# When did religion jump the shark for great thinkers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 31, 2010, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373 "2010-05-31T11:07:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/61 "2010-06-01T14:14:34Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > We need a Ghandi in the White House. MLK in The House and Buddha in The Senate. I understand your logic, but the world is not ready for a Ghandi in the White House and MLK with Buddha in the Senate. Ghandi said to put your prize positions out in the open in your house, so if a crook broke in it would be easy to find them. These people carried a vision far beyond the physical and would not be practical legislators. I am afraid our country would be given away in short order. Their teachings are meant to be a one on one enlightenment. Small people talk about other people, mediocre people talk about things, and great people talk about concepts. The people who have had the most influence on this world of ours have been spiritual people. People that were teaching concepts of love and compassion for all people. Intelligence has nothing to do with working/talking about concepts, any one can talk concepts, I am thinking about Eric Hoffer, philsopher, thinker, and longshoreman. If you have time read one of his books, maybe “The True Believer.” As far as I can tell there has been no shift in great thinking, no lessening of spiritual greats, there has always been great thinkers that are never heard by the public, both spiritual and non-spiritual. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/62 "2010-06-01T14:23:35Z")
Yes, The wars we are in are so very productive. From the little I see of them on tv the soldiers are doing a good job at making them want to kill us less? They are holding the Iraqi’s hands and singing Kumbaya, feeding them and building schools so they can learn how to be smarter terrorists. Only a terrorist would think this is a good idea??? So what when they are better terrorists we can bring them stateside and give them all jobs here? What ever happened to peace? :dubious: Where is Bin Laden? He might be able to explain my one lousy question. How is it that we can track down anyone who doesn’t pay their taxes and a murderer who flees to the other side of the world but we can’t find this one man? Someone help me out here? I have the luxury of having to go to work now. I love my job, my home and my life. “God Bless America” and for all the patriots that fight, have fought and died to make this a great country. 🙂 Thank you for giving me this great life! ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/63 "2010-06-01T14:25:10Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Yeah, I’d have a problem calling the work any of those men did heavy lifting. > > Religion produces nothing of value. Science feeds the world. There are certainly brilliant men involved in Religion at every level. But they are ultimately wasting their time and their gifts. I think a lot of the morals we hold dear today were made popular through religion. Would slavery have disappeared as quickly as it did without religion? Would Civil Rights have succeeded as a purely secular movement without the powerful language of religion? Would helping the poor be such a societal imperitive without religion? Perhaps we have no use for it today, perhaps religion is like unions, something that we don’t need until we need it. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/64 "2010-06-01T14:36:00Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Moses didn’t even _exist._ > > To answer the OP, I don’t think there’s a clear turning point, but the process definiely really got going in the 17th century. Some of the really early scientists started in the 16th century but things took off in the 17th. Science didn’t really exist as we currently understand the discipline to exist until the 17th century; in fact, the term “science” didn’t become popular until the 19th century. Sir Isaac Newton would have been referred to as a “natural philosopher.” As science grew, religion as an intellectual pursuit lost proportionately. > > Evolution, as Der Trihs pointed out, is a blow to religion. But so were Newton’s laws of motion, the heliocentric model of the solar system, atomic theory and a dozen other major breakthroughs; each has chipped away at mysticism. I don’t think science has not chipped away at religion, it has just deepened our understanding of God. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/65 "2010-06-01T14:40:55Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Many nails in that coffin, but one that hasn’t been mentioned is the realization that there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. > > The notion that we are unique in the vastness of such a cosmos became less and less tenable. I don’t think religion requires that we are unique but I haven’t seen any evidence that we are not in fact unique. If the argument is that because tehre are billions of galaxies with billions of stars that must mean that we are not unique then why can’t we detect them? These civilizations should be broadcasting enough data that they light up like fireflies in the sky, shouldn’t they? Of course being unique doesn’t really prove the existence of God but the existence of other life doesn’t disprove God either does it? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/66 "2010-06-01T14:44:34Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Science feeds the world. and helps poisen it, and helps us kill each other more efficiently with better weapons. and…helps clean up the mess it made. Science is nice. