, who love each other and don’t want to get married and/or have children must be considered in sin, or indicated, considered as sinful (incidentally, in how many small towns, such Catholic dogmatism may give way to forms of ostracism and intolerance?) and their feelings should be considered "against the dignity of persons": how absurd and contradictory. It is such a patronising pretension of arbitrarily listing the dos and donts that is against the dignity of people. Moreover young men and women are likely to live a hell in their Catholic families if they don’t share the same beliefs as their parents and their sexuality is pathologically thwarted.

”Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection” (2359)

This is an absurd conception. There is a certain percentage of people at every latitude that do not share the same sexual orientation as the majority. DrChrist (and the Catholic Church) says that sexual orientation per se is not immoral, that is if a person is homosexual, his/her being homosexuality is not wrong in itself. But it becomes wrong if the homosexual has sex. Why? If the fact of being homosexual is not a sin in itself, why should the physical expression of it be a sin? This is unreasonable and can only be the result of an ancient culture of demonization of sex and pleasure and discrimination against a sexual orientation not shared by the majority, but not less natural for such a reason. And after all, as a reader has remarked (see previous post), two homosexual persons don't harm anyone if they love each other not only spiritually. Here too, this position is in contrast with modern psychological findings and can also be a co-factor of discrimination and intolerance.

DrChrist also says: “Every act of sexual intercourse must be fruitful. This means that there must at the very least openness to the fruit of the sex act which, is children.” Now this is very poetic concept (although again the necessary association between procreation and sexuality is wrong) but tell this to a couple who have already had four or ten children. Who will pay for a child for whom a family cannot provide proper support? The Church? The Holy Ghost? I doubt it.

Contraception

RCC demonises every type of contraception and only allows natural methods of family planning which are not, strictly speaking, contraceptive methods, but methods of periodic abstinence. Natural methods can only be effective in presence of good training (not easily available everywhere), motivation and in the case of a stable couple. In all other cases the efficacy is reduced, even greatly. A true concern for human health should mean recognizing that in some cases the Natural Family Planning might be a good option, but in others not. For instance, asking an African or Indian family, living in a hut, with ten children already, to implement the marvellous "Creighton Model" and check mucus, basal temperature and period calendar, does not appear to be practical. Some people in certain countries have real (not theological) problems now: famine, draught, diseases and cannot afford to have any children and are not likely to use beautiful, aesthetic, theology-proper, western methods of family planning.

But one very serious problem of the Natural Family Planning is that it is not effective to contrast sexually transmitted diseases. The only effective, though not 100% perfect, barrier is the use of a condom. Given the natural very high percentage of people having sex before marriage (it would be absurd and impractical to expect chastity, since not even priests are able to be chaste), and also given the fact that even married couple may in some cases have concerns related to sexually transmittable diseases it is utterly irresponsible that the Church forbids the use of condoms.

The way the Roman Catholic Church deals with the problem of contraception is a further evidence of their not living in the real world. It is a fact that the majority of young people have sex before marriage (and if instead of being the majority it was simply a large number, that would still count): true human and health concern should mean encouraging young people to use condoms when they have sex. There is no doubt that using a condom is better than not using it, and there is no doubt that young people are not going to stop having sex just because the church (privileging pathological theology over reality) says it is wrong or morally disordered (as I have said, even a large part of priests are not able to be chaste), so being aware and accepting the real world and the true sexual nature of human beings, and having true concern for people, should imply stressing the importance of a proper sex education and encouraging the use of condoms, if people decide to have sex.

Divorce

The Catholic Church does not accept the idea of divorce. We all know that, unfortunately, some couple grow apart, even despite their own will. It is a matter of feelings, not will. What shall they do? Is it better for them and the children, to live in hell, exposed to fights, quarrels and so on, or is it better to responsibly solve their problems with a divorce? Most Catholics in several Catholic Countries seem to be more reasonable than the Church and accept the idea of divorce and not the impractical idea of a union which is only a source of aggression or unhappiness for the couple and the children. Divorce is a sign of secularization? Yes thanks…god!

Conclusion

Given the above, it is impossible to state that the Roman Catholic Church wants people to have sex. The Roman Catholic Church wants people to get married and have babies, perhaps, and by doing so to spread the original sin, so that they can use the induced sense of guilt to administer their power!

Moreover it is impossible to state that Church lives in the present. The RCC does not appear to take into account modern findings on psychology and biology and consider human beings morally disordered if their sexuality does not fall within the obsessive list of arbitrarily sanctioned behaviours. That is they are considered “morally disordered” only because, as sexual beings, decide to have sex even if not married, or because the masturbate or are homosexual. Such views irresponsible and are potentially cause of psychological unbalance. The ideas on contraception and divorce are simply absurd.

The common trait of the position of the Church on sexual and family matters is their being abstract, impracticable, contradictory, unreasonable and inconsistent (and frankly a bit obsessive). But why I am not amazed by this, since these “teachings” on sex and marriage come from a hierarchy of people who have refused the material world and think they should live in chastity (even if with poor results themselves)?

Saturday, November 01, 2003

DrChrist has stated that "immoralality [sic] has nothing to do with person's orientation per se [...] when a person acts on this orientation through engaging in "homosexual sex the person chooses to turn away from God and his laws". This is the position of the Roman Catholic Church.

As a reply to the above, still under my post of October 30th, I have also received a very clear comment by Merserene (for which I express my thanks):

I've heard many times the argument that "homosexuality" is not a sin until the person commits. It's like telling a kid it's ok to exist as a kid until he acts childishly. Or, if social values are different, acting "heterosexually" would be a huge sin, but being heterosexual is ok. It's so incredibly flawed. Think about how us heteros were react if told not to ever show our attraction to the opposite sex because it's a sin.

I don't see how you can necessarily separate the manifestation from something that is the very core of the person's being, especially when that manifestation is harming no one.

Or are you encouraging all homosexuals to become celibate/chaste or perhaps, to join the church? We've seen how many have "lived out" their alternative expression of sexuality - they're all over the news.

The above makes a lot of sense and is very clearly written. Thanks again Merserene for your comment.