Twisted Logic

A random statement from a friend, and a reminder from this article got me to thinking about the way liberals think. They have a way of making arguments that seem fine on the surface, but, upon reflection, don't withstand much scrutiny. Consider the following: A couple of months ago I was with my friend and his sister. We were discussing the Catholic church, because of the Pope's recent death, and my friend's sister sugested (somewhat randomly) that the Catholic Church should change its position on birth control because so many people in Africa are dying of AIDS, and because their life expectancy had, and is, dropping so dramatically.

Now, its true that Africa has an AIDS problem, but just how the Catholic Church is culpable I do not understand. Would condoms help control the problem, and is the Catholic Church against using them? Yes they would help some, and yes Catholic doctrine is against all birth conrol, including condoms. But the real question here is: Has the Catholic prohibition of birth control exacerbated the AIDS epidemic?

To this question we must answer: No -- at least it's not very likely.

How many Catholics are there in Africa? This article says about 17% of Africans are Catholic -- not that many -- and AIDS is certainly not plagueing Africa because only the Catholics are getting AIDS. Rather Catholics teach abstinence and fidelity -- a combination that, if observed, would eliminate AIDS. Even if every person used condoms, due to high failure rates and the continuation of present African promiscuity (the real cause of the spreading of AIDS) there would still be far too many Africans contracting and dying from AIDS.

The only way the Catholic Church's stance on condoms furthers the spread of AIDS is if Catholics disregard Catholic teaching on abstinence and fidelity, but for some inexplicable reason decide they should heed the Church's teaching on birth control. This seems an unlikely senario, inasmuch as one guesses there is a hierarchy of commandments, and fidelity and abstinence presumably rank much higher than birth control. I grew up with many Catholics, some devout married Catholics currently without kids. Ostensibly, they use birth control and don't feel too bad about it.

And who is to say Catholicism is not infact fighting AIDS. Are there more people who have sex without condoms because of Catholic teachings and thus contract AIDS, Or, are there more people who would otherwise have promiscious sex but, because they are Catholic, do not and are spared from AIDS? Who is to say, and have liberals even bothered asking the question?

I guess the latter more likely. A Catholic observing doctrine about the use of birth control, but not observing abstinence and fidelity doctrine is like a man who refuses to speed, yet habitually drives drunk. Such excentric people probably exist, but its unlikely that there are many of them. Likewise, there are unlikely to be many real Catholics who reverance the lesser law but flout the greater law -- and there existence does not mean the lesser law should be changed. Instead, they should stop flouting the greater law, and thus fix the AIDS problem.