Poland Is Heading
For A Nice Doublet
Puma
From: PUMA
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: September 01, 2001 1:00 AM
Subject: Positive Atheism -- Poland is heading for nice doublet :)
Hi, Cliff.
1. I'm writing from the country of origin of the current Catholic Pope J.P. II. Apart from saying that you have a great website, I wanted to inform your readers (it seems that non-Christians have hard times in U.S. these days, and especially Atheists), that the 23rd of September will be the day of parliamentary elections in Poland. Although it's still the future, all the opinion polls are clearly showing that SLD (which is a Left-Wing, Socialist party) will gain a crushing victory, and this victory will be so overwhelming that we will have an 'only-SLD government' (which is very unusual in a multiple-party system). This means of course that the leader of SLD, Mr. Miller, will be the new Prime-Minister of Poland. Poland is one of the most Catholic countries in Europe (I think only the Irish are more Catholic than we are); however, Mr. Miller is an atheist and this is well known in the country. Our President Mr. Kwasniewski is also an atheist, so I guess we're heading for a doublet.
2. I still can't believe -- I know it is like that in the U.S. -- but it's still impossible to believe -- to understand -- to comprehend -- to accept -- that the "Bible-Creation Bullshit!" is any opponent to Evolution.
Best regards,
'PUMA'
P.S. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that our current P.M., Mr. Buzek is a Protestant. (not bad for a 'Catholic' country, isn't it? :) ).
Od: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Do: PUMA
Data: 1 września 2001 03:25
Temat: Re: Positive Atheism -- Poland is heading for nice doublet :)
This is wonderful news!
This also speaks volumes for the overall integrity of the Polish people in that they, being mostly Roman Catholic, will not vote for somebody simply because he is a Roman Catholic.
Another very Roman Catholic country is Brazil. However, they likewise have an openly atheistic President.
As for creationism and superstition, I highly recommend that you obtain [the proofreading files for] Victor Stenger's [upcoming] book [which will be online for about another week before they remove it on about September 10]. Here is the URL [for his regular web site]:
http://spot.colorado.edu/%7Evstenger/
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: PUMA
To: Positive Atheism Magazine
Sent: September 05, 2001 8:59 PM
Subject: Odp: Positive Atheism -- Poland is heading for nice doublet :)
Hello, Cliff.
1. I want to thank you for the URL. I've downloaded Mr. Stenger's book. So far I've finished the chapters that seemed most interesting to me, those about origins of the Universe. Although Mr. Stenger is a scientist, he is also an excellent writer, so I think the rest of the book is equally good.
2. As for creationism and its significant impact only in the United States (not counting of course the Islamic states) -- You've pointed out (in several answers to your readers e-mails) that it's a case of Europe vs U.S., meaning that a "post-Inquisition, post-Nazi, post-religious wars settings" in West Europe resulted in the rejection of extremist "claims to the universal truth" (such as, "Earth is only several thousand years old!" "Why?" "Because Bible says so!"). However it just can't be the right answer. The reason it isn't so is your bordering neighbor -- Canada [see note*] (both U.S. and Canada share almost the same bias in historical terms -- including even the fact that World War II didn't reach their mainland territory -- however the "creationists" have in Canada the equal "position" as in Europe, nobody important takes them seriously).
(*Note: keep also in mind that, unlike the R.C. Church that applies the Pope's teachings to his whole structure -- the Protestant churches are mostly independent and, in Canada [in the 1960's for example] they could simply said "yes" to Bible literal version and "no" to the Evolution. And yet it wasn't a case, and as far as I'm aware it was never a serious issue in Canada.)
3. I think the two real grounds for "creation" victories in drawing so much support for it's "teachings" are as follows:
a) "before WW II Japan style of thinking" -- we are the chosen nation (and an "Empire"), the gods (in your case Christ) are looking at us and they will help us in many ways, if there is a big war then America will prevail and ultimately be victorious, and more combinations of the religion-nationalism mumbo-jumbo. You're gonna probably laugh, but for me the big respect that the U.S. citizens have for the President (not for a particular man, but for the office), could be in a distant way connected with the respect of Japanese people for their Emperor before the War.
b) the second ground is the great diversity in Christian beliefs that is present in the U.S.
It is, as a matter of fact, an opposite to the 'first impression common sense,' thus taking here U.S. and Poland (only one "national" faith -- Catholicism, othesr don't count). At the first impression the observer should say: I'm sure that the Polish people have no chance in the way to secular society -- the one all-powerful Church must have immense power on politics (for example). But it isn't so today (we had "religious battles" in 1991 -- 1995 political campaigns but it's over). We are on a long journey to furthering the Church's power decline in many chapters of life. This is because people with diffrent views on many issues (mostly liberal Catholic), had one in common -- as much as possible they wanted the Church not to interfere in the State affairs. They had one Enemy -- and the power, the wealth, the significance of the Church nobody could deny.
However in the U.S., well, since most of those "after 1800"-sects say: "we are the only chosen people, the others will burn in hell", an observer could suppose that here we have a form of 'balance of power' -- mainline, "old" Christians "fighting" born-again Christians, Christians vs Judaism and East Asia religions, Christians vs New Age and so on. I would certainly assume that it gives the non-belivers a quiet time (why bother with this mad people fighting for the "souls").
