if abstinence doesn’t work, it’s no longer abstinence because they are having sex. abstinent people will not have the chance to get an std until they are no longer abstinent. so abstinence is 100% effective. how can you get an std without sex? i know drugs and whatnot but we are not discussing this.
and you have your divorce thing backwards. people who have sex before marriage have a higher divorce rate. any quick look at our society will prove that.
Maybe this is because Catholics don’t allow divorce. The thing is, if you don’t look for sex before marriage, you are likely to look for it after, and in the wrong places. In reality, abstinence causes significantly more problems than it fixes. Another significant problem it creates is that it causes people to hurry up with marrying someone, as opposed to choosing their significant other with care. I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not pretty.
You may call me intolerant, but the telling others not to use condoms is going to far. He has committed an atrocity. What he has done is far beyond my tolerance, and this is perhaps the most sickening thing about Christianity. You can say that others’ beliefs don’t do any harm, but this just got out of hand. By asking this, he has undoubtedly ruined thousands of lives, helping spread disease and helping the outrageous over population in Africa. This is inexcusable. This is worse than murder. What an act of utter ignorance and pride! Straight-up, downright sickening.
I can only put the blame on the people and what they decide to do and not what they were trying to follow.
Its a subject I think and talk about all the time. Selective commitments and promises.
A person promises to be abstinent. Some people can keep this promise and be fine. Others make the promise, but then they fall in to temptation or stop caring about the promise, letting it not be an important part of their life. Many other ways for a person to break that commitment, but in all cases, its the persons fault for faulting. haha. Not being mature enough to make proper commitments, not being strong enough to hold true to a previously made promise.
You see it all the time. Just look at yourself and friends and count how many people said they wouldnt do drugs ever, and now are smoking it up. (Could use other examples but drugs are a popular choice to promise against). Now is its the promises fault for making the person do what he ends up doing, or is its the eprsons actions that decides?
If it isn’t all that hard, why do so many people have trouble with it?
Most people know that if you don’t have sex you wont get pregnant/are less likely to get STDs. So why do so many people go on doing it? And how will telling them not to help anything when they already know these facts?
The thing is, being abstinent until marriage causes more problems than it saves.
The thing is, condoms may break 2% of the time, but even if they do break, Plan B is available to ensure that there is no pregnancy, and now all that’s left is a very very low chance for an STD. Let’s say having unprotected sex one time you have a 5% chance of getting an STD? Sound about right? Well in that case with a condom you have a .1% chance of attracting an STD.
And from my experience, it seems that abstinence truly DOES cause a lot of problems. It’s straight up not worth it, and it’s absolutely utterly sickening that Christianity and other religions have turned a completely natural thing of such utter beauty into a sin. I can almost guarantee that if nobody preached abstinence, and everyone preached safe sex, not only will their be significantly less STDs, but sex wouldn’t be viewed in such a “badass” way, which is not it’s true nature. Sex isn’t a “bad” thing. It’s a good thing, and should be done in a responsible manner. It is a great way to show affection for the ones you love, and should not be spoken against.
Exactly what I’ve said numerous times already, abstinence only works until it doesn’t.
Even when practiced it’s not 100% as there have been cases of both pregnancy and STD transfer with people who considered themselves abstinent and virgins. They were not doing anything that they considered to be having sex.
How can a quick look at society prove that? Does everyone have it printed on their forehead whether or not they waited for marriage and how many times they’ve been divorced?
From my own limited data set of people I know. The only ones who have been divorced were those who were waiting. I suppose this is because they rushed into marriage because they were tired of waiting.
I can’t find a study to prove my thesis, but I can find studies that show that those waiting for marriage get married at younger ages and also that those who get married at younger ages have higher divorce rates.
Your level of naivete is a startling.
There are plenty of ways to get STDs. Sex is just the most common way of transmitting the disease. Do you really think a virus cares how it gets from one person to another? If administering first aid wear gloves, if having sex (and you are not planning on having kids) wear a condom.
