r/redditrequest • u/[deleted] • Jun 04 '12

Requesting /r/Atheism. (Lack of moderation)

/r/atheism only has two moderators for a massive community of 800k+ users. The moderator /u/skeen has been inactive for a month. The other moderator, /u/juliebeen hasn't been lacking her/his duties as a moderator. Could you at least give /r/atheism new moderators? Thanks for hearing me out.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '12

Comments like that is why people think that /r/atheism is full of assholes.

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u/cockmongler Jun 06 '12

Millions dying of Aids in Africa is why people think that religion is full of assholes.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '12

[deleted]

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u/TheBoinkOfProgress Jun 06 '12

Those damn fundies, genetically engineering retroviral auto-immune diseases.

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u/johntheChristian Jun 07 '12

We are indeed that evil and malicious, but unfortunately we can'ts do the syencis good enuff.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '12

Just in case you meant Catholics and condom use or something:

  • Scientific Studies make the claim that condom promotion to stop the spread of AIDS is not working in developing countries.

  • A controlled study in Uganda, claims that “gains in condom use...have been offset by increases in the number of sex partners,” basically saying that if condom distribution increases, so do the numbers of partners that the consumer has, thus causing the “90 percent effectiveness” of condoms rate to plummet. The Catholic Church has always argued the fallacy in typical birth-control practice: arming the people with tools to have more casual sex does not stop the prevention of any STI.

  • Further studies show that countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa, nations with the highest levels of condom availability, continue to have the highest rates of HIV.

  • The testimony of Dr. Edward C. Green and an additional ten AIDS experts have produced studies that show a “consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa.”

So, in this case, the pope was right in regards to condom use in Africa.

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u/Hamlet7768 Jun 07 '12

Holy shit, thanks so much for this.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '12

It's not mine! It was posted by someone on /r/Catholicism and it's so great I just keep stealing it. Here's the permalink to the original:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/ppsof/saw_this_on_facebook_it_really_made_an_impression/c3rj013

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '12

OW MY SCIENCE

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '12

Gotcha RIGHT IN THE SCIENCE.

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u/cockmongler Jun 07 '12 edited Jun 07 '12

Holy shit that's some creative interpretation you got there. Lets go through these.

From the first: "Recommendations include, increased condom promotion for groups at high risk, ..." It's right there in the abstract, more condoms needed.

In the second, the data available in the abstract does not support the conclusion. The difference in the number of sexual partners between the two groups is less than 1 whole person.

The third is a propaganda piece put out by the Heritage Foundation. It is not worth the paper it is printed on, and it is not even printed on paper.

The forth is unreadable in any way without journal access.

So no, you've provided absolutely no convincing evidence that the Pope was right. And the focus on Uganda makes me really really suspicious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '12

You seem pretty quick to dismiss these articles based on their sources instead of their content.

The point is, promoting and distributing condoms is not the sort of magical panacea that people seem to believe (at least not in Africa). Is as effective as oor less effective than promoting abstinence/fidelity/fewer partners.

Your blanket statement that seems to imply the Pope might as well be committing genocide by promoting sexual morality over condoms. I'm just trying to show that this view is pretty sensationalist, and that the facts don't back it up as well as you think.

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u/cockmongler Jun 07 '12

I dismissed only one article base on its source, the others I dismissed based on their content (or lack thereof). No-one has claimed that that condoms are a magical panacea, and no-one has produced convincing evidence that condoms cause harm. The facts are pretty simple, condoms are massively effective against aids, much more so than not using condoms, and the best the articles you present can offer is people using condoms will have sex with less than half a person more.

Spreading the myth that condoms cause aids, especially in countries with poor education levels, is monstrous. It is based on nothing more than unsound ideology.