The Catholic Church is and has been a force for good in the world

To begin with, I made some sloppy and inadvertent mistakes concerning my source list that I apologize for. Here are the references concerning the inquisition and about he fact that the Catholic Church made a concerted effort to prevent its followers from reading the Bible thoroughly enough and the fact that sermons in the church were held Latin, which the common man of the day couldn't understand. http://reformationhistory.org... , http://en.wikipedia.org... I was not aware of the debate rules concerning the "dropped points", otherwise I wouldn't have gone about expanding on the issues that were dropped in the first round without mentioning them in the third round (I intended to expand those arguments in this round). I thus beg everyone to take into consideration that I did not know of this and in light of that take the rest of the debate into consideration instead. " Originally in round one, my opponent defined "good" as "good" (look for yourself)." Obviously, that statement is wrong if you actually look at what I wrote: " I would define the word "good" as something done by a person or entity that promotes the advancement of the well-being of the people living in the society in terms of the peoples' overall health, happiness, and educational attainment." This is the concrete definition I gave and that I wanted to use for the purpose of this debate. I urge everyone to read the first comments in the comments section in which me and my opponent discussed the debate terms. I wrote: "For the purpose of this debate we are going to debate whether or not the Catholic Church is a force for good based on the definition that I gave in my introduction." I then urged my opponent to notify me if there were any disagreements concerning the debate terms themselves so that we could settle them in the comments section. Now, he has obviously not cared to listen nor heeded the debate terms since he has stubbornly raised this point twice now I expect this to be a discount in terms of his debating conduct since he has deliberately chosen not to abide by the debate rules. The definition of "good" that I laid out offers us the possibility to look at evidence and evaluate them empirically and from the point of view of different scientific disciplines. It is up to us to judge evidence from the point of view of whether or not they have advanced the society in terms of its overall health, happiness and educational attainment and based on that draw a reasonable conclusion. Science has no bias. Science is only about the facts. The arguments that I have raised regarding the Catholic Church's evil acts have been raised because I have inferred that it has either hindered or not done enough to contribute to the advancement of the overall health, happiness and educational attainment of the societies in which it has ingrained itself. In regards to the issue of homosexuality, we know by now that it is not only a choice - multiple evidence now confirms the existence of a certain genome sequence that leads to homosexuality (1) - but is pervasive throughout the animal kingdom, including our own (2). From a scientific point of view, we can conclude that it is perfectly natural and is nothing to be ashamed of, even though the Catholic Church will have it otherwise. The Catholic Church condemns homosexuality as gravely immoral, that it is a mortal sin and that it is against the human nature based on the teachings of the Bible. Even though they are to be respected, the church holds that all sexual acts between persons of the same gender are intrinsically evil and always objective mortal sins, they teach that perfectly decent homosexuals who love each other are condemned to hell for eternity. But as I have demonstrated, the Catholic Church doesn't have any justifications to be opposed to homosexuality save for the Bible since it is absolutely normal in nature. We know that those who defend The Defense of Marriage Act, DOMA, do so overwhelmingly because of religious reasons, so we know there are many Catholics among them, especially because of the church's adamant position on gay marriage. DOMA section 8 had barred the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, thus excluding gay couples from receiving welfare benefits and tax reliefs on a state level. Same sex couples are, for instance, heavily restricted when it comes to transferring assets between each other tax-free as can married couples who can use a marital deduction from federal estate and gift tax. As such, If a spouse in a same-sex couple dies, the surviving spouse has to pay an estate tax that heterosexually married couples are exempted from and that is what happened in the famous Windsor case who was forced to pay $363,053 in federal taxes because she was in a same-sex marriage. In total, there have been up to 1,138 state benefits and rights that same-sex couples have not been eligible for (4). Although a few changes has been made recently there still exists a huge discrepancy between the rights of same-sex and heterosexual couples. These teachings are nothing but immoral and downright evil and unjustifiable. It is because of Catholics - along with other religious people - inspired by the Church's teaching that gays are treated unfairly. And, above all, it is because of your objective morality - your god-given commands - that Catholic act and think this way. The Catholics aren't dumb. They knew that this injustice would follow if same-sex couples were denied the state recognition of marriage. They did it anyway because of their objective morality - the one you reprimands me for not having - that tells these Catholics that the right course of actions are the ones that have already been taken - and the results for gays are absolutely abhorrent. Concerning the condom issue, it is true that condoms doesn't render a 100% protection against STDs and AIDS, and especially when used improperly. When used properly and consistently condoms offer up to 98-99% protection against HIV transmission. One study showed that out of the 123 different couples who used condoms consistently during sex, none was infected with HIV. However, among the 122 who used condoms inconsistently, 12 of them got infected. (5) So we know that when used consistently and properly condoms do render an almost complete protection against AIDS and HIV. So condoms is by no means the only tool to solve the AIDS-epidemic. Sex education programs are by far more important than the issuing of condoms itself. Abstinence is more effective than condoms without the right knowledge how to effectively use them. In fact, research demonstrably shows that comprehensive sex education is more effective than abstinence programs (6). It also shows that abstinence ails to decrease the risk of transmission of HIV in the developed world when compared to comprehensive sex education efforts (7). By telling people - as the Catholic Church has done - that condoms do not protect against AIDS because they have tiny holes in them through which HIV can pass, which of course is patently false since the scientific community agrees that condoms are impermeable to the HIV virus (8). Even though the church's medical institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa emphasizes fidelity, the work in trying to promote sex awareness is ultimately thwarted by Church officials statements that condoms are sinful and high-appointed Catholic officials unscientific announcements that incites distrust against condoms by citing misleading studies to communities that . In 1990, Pope John Paul II toured the Africa, and in his addresses to communities that condoms were sinful in all situations (9). So far we know that comprehensive sex education combined with condoms work since the science proves this. However, without the church's concerted effort to promote correct knowledge about the disease and how to curtail it, we wont be able to solve the crisis. The Catholic Church's anti-condom policy is so far responsible for approximately 30 million deaths. (10) Again, you have not demonstrated which church teachings that these acts violated. Scripture, of course, can inspire in different ways. In fact, it was Pope Gregory IX that instituted the inquisition, so it was not accidentally related to the church (11). As I have shown in my sources, the crusades were holy wars so they were called on by different popes at the time - all religiously inspired called upon by the Vatican. Since antisemitism can be found in the Bible - and has been used in history to persecute Jews - The very doctrine itself was the absence of any teaching that admonished antisemitism, it was and had been an official doctrine. That is why Pope Pius XII hid "The Lost Encyclical". You didn't refute the fact I demonstrated, that the church had CONDEMNED antisemitism in 1964 and the teachings in scripture that incited antisemitism, so I guess that since you did not try to refute that point, that point has now been "dropped". Vote con. 1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk... 2.http://en.wikipedia.org... 3. http://www.thedailybeast.com... 4. http://www.respectformarriage.org... 5. http://www.aidschicago.org... 6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 7. http://www.siecus.org... 8. http://www.theguardian.com... 9. http://www.consultancyafrica.com... 10. "Rethinking the African AIDS epidemic." Population and Development Review 26.1 (2000): 117-135. 11. http://galileo.rice.edu...