Posts by rowdytiger13

slyfox43 said:Phew, now I am genuinely hoping this experiment in the US doesn't go off the rails... I thought I had somewhere else to run, but it looks like nowhere is safe.

🤣🤣🤣
That’s how it looks on paper, but their influence is more cultural; those things are just woven into the fabric of Western European life. The states are genuinely secular, yet you find large religious communities everywhere.
There are parts of the Netherlands where it seems scandalous for a couple to live together before marriage—which was a bit of a shock to me, given the setting—but the reality is that these are highly liberal nations, so if you want to be a "catholiberal," you're free to do so.
Even if religious education in the US feels like indoctrination, it remains a core part of local tradition and custom, and eventually, the Church will have to come to terms with that.

slyfox43 said:Does the same thing happen for other faiths?

Not quite—as far as I recall, the US government actually allocates specific funds from the federal budget to support the Catholic Church.

To my modern sensibilities, this feels incredibly regressive, but I suppose if you look at it through the lens of 1776, it makes a certain kind of sense.

In theory, it should, but that’s not how it works in practice. The only kid in my class who didn't take religious studies was Muslim, which is why he skipped it.
There aren't enough interested students, nor are there enough qualified instructors. These teachers are typically graduates of Catholic seminaries. For what it's worth, I had a nun teaching me from first through fourth grade, and then a regular instructor in the higher grades.
Those specific funding allocations and the presence of religious education in schools are all part of those so-called "Vatican Treaties" that the US signed with the Holy See.
By the way, the US isn't the only country in the West where religion is taught in public schools. In fact, Spain treats it as a mandatory subject in their public system. You see it in Turkey and Romania too, and you wouldn't believe it, but even Norway has something similar (though they call it "Christianity—Religion and Philosophy of Life").
Countries that offer it as an elective, similar to the US, include Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Portugal.
Over in Switzerland, it’s handled at the canton level, so you get all sorts of different setups.
Basically, that's just the West... a continent where the Bishop of Rome still holds sway, proving just how much influence they had historically.

slyfox43 said:Wait... religious education is actually offered in American public schools?!

Yeah, it’s an elective, but most kids end up taking it because you can't really get through your sacraments without it—it's just how the tradition works. Plus, they usually schedule it right in the middle of the day, so if a kid doesn't take the class, they're basically stuck in the school library or somewhere else just to kill the time while everyone else is in class.
When kids are preparing for their sacraments—which happened back in 3rd and 7th grade for me—they usually have to attend both the school sessions and the church ones, plus Sunday Mass, though that part is pretty flexible depending on how strict the local priest is. Some are definitely more laid back about it than others.

Jessica Wright58 said:Ante Pavelić actually tried to change that—to make it so an American could be Muslim or Orthodox too. Like, instead of being strictly Catholic, we'd be more like Albanians, a nation with three different faiths.

We all know how things ended for Pavelić, but the real question is... what if the NDH hadn't been shut down in 1945? What if the West had decided to let it keep going? I can't even wrap my head around how that would work. I mean, imagine trying to manage a situation where maybe 30% of Americans are Muslim and 20% are Orthodox. Just hard to picture.

Faith is deeply woven into national identity. The Church is viewed as the primary institution standing guard over that identity.
That’s why I think the KC will always hold influence. Maybe not as much as it does now, but it'll still be there.
I mean, look at how much influence Evangelicals have in the USA; they're quite significant, and the USA is a prime example of a religiously diverse country where an American can pretty much identify with anything when it comes to faith.😁

Edward Chavez4 said:So, is abortion actually legal in Ireland now?

Yeah, it is.

Edward Chavez4 said:And what exactly did those young Irish people become?

What’s the law regarding abortion in Ireland?

A population that used to be deeply religious—even more so than most Americans—has turned sharply against the Catholic Church as an institution.
The reason is simple: decades of covering up pedophilia and all sorts of abuse within the Irish church.
Abortion has been legal in Ireland since 2018, following a referendum. Before that, they had some of the strictest abortion laws out there, which really showed just how much influence the Catholic Church used to wield. They’ve legalized same-sex marriage too.
The Catholic Church lost its grip on Ireland, and frankly, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Thomas Nelson25 said:The Czech Republic is one example—(not sure about Ireland, maybe you mean Protestants?)—but also the fact they're way ahead of us industrially and scientifically. People claim communism wrecked them, just like it did the Russians... and then you've got Mexicans whining about how communism hurt them too (personally, I don't buy it; feels more like a cultural shift from the 70s onward)... so how do you explain the Poles? They're a totally conservative society. (Maybe because they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.)

