From the Huffington Post:
According to new government reports, there are nearly 20 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections each year in this country.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nearly half of these new infections occur in people between ages 15 and 24.
Researchers also found that there are 110,197,000 cases of STIs in total in the United States right now, including those occurring in people who newly contracted an infection and those who have been living with an infection. Young people between ages 15 and 24 make up more than 20 percent of the overall cases of both new and established infections.
Let me get this straight:
- There is one sexually transmitted infection for every three people in the United States.
- There are 20 million new infections each year
- This costs us $15,600,000,000 annually
Apparently “free sex” comes with a price tag after all. The sexual revolution kills, cripples, and bankrupts its own participants.
When will the intelligentsia learn that the solution to our current mess is not to wear a condom, but to keep your pants up until marriage? When will we learn that there is a reason God has designed sex to be expressed in marriage alone? We would be so much better off if we followed God’s commands.
I also find it amazing that lawmakers want to target smokers and the obese because of the associated medical costs, and yet ignore the price tag of the sexually promiscuous. Political correctness once again.
Thinking to Believe 
February 14, 2013 at 6:20 pm
If it was not for religious prudes who preach abstinence instead of preaching the elimination of the pathogens that cause STI’s, these pathogens would be a thing of the past but as long as you have religion opposing science at every turn using the god myth as fodder to damn their own generation, such is it that the world turns.
A perfect example of religious insanity is the opposition to the vaccination program of pre-teen, pre sexual activity to protect youngsters against the Human papillomavirus, (HPV).
The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection today. HPV cause genital warts and others have been linked to cancers of the cervix, vagina, vulva, penis, anus, oral cavity and throat. It is estimated that at least 75% of sexually active people will have a genital HPV infection in their lifetime. It is possible to have an HPV infection without any signs and symptoms and thus unknowingly spread the disease. In Canada, the highest rates of HPV infections are found in people under the age of 25.
Dr. Harald zur Hausen, co-winner of this year’s Nobel prize for medicine, admitted in an interview Monday that the negative reaction of some parents in North America and Europe to the vaccines perturbs him.
“It is a little bit dismaying,” said zur Hausen, who has no financial stake in either of the two existing HPV vaccines and receives no royalties from the vaccine manufacturers
Still others argue vaccinating young girls against a sexually transmitted disease could be interpreted as encouraging them to become sexually active or could give them a false sense of safety that might induce them to forgo condoms while having sex.
It is not yet clear what percentage of parents nationally agreed to allow their daughters to receive the three shots needed for HPV vaccination. But early figures for the 2007-08 year in Ontario – the first year of the program – suggest around 53 per cent of eligible girls received at least the first shot, said Andrew Morrison, a spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Health.
In the United States, a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control estimates that about 23 per cent of American girls aged 13 to 17 had received the full series of HPV shots.
What would happen if scientists could develop vaccines against sexually transmitted diseases which cause health problems or even death? One would think that anything which improves and saves lives would be good, but religious extremists would likely oppose this because it would allow people to escape the consequences of sexual sin. Yes, they would rather see people die than risk an increase in sexual activity
regarding the problems facing a recently-developed vaccine for the human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted virus that can lead to cervical cancer later in life:
To prevent infection, girls will have to be vaccinated before they become sexually active, which could be a problem in many countries. In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. “Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV,” says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.
“Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex,” Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus. … HPV is extremely common. Half of all sexually active women between 18 and 22 in the US are infected. Most cases clear up, but sometimes infection persists and can cause cancer decades later.
Matters could be even worse in developing nations where 80% of cervical cancer deaths occur. Doctors may have to try vaccinating men instead of women because people will persist in denial that younger girls could be sexually active and, even if they are, they will only get what they deserve if they become infected.
A vaccine to the HPV will save lives, prevent cancer, and increase the quality of life for millions of women. Religious people who oppose this because there is a risk that people may have more sex (unlikely, because the threat of things like HIV is far more immediate than the chance of cancer decades later) are putting their religious ideology over the others’ lives. They would rather see women die than possibly have extra-marital sex.
So yes one can cite the statistics to show the prevalence of STD’s but if we get religion out of the picture and let the common sense of reality step in, the dangers of which you speak will ease considerably until their eventual elimination altogether.
Only Knowledge will set you free, belief never can!
