Political and Science Rhymes

Pope Poem
or
The Pope's Misconceptions About Conception and Science History in a Rhyme

We have a Pope named John Paul,
Who thinks he knows it all,
So you might as well talk to a wall,
He just pardoned Galileo 300 years too late,
To save him from his unjust fate,
To catch him the Church used both the Bible and Aristotle as bait,
Both the Bible and Aristotelian logic,
Said the Earth doesn't move and you'd better not knock it,
With this dogma as logic,
The Church had Galileo's fate in its pocket,
And now our Pope John Paul,
Has decided to forgive Galileo after all,
300 years too late,
To save him from his Catholic fate,
Oh but there's more and the truth can't wait,
If it isn't enough that this man wants your soul,
He even wants to determine your birth control,
He says modern agriculture will save an overpopulating humanity,
And he hides from the truth behind his intellectual vanity,
Science knows modern agriculture will never save humanity,
Long after they buried Saint Thomas Aquinas,
We still haven't put his Aristotelian world view behind us,
His 13th century translations of ancient Aristotle,
Once again trap the Pope in an intellectual bottle,
Galileo told the Church the Earth moves around the sun,
But there was other work he'd never begun,
Although the Renaissance increased European intelligence,
Galileo and his Pope still lived in the world of Aristotle's Four Elements,
Earth, Air, Water, and Fire,
Were the only elements Aquinas' world would require,
But now centuries later,
The number of known elements has grown much greater,
The elements of Earth are more than one,
And the element Fire is really radiation from the sun,
The elements of Earth are becoming depleted,
And more and more fertilizer is needed,
Our population continues to grow,
While our soil's phosphates are getting real low,
If the Pope can't even make wine out of water,
It’s unlikely he'll ever save modern agriculture,
Though some of life's elements abound in the air,
You can’t produce food when your earth is bare,
If we lived in the world of Aquinas' Four Elements,
We might even think the Pope's statements had relevance,
But in our world of a hundred and more elements,
The Pope's incorrect statements don't make any sense,
As is demonstrated in El Salvador,
Overpopulation causes most pain to the poor,
Though the Pope says modern agriculture will lay food on their table,
The world's poor have no reason to believe that it's able,
For each orbit of the Earth around the Sun,
Half a kilo of soil phosphates is consumed by everyone,
And this isn't even counting erosion,
In only a few decades our mined Florida phosphates,
Will be depleted,
While Aquinas' Four Element mistake goes unheeded,
It's hard to say what birth control method the Pope approves of,
Nor is it certain that it really improves love,
But we know what Mr. Reagan's are,
We know what Mr. Bush's are,
We suspect what Mr. Clinton's are,
Their birth control is Third World War.