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

[dakegra.livejournal.com]

How many thousands of years.

you're an optimist...

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

It always looked very nice to me - Roman Catholicism. Pretty, decorated, with beautiful melodies. I could use some of these :) as well as the significantly smaller number of restrictions on your daily life (not that I follow them much, but still..)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

So many science fiction writers seem to be rather stingy about time--they have us exploring Titan and setting up camps in the year 2019.

Sure--like we're going to get it together down here and get to Titan in about twenty years.

With Bush in charge, these writers ought to start shoving their timeframes out about 200 years, at least. That should get us back out of the New Dark Ages.

As for aliens landing, I wish.

Why do we always assume that anything unlike us is a predator?

That's us!

Maybe aliens are benevolent teachers. Maybe they'll show us how to use warp drive and how to be kind to each other.

[balirus.livejournal.com]

I don't think the human race will ever be beyond religious differences. Conflicts between the old religions might resolve, but the new religions will bring their own divisions.

[queen-in-autumn.livejournal.com]

I think there will always be religious differences. I'm just hoping that one day we will get past our religious conflicts. (My apologies if my hair-splitting is on the wrong side of how you meant "differences.")

A primary tenet of my faith is that the Divine reaches out to all of us, within us, and that we respond to that Divine, name it, and create ritual to celebrate it, based on our culture and personality. That being the case, we will never have a single religion.

I would like to hope that one day we will all recognize and respect the Divine and the Holy within each other's faiths, but I'm afraid that there will always be the arrogant, the fearful, and the absolutist, who can not bear the idea that Mystery and Paradox are inevitable when the Human interacts with the Divine.

[morrison-maiden.livejournal.com]

::sigh:: I know what you mean, but mostly because it sucks to be a Jew during the holiday season :(

::Puts on Rodney Dangerfield voice:: We don't get no respect!

[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.