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February 19, 2013 at 4:58 am
Leonardo – While it may be true that some religious groups oppose some vaccines, their solution is the most effective since if people did abstain from pre-marital (and extra-marital) sex, then STDs would reduce in number dramatically. As for the view that promiscuity would not increase if given the HPV vaccine, I am not too sure. There is a view that shows people weigh up risk (albeit sub-conciously) and that the person will act within a risk factor. Reducing the risk means that people up the ante in order to have the same risk factor.
The introduction of “safe sex” artefacts has caused greater promiscuity because there is lower risk of consequences. Argue what you will for safer sex etc, but please do not rubbish that the safest method is still abstinence (from both sides)
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February 19, 2013 at 8:06 pm
scottspeig:
Thanks for your reply. I did not rubbish the “abstinence” method, it just happens to be the worse possible solution; a non starter, a non remedy for a wrong tact. To preach abstaining from sex is totally ridiculous because it does absolutely nothing to the pathogens that cause disease. Sexual activity does not cause STD’s, sexual activity is the focus of transmission, merely a medium that pathogens use in much the same way that pathogens use air or water or other hosts, for the transmission of their own sexual procreation. Pathogens like virus, bacteria, fungii, like all parasites are intelligent.
Take the dicrocoelium dendriticum parasite. It has a sexual cycle just like humans but why and where and how it breeds gives pause to wonder who really is intelligent on this planet. How did it all start? Goodness knows the dicrocoelium dendriticum probably teaches its children the Parasite Bible: about Adam and Eve, the Beginning of Life and the start of Parasitic Procreation.
Imagine for a moment, without too much embellishment, THE GENESIS SCENARIO:
Once upon a time in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit of good and evil after they were clearly told by the Shepherd Creator not to eat the fruit of knowledge for in that day they would surely die. As fate would have it the Garden was situated in the intestines of a sheep according to the creator Shepherd. And so they ate of the fruit and became intoxicated with the delicious indulgence that soon brought forth the travail of Eve and in her labor their offspring were born. As punishment for the sins of Adam and Eve the children were ejected from the Garden as the intestines of the sheep excreted in agony for the wretched parasitic woes that befell the offspring from disobeying the Shepherd Creator. And the children were cast out with the excrement. But all was not lost for the Shepherd gave intelligent instructions to the children castaways, how to repent of their sinful nature and achieve the grace required to re-enter the Kingdom from whence they had been ejected.
And so Cain was Able to make friends with other sinners also cast out in the excrement and developed a plan whereby they would re-enter the Garden. The plan was to ride the blades of grass in the early morning dew when the sheep were grazing in the field and thereby be ready to be eaten when the sheep came munching by but they could not climb the high blades of grass without the help of; well butter my buttocks and call me a biscuit if they did not come up with a fool proof way of getting back into the Kingdom Garden.
Enter the Ant family: Vibrant and Radiant. Cain was Able to grasp onto the hairs of the ant legs and crawl and wiggle his way up to the abdomen where he quickly gained entry through the exoskeleton breathing holes used for oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output and through the heart tube ride the blood flow to the head. Eventually the brain is within reach and control. Now Cain is Able to manipulate the behavior of the ant and forces it to crawl up the blade of grass and perch itself on top by embedding its mandible into the vein of the grass blade and remains there until the sheep ingest it. Back in the intestine the harmony of the outcast children in choral harmony sing “HOME”. And thus the cycle of life goes on.
Can the D.D. say no to the sheep excreting? Can the Ant say no to the Excretees? Can the Sheep say no to the succulent blades of grass? Indeed can the cycle of life say no to the cycle of life?
That is why sexual abstinence is indeed out of the question for everything, and everybody, everywhere on earth!
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February 20, 2013 at 8:35 pm
I’m an atheist, which means I generally hate religious rules and superstition, so I guess you might think I should oppose waiting until marriage to have sex, but I think most people are actually really foolish on this issue.
I’ve been thinking for a long while now that sex before marriage is an act of utter stupidity. Sex causes pregnancy, and no form of birth control is reliable. It should then be obvious through common sense and a little intelligence that marriage is the only appropriate context for sex. Otherwise, who’s going to take care of that baby (and who would want a disease either)?
