On Religion

Last night we watched Morgan Spurlock's new television show 30 days. I typically hate reality shows but I found this show to be wildly entertaining and educational.

In this particular episode, a Christian man from West Virginia went to live in Dearborn, Michigan as a Muslim for 30 days. Dearborn has the highest population of Muslims in the United States, and has had some controversy about Muslim prayer calls broadcasted over loudspeakers throughout the city. This Christian man struggled as he was forced to live with a Muslim family, dress like a typical Muslim man, learn Arabic, and attend prayer services five times a day.

What struck me was the Christian man's reaction to having to pray in the Muslim prayer services. He felt as if he was betraying Jesus by praying to "the Muslim God". His narrow-minded view of religion got me thinking about religious conservatism in general. Religions don't have their own separate gods although they may claim that theirs is the one true God. There is only one god which various religions explain in their own culturally-sanctioned ways.

I don't pray that often, but when I do, I ask God for strength and a clear mind. To me, God is an energy source that is present throughout all creation. God is not white. God is not a man or a woman. God does not have gender. The problem with all organized religions is that it try to pin down the definition of God and say "we have the definitive answer and everyone else is wrong".

How can humans explain the divine in human terms? That is virtually impossible. We are bound by the limitations of human language. We can't even begin to express the layers of divine complexity that do or do not exist. To experience God (or whatever you want to call it) I prefer to look at a beautiful meadow, sunset, or ocean waves, as opposed to worshiping in a church, mosque, synagogue or temple.

The Devil's Music

Pope Benedict XVI's views on rock n' roll in 1985:

"Rock music seeks release through liberation from the personality and its
responsibility ... [it is] among the anarchic ideas of freedom which today
[1985] predominate more openly in the West than in the East. But that is
precisely why rock music is so completely antithetical to the Christian concept
of redemption and freedom, indeed its exact opposite. Hence music of this type
must be excluded from the Church on principle, and not merely for aesthetic
reasons, or because of restorative crankiness or historical inflexibility. Rock
music seeks release through liberation from the personality and its
responsibility ... [it is] among the anarchic ideas of freedom which today
[1985] predominate more openly in the West than in the East. But that is
precisely why rock music is so completely antithetical to the Christian concept
of redemption and freedom, indeed its exact opposite. Hence music of this type
must be excluded from the Church on principle, and not merely for aesthetic
reasons, or because of restorative crankiness or historical inflexibility."

Basically, rock music promotes anarchic freedom (the kind I like). The pope thinks freedom means strict obedience to God and Church. I guess I'll have to burn my Hotel California album. I never really liked the Eagles anyways.

Well, the pope's view of freedom is better than that of President Bush who thinks freedom means invading sovereign countries and killing non-Christians. I think Orwell described both Ratzinger's and Bush's views on freedom when he said Freedom is Slavery.

Santorum Blames Liberals for Priest Pedophilia

Good ol' Catholic Boy Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) just can't keep away from his obsession with sexual behavior. Two years ago he compared homosexuality to "man on dog" bestiality. Now he is delving into pedophilia--the holy kind.

Thanks to John at Blogenlust I learned of this story at Capital Buzz:

In an op-ed for Catholic Online, Rick Santorum writes that "When
the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no
excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic,
political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the
storm."

So Rick Santorum doesn't think that the people who committed these crimes are
to blame? Isn't that an affront to the victims? For some of Santorum's
other interesting insights, check out John Baer's column in the Philadelphia Daily News from last week.

Call Rick Santorum at 202-224-6324 and make him explain himself. Ask him why he thinks culture is more to blame for the sex abuses than the people who committed these crimes.

Of course it's not the fault of the priest who molests a young child. It's those damn liberals! Their amoral political and cultural views must have rubbed off on some priests prompting them to molest young children. If those liberals weren't around then the Catholic Church would have never experienced such a damning scandal.

Greetings

Well, this is my first post here at Was Blind But Now I See. First I'd like to thank BlondeSense Liz for the opportunity to blog here. I mostly write about politics, media and war over at my main blog Agitprop. I occasionally touch on themes of religion and the culture wars, but this blog will give me a forum to direct all of my religion-themed posts for now on.

I attended twelve years of Catholic school, from first to twelfth grade during the 1980s and 1990s. Catholic schools are mostly filled with lay people and it seems all the nuns have disappeared. I only had one nun which was for sixth grade. But I remember her firecracker style and learned not to mess with an old lady and her yard stick.

I don't really practice my religion anymore and I don't attend Sunday mass. That doesn't mean I don't pray or communicate with God. I just have my own way of doing it and do not like institutional religion. But we'll get into all that personal faith stuff at a later point. My experience with Catholicism entitles me to write a bit about the Church and its deeds and/or misdeeds.

I have nothing against religion in general. My major grievance is when religion is used to support the agendas of ignorance, hatred, oppression and war. We've seen a lot of this nonsense lately as we have a proud fundamentalist Christian president who starts wars because God tells him to. I also have a problem with the Catholic Church as an institution. Not only is it a static dogmatic gentlemen's club, but it has promoted and committed some of the worst atrocities throughout history.

If one were to take Catholicism at face value, you would see an enormous theological tradition which promotes life, peace, brotherhood and social justice. All good stuff right? But the Church as an institution has never properly implemented this philosophy. They get hung up with the totalitarian aspects of the dogma like obedience, piety and guilt.

I guess my goal here is to focus on some of the good aspects of the Church as well as be my usual snarky and anarcho-cynical self when approaching this large topic.

Cheers!