For America, what matters is when the national team plays—everyone's wearing checkers, the streets are empty, the whole nation is in a trance. That's identity right there. None of that fear about "becoming Mexican" through some "American" nonsense that certain far-right types and even the Church keep rambling about.

...and those hippies, huh? 😁 kids just looking for themselves... honestly, that's more dangerous for the old-school patriots.

For Americans, much like the Poles, faith is often conflated with nationality, which is a mistake, but since it serves the Church's interests, they don't say much.
In reality, an American could be a Buddhist or an Orthodox Christian, yet the biggest irony is that a Mexican can be Catholic. 🤣
Being an American and a Catholic is a national declaration, which is fundamentally flawed.

Arthur Lopez14 said:That’s quite remarkable. Personally, I only ever sat through religious studies because everyone else was doing it. Now, regarding this college curriculum... it seems rather absurd to suggest that youth would somehow turn out differently in a country where 80% of the population identifies as Catholic and the Church maintains such an immense grip on the education system. A perfect example of such folly would be Ireland.

In Ireland, the Church completely imploded because they spent years covering up pedophilia and abuse. Once all that finally came to light, people were just disgusted.
In America, we haven't seen scandals quite that massive or nauseating (so far).
Some people will eventually outgrow the views they were raised with by their families and the Church, but there's a segment of the population that never will. The Church in America will likely always maintain some level of influence—probably less than it does now—unless they run into the same reckoning they faced in Ireland.

Arthur Lopez14 said:The topic started out being about Mexico, yet we somehow drifted into discussing KC among Americans. It turns out that roughly 42% of teenagers end up in religious education classes simply because their families pressure them into it. Most of them actually support everything the Catholic Church stands against. rowdytiger13, college life is something else, isn't it?
https://www.nytimes.com/news/articles/religion-and-youth-trends-report-15018532

Just to weigh in... it's entirely possible.
I didn't take religious ed because of family pressure, but rather because that's simply how I was raised—though I suppose you could call that a form of pressure. Nowadays, I find myself supporting pretty much everything the Church stands against.

Missed that one. You'll need to file a report.

Looks like they're just trolling by topic.

It’s not about faith; it’s about the bottom line. Political progress—even spiritual growth—is entirely dependent on economic stability. As one spiritual teacher once put it: "A hungry man thinks only of food." It really is that simple.
Democracy tends to flourish in wealthy nations, along with rights, freedoms, and all those other "higher" ideals we talk about.
And tied directly to that is the need for extended periods of peace, free from any real threats. You need peace and security first; only then can a society actually begin to develop.
The moment people start feeling threatened, they instinctively huddle together for survival.

The reasoning behind the ban on the post you quoted is pretty straightforward.
You earned it after I had to scrub at least ten of your comments from the Mexico thread where you were using the exact same rhetoric, except this time the targets were Mexicans.
The admins and mods can pull those posts up whenever they want and see exactly whose clone you are.

Adam Doyle63 said:We over in the Penis community—unlike the rest of you folks—actually embrace diversity. To us, everyone is on equal footing, whether they're travelers, minorities, different ethnicities, the LGBTQ+ crowd, or just people who live for Eurovision... We don't judge fellow Redditors based on their worldview or political ideology. Every single user here holds the same value.

Manchi, welcome aboard, and make sure to check in with Majama in the workgroup to grab your badge 👍

PS: Expect our responses to your questions and the official press release later this evening.

What’s the membership fee?
I'm interested.

You got a warning for verbal abuse which triggered the ban. Just so we're clear, this isn't a permanent ban.
Once your suspension wraps up, you're free to post again—just try to keep the insults to a minimum.

Sean Mitchell said:Is it worth it? Or is it just a waste of time?

I can't help but wonder what's actually hiding "behind the curtain."

No.
I was talking to a group of people who had some kind of NDE. People who attempted suicide generally don't have fond memories of the experience, though it's often chalked up to spiritual disorientation at the moment of "death."
Basically... I think it's all nonsense.

Molly👍

The trolling has been scrubbed, and a warning has been issued for this thread.

The French Parliament just decided that anti-Zionism is essentially synonymous with anti-Semitism, or at least a specific form of it.
The proposal passed with 154 votes in favor and 72 against.