Are certain horrific aspects of catholicism distinctive to that sect specificaly.
July 30, 2013 at 1:07 pm
(This post was last modified: July 30, 2013 at 1:24 pm by Something completely different.)
I was in the Czech republic through the weekend with some friends and only returned home today. At our way home we made a stop at a little inn to have a massive Schnitzelbreakfest with coffe and strawberry pudding.
Anyway, there had been a very horrific accident on the A1 highway from Salzburg to Vienna on Monday which was pritty much talked about everywhere in the papers, radio and pups. A truck was forced to stop on the highway and the truck behind it couldnt get the brakes in time and crashed right into it, the gas tank brst, caught fire, and the poor man driving the truck was stuck in the truck and was burned alive whilest nobody could help and only watch in horror.
Through some coincidence, the inn at which we stopped was in the village from which the driver who had died was from.
Everyone in the inn was talking about the man and about his family in terms of mourning, when suddently a woman who was the owner of the inn said:
"That makes you think, what kind of horrible person he must have been in life to get such a horrible end through good."
Within seconds the terms in which the poor man and his family was talked about changed radicaly. Everybody was desperate in reminding others about any kind of somehow even little bit of unpleasentry that they could in any way think of about that poor person. Turning the most childish little things, even out of that mans childhood into some big crime story.
I was so disgusted that I tried to talk my friends into leaving without paying the bill, but in the end we just left early.
On the 4 hour drive home, I came to remember that this was in a way the reason why had left Austria and moved to (protestant and more liberal) Germany in the first place ( I am currently back but will leave next year). This disgusting catholic attitude, the idea of sin and divine redemption, and that god will somehow punish people during their lives for their sins and that every misfortune that was inflicted on you must be justifyable with sins of yours, which had completly sunken into the minds and culture of this backwards society (and if I am not mistaken also in Italy, France, Spain and Poland). I remembered several funerals from my childhood in which when the person brought to grave died a horrible death - people always looked for "sins" like a fucking pack of vultures to loudly justify that horrific death in a disgusting act of self staging infront of the others as some kind of moral authority.
There were also alot of other things I remebered to be wrong in this society, like the principle of a local school who was a catholic dignitary and who harrased female coworkers and other women - but was never brought to justice but went into early retirement, and alot of other such cases which show how catholic authority can level your status in a clansih conservative society in Europe.
But it is this revolting "sin and redemption" concept that I somehow kept thinking about.
Growing up here, I always thought of it as a catholic thing which in it`s way is very distinctive and mostly only happens in catholic societies.
Am I wrong????
Anyway, there had been a very horrific accident on the A1 highway from Salzburg to Vienna on Monday which was pritty much talked about everywhere in the papers, radio and pups. A truck was forced to stop on the highway and the truck behind it couldnt get the brakes in time and crashed right into it, the gas tank brst, caught fire, and the poor man driving the truck was stuck in the truck and was burned alive whilest nobody could help and only watch in horror.
Through some coincidence, the inn at which we stopped was in the village from which the driver who had died was from.
Everyone in the inn was talking about the man and about his family in terms of mourning, when suddently a woman who was the owner of the inn said:
"That makes you think, what kind of horrible person he must have been in life to get such a horrible end through good."
Within seconds the terms in which the poor man and his family was talked about changed radicaly. Everybody was desperate in reminding others about any kind of somehow even little bit of unpleasentry that they could in any way think of about that poor person. Turning the most childish little things, even out of that mans childhood into some big crime story.
I was so disgusted that I tried to talk my friends into leaving without paying the bill, but in the end we just left early.
On the 4 hour drive home, I came to remember that this was in a way the reason why had left Austria and moved to (protestant and more liberal) Germany in the first place ( I am currently back but will leave next year). This disgusting catholic attitude, the idea of sin and divine redemption, and that god will somehow punish people during their lives for their sins and that every misfortune that was inflicted on you must be justifyable with sins of yours, which had completly sunken into the minds and culture of this backwards society (and if I am not mistaken also in Italy, France, Spain and Poland). I remembered several funerals from my childhood in which when the person brought to grave died a horrible death - people always looked for "sins" like a fucking pack of vultures to loudly justify that horrific death in a disgusting act of self staging infront of the others as some kind of moral authority.
There were also alot of other things I remebered to be wrong in this society, like the principle of a local school who was a catholic dignitary and who harrased female coworkers and other women - but was never brought to justice but went into early retirement, and alot of other such cases which show how catholic authority can level your status in a clansih conservative society in Europe.
But it is this revolting "sin and redemption" concept that I somehow kept thinking about.
Growing up here, I always thought of it as a catholic thing which in it`s way is very distinctive and mostly only happens in catholic societies.
Am I wrong????
