French Government Report on Dangerous Cults - Moonies, Mormons, Scientologists...

[Ninong]

Mormons Listed as a Cult

A new 199-page French government report (La Miviludes) lists Mormons with Scientology, Satanism and the Moonies (Unification Church) as dangerous cults that have to be monitored.

To get even, the Mormons will now look up the names of all the deceased relatives of everyone associated with that French ministry and posthumously convert them to Mormonism, like they did with Barack Obama's late morther and all of the Holocaust victims, like Anne Frank. They're all listed as official Mormons, having been baptized in that church after their death and without the knowledge of their families.

[Ninong]

"Church" of Scientology Guilty of Fraud in France

A French court convicted the "Church" of Scientology of fraud and fined it a total of €600,000 ($900,000).

Tom Cruise and Emperor Xenu will not be pleased.

[SPasse]

George,

"They're all listed as official Mormons, having been baptized in that church after their death and without the knowledge of their families."

Baptism of the dead - From an LDS perspective, this is necessary because of their theory of "Eternal Progression"

Secularism in Europe had "evolved" to the point where all religious organizations could be prosecuted as fraudulent.

Depending on your perspective, this is either a terrible evil or "universal enlightenment" ala Sam Harris.

Sam Harris

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

I see you're still reading Sam Harris. Don't you guys have sort of an unwritten equivalent of the Index of Forbidden Books? You're too young to remember that but I do.

[Ninong]

Secularism in Europe had "evolved" to the point where all religious organizations could be prosecuted as fraudulent.

The Catholic Church in Italy has been relegated to the same status as the monarchy in England; it is retained as a ceremonial relic of the past.

[SPasse]

George,

I find Sam Harris very compelling and the biggest challenge to my personal Christian faith that I have encountered. Not my 1st exposure to his “perspective” for sure, but he has a way of systematically & succinctly making the various arguments that I find very persuasive & engaging.

As far as formal list like an “Index of Forbidden Books?” not really. I would be interested in seeing that list. I suspect that I have already (unwittingly) read at least some of those titles.

I do remember when I was at Catholic school being told not to go see Monty Python’s “The Holy Grail” as it was said to be extremely sacrilegious. So naturally I was compelled to immediately go and see it. ;)

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Scott,

When I was young there were two 'lists' that we had to be aware of: the Index of Forbitten Books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) and the Legion of Decency's rating list on movies. The Legion of Decency was only semi-official. The one movie that they made a really big deal about was Howard Hughes' The Outlaw, starring Jane Russell. I was only eight years old when this movie was finally released for general distribution but I remember the Church really freaking out over this particular film and I remember my little brother and I seeing the posters in the glass display windows at the local movie theater when we went to see the latest Roy Rogers flick. The Outlaw received a C (condemned) rating. It was considered a mortal sin to see a C-rated movie.

The Index of Forbidden Books was much, much older and the penalty for owning or reading any of the books on that list was much more severe: excommunication! It was established in 1559 and abolished in 1966, when I was 28 years old. The very first list prohibited all versions of the Bible except the Latin Vulgate. You could be excommunicated for owning or reading the Bible in English or French or Spanish, etc. Naturally all works by Martin Luther, Calvin and any of the leaders of the Reformation were banned. Almost everything having to do with astronomy was banned except for works promoting a geocentric universe.

They were still adding books to the list in the 1960's! Charles Darwin never made it on the list but people like Voltaire, Jean Paul Sartre, Rousseau, Hume, Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Milton, John Locke, Spinoza, Kant, Mill, Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, Zola, Galileo Galilei (naturally), Pascal, and many others were on it. Books that were originally published in English rarely made it to the list because the Church didn't consider English a proper Catholic language and didn't think very many Catholics would be reading anything in such a vulgar Protestant language to begin with. For example, Uncle Tom's Cabin wasn't banned until after it was translated into Italian. Mein Kampf was never banned but that was strictly a political decision. The Vatican didn't want Hitler to take over the Catholic churches in Germany. If Dan Brown had written the Da Vince Code in the 1950's, he would have made the list in no time at all.