http://agalltyr.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/the-sex-conundrum-an-atheist-against-sex/
(The Sex Conundrum: An Atheist Against Sex)
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February 20, 2013 at 9:52 pm
Matthew:
You may be an atheist but your myopia in discernment is astoundingly lacking. Everyone knows that STI’s / STD’s are transmitted through sexual activity but that has absolutely nothing to do with sex before during or after marriage. How, where and why did the pathogens begin their incubation and and symptoms to begin with? If it is sexually transmitted, how did the first infection begin? It had to start before it was transmitted don’t you think? And if it started before it transmitted then it must have begun before transmission took place and that START was NOT the result of transmission so sexual activity has absolutely nothing to do with the Disease itself, sex from where you sit is concerned only with the transmission of a disease that had prior existence but not the disease itself and I submit that is where you need to begin your philosophical points. How the disease begins and how it is transmitted are two different orangutans
In case I said that too fast:
I use my thoracic and abdominal muscles so that I can use my thoracic cavity as a bellows to produce a draft of air that will pass across my larynx and by tautening or slackening the vocal chords, I’ll produce vibrations that are projected into the atmosphere and caught by two cup shaped appendages which you have on the side of your head and they’re focused on the outer membrane called the eardrum that begins to vibrate in harmony with the vibrations that I’m producing in my throat and you see, attached to that outer membrane, the eardrum, there’s a little bone called the hammer that’s in contact with another little bone called the anvil and it begins to strike it, motivated by the eardrum in harmony with the vibrations that I’m producing in my throat and that little bone, the anvil, is in touch with another little bone called the stirrup, so called, because it’s like what you might use if you were riding a horse and that, in its turn, is in contact with an inner membrane that contains fluid and the vibrations are communicated through the fluid to the nerve end that then convey an impulse to a certain area of your brain; and then, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
You see, it’s purely a mechanical process. You don’t hear anything with your ear, you know that, vibrations are simply communicated, where you hear is in the brain.
And that is where you need to begin your commentary, with that thing between your ears, the brain, with respect on STD’s / STI’s, not that thing between your legs called sexuality, or the religious institution(marriage) invented to control sexual activity not so much for the man because the man could care less but for the woman so she could avoid being called a slut or as the bible so succinctly calls her, the great whore, if she is not married and to avoid her offspring being called bastards by the self righteous religious zealots too prudish to have common sense.
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February 20, 2013 at 9:56 pm
“Yours is not to reason why; yours is but to live and die”. I pity those who live in such an oppressive culture that suppresses individual thought, for that culture will never civilize because it goes against the very essence of the human spirit in a vain attempt to stifle it.
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February 21, 2013 at 12:10 pm
LeonardoTheGreater,
I have never had, nor will I ever have an STD. As you’ve pointed out in excruciating detail, sex involves a mechanical process, as if that’s a novel concept. Further, you’ve implied that abstinence is impossible for “everyone everywhere on earth”. Without regard to the reason why I abstain from sex, it is that very abstinence from this mechanical process, which you have claimed is impossible, that has prevented my contracting an STD. So, your fancy analogies and intellectual diatribe all turn to mush with my simply stating, “it worked for me.” Or am I just being myopic?
You stated: “To preach abstaining from sex is totally ridiculous because it does absolutely nothing to the pathogens that cause disease.”
Me: Why in the world should I care about pathogens that can’t possibly infect me? There are all sorts of animal-borne diseases out there that humans cannot contract. I’m not the least bit concerned about those diseases as they pertain to my personal health. Why should I be any more worried about a disease that I could only contract if I behaved like an animal?
The fact is, spreading of sexual disease is caused by human incontinence. 2 Timothy 3:1-7 has some candid statements about this. STD endemics are simply a sign of the times.
-John
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February 21, 2013 at 3:01 pm
John:
The spreading of the sperm of life is caused by human incontinence, if that is what Timothy 2 is interpreted to mean to you but I think you are misinterpreting scripture which is not unusual; my understanding of incontinence refers to the incontinence of urinary and feces control because of too much ingestion of alcohol for example. This seems to be supported by verse 6, which text refers to men creeping into houses and taken captive silly women for diverse lusts..Verse 6 refers to sexual activity but “incontinence” in verse 3 is not usually associated with spontaneous ejaculation.
The very essence of the STI’s article to which we are responding in fact supports the very premise I offered that sexuality it is impossible to control for everyone and everything, everywhere on earth; that is why the article claims, is the reason for the rise of STI’s. But I disagree.
So, since the solution of religion, instead of trying to control that which is uncontrollable(except for you of course) should be focused on eliminating the diseases that cause so much ill health in the world, like we eliminated smallpox, n’est ce pas?
Sex is beautiful, natural and the design of all life forms on earth. Whether you are married or not has nothing to do with the design, marriage is merely a man imposed regulation that should be abolished as a failure on so many levels as all religious dogma is.
