Latin American Catholicism as a Good Religion for Leftwingers

White Christians are pretty much assholes, but it feels nice to have some sort of religion. In the Mediterranean or Hispanic Catholic world, most men will tell you that they are Catholic, then that they are not sure if the Bible is true, or even if God exists at all. But they are Catholic, dammit! I like this kind of religion. They just say they believe in it, leave it at that and don’t think much about it after that. It gives them some solace, but it doesn’t occupy their mind very much. The Catholic Church I went to here in town was very “Jesusist” – all about the life of Jesus and the New Testament. The OT may as well not have existed. Also very pagan. The Mass is almost a a pagan ritual. The holy water and the idols that the Mexican pray to at the end are very pagan stuff. I like it! It’s good. Up with paganism! I found the Hispanic Catholics to be among the most nondogmatic Christians I’ve ever met. Down in Latin America, everyone is Catholic. I think even most of the Shining Path was Catholic, including the leadership! They never renounced it either. Most of the FARC is Catholic too. Catholicism is cool because there is a strong Catholic Commie (Liberation Theology) and social justice aspect to it. Probably the coolest form of Christianity out there. The Filipino branch is OK too. Most of the NPA are Catholics, and there are many active priests who work with the NPA. Up with Liberation Theology! I don’t know about Polish Catholicism. The Irish are OK. Note how the Leftist IRA was all Catholic and Irish priests are in the forefront of social justice in the US. Polish Catholicism looks pretty bad. Mostly rank anti-Communism. German Catholicism is almost Nazism. French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Catholicism are OK, similar to the Latin American kind. Of course Catholicism sort of ruins most Catholic countries. The Church can’t keep its nose out of politics, and most Catholic countries are insane on abortion, euthanasia and some other things. Still, I will take the Catholics against the wild free marketeer economic Libertarians of US fundamentalist Protestantism. No way would Jesus be a follower of Milton Friedman. That’s why Friedman had to be a Jew. Milton expounded a theory that contradicted everything Jesus ever taught. But what has Judaism ever been but the religion that positioned itself as the antithesis of Christianity – the anti-Christian religion, the religion for those who found the humanist and moral demands of Christianity too much to hassle with? It’s never been easy to be a Christian. That’s why so many give up on it, and say the Hell with it. But then it’s never easy to be a good person either, is it? It’s so much easier in a hyper-capitalist society to just be a caveman asshole and say the heck with it. In the Middle East, most folks have a religion. Even the secular do. You just reach up from the sky, grab one, call it yours, and don’t think much about it again. Middle Eastern Christians are very similar to Catholics. They believe, but it’s no big deal in their lives. Atheism feels totally miserable. I don’t care if it’s true. I want no part of this miserable philosophy.

Please follow and like us:
error3
fb-share-icon20
Tweet 20
fb-share-icon20

0 thoughts on “Latin American Catholicism as a Good Religion for Leftwingers”

  1. Bob,
    Catholicism is the biggest crock of shit the human mind has ever fabricated during it’s time on this planet.
    As a leftist, you should know that the catholic hierarchy has always stood hand-glove with the aristo oppressors of the poor – keeping them dumb, poor and ignorant whilst siding with the rich (in direct contravention of Christ’s teachings, no less).
    It was and is anti-science and anti-enlightenment.Islam is a finer and cleaner faith.
    The history of the catholic church is more than a parade of idolatory, fooling the poor and naive, extorting taxes, siding with big-wigs, corruption, mass murder, gruesome killings and imprisoning scientists.
    The great mystic and religious teacher, Aleister Crowley ( heard of him?), described Catholicism as ‘that base and materialistic cult’ – I cannot think of a better and more apt description than that.
    Anyhow, back in the middle ages one of the Borgia popes held a special entertainment on Vatican precincts.It was called, strangely enough, the ‘Chestnut Ball’ – and the authenticity of the event is confirmed by papal diarist Burkhardt.
    The Pope of the day sat on the pontifical throne during proceedings, in which guests were entertained by naked prostitutes scrabbling along the floor looking for hidden roasted chestnuts.
    After this preliminary, the fun really started.Guests paired up with whores and began to copualte in full view of the bethroned Pope, and prizes (including hand swen slippers for some reason , and a pair of ceremonial bull’s horns), were awarded to the ‘most enthusiastic couple.
    Bob, dont’t you see beauty in the proven scientific reality of Darwin’s theories, in the fact of DNA and the unity of all life, in the fossils of dinosaurs and other long extinct beasts that roamed the earth millenia before arrogant humans ever took the scene, on the realtion of crossptygerian fishes to land tetrapods, the fossil record, the labors of scientists, bacteria, protozoa and all the other truth and beauty out there?
    Why invent a spook, and a spook that obviously couldn’t give a damn either.

