“Sapientiam sapientum perdam!” (I will destroy the wisdom of the wise)

– 1 Corinthians 1: 19)

Why the obsession with submissive ignorance? Why ‘The Fall’ in the name of ignorance and/or as punishment for refusal to submit? Why the maleficence of vicarious punishment? Why the bishop’s crook, if not to symbolise a warped desire for power over compliant sheep?

To have an intellect is to be able to think for oneself – to not be submissive. Even the intellectually lazy (most of us) take reflexive offence at any suggestion of being intellectually lazy: every one of us values the flexibility and versatility of adjustment that we humans label ‘intelligence’. We’re not sheep! Reason says to Hell with the priestly flock; with 1 Corinthians 1: 19 (indeed, the whole book); with religious domination of our thinking; with the Arabic for ‘submission’.

1. Dumbing-Down by Shameful Abrahamic Shamans. Ask yourself what is preached to ‘the flock’ from any pulpit (or minbar, or binah, or baa-baa) by any priest (or imam, or rabbi, or pastoral ‘shepherd’). Is it informative or infantilizing? Does it dictate what to think or facilitate independent thinking? Is it intellectually stimulating or emotionally self-indulgent? Does it figuratively as well as literally talk-down to congregants? Is it more about visceral fear and faint hope than about intellectual responsibility and stark reality? Does it channel one’s charity for one, or advocate one’s autonomy over one’s charity? There’s a burgeoning literature, even from within religious circles, on the infantilizing of churchgoers as one reason for the steady decline in their numbers.
2. Wising-up to Shameful Abrahamic Shamans: Haiti is not moving forward; educationally, politically, scientifically, economically, in health-care, or prosperity, or civil rights. Sensitivities of diplomatic correctness aside, relative to countries that are moving forward (on any rational criterion of advancement), Haiti is a backward country – like it or not¹. With this dichotomy in mind, consider the fact that Ireland has never been as open, as educated, as egalitarian, as prosperous; as civil-rights-amenable as it is today: and its churches have never been as empty. In drawing your own conclusions, it would be wise to do so rationally. My conclusions are irrelevant, but here are some facts that speak for themselves:

Catholicism (that of 1 Corinthians 1: 19) and patriotism were synonymous when Ireland became independent in 1922. Today the whole of Ireland (including its most patriotic citizenry) is well on the road to recovery from (especially Catholic) religion. In Ireland, an estimated average decline² in churchgoing of 1% p.a. over the past 50 years would be overly cautious.

Conclusion: The attempt at destroying ‘the wisdom of the wise’ hasn’t worked; especially for Catholics. The wise are those who’ve wised-up to religious dumbing-down.

1. Does anyone seriously think that Papal injunctions to be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth (and Papal threats that abortion is murder, and contraception a mortal sin) has nothing to do with Haitian overpopulation, poverty, and forest denudation? (Since Columbus’ time, American forests have reduced by half, but Haitian forests by over 90%).
2. Don’t use surveys in which respondents must check boxes identifying their denominations: count bums on seats in Churches during Mass, remembering that in Eire 15% of those counted will be foreign (Polish, for instance), not Irish.