I think it is completely indefensible organization - utterly morally bankrupt.

You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think their views on sexual subjects are indefensible, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for some of the church's work on poverty, human rights and peace issues.

I expect that Wolfram & Hart sponsored some Little League teams and donated to food banks when they could get a good tax break, but they would have to be judged as evil on balance.

If we look across the last 2000 years, the Roman Catholic church has been chiefly concerned with its own preservation, and it has been willing to participate in any form of oppression or immorality to that end. In general, Catholics have been reluctant to confront the history of their church, and their failure to do this has contributed to the church's failure to engage in real reform. Even today, the church's work to discourage birth control in an overpopulated world is one of the most destructive and immoral influences on the planet.

That doesn't make Catholics bad. But it certainly makes their general silence about church teachings mystifying to me. I mean, are the rituals so seductive that they compel people to send money to an organization that discourages condom use? I don't get it. There are other groups that do good work on povery, human rights, and peace issues.

Oohhh!! Case in point, I lost my sense of taste for about 8 weeks after radiation. Chocolate is NAS-TEE when you can't taste it. It's like eating lard.

I'm going to have to hold the chocolate blameless in this instance, and focus my disapproval on the radiation.

Even today, the church's work to discourage birth control in an overpopulated world is one of the most destructive and immoral influences on the planet.

Not to mention their work to discourage the use of condoms, which has contributed to the spread of AIDS.

But, I can suck the chocolate off of the nuts.

Resisting the urge to tie this back into the sex conversation.

Resisting the urge to tie this back into the sex conversation.

Simply impossible to avoid that connection in this discussion.

Even today, the church's work to discourage birth control in an overpopulated world is one of the most destructive and immoral influences on the planet.

This isn't my belief, but in defense of the Catholic Church, I think their belief is based on the idea that all life is precious. I can't see how that could be immoral.

The Catholic church disapproves of birth control in circumstances where no life has been created yet. No life is harmed in any way by wearing a condom.

This isn't my belief, but in defense of the Catholic Church, I think their belief is based on the idea that all life is precious. I can't see how that could be immoral.

When children are starving because their parents can't feed them and the church urges them to have more--that's immoral in my book.

I've been away for a while, and must say that this is the best conversation to come back to: sex and religion! Although, my thoughts have pretty much already been said by Hec, Gud, Anne, and a few others.

So, in completely other news, the reason I am home and able to post at all is that a water main broke in my library, flooding it, and we can't even work on rescuing books and computers because of the asbestos! Water was up to four inches deep in the library, with sodden ceiling tiles down in the Z section. It went through to the floor below, where we have our catalog server, web server, backup for our network, and storage for older microfilm (mostly old New York Times) and supplies.

I love you guys, and it's great to catch up, but I would SO rather be putting paper toweling between pages of books, setting up fans, and checking my computer to see if it is completely fried (is that the right term if the problem is water?), or if I can rescue anything from it.

slight x-post with Natter, but I seriously had to whine, because this so sucks.

The Catholic church disapproves of birth control in circumstances where no life has been created yet. No life is harmed in any way by wearing a condom.

I know that but doesn't their anti-birth control stance an extrapolation of their general stance on life? (Really, I should not be the one trying to make this point because I don't know enough.)