On Sun, 23 Sep 2001 13:04:33 +0200, Michael Polak wrote:
> Hmm... I spent my childhood in ateist regime. Their "social programming"
> was quite stupid, and it was conflicting with what I was learnt at
> home, by my parents. It is not like in Poland or Slovakia, where
> Catholic church was strong even during communist era: we are almost
> totaly faithless nation. I think our moral standards are relatvely low
> when it comes to property, hard work, corruption, etc., on the other
> hand, we among nations who hate agression and killing... maybe because
> we don't really have any commonly accepted concept of life after death ?
First, I don't really want anyone to feel offended. But:
I don't think that Catholic church (at least in Poland, where I live)
gives us better moral standards. Polish catholicism is based more
on going to church every Sunday than on respecting Ten Commandments.
Even many priests are apparently just greed of money and power. The
right-wing politicians -- who often underline that they are Catholic --
are often the most corrupted ones, etc., etc. Some priests are trying
to push us back to dark ages with their fundamentalism, intolerance,
antisemitism, negation of the European integration ideas, etc.
(I strongly underline here that I'm not talking about Catholic and
priests in general, just about some groups).
As a young boy I lived with my grandparents and got Catholic education.
Now I'm 27, I prefer experimentally verifiable theories (i.e., science)
to religious beliefs -- although I respect the latter of course -- and
I don't feel I'm a worse human now, although some people may call me
a Jew, communist and mason.
I don't think that moral standards can be simply related to any
religion. It would be just too easy.
Sincerely,
Michal H. Tyc
