I was watching the President
with Chris Matthews on Hard Ball Thursday night. Once again, Chris Matthews started to expound on
the significance of the Pope and the Catholic Church in society. I consider Chris Matthews an intelligent man
and I marvel at the blind faith and acceptance he seems to attend to the
Catholic faith.
Once you consider the
Catholic indoctrination of its parishioners from childhood it is more
understandable. Catholic children are
christened at birth. Families are
required to attend church. Children of
Catholics are placed in Catholic schools where religion is constantly
reinforced by nuns. About the age of
reason children are instructed for Confirmation and then ceremoniously inducted
into the fold. Young Catholics attend
church – take Communion – and participate in Confession. And then, if they are like Chris Matthews they
attend a Catholic
College
Friends of ours that taught
school in an Eskimo Village in Northwestern Alaska
related this story:
An elementary school had been
built decades before by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs.) The school building was built on stilts
because of the permafrost (heated
buildings on the ground sink into the earth over a period of time.) The early teachers constantly had problems
with children hiding under the school, and one day one of the children was
found frozen under the building. The
teachers started telling the kids that there were trolls under the school that
would eat them. As those children became
adults they told their children of the trolls under the school. The story was repeated for
generations.
The teachers told us that the
school had burned down and been replaced with a modern facility and that the
adults in the village were relived because they no longer had to worry about
trolls taking their children.
Indoctrination is the way
that religion protects itself from common sense and logical inquiry. It starts with children, and the premise is
to accept on faith and never question – questioning is a sin against God.
God religions are plagues on
this earth. The positive things that
religions tout are paled by the wars and genocide and hatred and racism and
ignorance they spawns. Christianity can
not stand up to scrutiny; so the question is why does it still wield such power
in the twenty-first century?
the Ol’Buzzard
The Christian church has much to answer for in the annals of human misery, suffering and crime.
ReplyDeletePeople want meaning in their lives. Most people can't handle the idea that shit can happen for absolutely no reason. The fact that life's a bitch and then you die scares the hell out of the average schmuck. So humanity invented religion to come up with explanations for stuff people couldn't explain. A child dies young from a horrible disease? He was still working off the karmic burden from the bad stuff done in a past life. Drought kills all the crops? The gods are angry because we didn't sacrifice enough virgins. You're a starving peasant being oppressed by a feudal overlord? Don't worry -- you'll get your reward in Heaven. And so it goes. . .
ReplyDeleteOB,
ReplyDeleteAs I have often posted - Why are people absolutely sane and rational about every other thing in the world except religion?
Don't look at the Sunnis and the Shiites - look at Northern Ireland. These are christians killing other christians over religion.
It is madness....
Sarge