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/67 "2010-06-01T14:45:21Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > …It was about the Church’s reaction to discoveries and theories which challenged the accepted understanding of the universe. > > The church stomped on science and punished scientists as heretics, without mking any serious attempt to understand the new ideas and reconcile them in some manner with its own teachings. > > It became clear to Great Minds that the church was more interested in defending dogma than discovering truth. It became clear to Great Minds that the Church was in fact an obstacle to progress. The Church became something to avoid, and then to actively oppose. It was then that religion jumped the shark as far as Great Minds were concerned. This makes the most sense to me. The fallibility of man and his churches to understand God does not make God disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/68 "2010-06-01T14:50:05Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t think science has not chipped away at religion, it has just deepened our understanding of God. No, just means you have to dig a hell of a lot deeper to to find the last traces of him. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/69 "2010-06-01T14:54:25Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I understand your logic, but the world is not ready for a Ghandi in the White House and MLK with Buddha in the Senate. We’d need a Gandhi as the head of every nation. The problem is that even if one nation advocates and truly promotes peace and the welfare of it’s citizens there are other nations that can and will be aggressive and we {humanity} must be able to deal with it. Now our concerns are not only about military aggression but financial as well as nations and multinational corperations strive to gain leverage over others. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/70 "2010-06-01T14:56:15Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > “Great thinker” implies an acute intelligence that can solve complex problems as well as understand and interpret complex systems. There really is nothing difficult to grasp about “compassion” or “equality” - it’s just a perspective we’ve come to consider as noble. What made Gandhi and MLK noteworthy was that they were incessantly stubborn in pursuit of such ideals. They were also great at public speaking & publicity stunts. That doesn’t qualify them as “great thinkers” - just good showmen. I don’t know as much about Gandhi but I doubt MLK had an IQ much higher than average. I think MLK and ghandi were more than just stubborn. I think their passion and belief inspired great nations to walk away from evil. Maybe they weren’t great minds in the Steven Hawkings sense of the word but I would propose that they might have done as much good in this world as Carl Sagan or Steven Hawkings. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/71 "2010-06-01T15:01:00Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Am I the only one who thinks that a Ghandi in the White House would be bad? It would be horrible… UNLESS there were a Ghandi in EVERY White House. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/72 "2010-06-01T15:20:02Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think MLK and ghandi were more than just stubborn. I think their passion and belief inspired great nations to walk away from evil. Maybe they weren’t great minds in the Steven Hawkings sense of the word but I would propose that they might have done as much good in this world as Carl Sagan or Steven Hawkings. Exactly. It’s one thing to be brilliant in scientific arenas and grasp complex scientific concepts. It an entirely different arena to strive to understand more subjective issues of human rights, mankinds relationship to each other, justice, peace, equality, and the like. When people are persistant in thier efforts in the way MLK and Gandhi was they gain a deeper understanding and their efforts make an impact on many other lives, sending ripples into history that affect the lives and consciousness of generations to come. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/73 "2010-06-01T15:40:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > No, just means you have to dig a hell of a lot deeper to to find the last traces of him. I was just doing some reading on the [enlightenment movement](http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html) and thought this was very relevant to dogmatic religion vs more liberal versions and spirtituality unassoiciated with organized religion. > [@](#): > > Michel de Montaigne, in a much more quiet and modest but ultimately more subversive way, asked a single question over and over again in his Essays: “What do I know?” By this he meant that we have no right to impose on others dogmas which rest on cultural habit rather than absolute truth. Powerfully influenced by the discovery of thriving non-Christian cultures in places as far off as Brazil, he argued that morals may be to some degree relative. Who are Europeans to insist that Brazilian cannibals who merely consume dead human flesh instead of wasting it are morally inferior to Europeans who persecute and oppress those of whom they disapprove? > This shift toward cultural relativism, though it was based on scant understanding of the newly discovered peoples, was to continue to have a profound effect on European thought to the present day. Indeed, it is one of the hallmarks of the Enlightenment. Just as their predecessors had used the tools of antiquity to gain unprecedented freedom of inquiry, the Enlightenment thinkers used the examples of other cultures to gain the freedom to reshape not only their philosophies, but their societies. It was becoming clear that there was nothing inevitable about the European patterns of thought and living: there were many possible ways of being human, and doubtless new ones could be invented. > The other contribution of Montaigne to the Enlightenment stemmed from another aspect of his famous question: “What do I know?” If we cannot be certain that our values are God-given, then we have no right to impose them by force on others. Inquisitors, popes, and kings alike had no business enforcing adherence to particular religious or philosophical beliefs. > It is one of the great paradoxes of history that radical doubt was necessary for the new sort of certainty called “scientific.” The good scientist is the one is willing to test all assumptions, to challenge all traditional opinion, to get closer to the truth. If ultimate truth, such as was claimed by religious thinkers, was unattainable by scientists, so much the better. In a sense, the strength of science at its best is that it is always aware of its limits, aware that knowledge is always growing, always subject to change, never absolute. Because knowledge depends on evidence and reason, arbitrary authority can only be its enemy. Here is the challange of spiritual concepts and philosophies and their application. There are things we can’t truly know when it comes to moral relativism and yet we are compelled by the nature of man to explore these areas and struggle on. I’d say those who passionately participate in clarifiying subjective concepts for the sake of bettering mankind’s condition can qualify as great thinkers. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/74 "2010-06-01T16:40:14Z")
> [@straight\_man](#): > > If I may ask an obvious question: if there are great minds turning to theology, _how will you notice if you aren’t studying theology?_ There are certainly esteemed professors at prestigious universities who study theology, but why would you ever know their names? Guys like Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh are no slouches brain-wise, but current religious bright lights are unlikely to be known outside a small realm even within their sects. We know a lot about the towering religious minds of the past because everybody read them, I think. That being said, if you grew up in the Middle Ages and you were a smart dude, you went into a monastery or possibly to a university where you’d study religion. There are just a lot more options these days. ---
**Author:** ![Apollo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@Apollo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollo)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/75 "2010-06-01T17:17:48Z")
An interesting perspective on the religiosity of scientists. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQIXMxbzFEQ&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQIXMxbzFEQ&feature=related) I recommend watching the entire talk. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/76 "2010-06-01T17:18:50Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Guys like Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh are no slouches brain-wise, but current religious bright lights are unlikely to be known outside a small realm even within their sects. We know a lot about the towering religious minds of the past because everybody read them, I think. Whereas nowadays, probably most adherents of _any_ denomination do not read the works of its intellectual heavy-hitters. Once large numbers of intelligent people decamp from religion, those who are left are by definition more interested in simple dogma. In other words, religion has gotten dumber. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/77 "2010-06-01T17:25:48Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I admit that [this particular site](http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sciencechristianity.htm) seems a but over the top, but it provides a who’s who of scientists who were perseuted or denounced in one form or another. It also promoted a chilling environment in which sceintists were afraid to pursue certain areas of study, of publish results that might offend the church. I agree with you that that webstie seems a bit over the top. First of all, that website’s main source is White’s _The Warfare of Science with Theology_. That book is regarded as a joke, on par with _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_. Why? Because White claims about the evils that Christians did to scientists never actually occurred. He simply made them up. Here are some cites: > **[The Myth of the Flat Earth](http://www.bede.org.uk/flatearth.htm)** > **[Debunking A Modern Myth: the Conflict of Religion & Science – Part One](https://jerome23.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/debunking-a-modern-myth-the-conflict-of-religion-science-part-one/)** > > A Word of Explanation On Christmas Eve 2008 having reached 7,000 posts on Professor Richard Dawkin’s forum I publicly issued the Professor with a challenge to a debate on Religion & Scien… Now let’s look at the claims on that webpage in detail. The webpage claims that Copernicus was a victim of the Catholic Church. In reality [Copernicus was a clergyman in that Church](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04352b.htm), was never persecuted, and never expressed any unhappiness with it. So much for that claim. Giordano Bruno comes next on the list of scientists persecuted by the Catholic Church. In reality [he was not a scientist.](http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/apologetics/ap0138.html) He was a mystic, the sort of person that most on this board usually despise. While his execution was not just, it had nothing to do with science. Your webpage is batting zero for two at this point. Galileo has already been covered upthread. Rene Descartes was another faithful and happy Catholic, just like Galileo and Copernicus. He had disagreements with some Catholic thinking not because he opposed it, but rather because he felt that his philosophy would put core dogmas on a firmer footing. Nothing there. Isaac Newton was a deeply religious man who spent much of his life on careful Bible study. He never suffered persecution of any sort, as he lived in England and had religious freedom just like all Englishmen. I won’t bother working through the rest of the list, but I do note that virtually none of the quotes attributed to the Catholic Church have any source, which leads me to suspect that they were made up. > [@](#): > > Aside from what the church may or may not have done to individuals, it attacked science itself, or rather the conclusions drawn that were a threat to its belief structure. And it continued to do this in the face of ever-increasing evidence to