One of the more tedious ongoing narratives in the current mediasphere is the supposed rending of garments in the Catholic church over (surprise!) the roughly ten-millionth "revelation" of pederast priests raping and abusing children. That it's a subject yet again for "discussion" merely reiterates once again the utter paucity of ideas, of clear thought, of individuals in free societies deciding to once and for all during their brief existences on the mortal plane of flesh and futility to assert their own rights.
There are few good things about religion, any religion, and they're generally outweighed by all the bad things. But perhaps the best thing about religion, even in a frequently puritanical country like the United States, is that it's purely voluntary. No one makes any adult go to church, any church, and certainly no one forces anyone to stay in any church that preys on their children and their wallets.
No matter what this or any pope says about his internal anguish over these vile events, the prime directive of that position is to preserve the organizational structure, to do nothing that would threaten the authority of the hierarchy, and its sacred ability to prise cash from it eternal customers. That's not going to change, no matter how "progressive" the current pope's views are on gays and atheists and such. The job description remains what it's always been for two millennia.
The good news is that most of the major western churches have been losing younger customers, who simply aren't sufficiently interested or motivated to join a club with dues they can't pay and rules they won't obey. Especially in 'murka, where self-help books and lifestyle gurus function as the secular religion of the would-be upwardly mobile. The "solace" that religion can provide pales in comparison to the possibility of consumerist redemption in the temple of the holy kardashian.
So the dilemma for the spiritually conflicted is actually fairly simple: either you support this, with your dollars and your commitment, or you don't. Rationalizing with "times have changed" bunkum won't help, not after the next eventual revelation, and the one after that, and so on. If they want to be Charlie Brown to the pope's Lucy, and keep on believin' that this time they'll get to kick the football, they are welcome to it. But the rest of us don't care and don't want to know.
Then again, like all "news" stories, the article and those like it aren't meant to reach or inform the ordinary reader, the peon with plenty of opinions but no power whatsoever. What we think of as news is really just the amalgamation of elites talking to each other, and filtered out to the masses as manufactured, pre-approved consent. Whether the priest wears a collar and speaks Latin, or wears a suit and spews state-sponsored bullshit, the result is the same.
There are few good things about religion, any religion, and they're generally outweighed by all the bad things. But perhaps the best thing about religion, even in a frequently puritanical country like the United States, is that it's purely voluntary. No one makes any adult go to church, any church, and certainly no one forces anyone to stay in any church that preys on their children and their wallets.
No matter what this or any pope says about his internal anguish over these vile events, the prime directive of that position is to preserve the organizational structure, to do nothing that would threaten the authority of the hierarchy, and its sacred ability to prise cash from it eternal customers. That's not going to change, no matter how "progressive" the current pope's views are on gays and atheists and such. The job description remains what it's always been for two millennia.
The good news is that most of the major western churches have been losing younger customers, who simply aren't sufficiently interested or motivated to join a club with dues they can't pay and rules they won't obey. Especially in 'murka, where self-help books and lifestyle gurus function as the secular religion of the would-be upwardly mobile. The "solace" that religion can provide pales in comparison to the possibility of consumerist redemption in the temple of the holy kardashian.
So the dilemma for the spiritually conflicted is actually fairly simple: either you support this, with your dollars and your commitment, or you don't. Rationalizing with "times have changed" bunkum won't help, not after the next eventual revelation, and the one after that, and so on. If they want to be Charlie Brown to the pope's Lucy, and keep on believin' that this time they'll get to kick the football, they are welcome to it. But the rest of us don't care and don't want to know.
Then again, like all "news" stories, the article and those like it aren't meant to reach or inform the ordinary reader, the peon with plenty of opinions but no power whatsoever. What we think of as news is really just the amalgamation of elites talking to each other, and filtered out to the masses as manufactured, pre-approved consent. Whether the priest wears a collar and speaks Latin, or wears a suit and spews state-sponsored bullshit, the result is the same.
1 comment:
agreed.
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