Trinidad, on 2014-April-14, 09:40, said:
(emphasis mine)
In the above post, you are equating the RC doctrine to the RC church.
If this equation were true, the RC doctrine would be responsible for overpopulation. But since you think it is true, you logically hold the RC doctrine responsible for overpopulation.
Though I did above, I am not waiting for an apology.
But simply admitting that there is a huge discrepancy between the views of the RC hierarchy (the "fundies", birth control refusers) and those of the RC church (with many "moderates", birth control users) would be nice.
Rik
*sigh*
If only you actually read my posts. Or tried to learn something beyond your 'impressions'.
The RC Church leadership, including the new pope, are adamant that contraception is an evil. Some bishops, and for all I know, maybe some cardinals as well, are opposed to this position, but they are a small minority in the church leadership.
I have always acknowledged that there are differences between church doctrine, as set out by leadership, and actual practice. Indeed, those differences underlie what I consider to be a strong argument against organized religion. Many, and maybe most, members of a faith will pick and choose the parts of the doctrine that they obey, and seem to see no problem in doing so: they remain convinced that by obeying those parts that suit them, they are still being good followers of the religion. Logically, that makes no sense. Religion, even when finely nuanced, is based on revealed truth: somebody somewhere, purporting to have the information directly from God (eg Moses, Mohammed) or to be god (jesus) has made statements that are absolutely true.
Adherents to a religion founded on this understanding of the universe accept these revelations. They also, generally, accept a number of idiosyncratic strictures or rules, since it is in these details that sectarianism arises, and which play a role in many conflicts and persecutions both historically and today.
After all, an Anglican will recognize many commonalities with a Catholic, but few in either church see them as identical.
If an outside observer is to make sense of the differences between the sects, where else can or should he or she start other than by looking to see what the official doctrine of the church is?
Of course doctrine changes, and I have touched on that in numerous posts.
However, it is truly absurd to suggest that the Pope, the majority of cardinals, the majority of archbishops, bishops, priests and so on are to be seem as extremist fundamentals. They may well be at the 'right' end of the spectrum of 'moderates' but take a look at the respect paid to the Vatican. It has a seat in the UN!!! many countries maintain embassies or missions to the Vatican. Not to the 'members' of the church, but to the leadership of the church. The Pope gets national television coverage whenever he visits a country or pontificates (there's a word for you...he is the pontiff, of course) on whatever strikes his fancy. Elections to the office of pope are covered even more widely than, and just as annoyingly as, weddings in the British Royal family
As for what I wrote about the RC church being opposed to birth control, I wrote that in the context of how we, as a species, move forward. I argued, and argue again, that if we are to avoid calamity, we need leadership that acts based on evidence. The RC church leadership, by virtue of its opposition to contraception, is an obstacle in the path of population control.
That is not the same as it having been the cause of overpopulation. Only an idiot (Edit:look: I know you're not an idiot...even if I disagreed with everything you say, you aren't a kook or idiot like 325, and I have, in the past, agreed with much of what you write, but your recent posts seem to have gone from probably innocent misunderstanding to intentional distortion)would think that I was suggesting, for example, that the dictates of any Christian leader played a significant role in the population explosions in India or China, or Indonesia etc. It is not the same as saying that the RC Church is 'the' main problem in terms of population control. It is saying that when the leadership of an organization that claims 1 billion followers, and that gets front page coverage for its activities and pronouncements on the world stage describes contraception as evil, then that is a problem. Do you disagree?
When a drunk driver careens into my path on the highway, the fact that someone places a call to me on my cell just before I would notice the danger didn't cause the danger, but may well be an obstacle to my being able to avoid the accident that now threatens. So too, the fact that socio-economic conditions caused humanity to favour large families may be the reason that overpopulation is such a problem now, but the resistance to population control by an influential church may well be an obstacle to resolving the problem.
Do you finally understand the points I have been trying to make?
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari