Just curious…does anyome know what Mr. Disney’s religion was? TIA. :rolleyes:
I think his heritage was Oirish, and his family attended St. Paul Congregational Church in Chicago. What religion that is, though, I have no idea, although I’m reasonably sure it doesn’t entail praying toward Mecca (Makkah?) five times a day.
http://scienceandreligion.com/pop_ups/tam_disney.html
Kilkenny County, descended from among one of the first waves of English invaders, the Normans (French “D’Isney”).
Congregationalism is the religion founded by the Puritains.
Well, you have answered my question…Thanks!!!
I thought he was atheist.
To elaborate:
The name “Disney” is Irish, but Walt Disney was probably not of Irish descent. He was adopted as an infant, and expended a great deal of effort to learn where he was originally from.
There were indications that he was born in a small town in Spain, and he apparently believed he was of Spanish ancestry. The matter was never successfully resolved however.
The FBI made efforts to track his lineage on his behalf as a way of keeping him as an informant regarding “subversives” in Hollywood. Unfortunately, Disney pretty much figured that anyone who favored the idea of organized labor or otherwise acting so as to cost him money was a Communist.
During the Second World War, the relationship between The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Disney was a decidedly peculiar one. Even as they were using him as an informant, agents were investigating whether he was a closet Nazi.
Disney had attended Bund meetings prior to the war, and the FBI had a hemorrhage over a daily Mickey Mouse comic strip. In it Goofy was trying to serenade someone on the guitar and, to show how badly he played, there were twisted musical notes scattered about him in the air. A cluster of them, with a lot of imagination, looked like a swastika. This prompted an investigation. Your tax dollars at work.
The FBI may have regarded him as something of a loose cannon. Though the information was carefully shielded from the public, Disney was institutionalized at various times during his adult life on account of depression and stress. He had an obsessive fear of funerals and other trappings of death after the death of his mother, and a Pluto cartoon he produced shortly after was so macabre–it was about a mad scientist trying to saw off his head–that it was later withdrawn from circulation.
During the war Disney produced cartoons denouncing the Nazis and Japanese militarism, including one prize-winning piece in which Donald Duck dreamt he lived in Nazi Germany. The cartoon used Spike Jones’ breakthrough hit, “Der Feuhrer’s Face”.
He also made a film advancing the air supremacy theory, which then ran contrary to U. S. military dogma. It was unusual, if not unique, in being a U. S. propaganda film of the time which was released without government approval. On balance, it might be fair to say that Disney was a pretty cool guy but naive at times, very opinionated, and a bit odd.
You might want to send a message to the snopes folkes. They seem to differ on that point.
Earl: whoops. Perhaps it’s better to say that Walt Disney believed himself to be adopted and leave it at that. Perhaps it was just another eccentricity, possibly similar to the way Charlie Chaplin said his family was Jewish, and his relatives said they weren’t.
I’ve heard that L Ron had him, Picasso & Howard Hughes on his list of really desired Scientology recruits. But I’ve also heard that Disney was probably a general Theist or Deist who wouldn’t commit to any definite creed or church, while he was greatly wanted by many Hollywood area churches.
Of course, there was that fling with Sister Aimee…
G
well, I just went to that Deeds Rather Than Words essay- damn good stuff! Pretty much verifying what I thought.
Brief hijack- anyone who likes that would probably also like Dennis Prager’s essay on Ethical Monotheism.