<DIV><STRONG><EM>Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@juno.com></EM></STRONG> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"><BR>> Yeah, those Catholics knew how to do religion right. They knew that<BR>> religion is supposed to inspire awe, astonishment and the sense of <BR>> something<BR>> bigger than life in people and understood the role of theatrics to <BR>> attain<BR>> that goal. A very different animal from the feel-good-about-myself <BR>> variety<BR>> that developed on this side of the pond.<BR><BR>I suspect that might be due to the fact that the Catholic<BR>Church evolved under a feudal social order and has<BR>retained some of the communitarian values of<BR>that order, even while adapting to capitalism.<BR>Protestantism was born of the revolt against<BR>feudalism and the American variety has been,<BR>almost from the beginning, suffused with capitalist<BR>values and attitudes. feel-good varieties represent<BR>a form of religiosity that is adapted to the consumer<BR>society of late capitalism.<BR><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV>Yeah, part of that turn backwards to an older social order seems to increase as capitalism advances; in the same manner, U.S. southerners look fondly on the days of the Confederacy, before the inhumanity of capitalism and wage-labor had sunk in.</DIV> <DIV>I guess this reveals something about the regressivism of late capitalism as it actually exists these days-- somehow we are left pining for Genesis through Revelations and its associated imagery, rather the Manifesto through Volume 3 and Diego Rivera murals. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>--adx<BR><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR>"Mary Poppins is alive and well in Argentina, she sends her regards."<br>- Rod McKuen, The Mud Kids<p> <hr size=1> <a href="http://us.lrd.yahoo.com/_ylc=X3oDMTFqODRtdXQ4BF9TAzMyOTc1MDIEX3MDOTY2ODgxNjkEcG9zAzEEc2VjA21haWwtZm9vdGVyBHNsawNmYw--/SIG=110oav78o/**http%3a//farechase.yahoo.com/">Yahoo! FareChase - Search multiple travel sites in one click.</a>