A man could easily impregnate a woman despite either one having an STI and you or I or any birth could have been the resulting offspring of such an eventful conception; STI’s do not necessarily prevent conception and how would we know?
This world would be far better off with more love and more sex that more abstinence, frustration, anger, bitterness, control and war. Look at the Muslim world and you can see what type of society grows up with forced sexual abstinence even so far as denying men the opportunity to even look upon a woman wrapped in a burka tarpaulin to prevent and deny the human design of wonderful sexuality. Young men and women who grow up hating instead of loving, revenge instead of compassion. Abstinence is the Enemy of Good, the Enemy of Happiness, the Enemy of Life itself. Religion is synonymous with abstinence and sexual control.
A society based on sexual abstinence is like the area surrounding the female hornet’s emergence from the soil when she is birthed into the world; the ground is littered with dead male hornets that have been exterminated by rival males in the quest to mate with the emerging female. That is the state of the world today because of control, abstinence and denial of the human design.
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February 22, 2013 at 7:14 am
LeonardoTheGreater,
I think where we differ in opinion is in will versus ability. You suggest that abstinence fails because humans have an inherent inability to abstain from sex; I contend that abstinence is a matter of will. What has protected me from sexual sin (and therefore STD’s) is my will to obey God’s commands according to scripture. It’s the same submission of human will that Jesus submitted to the will of His Diety (Luke 22:42). You may perceive that as self-righteousness, but I fully acknowledge and appreciate that it is simply by God’s grace that I can do anything at all uprightly, let alone remain sexually pure.
I disagree with your take on the meaning of “incontinent” in 2 Timothy 3:3. In that context, I think it means general lack of behavioral self-control. That passage is referring to a spectrum of sinful behavior, including immoral sexual deeds acted out through incontinence. There’s no reason to believe it has anything to do with one’s inability to control his bowels.
I could say much more. I think I’ll just leave it there. God bless you, LeonardoTheGreater. For what it’s worth to you, I hope and pray the God of love reveals Himself to you in a way that you won’t want to deny.
-John
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February 22, 2013 at 8:54 am
John:
“…….You suggest that abstinence fails because humans have an inherent inability to abstain from sex;……..”
Humans like all creatures on the planet have an instinctual drive to act according to natural forces of the Laws of the Universe of which sex is the single most powerful force and drive in every living life form. Do you suppose any bird, mammal, pathogen or bee makes a conscious decision to do or not to do according to “will”? Does your heart beat according to your will? Such is it “will” mankind, the sexual drives for procreation because “Life forces”
It is the will of men that determine what your sins are for sin by and large is what other people say about you when you are behaving in a way that they disagree with. Morality becomes a question of geography, of culture, of religious supernatural insanity and patriarchal superstition and “old wives tales”. Never think for a moment that “grace”, “divinity”, religion and “God” comes from anywhere other than man. All religion, holy books, words and concepts derive from a person. The God/Credit, Devil/Debit are merely conceptual caricatures created by man and reinforced by magic since stoneagism, magicians of whom from biblical fame names a chief among them: Moses.
But religion is more than just a belief, religion wants to impose a universal morality which is why it has always attracted the kind of person who thinks other people’s private lives are their business. And giving respect to this mentality is exactly what’s got us into the mess that we’re in.
We’ve given religion ideas that are above its station and we persuaded it that it’s something it’s not. When the truth is that faith is nothing more than the deliberate suspension of disbelief. It’s an act of will. It’s not a state of grace; it’s a state of choice. Because without evidence, you’ve got no reason to believe apart from your willingness to believe.
So why is that worthy of respect anymore than your willingness to poke yourself in the eye with a pencil? And why is faith considered some kind of virtue, is it because it implies a certain depth of contemplation and insight? I don’t think so.
The bible should be edited to delete the all the references to God and substitute that term for the real word behind righteousness, “GOOD” for that is all the God/Credit refers to, the concept of GOOD. The absence of which is like darkness, not that darkness is something, it isn’t, but the absence of light(something) results in darkness(nothing/without good/light).
And that spirit which colloquially is called Good Gosh(Ghost or Holy Ghost) resides within and is exactly where and what Jesus referred to when he spoke constantly about the Father and in Luke 17: 20,21 he clearly makes that point.
Thanks for your sentiment of prayer however I could explain to you why prayer and placebo are other words for wish and hope and frankly about as useless as chinese rubbing the face of the casino slot machine before they press the play button!
