Monday, July 04, 2011

Seeking Safety In Troubled Times

The world is pressing in on you, there seems to be no security, and the ground beneath your feet is shifting like sand.

You might turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the stress.

Some turn to religion. Not modern religion. Religion as it was practiced in a time that is perceived to be more safe and secure.

Hence, a group of Catholics have turned back the clock on centuries of scientific pursuit and declared that the Vatican was right, way back there in the 1500's.

They have come out in support of the Church's former position that the Earth is at the center of the universe, and Galileo is once again wrong.

A parish in Oak Park, Illinois, is a supporter of the Earth-centric system. They're flat out against all the Vatican's reforms of the Church as well, so they've been pretty unhappy since 1962.

It's all a vast conspiracy, according to them. Put the sun at the center and you're moving the Church away from its central location in daily life. Science and society should be controlled by the Church, like it was then, and weren't people all happy and not stressed out?

Except when the plague ran rampant, they'd probably grant you that. But in general, it was an easy time when all you had to do was ask your bishop what to think and you didn't have to trouble your brain.

Needless to say, the Catholic Church is embarrassed by the fringe group that can't find comfort in the modern Church.

Bad enough that the clerical sex abuse scandals are a constant source of negative publicity. A clutch of superstitious worshippers trumpeting nonsense to rival the fundamentalists who believe people and dinosaurs existed simultaneously does nothing to advance the faith.

Science doesn't have all the answers, but it has some. The answers aren't always pleasant, or exactly what someone wants to hear when they're looking for safety in a constantly shifting world.

Turning to God is often the most comforting path, to believe that there is something more, something better, than what is before us. Turning away from science doesn't make it go away.

You of little faith, why are you so afraid?

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