Come On Down

[poliphilo]

A sci-fi fantasy I'm fond of- The Saga of the Exiles- predicates an alien intervention at the beginning of the 21st century (in fact, any time now.) The aliens- who are nice chaps- allow us the join their Federation, but on certain conditions. One of the conditions is that we abandon all but one of our religions.

And we do. Just like that.

How I wish. How I wish....

For some reason the religion we choose to retain is Roman Catholicism.

A certain leeway is allowed. People are permitted to flavour their Catholicism with Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or whatever they used to adhere to. But I don't remember there being any Muslim-flavoured Catholics or Southern Baptist-flavoured Catholics.

It's a silly book.

I wonder how long it's actually going to take us to get beyond our religious differences.
How many thousands of years.

Comments

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Roman Catholicism--all right!

It's because the church has swallowed a lot of other elements of religion and through history has shown a degree of flexibility unknwon to most other major religions while still exerting a lot of control on the general population.

Plus our places of worship are prettiest.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The flexibility is something I respect. I saw an exhibition in London which documented contacts between East and West 1500-1800 and the Jesuits pretty much emerged as the stars of the show.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a really interesting exhibit. Oh to live in civilization!