National Geographic funded by the Catholic Church???

[Phlosphr]

WHOA!! WHOA!!WHOA!!! I was just sitting in a meeting at work and a collegue told me the National Geographic Society was originally funded by the Catholic Church??(still is…?) What!!! is this true.

I asked him if he had a resource for this and he didn’t have one on hand. Does anyone know of any Validity to this. Even Yes thats true… or…he’s full of sh**!

Oddly enough I have read National Geographic for Decades, never have I seen any religious overtones or ANYTHING eluding to this claim. As a matter of fact I have close to 150 copies in my home Library. Nothing says anything about this…Any Ideas…

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Gaming Wonderland

In January 1888, 33 men gathered around a mahogany table to confabulate “the advisability of organizing a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” From this ambitious meeting sprang The National Geographic Society, which is now the largest not-for-profit educational and scientific institution in the world. In the 19th century, a diverse array of men comprised the society, namely geographers, explorers, teachers, attorneys, cartographers, military officers, philanthropists, bankers, and natural-born-adventurers.

Unless some of these men had rabid Catholic hidden agendas, I think the answer to your question is “B: full of sh**”.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled conspiracy theory…

(edited to fix link)

[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 07-11-2001 at 04:38 PM]

[kniz]

*Originally posted by Phlosphr *
**WHOA!! WHOA!!WHOA!!!

Oddly enough I have read National Geographic for Decades, never have I seen any religious overtones or ANYTHING eluding to this claim. As a matter of fact I have close to 150 copies in my home Library. Nothing says anything about this…Any Ideas… **

I don’t get it if you’ve never seen any religious overtones, why all the excitement? Would it be O.K. if the Southern Baptists published the National Geographic? National Geographic has put out a quality magazine for as long as I can remember. If this rumor had been true would you have thrown out all your back copies and canceled your subscription?

Now if the Boy Scouts were publishing Playboy, then we have something to worry about. How about the National Review being published by the Karl Marx Society?

Back before Playboy, National Geographic was the only magazine that you could sneek a peek of some breasts. I don’t know but it is possible that the Catholic Church banned NG along with “The Moon Is Blue”.

[Phlosphr]

Yes I can see how you (kniz) would get that from my post. But that is not what I intended. If it were actually true I would just file it away in the back of my mind, but the religion part of it is not at all any kind of an issue.

And I would never in a thousand years throw away any of the back issues. They are way to valuable for my own sentimental reasons, (and no not for the bush women of Botswana)

My kids love them, and have used them for countless reports and just reading…I just want to know if the OP is true or not…

[kniz]

Who gets this stuff started? And don’t you think that in this case it is playing off the feelings against the Catholic Church?

This is like the spiders in hamburgers or the sign of Satan on TIDE. Why do people think it is cute to start such rumors? I hope I’m not hijacking this thread.

[Phobos]

As far as I know, NGS is currently member-supported.

Here’s the history of the formation of the NGS…(no mention of the Catholic Church)…
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/birth/