Bush, Baker Act and Why Scientology is Closer to Vatican Catholicism than most U.S. "Christianity" . . .

I just taught my morning section of World Religions. Although privacy laws limit what I can fully divulge, suffice it to say, my common academic critique of American Civil Religion reared its head yet again!

I was speaking about Shintoism, and in a "philosophy of religion" set of Class Discussion Questions, I posed the thesis that the hodge-podge known as U.S. Christianity, complete with an increasing patriotism following 9/11, is now this odd hybrid, syncretistic religion known as "Americanism" (or my preferred term, "American Shintoism!")

We have Memorial Day where we worship our fallen dead! We have Patriot Day where we tearfully mourn the loss of innocent lives in the horrific 9/11 attacks. But sadly, we also, still have this curious hybrid of pseudo-pscience meets totalizing world-view called modern Western Psychology.

PSYCHE = "soul" in the original Greek language, but the modern discipline of psychology, a discipline founded by an apostate Jew named Sigmund Freud (someone who renounced his Jewish heritage, and even committed suicide on Yom Kippur!) continues unabated . . .

'Mental illnesses' apparently 'plague' the U.S. Military now . . .

Whereas in the McCain-era (John McCain's grandfather that is! ;-) a soldier, U.S. Marine, sailor, airman, et al would just "shake off" the gruesome fatigue of war by rest, shore duty and just plain old getting drunk (Admiral McCain was still a sailor you know . . .), now suddenly much of our Armed Forces are "mentally ill."

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Guess what? If you 'go to war,' you will have 'flash-backs.' This is NORMAL. Whether it was the 'mythical' King Arthur legends, the medieval Crusades, the Spanish Reconquista, or WW I & WW II, to be in battle means that your soul suffered. Of course, in Catholic Europe, at one time this meant going to say your confession before a priest (for killing that was necessary in combat as part of a Just-War).

But now, thanks to listening to the pseudo-science of "modern psychology," the "great high priest" is no longer Christ Jesus, nor Christ's Church, but instead is the 'shrink!'

SIN as sin no longer exists in the modern West. Pop a pill, go to a 'shrink,' and then claim benefits due to your 'injury' of having a conscience about killing in IRAQ!

But, the strange American State Religion of Psychology-Psychiatry continues unabated, at least until now!

Whether it is the academic voice of someone like Michel Foucault (a darling of the Ivies, such as Harvard University. . .) OR the Scientologists who question the foundations, practical & epistemological of modern psychiatry, the tyrannical regime of modern psychology is coming to an end.

Thank God for the Catholic Church in this regard!

The Vatican supports holiness of life, and not supposed "mental health."

NOW if only U.S. Catholicism will listen to its own Vatican!

EX CORDE ECCLESIA, FIDES et RATIO, DOMINUS IESUS,
Rob, Catholic scholar