Long before the year 325 (the Creed established), an oponent to Christians wrote:
"Between Christians there is still the strong tendency towards innovation; and this divides them to countless sects fighting each other, and at times it seems that they have nothing in common except their name. But despite their crumbling, the Christians are still dangerous because of their goal -- to unite and organize a regular larger organization." |
Well, the organized religions in the U.S. certainly united to promote the Texas Death Machine to become U.S. President, and Bush won (if you can call this an election "victory"). It seems that especially religious freaks like Adventists or Mormons (how was this Smith's angel called Moron? :) ) want to "save the soul" of Atheists. Like I mentioned earlier the great diversity of Christian faiths in the U.S. makes it very difficult indeed to oppose "the Church", because there isn't one Enemy.
What is your opinion? (are the a) and b) correct or am I missing something? -- perhaps something that is so unique to U.S. that only a citizen could know?).
Best regards,
PUMA.
"Catholicism is the highest regarded and best developed form of Paganity."
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "PUMA"
Subject: Re: Positive Atheism -- Poland is heading for nice doublet :)
Date: September 05, 2001 9:06 PM
What I noted about our recent election was the great amount of apathy. Even those who normally get excited about one or the other party were not very excited about our choices. I sent out an e-mail dispatch to a number of people informing them that I was voting for neither Bush nor Gore and explaining why. As it turns out, if I had endorsed Gore, and if one-quarter of the list members had lived in Florida and had voted for Gore, he would be in the White House today. That's how close the election was: one-quarter of our e-list at the time could have swayed it the other way.
The truth is, very few of us voted for Bush because very few of us voted, period. We really did not have much of a choice because neither man was qualified for the job. Both have very little respect for the United States Constitution as it reads: Gore wants to change it, "update" it; Bush simply misrepresents what it says and acts as if his misinterpretation is how it's always been.
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "PUMA"
Subject: Re: Positive Atheism-Poland is heading for nice doublet :)
Date: September 18, 2001 8:31 PM
Puma:
To respond to your question (finally), I will add this and will include it in my posted response to you.
a) ... the big respect that the U.S. citizens have for the President (not for a particular man, but for the office), could be in a distant way connected with the respect of Japanese people for their Emperor before the War.
I think humans in general tend to want to have a leader to respect. I think this would be true in any culture (or tribe or whatever) when there is relative peace and when people's stomachs are not empty. When people are hungry and when there is unrest (usually because they're hungry or, less often, because they feel unsafe -- and then often because some influential speaker has whipped them into a polarized frenzy), then you will have a large number of people who oppose the leader, and a smaller number opposing the idea of leadership in general. But when people are doing well, they tend to respect and, at times, love their leaders just as a family loves its father- or mother-figure (because of their basic psychological makeup which comes with being human).
b) ... the great diversity in Christian' beliefs that is present in the U.S.
America has long been a diverse culture (or set of cultures, actually). This was recognized early on, when Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin proposed, as our National Motto, the Latin phrase, "E Pluribus Unum," which means, literally, "Of Many, One." This means, at first glance, "of the many states comes one nation." A secondary meaning, though, is "amidst diversity comes unity." This second meaning is pertinent today, because the unity of the states as a single political entity stopped being controversial during the administration of Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865). (See note, below.)
That this was recognized by the author of the motto itself, Thomas Jefferson, is shown by a comment he wrote in his "Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82."
Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a censor morum over each other. |
By this he means that the diverse sects all criticize one another, thereby keeping one another in check. This is the way of any diverse society: in a unified society, there is little opposition and thus little criticism (and thus little reform; that is, there's much room for corruption because one viewpoint or party dominates).
For example, Fundamentalist Islam will not be much of a problem in the United States (any time soon) because there are way too many Christians (of all varieties), so no small group of Muslim extremists could ever gain power in the United States as they have in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Even Fundamentalist Christianity is not that much of a problem here because there are plenty of Liberal Christians, quite a few nontheists ("weak" atheists), plus an ample number of Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, New Age types, Spiritualists (those who believe in Astrology, etc.), as well as "fringe" Christians such as Mormons, Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the like.
But if your report means anything, it looks as if my theory doesn't hold -- at least in Poland. Even though the culture is mostly Roman Catholic, you currently have a Protestant leader and are on the verge of electing a second atheistic leader. Roman Catholicism, as it is practiced here, tends to at least try to sway the voters to specific issues, such as abortion and voluntary euthanasia (suicide for the terminally ill). Churches are not allowed to sway the vote for candidates and still keep their tax exemption, but they may lobby for or against specific issues.
I'm not saying that the Roman Catholic Church has been very successful in swaying the vote here -- as in Poland, they have not been successful in influencing American Catholic voters. The Oregon Death With Dignity Act (the suicide bill) passed twice despite having the Roman Catholic Church outspend the proponents ten-to-one during each campaign. American Roman Catholics tend not to follow their church's recommendations when it comes to voting (although Conservative Evangelical Protestants have tended to follow Pat Robertson's recommendations).
But I will say that the great diversity prevents any group from dominating the political scene.
(Note: Unfortunately, they changed our National Motto to "In God We Trust" during the Cold War, in 1957, because Communism was equated with atheism so America became equated with Christianity. This was the doing of Lyndon Johnson and Joseph McCarthy.)
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
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