h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On October 28th, the Pope will beatify with all the due solemnity 498 religious people( nuns, priests...)who died during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39)
All these people belonged to the winner faction, the Franquists.
These days there´s a controversy about the so called Law For the Historic Memory. It pretends to put and end to the Transition period by honouring all, ALL the dead during the Civil War. The most important aspect of the Law is about recovering the corpses; many families don´t know yet where their love ones are.

The opposition party, still with too many Franquists ruling it, are using their influence on the Vatican.Polls are going to be celebrated next March. They accuse the current Government of opening old and forgotten wounds; of creating a pre-civil war feelings among Spaniards...

The Vatican is showing its right-wing face once more. There were also a lot of left-wing believers, but, obviously, those ones don´t belong to the Law and Order faction. Law and Order people were Franco, Pinochet(blessed by Juan Pablo II)Videla... with many religious people killed during their dictatorships... Religious but... revolution people, and these ones cannot be beatified, their place is the hell.

Can we trust the Vatican as ecumenical defender of Peace?
Is not religion nowadays one the worst influences on politics ?
Which is the role of religion in our societies?



Mar

>>Can we trust the Vatican..?<

Rhetorical question, right?

I see no compelling reason why we should trust that particular gang of deluded miscreants more than we should any other religious institution, which is to say, not at all

This gang has a lot of power. This gang is going to influence the content of a future ( if ever it takes off) European Constitution. They want to see the words "Christian Europe" written on it.

I don´t know why a healthy laicist discussion is not fostered in any country. Even in France, laicists (not all of them atheists) have difficulties about that.

If History can show anyone all the difficulties religion united to political power has brought to humanity(science, thought...)why can it be STILL in our schools?

Suppose I sold you an invisible cream, that made you feel good about yourself, and I said I would give you more of the cream for free, but only if you persuaded someone else to use it too ?

After 2,000 years of this pyramid selling game you'd havesome pretty important people in your sales force. Which is why it's still in our schools.

Of course when a rival company sets up selling the same product then you've got a problem - especially if they both work for some people.

. . . idly dreams of a popular rebellion within the Catholic Church -- ordinary people marching on St. Peters demanding the ousting of the Pope and his replacement with a popularly elected council of representatives, free condoms for all, and a step toward gender equality through the abolition of the priesthood . . .





What a silly dream.

Did God ever advocate Democracy?

Religion and democracy are generally at odds with each other. The whole point of religion is that there's a "correct" way of living your life incorporating religious-morality, worship etc etc; the whole point of democracy is you make your own choices.

"Did God ever advocate Democracy?"

Presumably you mean "was democracy advocaded in the Bible" in which case the answer is clearly "no". The very idea as we know it today didn't even exist - the closest thing was the elitist citizen-participation of the Greek city states and the (recently deceased) republicanism of Rome which was also very different from modern democracy. Christianity arguably promoted egalitarianism (certainly "in the eyes of the Lord") and was notably anti-elite (in the economic and political sense) but I don't think it had any democratic basis. Modern democracy, like most good things that the Christians have tried to usurp, came out of the Enlightenment.

"religion and democracy are generally at odds with each other"

Religious groups take advantage of any democratic society to promote their interests. It happens everywhere. Obviously, much more in non-democratic countries. I´m afraid that religion and political power get on too well.

Most of people have never stop to consider any religious aspect critically.
The Enlightment´s ideas are still to be fullfilled

Mar