Writer of horse words
You seem to be suggesting because something can be replaced with something else it, should be. I can just as easily suggest that because religion brings people together AND provides philosophical guidance that nationalism, other types of philosophy, and other things that achieve unity are superfluous and we should simply be content with religion. Obviously a rather simplistic way * to look at it, but it’s at least a reason.
Philosophy can be achieved without religion, but not without some sort of “leap of faith”, that is, philosophical views often requires some sort of metaphysical belief or acceptance of an axiom in the absence of evidence. So I’m not sure how just using them would be necessarily better, or how philosophers wouldn’t form groups, probably talk about how their view is better than everyone else’s, and cause trouble for other groups if they got organized and had enough of them together to do something.
Also a couple of points beyond (bring people together and provide guidance) have be broached in the thread. So to completely replace everything religion does requires a bit more thought.
edited 2nd Sep '11 9:01:54 AM by Justice4243
Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.Proverbs21:15 FimFiction account.
Lead.
Yeah, I'd have more on hand if I took that western religion history classes, especially more on stuff outside of Catholicism but oh well, it'll do for now.
Let's start with Pope Pius XII, he was named pope in 1939 and had a heavy hand in just about everything related to World War II besides the fighting. In the same year as getting his title, he stated that the Catholic Church would become neutral in the conflict and proceeded to out do the Red Cross in sending aid, food, and help throughout all of Europe. Despite this claim of neutrality, World War II became known as the time that the Vatican became filled with more Jews than Catholics... as well as gypsies, Islamic worshipers, and anyone else being targeted by the Nazis.
So why didn't the Vatican get burned down at some point? Well, cause it's a major religion. Despite Hitler's involvement in removing all churches and temples in Germany, he could not manage to ever get the Axis to agree to attacking the Vatican, allowing it to work its magic.
He was also a very anti-war man and directly set up for neutering much of the possible fighting after the war as well as diplomatically getting otherwise dangerous nations (like China) to cease firing and withdraw from the war, meaning he shrunk the conflict by several multitudes. Including his peace actions, he helped many of the nations settle agreements to destroying weapons and avoiding attacking civilian areas.
Somewhere along the line, he eventually gave the Nazi Regime the religious middle finger and cut off supplies all together to Germany while garnering support and causing general rebellion within Germany by calling upon many of the Catholics that still lived there as well as Christians and anti-Nazi people in general. Italy still wouldn't let the Nazis lay a finger on the Vatican.
After the war, tons and tons of money went to reconstruction and nursing the injured to all nations, Germany included once again. While it was by no means the bigger contributor to the post war reconstruction, it was the least picky one.
And why did this all work? Because people understood that the Catholic Church was there to do no harm. That's not to say that everything Pope Pius XII did during WWII was the right or best thing to do, but he was a major factor in stopping the damage, however, the Catholic Church did what it did best, call upon people, Catholics or otherwise, to set down weapons in a time of crisis and so was pretty useful and important. There's more but that's a lot to cover and that's only one of many Popes to talk about.
More Catholic history later, I'm hungry and got class in a little while.
edited 2nd Sep '11 9:09:02 AM by Ramus
The emotions of others can seem like such well guarded mysteries, people 8egin to 8elieve that's how their own emotions should 8e treated.
Oh My
...wow. That's a really cool story.
POPES. YOU INTRIGUE ME.
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah
I'm sorry Ramus...
I'm useless in religions and religious history away from Buddhism for the most part so you have nothing to fear with Popes...
On that note...I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT POPES.
edited 2nd Sep '11 8:42:09 AM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah