I think we’ve all heard about the Pope’s trip to Africa, and the growing concern among public health officials the world-over of his immature, unjust, and outright dangerous comments on condoms with respect to the AIDS problem. What you may have missed, however, is his exceedingly silly comments on religion and human nature. According to the AP, in Cameroon the Pope took it upon himself to wax philosophical on the inherent religiosity of human society, with the intention of praising the countries’ peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims. According to his eminence,

“Genuine religion … stands at the base of any authentically human culture.”

I found this comment interesting, mostly because it’s incorrect. Not only is it incorrect that religion “stands at the base of any authentically human culture,” but certainly ‘genuine’ religion, if what he means is established religion. Of course, it is inherent that religious people ignore certain aspects of reality to justify held beliefs, so ignoring the innumerable cultures without religion that have existed in the distant past, recent past, and present is all in a days work for Benedict. I propose that we all chip in a few bucks and enroll his Popeness in a cultural anthropology course at his local community college, so he can learn about cultures like…

The Pirahã, indigenous hunter-gatherers of Amazonia. According to linguistic and cultural research done by Daniel Everett, missionary turned atheist, these people have no concept of god or religion. So, this must mean they’re horrible, violent people, right? Actually, no. They’re an incredibly peaceful people, and they live quite simple lives almost completely in the present, with no signs of psychological issues such as depression. They, in other words, seem to be a whole deal better off than us in the almighty “West.”

I have a feeling, however, that the pope would immediately discount these people as not “authentically human,” in the interest of once again ignoring reality to justify held beliefs. So, let’s move on to a point a little later in his speech:

The pope said that “religion and reason mutually reinforce one another.”

Newsflash: saying something out loud doesn’t make it true. But let’s give Popey the benefit of the doubt. Somebody in such an ifluential politico-religious position should understand basic public health, right? I mean, say we were to pose the question, “Mr. Pope, if we both agree that AIDS is having a horrible impact on world public health, and we understand that a major factor in slowing down the proliferation of AIDS is proper contraceptive use, then we probably shouldn’t tell a continent that has a pitiful public health infrastructure that they ‘can’t resolve [the AIDS epidemic] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem’, right?” This isn’t too much to expect, I would think. Well, it turns out I would be wrong.

So much for religion and reason mutually reinforcing one another…