From: heimberg@chance.mitre.org (Jeff Heimberger)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: New Age/Christian Survey -Help!-specifically the responses to the
Date: 17 Apr 92 11:34:39 GMT
Article-I.D.: linus.1992Apr17.113439.3903
Organization: The MITRE Corporation

In article <29EE04B1.8016@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>In article <205019@unix.cis.pitt.edu> mlbst25+@pitt.edu (Monica L Boyle) writes:
>
>>Again, I will not try to defend the church's homophobic, chauvenistic 
>>practices, for they are going to be the down fall of the church.  I just
>>wanted to clear up the matter of whether or not the followers were sheep (not
>>at all) and whether or not the leaders were money hungry (only in Rome).
>>
>
>This does seem to be an area of great misunderstanding, and may be
>regional.  I also was "raised" as a Catholic, meaning I attended 12
>years(!) of Catholic school, but my parents were as K-Mart Catholic as
>you could get, and had no qualms about disagreeing where they saw fit.
>
>Back home (Philadelphia), you would be hard-pressed to find a sheeplike
>Catholic.  the priest in our theology classes in high school used to
>talk lots about birth control being undesirable, but never realized that
>90% of the people in class were on the pill.  Almost to a person, EVERY
>CATHOLIC I KNEW BACK HOME WAS OF THE K-MART VARIETY.  You know -- people
>who stop by the drugstore on the way home from mass.  Most of them think
>that the pope is a nice old guy who is a little confused about modern
>life and leave it at that.
>
>HOWever, I am now living in SoCal, and the atmosphere in Catholicism is
>different.  I have only met about four Catholics out here, and ALL FOUR
>were 110% Catholic, who hung on every word the pope said and practiced
>the rhythm method when married (or as my SO's mom calls it, Roman
>Roulette), and abstinence when single because it was a sin not to.  (Or
>else, in the case of one man: he screwed around all he wanted, but not
>with Catholic women.  It seems he wants to have his cake and eat it,
>too.  Have a blast when single, then go crawling to the nearest virgin
>for purification.)  
>
>But, I digress.
>
>Anyway, in my experience, DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU ARE, Catholics are not
>sheep.  You will never find a fundie Catholic, and they are quite happy
>to embrace science and evolution and the big bang etc.  (Personally, I
>think that this is because they were so embarrassed at the Middle Ages
>and they way they mangled science that they have learned their lesson
>and now just stay the hell out of the whole thing.)  
>
>But, I might be wrong . . .

Just a quick observation...

I cannot understand why folks continue to consider themselves Catholic
(or any religion for that matter) when they have such fundamental
disagreements with their religious leaders.  It seems to me that they
may be sheep in wolves clothing, i.e., they want the apparent pleasures
and freedoms of modern society, but want to fall back on their version
of God when times get tough -- at the "11th hour".  Just how important
then, is their religion to them?  IMHO, you have to work without a net
in order to be truly free.  To my frail mind, a religion that
incorporates personal freedom (and thus, responsibility) as a central
tenet would be preferred.

>Blessings,
>Janis

Likewise,

Jeff H...
Xref: sparky alt.pagan:4467 alt.mythology:1041