    1. Science has thrived under Christianity, catholicism included. Under Islam, for a while—not so much at the moment. A “religion” can be anti-science, but you have to look at the whole society that the religion is a part of and helps to create. Catholic societies nowadays are hardly ever anti-science, even if people proclaim some anti-scientific things.

    2. I agree with what you said. I’m honestly surprised that Robert who bills himself as a leftist could support Catholicism. It’s like a world-wide imperialist corporation. I remember learning in school that they used to sell indulgences. SELL them, lol!
      Personally, I don’t hate Catholics or Catholicism. I just find the religion needlessly complex, secretive, materialistic, political and hierarchical. If there is a god, and I’m not even certain there is, I don’t need the Catholic church hierarchy to please him/her/it.

      1. I like the liberation theologists I’ve read, like Oscar Romero. That said, I can’t be a part of the church so long as the Opus Crazies and kiddy fiddlers are running the show. I am also unwilling to mail my uterus to the Vatican. The relatively godless Benelux countries manage to have the lowest abortion rates on earth, which is more than I can say for the rosary rattling ones.

  2. robert, whats your opinion on Russian Orthodoxy, and Orthodox Christianity in general? your beloved communists did their best to destroy christianity in Russia.

  3. There’s no way of knowing if there’s a god, but it’s highly unlikely. So I err toward atheism and call myself an atheist agnostic. I’m not going to just pick something to feel better. Pragmatic, I suppose, but I’d prefer not to hide from the truth. Let me feel the pain of reality. I don’t feel miserable at all. Well, maybe sometimes. But it’s usually because I’m hungover. Anyway, I take the pagan stoic view, which I think most people live out anyway: live it up, because you’re gonna die! Or as is writ in Beowulf, “Each of us must expect an end of living in this world; let him who may win glory before death: for that is best at last for the departed warrior.” No consolation! Oh well, let’s bond together, pour some drinks, sing some songs and love while we still can.

    1. The thought of a godless universe no longer frightens me. It once did, but the thing is your mind adjusts to pretty any new paradigm after awhile. I don’t think atheists are inherently any less happy than anyone else. I actually hope there is a god though. I like the idea and it gives some basis for moral absolutism. Plus I’d like to think there’s something more than this life. But I’ll only know for sure at the end of my life.

    1. How? Only if you define god as something which is inherent in the nature of the universe. Which is your definition and not mine. Universe to me does not necessarily imply god. Which is what Steven Hawking recently stated was not necessary for the universe to exist . . . and omg! it’s Steven Hawking, like, the smartest person in the whole wide world.

  4. Given infinity and eternity, everything is possible; everything, even impossible things ( since infinity and eternity can’t be bounded by logic), COULD happen an infinite number of times, but nothing MUST happen – so the odds of anything happening remain the same as for the toss of a coin, or ” the throw of a dice in the depth of a shipwreck ” (Mallarme). So God might exist, or not. If HE exists, then there is nothing we can say about HIM, since HE is by definition not bounded by logic, or definition for that matter.
    So it boils down to whether or not you believe God has spoken to some men, and passed on instructions to us. There can be no ‘reason to believe’, no argument for or against; belief is just that – belief. You believe or you don’t. I don’t, and to be honest, I think that sort of belief is a genetic throwback to a pre-human intelligence. But I don’t grudge others their belief, and I can see some value in the rituals as a communal way of supporting one another in the face of the infinite and eternal unknown of death, the ” the undiscovered country from where no traveller returns” (Shakespeare).
    Then again I have to admit that I think there’s some merit to the notion that ‘believers’ are unfit to participate in ‘public affairs’, or to vote. A problem with religion, particularly the Christian one which is the only one I know well, is that as a guide to life it doesn’t cut it, because it’s so full of contradictions. This is especially the case with protestantism, which gives near equal weight to both the old and new testaments, practically opposite moral codes ( though neither is internally consistent anyway). A merit of Roman catholicism, hypothetically, is that it is based largely on the new testament, the teachings of Jesus – so it should be, and good teachings. But that’s hypothetical, because what catholicism has taught over the centuries has often as not been just stuff they made up as they went along, and the teaching has amounted practically to just ‘do what you’re told’ – the big problem with religion.
    Islam, at least, has a detailed, unambiguous (I’m told) guide to living spelled out by the Prophet – make the bitch walk 5 steps behind you with a bag over her head, and give her a regular whipping. So far, so good!
    So, a mixed bag, religion. I think the image of Pisces, the sign that ruled the last 2 millenia, the Christian era, is a fitting symbol for the times and for religion generally – two fishes swimming in opposite directions. Remember Jesus was the ‘fisher of men’. Moving into the future while constantly harking back to some ‘original source of wisdom’; religion as the bearer of the time-tested wisdom of the species, but also as a brake on progress. Who knows? And who knows what the ‘Age of Aquarius’ will bring? Doesn’t look promising so far.

  5. Yes we Latin Americans are hypocrites; Officially Catholic but Agnostic and Pagan in reality. You gotta love Constantine’s “Roman” pragmatism in basically Christianizing the Pagan religion(s) of the Roman Empire. I guess all those Protestant allegations about Catholics worshiping Mary and the Saints has been true all along.
    Catholicism and Orthodoxy=Christianized Neoplatonism.

    1. The official Catholic position, is that they don’t worship idols. The artwork simply reminds them of the true God, and hence is OK. For instance, they claim the ancient Jews had artwork which reminded them of the true God, yet was not idolatry.
      Think about it. If Catholics were for idols, then why did they destroy all the artwork in the Aztec and Inca cities?

  6. No way would Jesus be a follower of Milton Friedman. That’s why Friedman had to be a Jew. Milton expounded a theory that contradicted everything Jesus ever taught. But what has Judaism ever been but the religion that positioned itself as the antithesis of Christianity – the anti-Christian religion, the religion for those who found the humanist and moral demands of Christianity too much to hassle with?

    True Judaism is Christianity. Jesus, himself, was a Jew. If there are any bad Jews out there, then they aren’t following their native religion. Well, that isn’t surprising, as most Jews are secular nowadays.
    Of course, there are those who say Judaism is Christianity, but a very self righteous form. If fact, Jesus himself condemned the religion of the Pharisees. It was a religion of rules, but without love.

    1. Two forms of Judaism. One type is the “true religion” but is very self righteous. The other type is secular, and the followers pretty much go by their own conscience, and not some type of scripture.

  7. I posted here back in 2014, not really sure what the fuck I was trying to say, but after studying the history of Spain and the Catholic church, I can say that Latin American Catholicism (LAC) is “good” because just like Orthodox Christianity, it remains close to its popular base. In other words LAC is good because it is moving itself away from the church oligarchy centered in Rome. That or this is just a strategic move by that oligarchy in order to remain relevant. Whichever is the case, the true Hispanic Christianity has to be vindicated, and that Christianity is Mozarabic Christianity. It has been trampled by the greedy Vatican and its all-too-faithful Castilian kings.

Leave a Reply to lafayette sennacherib Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)