[lbo-talk] Capitalism and Religious Fundamentalism

Mr. WD mister.wd at gmail.com
Thu Jun 21 09:51:40 PDT 2007


On 6/21/07, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Chuck, do you mean just Christian Protestant
> fundamentalism, or do you mean Jewish/Muslim/Hindu
> forms as well? (I'm not sure if "Catholic
> fundamentalism" makes any sense.)

I mean all of it: Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu... Can we connect the development of fundamentalist movements in all of these religions to the development of Capitalism?

There is definitely such a thing as Catholic fundamentalism, by the way. One of the best things about the Catholic Church, IMO, is its tolerance for hypocrisy and moral failure -- go forth and fornicate and then just hit confession and you're in good shape. Catholics also like to drink, which is nice. Give me that over, say, Southern Baptism any day.

When John Paul II died, I remember being surprised by all these articles about how there has been this emergence of young, really zealous Catholics who were really embracing even the most backwards aspects of church doctrine (natural family planning, fish on Friday, etc.) There is also apparently a movement in the priesthood for a return to the Latin Mass, the more traditional priest clothing (those long black coat things), and on and on. I mean, Ratzinger's goal is basically to have a smaller but more devout church -- to trim the fat out of the laity, so to speak. And Ratzinger is hardly a friend of free-wheeling capitalism: he denounced both capitalism and Marxism on his Brazil trip last month (which makes him even scarier, IMO).

-WD



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