OUT OF TOUCH ZEALOTS AND POWER SEEKING RELIGIONISTSEEKING CONTROL OVER POPULATION

>>>>>>OVER POPULATION AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH POLICIES There are aver 100m Catholics in Africa , most of whom live in different cultural and economic conditions though most of them have one thing in common: a deep respect for for the Pope, the head of the catholic church(who considers himself as God's representative of earth ). his views are sacrosanct to majority of Catholics and most of them hung to it like dear life. This makes the pontiff's crusade against contraception very dangerous in one of the most affected regions of the world in terms of HIV/AID and populations planning. the dogma of the catholic church over the use of condoms as a preventative tool against HIV is without basis and his adamant posture defies any reasonable logic. the Pope insist that condom use was not the answer to fighting AIDS on the continent "On the contrary, it increases the problem," the Pope told reporters a day earlier aboard his plane on his way to Africa. There are over 40million sufferers of HIV/AIDS on the African continent some of whom are devout Catholics and may have been saved from the disease in the first place if they had had the benefit of sexual and contraceptive information. Over the years the catholic church even under the leadership of the moderate john Paul took a strong stance against the use of contraception and any other form of family planning. even back then a certain bishop Ratzenger was one of the driving forces behind this uncompromising stance. now this bishop Ratzenger happens to be Pope Benedict who has hardened his stance and made so many attacks against almost all the features of our modern society. he has hardened his stance against gay rights,stem cell research, abortion , the ordination of females, celibacy in addition to his pet opposition. He was the key inspiration behind the roll back of some of the positive scientific and family planning policies in the US during the evangelical right-wing inspired presidency of Bush. During Bush's years all US funding for any health facility that provided family planning and abortion services.this resulted in fatal consequences in many countries including Ghana where maternal mortality increased twofold with two thirds of all fatalities happening as a result of unsafe abortions. There are horrific tales of young women inserting dangerous objects and chemicals such as broken bottles and detergents into their wombs to abort unwanted pregnancies because it was illegal to perform abortion or because there was no availability of education/information and facilities where they could go. This man (the pope) is either completely out of touch with the world or deliberately following dogma informed by primitive ignorance that is costing a lot of lives.he is a leader of a billion strong followers and has enormous powers , even though he is not accountable to anyone of his followers. he gos around the world wielding a lot of influence on world leaders .asking them to implement policies to the detriment of majority of the population As far as HIV infections occur, the reality is, yes, there is a failure rate associated with condom use. However, the failure rate of any abstinence policy is considerably higher. figures from Uganda where money for condomisation was cut and used for an extensive abstinence campaign returned a negative result ,culminating in an increase in the infections and prevalence rate in a country that had succeeded to a certain extent in controlling the AIDS scourge The pope would willfully destroy the world in order to satisfy ancient ritualistic dogma.

BATTLE FOR THE SOUL

The Religionist Lobby in Ghana Extend Their War Into the Classroom The Bishops, Reverends, Pastors, Evangelists, Apostles, Prophets, Prophetesses Prayer Warriors etc in the church crazy nation of Ghana are on the warpath. They are cross at what they describe as “the Godless nature of the new Educational Reform” Apparently the new Education Reform had deleted the ‘Religious and Moral Education’ (RME) course from the Elementary school syllabi. The Catholic bishop Conference of Ghana issued a strongly worded statement condemning the omission. Furthermore they instructed the heads of all catholic sponsored but government assisted schools to implement a strict daily regime of religious teaching. The powerful Christian council of Ghana -which is a pressure group comprising all the churches on Ghana (and is an awful lot of them) - has joined the fray and has demanded the reinstitution of the RME without delay. My opinion on this issue is that the battle is really one to convert young impressionable minds into Christianity. At such a young age it is pretty easy to pump religious dogmas into the heads of people and you’re sure it will stick for a lifetime. I quite remember that my brush with RME during my school days was a dominated by passages from the bible and overt Christian proselytizing. The burgeoning church industry sees it survival in the young ones coming through and it is desperate to lock a steady stream of followers for the future. However what the Religious Zealots forget is that Ghana is a Secular Constitutional entity than guarantees the religious freedoms of all manners of persons with any form religious believe whilst the state maintains a neutral religious posture .However the reality of RME is that it teaches Christianity to young impressionable minds using the platform provided by a supposedly religious-neutral state. Again the threat by the catholic Bishops to compel head teachers to enforce catholic values is taking it too far.