@Jester: Opus Dei? How about the Catholic Church? New study from the Church, modern feminism is responsible for the decline of family. No Catholics in Europe?
Let me respond to this in two ways. BTW, this post is going to end up being a couple of pages long (most probably), so if you think all my words are foppish, I suggest you hit page down a couple of times.
Firstly, the Catholic Church is the biggest, most hypocritical establishment
ever. I do believe it says somewhere in the bible that it is "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven". That's great! Christianity is ripping into the capitalist blood-sucking pigs that are destroying this world and its inhabitants to line their (the capitalist blood-suckers') own pockets! Huzzah! However, the Catholic church turns this all into a laughing stock.
The Catholic Church, as we should all know, is rich beyond belief. They brainwash their members into believing the only way to achieve salvation is to fork over all their money. The rulers of the church (big, capitalist blood-sucking pigs) extort their n00bish followers for money at every turns with thinly-veiled threats and longsince broken promises. However, that's (in my opinion) one of their lesser sins.
The Catholic Church should be charged for warcrimes. By robbing their members of their minds, they also rob them of their morality, their compassion and their humanity. [Did Jesus not call upon humanity to love and care for one another? How can this be accomplished if all of humanity possesses no way to think or feel for itself?] As was alluded to in a previous post, war brings in money and land, above all things. The Church, being ruled by the most greedy of blood-suckers, felt no true problem with condoning the slaughter of "infidels". Thus, the Chuch launched the once crusade that would define European (and thus American) history forever, in my mind.
I am not speaking of one of the traditional four crusades. This was one that has been largely swept under the carpet by years long since gone and by the victors (particularly the victors). Since the age of the Romans (after their adoption of Christianity) up until today a war has been waging across Europe, one that has resulted in the massacre and exploitation of an entire peoples. It is important to point out that this war had commenced many years before, when the Romans gained enough power to expand beyond Italy.
The war I speak of, my contemporaries, is that war that was commenced to "rid" Europe of the Pagans. Over a millenia they were hunted and killed. Villages were sacked, children maimed, wives raped and lands exploited. I must admit I am unsure of the numbers of Pagans killed, but I believe I saw a number with six digits somewhere. Regardless, the effect remains- the Catholic Church committed genocide on the Pagans. And for what? What did they gain? Quite a lot, actually.
By sponsoring Christian Kingdoms, the Church advanced itself not only politically, economically and socially, but it also expanded its borders geographically. Most importantly, though, it brought in a new wave of convertees, ready to multiply and be controlled and manipulated by the Church.
However, the Church was not done. Though it had already thrown the principles it once stood for out the door, that was not enough. Though it had slaughtered a people mercilessly for merely refusing to convert, that was not enough. In some bizarre mockery, the Catholic Church adopted nearly every ritual of the peoples they had slaughtered. It was, in reality, a massacre of peoples simply so that the victors could gain a defined culture. But rituals were not all. The gods of the dead were adopted as Saints, and the festivals as holidays. It has been proposed that Christmas was not the true birthday of Jesus, as December 25th was a pagan festival before the Catholics robbed them of it. Halloween is the same story. But why stop there?
The Catholics later stole the imagery of the pagans, incorporating several gods and godesses as being (instead of saints) demons or, in some cases, the devil himself. From murals to stained glass, pagan deities appeared in butchered forms as the embodiments of sins.
But enough about the Catholics slaughtering the Pagans. The Catholics have since finished that war, feeling that they have won. The Church is waging a war with their own brothers, a war for not only power but of slights long since forgotten.
This genocide has followed the slaughter of the pagans. If one could assign a date to the genocides, they would probably work out a little like this---
1st genocide: ~200 A.D. to ~1200 A.D.
2nd genocide: ~600 A.D. to present day
If you aren't following me (I admit I could be more precise, and concise for that matter), I am talking about the war against Judaism. For the past 1400 years, at the least, the Church has condemned jews as heathens, unfit to live. The Holocaust was only one example of a Christian acting on this long standing war. Through the darkages to the Renaissance jews were exploited, murdered, robbed, "exported"... the list of warcrimes goes on and on. And these were the people who fathered Christianity. This was the religion from which all of Christianity was born. Some thanks the Church gives.
Point- The Catholic Church is another example of fundementalism and facism teaming up to take humanity down (heh; couldn't help making fun of that add. It's just so naive). Not to say I have anything against catholics- I'm sure their all decent people, deep down inside. However, the institution that exploits them is evil. As a peer of mine said (and was promptly expelled for doing so), "Catholicism is the enemy".
To wrap all that up, I must quote George RR Martin. But if only this were true.....
"Starving men take a hard view of priests too fat to walk." (I think Tyrion said that, that brilliant little dwarf him)
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Oh poo, I said I'd have two ways to respond to that post. Oh well, here goes the second (I've been writing this for 30+ minutes!).
There's two faces to feminism. One face is that of equality. That's what I preffer to call the "good" face. That part of the feminist movement has held true to the true message of feminism and is still fighting for equal rights in this patriarichal, opressive world. However, there are two faces to feminism.
The other face is that side that insists that all sex is rape. The other face is that side that insists that a non-working mother is a bad mother. That face, which I can easily call "bad",
does destroy the family. I'm not talking about the heterosexual, two-child, middle-class family. I'm talking about a loving family. If a mother feels weighed down by her children, why have them at all? So she can simply neglect them? (no, this Neofeminism isn't about "simply neglecting" children; rather, it is about using children as the symbol of opression, thus buying into the "Abandoned Generation" psychosis). I have a serious problem with this side of feminism, as I feel that a mother has a right to choose. Mother A might want to work and be a loving mother. Mother B might want to just be a loving mother. By forcing Mother B to work, this Neofeminism is no better than the patriarichal society it fights against, for it removes freedom (only in the opposite direction).
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My conclusion: Order bad, self-government good. Fundementalism bad, spirituality good. Capitalism bad, humanity good.