scigirl

Perhaps. However, Doctors Without Borders, and the UN, does a lot of this kind of stuff, and 1) they aren't affilated with one religion and 2) they don't ask for someone's soul in return - they do it because they should.

I don't think that was the original premise. I think the original point was: people who deny tenets of science are more likely to deny more tenets of science. The "enemy" in this case is not christianity, but rather ignorance of science (however the two just might be linked in some situations. . . )

In terms of Christianity being a reason for rampant homophobia. . . well I don't know what came first, the chicken or the egg, but I can say with complete confidence that the overwhelming majority of christian religions are not concerned with being tolerant of the homosexual lifestyle. That is a fact that I don't think anyone will argue with.

Heh, threatening us with facts you don't intend to give us? Wow, you need some lessons in debate. HINT - I found those NIH facts in the same amount of time it took you to contribute another whining post.
But don't you agree, that if evolution is true, and there are people who deny it because of their religion, that it is indeed possible that they are denying other tenets of science as well? Kind of like people who start accepting one conspiracy theory. . . pretty soon they are afraid to check their own mail!

If you can't see at least a potential link, well than I guess you have spent time with different YECS than I have.

And avoiding drinking water in africa leads to the blessing of avoiding cholera and rotavirus. And avoiding breathing leads to an influenza and TB-free life too.

Obviously Geotheo - if you don't have sex, you can't get an STD (unless of course you are raped). However, there are ways to have safe sex - or perhaps you haven't heard of them?

I for one would rather do somewhat risky behaviors that may end my life (have sex, go snowboarding, go hiking in bear country, drive a car in traffic) but actually live my life. However, I would like to be educated about what I can do to enjoy sex, snowboarding, and driving to the store so that I can minimize my risks.

I noticed you didn't comment on my fact about lesbians being safer than heterosexuals. Once again - if AIDS had been discovered in a frat house, and not a bathhouse, I doubt we would even be having this conversation.

Abstinence = a word that starts with an A, that is uttered by politicians and christians, usually in conjunction with 'family values', but apparently practiced by neither group.

scigirl

edited to remove swearing (this topic really really gets me going if you couldn't already tell!)

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Dr Rick

That's really great...now, if only you could learn not to argue with a strawman...

Rick

scigirl

I have a story to relate about this very topic.

My mom is a nurse, and she worked in a nursing home for a while. She is a Christian BTW - catholic actually. Anyway, she took care of this gay patient with AIDS a few years ago, until he died. Not only did he receive daily hate mail from so-called religious groups, his family received it as well! One of the nurses told this young man, "It's too bad you are going to Hell" while she was putting his IV in or whatever! My mother was saddened and appalled. Now obviously, no not all christians do this (my mom didn't). But do the tenets of Christianity lend themselves to this type of abuse? Yes they do. And are the churches doing anything about it? I don't think so. I'm sorry, but I'd rather have the fundies stay complely away from all AIDS patients entirely, instead of caring for them but at the same time making snide comments like "you are going to Hell, I'll pray for you." If any of my nurses do that, I'm firing their asses! Their oath to take care of a patient's mental and physical well being supersedes their freedom to shove their religion down a dying man's throat.

Yeah too bad God disagrees. From King James:

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be frultful and multiply, and replenish the earth ...

Hmm, since God made the STDs a couple days before, you think he coulda warned the first couple about wearing some sheepskin or something! Alas, no mention of syphillis or even herpes simplex.

scigirl

Edited for formatting (not swearing! )

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

And they dogmatically cling to it like a piece of wreckage from a sinking boat. They fancy their chances better with a piece of driftwood than a rescue boat. Leave them to their fate--but insure they do no harm to others.

GeoTheo

???????????
I guess you lost me there. Be fruitfull and multiply equates with promiscuous sex. Yeah, you got me. And the God Hates Fags website represents Christianity as a whole. I give up. Go and spew hatred and vitrol about Christians all you want.
Your mom knows someone who knew some one that said that this fundie said so and so yada yada yada .... this is a pointless exercise.go on as you were without me.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Well, promiscuity insures the greatest amount of multiplication--allowing the male to spill his seed in many fertile grounds as opposed to one, and allows him to continue to have sex with non-pregnant women, and further allows the female to recieve much more fertile seed. More shots at the target, each shot having equal odds of hitting, equates to more hits, pure and simple. So, logically, promiscuity is easily inferrable from that statement--in fact, encouraged.

GeoTheo

As if anything you say should be taken seriously.
Nice moniker, Are you Spanish by any chance? Or just a clown?

Albion

The original statement was about Phillip Johnson and some other ID advocates who don't think HIV causes AIDS. I didn't read that original statement as necessarily religious, I thought the point was that they're jumping on all these bandwagons whose common subject is to reject conventional science as an explanation for something that you'd think should be explicable by science. I think this looks more like an attempt to undermine the scientific community in the hope that it'll make it easier for them to impose their new and "improved" version. When you read what these people say, the theory of evolution clearly isn't their major goal - their major goal is cultural renewal.

Albion

Geo, on this site, anti-fundamentalist ranting is just part of the environment. Nonbelievers who live in a country where a presidential candidate felt quite secure in saying that they shouldn't be considered citizens or patriots are going to spend a lot of time being frustrated, and this is where those frustrations get vented.

NeilUnreal

When I was very young, I was fascinated by the history of medicine and the great discoveries like anesthesia and antibiotics. I think 50 years from now, we'll view the AIDS-related research being done today as one of the great leaps forward in medical science. Never before has the attempt to conquer a disease required so much basic research into immunology, genetics, and virology. I'm not saying that it's a good thing that AIDS has occurred! Only that the time is right for the fight -- fifty years ago we would have been nearly completely helpless; now we have better scientific resources and are developing more. I predict the knowledge we gain from conquering AIDS will have positive medical spin-offs we can't begin to imagine.

For this reason, as well as that of basic human compassion, I don't begrudge AIDS researchers a penny of the money they get. Those who care for AIDS patients are equally heroic. If the AIDS/HIV deniers are right (and I don't think they are) they need to prove their point in the labs and hospitals, doing the heavy lifting, not in the press*.

The fight against AIDS will be what students of the future will read about when they study (from their future perspective) the "pioneers" of medical science.

-Neil

*To be fair, I think some of the scientists who were arguing against an AIDS/HIV link very early on were showing justifiable scientific caution. But there is a difference between scientific skepticism and polemics.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: NeilUnreal ]</p>