Our Pope the Dope and Other Irrationalities Brought to You By Organized Religion

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

It's not just common sense that organized religion can distort, but sometimes even our common decency. Such is the case in two news stories this week that drove home the damage that can be done in the name of religion.

Yesterday it was reported that Pope Benedict XVI said that condoms not only don't help in the fight against AIDS, but also they make the problem worse. Now, the Pope reiterating in Africa the Catholic Church's stance against birth control is unfortunate and irritating, but unsurprising. But to state that condoms are the problem? Well that's practically criminal.

The Pope's statement is just as ridiculous as the former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa promoting the idea that AIDS can be treated with garlic, beetroot and lemon juice. Or Gambia's president, who claims he has "proof" that bananas mixed with mysterious herbs cure AIDS. To be fair, the Pope seems to be relatively cozy with Holocaust deniers, so why not side with those in denial over the causes of and cures for AIDS?

More than that, the Pope is both giving afflicted Catholics false hopes and frustrating the best efforts of the tireless religious workers that strive under his name to help those suffering from AIDS. 

The New York Times editorial about this story notes:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites "comprehensive and conclusive" evidence that latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are "highly effective" in preventing heterosexual transmission of the virus that causes AIDS. The most recent meta-analysis of the best studies, published by the respected Cochrane Collaboration, concluded that condoms can reduce the transmission of the AIDS virus by 80 percent.

The Times closed its condemnation of Benedict's statement with this tepid sentence: "It seems irresponsible to blame condoms for making the epidemic worse."

No, it doesn't seem that way. It is irresponsible. 

This next story is more of a grassroots phenomenon. A fascinating study to be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at the correlation between intense religious beliefs and coping methods. Researchers followed 345 patients diagnosed with terminal cancer until their deaths.

The study found that patients who described themselves as very religious were significantly more likely than the non-religious to try to prolong their lives through the aggressive use of external devices such as ventilators. Religious participants were less likely to prepare for impending death by signing do not resuscitate orders, living wills or power of attorney agreements. Even when adjusting for a host of other factors, the study reported that "religious coping remained a significant predictor of receiving intensive life-prolonging care near death."

This surprised me. I figured a person with a healthy relationship with their maker would be willing to meet them, especially after being told they're going to die. One would think that those who believe in God's plan would be more likely to follow along.

What is it about religiosity that makes it harder to accept death? Is it last-minute doubts about the afterlife? Is it the dogged adherence to the sanctity of life argument? Only further inquiry will tell. For the moment, let's look at the consequences.

It could be argued that it doesn't really matter whether one goes out kicking and screaming or with quiet acceptance, but other studies show that's not the case. From The New York Times:

Aggressive life-prolonging care comes at a cost, however, in terms of both dollars and human suffering. Medicare, the government's health plan for the elderly, spends about one-third of its budget on people who are in the last year of life, and much of that on patients at the very end of life.

Aggressive end-of-life care can lead to a more painful process of dying, researchers have found, and greater shock and grief for the family members left behind.

These two stories show how religion can block the good it strives to create by circumventing our best intentions with dogma. The Pope doesn't really want thousands more people to die of AIDS because of his foolish words. Dying patients don't want their families to go through more pain than necessary because of their belief systems.

In other words, this isn't a wholesale condemnation (generally, I leave that up to religious authorities). It's just a friendly reminder that it's not just religious wack jobs like Fred Phelps and Donald Wildmon who need a reality check.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Photo courtesy of Mike Licht.

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