Maybe the pope took that monty python skit a bit too seriously…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47P59ha9k9s
and just thought I would throw this out there to break the tension a bit (or start a whole new argument:
Correlation doesn’t prove causality I’m afraid. I can show you a highly correlated study of shoe size and IQ, and how they directly relate. Its all about sample population, and terms of the study. If you ideally choose people for experimental cancer treatment, the treatment looks great…Until you treat the people who aren’t ideal and then the treatment has a harder time holding up to the FDA. I understand you see the simplicity of what seems to be a solution =but remember your scope, filters etc from where you live. A shaman in some African country told the public to have sex with virgins to cure aids, that was also great advice (this story can be found on the BBC if you search it). Nothing in life is black and white, nothing is clean and simple and one sided. No one’s single opinion is right, and if you think you can solve something by saying “presto” here is the answer you are wrong.
But let’s say everyone in Africa stopped having sex for one decade, and let’s say that stopped aids from being spread sexually for that decade. Kids being born before people stopped having sex would still have aids, the mid age population would die out from the aids, leaving a large elderly and young population. Then what? I’m not saying procreation is going to help but, let’s not throw useless advice around. I agree though, they should stop having sex.
As for the students learning about sex, birth control…people have been having sex since probably the 70’s, maybe earlier (sorry no sources on this). I don’t think horney teenagers are going to wait. Let’s at least provide them with a means to be responsible in the adult decisions that they make. The world is ever changing, and values change too, you can’t stick to the fundamentals of the Bronze Age. So let’s at least try to educate people as much as we can about everything, in hopes they learn to make good choices.
Obviously you meant something other than what you said here, but do expect this to show up in a few sigs. 
Nah I was trying to throw in some humor to lighten the mood 
I feel for the deadpan. Sorry.
That’s worth a whole new thread on it’s own;).
I’m so glad my birth was timed perfectly: before sex was invented but in time to enjoy it once I was old enough 
Those winter nights must have been SOOOO long in the 60’s…
Don’t feel for it, I butchered deadpan humor long ago
I relly ned too stahp postin twoday. Im won tipo after nother.
LOL at Cantibag.
… i take that abstinence poster very lightly, it made me laugh.
look guys, the pope is telling about the Church’s teaching…
if you follow all of the teachings about premarital sex and stuff, you don’t have the aids problem, if you go and have premarital sex, you aren’t following the church’s teaching to begin with… why would someone not use a condom if they were following the church’s teaching?
EDIT!!!~ why would someone not use a condom if they were NOT following the church’s teaching to begin with?
I guess you don’t comprehend the immensity of the AIDs problem in Africa.
As we’ve already stated in this thread, not having pre-marital sex will not prevent aids. What if a man was infected from birth and waits until his wedding day and then gives his new wife HIV because he didn’t use a condom.
Regardless though many people even those that are devoutly Christian will still have pre-marital sex so it’s better for them and for society if they use condoms.
But by not offering your daughters for rape, and by not burning meat in tribute to god, you are also not following the church teachings. By not giving away all of your money to those less fortunate than you, you are not following the church’s teachings.
Does religion make people ignorant and small-minded or do the ignorant and small-minded become religious?
But to directly anwer your question:
Because the world is gray, not black and white.
at the first comment, the Catholic Church is NOT a church that uses the bible as it’s law. Canon law governs the church, not the bible.
I definitely understand that the problem is much bigger than that, but i think that it is a good way to battle it.
at the black and white, i agree, but i’m thinking that the majority of people doing premarital sex will use a condom… they don’t want to “get pregnant” either…
Whether someone in Africa is Catholic or not, they hear the Pope say something like that and they listen to it.
Many parts of the world people are skeptical of the west and things like modern medicine or technology. If the Pope says don’t use condoms it gives them a reason not to use condoms whether they believe in the Pope or not.
A couple in Africa using condoms and the guy doesn’t want to use condoms so he tells his GF, “The pope said it’s okay not to use condoms”. So she agrees not to.
Did you really just say that the pope telling people not to use condoms was a good way to battle aids?
Are you really going to hide behind religion to not see what a dangerous statement it was for the pope to make?