In the second in a series of presentations that he recently made at Charis Bible College in Colorado, right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton reiterated his belief that God will never allow a cure or vaccine for AIDS to be discovered because the disease is divine punishment for homosexuality.
Citing Romans 1, which declares that "men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved," Barton said that God will never allow a cure to be found for AIDS because that would eliminate the "penalty" that is due for engaging in such behavior.
"Anything the Bible says is right, there is scientific basis for it now," Barton said. "The federal government, in the last several years, has spent tens of billions of dollars looking for a vaccine for AIDS and I don't think they will ever find a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. And I say that based on a particular Bible verse ... Notice this, homosexuals receive in their bodies the penalty due them. The Bible says if you engage in homosexuality, your body will do things that will penalize you. So if you can have a vaccine for AIDS, then you're keeping your body from penalizing you. I don't think they'll ever find a vaccine for AIDS"
29 comments
What anothga wrote. Just louder and with more angry screaming.
Seriously, your "ominpotent" god couldn't create a disease that would only target those who "sinned"? Way to make him sound even more incompetent!
So, does that mean that a cure will be found, but it will only work on straight people who contracted it? Will the cure go into the person, figure out their orientation, and then start working? Which leads to another question, if being gay is a choice as your ilk often claim, could the patient choose to be straight get the needle, then be cured then choose to be gay again?
Goofs like Barton used to say this about polio, TB, malaria, smallpox and a whole bunch of other diseases which have since either been cured or greatly ameliorated. So it's a poor craftsman who picks poor tools.
Barton said that God will never allow a cure to be found for AIDS because that would eliminate the "penalty" that is due for engaging in such behavior.
Like being born to an infected mother.
The federal government, in the last several years, has spent tens of billions of dollars looking for a vaccine for AIDS
The UN reckons about $150m was spent by governments worldwide on finding a vaccine in 2011. Even if we assume the US spent the lion's share, and it spend the same amount every year without accounting for inflation, "tens of billions" would mean that the federal government started funding work on an HIV vaccine sometime in the 19th century.
"The federal government, in the last several years, has spent tens of billions of dollars looking for a vaccine for AIDS..."
Seeing as how HIV didn't even exist two centuries ago, let alone two millennia ago (and I can assure you that it wasn't specially created), what a strange form of divine punishment. Your deity waits to unleash his super weapon until, in terms of human existence, shortly before we have the level of medical science necessary to stop it.
Isn't it odd how nobody who studies viruses for a living agrees with the "Jesus made HIV" hypothesis?
Doesn't AIDS, in fact, effect more straight people than gay people now. Mostly because of dipshits like Barton here who say that it's a disease for gay people so straight people think they can't get it.
I remember a group of fundies putting paid ads in the local paper in the early 80s saying we will never find a treatment for AIDS because god.
I will now point and laugh at you in advance. Just like I did in the early 80s.
Oh great, your superb ignorance has just given pharmaceutical companies a very good reason not to hire any fundies. I'm not going to ask for chapter and verse on that AIDS vaccine thing, as I suspect that you don't have one but plan to search for something that can be twisted to fit. I gather that "god" is really big on punishment, but pretty damn stingy with the reward stuff, as you only get it when you are too dead to notice.....
So, you're saying that in worlds where God exists the development of an HIV-preventing vaccination or a cure for AIDS is less likely than the development of such a vaccine or cure would be in a world where God did not exist? This means that the development of such technology would be weak evidence for the nonexistence of God. I have no problem with you making this assertion, please carry on asserting that development of technology is evidence for God being less likely to exist. Naturally, I do expect that if you amass enough such evidence suggesting the nonexistence of God that you act upon such evidence. Failure to do so will suggest a certain lack of sincerity.
Anything the Bible says is right, there is scientific basis for it now
Tell me more about breeding striped goats.
Anything the Bible says is right, there is scientific basis for it now
Like insects having four legs and pi being 3?
The Smallpox Eradication Program, from 1950-80. The last person to die from Smallpox was in 1977. So successful was it, that Smallpox now only exists in culture flasks in labs around the world, with debate in the scientific community to this day as to whether these cultures should be used for continued anti-virological research, or destroyed. Thus scientists have it in their power to make one of your 'God's creations extinct .
Science - 1. God - 0.
That old Biblical favourite, Leprosy is easily treatable nowadays.
Science - 2. God - 0.
HIV, if diagnosed early enough, can have it's development into full-blown AIDS arrested via use of antiretroviral drugs. The current research into the genome of HIV; the fact there are a small number of people who are immune to HIV. Combine the two avenues of research, and you do the maths; imagine if you will, if the pharmaceutical companies can isolate - and patent/trademark etc - the gene that causes that immunity. PROTIP: certain forms of Cancer can be treated with Gene Therapy.
Do you want to go for Triple Jeopardy, Davey-boy, where the stakes can really change...?! >:D
After all: they said the same about Leprosy & Smallpox. Did they not...?!
So because to consenting adults do something that's completely harmless, God allows millions of people who have nothing to do with it die a slow, horrible death. That's like me seeing my sister doing something she likes, and then going out and punching a bunch of random people in the face.
It makes sense that AIDS is a punishment from God against gays. Like all other of God's punishments, it has horrible accuracy hence why it infects more straight people than gays.
Charis Bible College in Colorado
Another Patriot Bible University type school located in a trailer in the middle of nowhere?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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