Ch. 15 Cultural Transformations or How Science Turned Religion Upside Down and Other Pope Stories

As I have stated in previous writings, churches are a business, and this line at the bottom of page 721 sums it up:  “many people were critical of the luxurious life of the popes, the corruption and immorality of some clergy, the church’s selling of indulgences, . . . and other aspects of church life and practice.”  You bet your sweet booty!  What a racket!  The Pope mobile is one of the worst offenders.

Right on, Martin Luther!  Somebody needs to question those popes, because they are some of the shiftiest people roaming planet earth.

Here we go, kings/princes, middle-class urban, and common folk are jockeying for positions.

Martin Luther’s movement actually lit a fire under the Catholic Church organization, to the point that the Catholics started a Counter-Reformation!  Good power play, Mr. Luther!  Don’t let those phonies rest on their laurels.

Honestly, people are taking this religious thing way too seriously.  Must they completely destroy other people’s objects with complete destruction?  And urinating on public idols (p. 729)? That is complete insanity.

“It is hardly surprising that such aggressive action generated resistance” (p. 729).  Of course it is not surprising!  What would you do if some foreigner ruined your trinket with his bodily fluid?

Oh, those Jesuits were even craftier than all other previous evildoers combined.  Let’s dress like them [the Chinese], learn their language, and focus on exchange of ideas with the ulterior motive of converting them.  Assimilate, then move in for the kill.  They will never know what hit them.

Oh, please, Strayer!  Christian monogamy would require men having to give up their concubines.  Then, Strayer asks, “What would happen to these deserted women (p. 734)?”  Certainly, no one was worried about these women’s welfare!  The only interest lies in the very act that has caused this world so much grief since day one.

Leave it to the pope to step in and right the ship in China.  Back off, boys, you are practicing Chinese idolatry!

That Muhammad Ibn Saud – what a nice guy!  “He did not insist on head to toe covering of women in public” (p. 736).

Here is a good line to chew on:  “intuitive moral knowledge exists in people . . . even robbers know that they should not rob” (p. 737).  Do humans have built-in morality?  Good Q.

Now this is interesting – how the university concept took off in Paris and other Euro cities.  The emergence of modern science is a breath of fresh air from all of this heavy talk of religion.

Copernicus turned old concepts about earth upside down and started a whole new ball game.  At the center of all of this lies math; scientific principles are described mathematically, providing new realities for non-believers.

I disagree, though, that the heart is just a machine – the heart is a metaphor for feelings.  It can be broken so badly that it is sometimes beyond repair, and that breaking can reverberate throughout one’s soul.  But then, my view is not the scientific view.

“Borrowing.”  That is the perfect word to describe how the world’s various peoples responded to new ideas, conquests, assimilations, and movements.