When I was 17, I accidentally listed one of the banned authors in the bibliography of a college English paper I had submitted in English 101 at Loyola University in New Orleans. My professor politely returned the paper to me and told me I had to re-type the paper to delete the quotation I had used and the reference in the bibliography. I hadn't read that book anyway, the author was just quoted in another book that I actually had read and I was using the quote.

Just google Index Librorum Prohibitorum and you will come up with lots of hits. If you were Catholic attending a Catholic school, you absolutely could not reference any of those works.

[SPasse]

George,

“Charles Darwin never made it on the list”

The biology class that I was taking in 7th grade (circa 1973) at a Catholic School, full embraced evolution. The current Catholic writings embrace evolution as a “Tool of God’s Creation”.

Maybe the Galileo lesson sank in…

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Scott,

When I was in Catholic school (40's and 50's), we were taught the Book of Genesis version of creation, including the Noah's Ark myth. There was never a mention of evolution, including in high school. There was never one word about the age of the Earth being billions of years. That was also back during a time when the only lay person on the staff was the football coach, and, at some schools, even the coach was clergy. The topic never even came up. That was under Pope Pius XII.

Yes, I agree with you on what the Church's current position is on evolution, but that wasn't the case in the 1940's. Back then it just wasn't even discussed. Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden was taught as literal fact in grammar school and it wasn't discussed in high school. And censorship, even at the college level, was the norm. Without that imprimatur inside the cover, the text wasn't admitted.

[Ninong]

Maybe the Galileo lesson sank in…

Galileo was condemned in 1633 and sentenced to spend the rest of his life, nine more years, under house arrest. He was originally sentenced to prison but that was later commuted to house arrest.

The Inquisition's ban on reprinting any of his works wasn't lifted until 1718 but the specifically condemned Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems remained banned until 1741, when a censored version was finally approved. As a refresher, the Dialogue was published in 1632 at the specific request of Pope Urban VIII. The Pope personally asked Galileo to write a discussion of both world systems (geocentric and heliocentric) but to be careful not to favor heliocentrism. Galileo's heresy was that his book not only favored heliocentrism, it sort of proved it. He presented proof that the Earth moves around the Sun. That was heresy, because, as everyone knows, the Earth is fixed and unmoving.

The uncensored version of the Dialogue and Copernicus' De Revolutionibus remained on the Index of Forbidden Books until 1835! It wasn't until 1992 that Pope John Paul II finally forgave Galileo of his heresy. Apparently they were still studying the issue as late as 1990, when Cardinal Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVi), defended the Church's 1633 condemnation of Galileo by pointing out "how deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of science and technology goes." Think about that for a minute. Ratzi is totally clueless when it comes to a basic understanding of the scientific method. He went even further, favorably citing philosopher Paul Feyerabend, whom he quoted as saying "The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching, too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just and the revision of this verdict can only be justified on grounds of what is politically opportune."

Think about that for a minute. Ratzinger is saying that Galileo's conviction was "rational and just" and that Pope Paul II lifted it only to be politically correct. Ratzinger, who was Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith at the time, obviously did not fully support John Paul II's decision to "revise" Galileo's conviction.

Ratzi has this bad habit of throwing obscure quotes into his lectures that are guaranteed to cause controversy. He did that when he pulled up a 615-year-old quote that was guaranteed to piss of one billion Muslims around the world: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." You do not pull up crap like that unless it's something you truly believe but are too wimpy to put your own name on it because you know what will hit the fan. And that came two years after he argued that Turkey should not be admitted to the European Union because the European Union is a union of Christian countries and Muslim countries should not be allowed in.

As far as evolution is concerned, Ratzinger's personal views are not as accepting as John Paul II's were. His personal views can best be described as identical to the proponents of Intelligent Design.

[gregony]

Whoa, that's some serious stuff. But where does curling fit into all this? And more importantly, "can Jesus nuke a burrito so hot even he can't eat it?"