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February 22, 2013 at 9:18 am
JOHN:
That all morals, concepts and religion come from within man is illustrated by the following, recent article just now coming to the light of discussion and understanding. It may be insightful to understanding.
‘I’m a monster’: Veterans ‘alone’ in their guilt
By PAULINE JELINEK | Associated Press – 22 February 2013: 1 hr 44 mins ago
A veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, former Marine Capt. Timothy Kudo thinks of himself as a killer — and he carries the guilt every day.
“I can’t forgive myself,” he says. “And the people who can forgive me are dead.”
With American troops at war for more than a decade, there’s been an unprecedented number of studies into war zone psychology and an evolving understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. Clinicians suspect some troops are suffering from what they call “moral injuries” — wounds from having done something, or failed to stop something, that violates their moral code.
Though there may be some overlap in symptoms, moral injuries aren’t what most people think of as PTSD, the nightmares and flashbacks of terrifying, life-threatening combat events. A moral injury tortures the conscience; symptoms include deep shame, guilt and rage. It’s not a medical problem, and it’s unclear how to treat it, says retired Col. Elspeth Ritchie, former psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.
“The concept … is more an existentialist one,” she says.
The Marines, who prefer to call moral injuries “inner conflict,” started a few years ago teaching unit leaders to identify the problem. And the Defense Department has approved funding for a study among Marines at California’s Camp Pendleton to test a therapy that doctors hope will ease guilt.
But a solution could be a long time off.
“PTSD is a complex issue,” says Navy Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Killing in war is the issue for some troops who believe they have a moral injury, but Ritchie says it also can come from a range of experiences, such as guarding prisoners or watching Iraqis kill Iraqis as they did during the sectarian violence in 2006-2007.
“You may not have actually done something wrong by the law of war, but by your own humanity you feel that it’s wrong,” says Ritchie, now chief clinical officer at the District of Columbia’s Department of Mental Health.
Kudo’s remorse stems in part from the 2010 accidental killing of two Afghan teenagers on a motorcycle. His unit was fighting insurgents when the pair approached from a distance and appeared to be shooting as well.
Kudo says what Marines mistook for guns were actually “sticks and bindles, like you’d seen in old cartoons with hobos.” What Marines thought were muzzle flashes were likely glints of light bouncing off the motorcycle’s chrome.
“There’s no day — whether it’s in the shower or whether it’s walking down the street … that I don’t think about things that happened over there,” says Kudo, now a graduate student at New York University.
“Human beings aren’t just turn-on, turn-off switches,” Veterans of Foreign Wars spokesman Joe Davis says, noting that moral injury is just a different name for a familiar military problem. “You’re raised ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but you do it for self-preservation or for your buddies.”
Kudo never personally shot anyone. But he feels responsible for the deaths of the teens on the motorcycle. Like other officers who’ve spoken about moral injuries, he also feels responsible for deaths that resulted from orders he gave in other missions.
The hardest part, Kudo says, is that “nobody talks about it.”
As executive officer of a Marine company, Kudo also felt inadequate when he had to comfort a subordinate grieving over the death of another Marine.
Dr. Brett Litz, a clinical psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Boston, sees moral injury, the loss of comrades and the terror associated with PTSD as a “three-legged stool” of troop suffering. Though there’s little data on moral injury, he says a study asked soldiers seeking counseling for PTSD in Texas what their main problem was; it broke down to “roughly a third, a third and a third” among those with fear, those with loss issues and those with moral injury.
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May 7, 2013 at 11:22 am
Huh?
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May 7, 2013 at 11:33 am
It was a spam comment that got through. I deleted it.
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May 7, 2013 at 12:27 pm
I thought you black listed me as previous comments on your latest posts would not show up when I posted so I unsubscribed from your blog; I was surprised to see this email in my inbox this morning.
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May 7, 2013 at 12:42 pm
No, I did not blacklist you. Some of your comments get caught in the spam filter though, and I don’t check it daily because it’s rare that bona fide comments go there. I released several of your comments last week.
Jason
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May 7, 2013 at 12:46 pm
Thank you. I will resubscribe.
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June 24, 2013 at 9:57 am
I wonder to whom you are addressing your comments since there is no salutation heading your comments? And several posters have commented.
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June 24, 2013 at 9:58 am
Myrtle:
That comment was for you sorry I forgot the salutation lol.
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