the contrary. When did it do so, exactly? Your webpage says that the Church promoted the idea that the earth was flat. [That’s a lie](http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/russell/FlatEarth.html) and even most atheists know better. Then there’s the claim that the Catholic Church promoted the geocentric theory while secular scientists promoted the heliocentric theory. That’s nonsense: we’ve already seen that two scientists who played critical roles in developing the heliocentric theory were devout Catholics (Copernicus and Galileo). A bit of research will show that two devout Christians were vital in the scientific proof of the heliocentric theory: Johannes Kepler (a devout Lutheran), and Giovanni Cassinni, who provided the clinching proof of Kepler’s theories with observations made from the roof of a Catholic church. It’s also [worth noting](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm) that three Catholic clergymen were involved in inventing the reflecting telescope, which permitted great advances in astronomy. Your webpage then tries to change the subject away from science by spewing the usual untrue statements about the “Christian Empire” supporting slavery in America, having women treated as chattel, etc… Of course we all know that the Church [opposed](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm) slavery in America, but that’s wandering off topic. The point is that no informed person could have turned away from religion because of Christianity’s attacks on science since those attacks are works of fiction created by atheists. Of course some people may have been misled by the atheist propaganda, but for informed people we can reject that hypothesis. As for the OP, I question the premise. In the year 1700, only about 5%-10% of the American people participated in organized religion. Today the percentage is much higher. So we should be looking for reasons to explain the increasing interest in religion over the past three centuries, not the decreasing interest. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/78 "2010-06-01T17:49:56Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > At one point in our history, all of the scholars, philosophers and general thinkers of any era devoted a large percentage of their research/pondering/life to attaining religious and/or spiritual enlightenment. > > That hasn’t been the case for some time, I don’t think, but I cannot pinpoint when this happened or why. Do we even have “general thinkers” any more? It seems as though, in the modern era, “great thinkers” have become ever more specialized, and I wonder if this isn’t relevant to the question. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/79 "2010-06-01T18:00:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think a lot of the morals we hold dear today were made popular through religion. Would slavery have disappeared as quickly as it did without religion? Would Civil Rights have succeeded as a purely secular movement without the powerful language of religion? Would helping the poor be such a societal imperitive without religion? Perhaps we have no use for it today, perhaps religion is like unions, something that we don’t need until we need it. Slavery was not ended by religion. It was ended by the Civil War. In short, at the point of a bayonet, by force. Civil rights in the 60s was brought by force too - the FBI and the government. As for general civil rights and freedom, sure they support their freedoms but not necessarily everyone else’s. So which religion shall we examine? The overall “trend” always SEEMS, from the very beginning, one of “freedom for me, but you damn well better obey” - no matter which “faith” it is. A very few examples: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/mormon-church-on-prop-8-w\_b\_140804.html](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/mormon-church-on-prop-8-w_b_140804.html) > [@](#): > > Mormon Church on Prop 8: We Oppose Civil Rights (But Don’t Tell) > > The Mormon Church’s members have contributed some $22 million into Prop 8, a vicious campaign here in California seeking to strip fundamental marriage rights from same-sex couples, making them permanent second-class citizens. President-Prophet Monson seems to like “separate but equal,” but seems a little touchy when he is called on leading such a campaign. > **[Catholicism and the Civil Rights Movement - Encyclopedia of Alabama](https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/catholicism-and-the-civil-rights-movement/)** > > In Alabama the Catholic Church's involvement with the civil rights movement was decidedly mixed. Most of Alabama's white Catholics shared white southerners' racism and initially opposed the goals of the movement. They preferred order and stability... > [@](#): > > Catholicism and the Civil Rights Movement > > In Alabama the Catholic Church’s involvement with the civil rights movement was decidedly mixed. Most of Alabama’s white Catholics shared white southerners’ racism and initially opposed the goals of the movement. They preferred order and stability instead of activism for integration and racial justice. > … Archbishop Thomas J. Toolen forbade priests to challenge publicly the state’s segregation laws or participate in demonstrations. They were instructed to work within the law and not force confrontations that would agitate the state’s white population. This curtailed the activism of a few priests and invited conflict between Toolen and those Catholics who feared that the Church was in danger of losing its moral authority on race. [http://one-evil.org/people/people\_19c\_Pius\_IX.htm](http://one-evil.org/people/people_19c_Pius_IX.htm) > [@](#): > > Of crimes against humanity through destabilizing the spread of human rights and freedom (1864): That Pope Pius IX and the Roman Catholic Church did actively work against the spread of democratic values and freedoms, stating publicly in the Papal Bull Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Errors their contempt for such values. Furthermore, that Pope Pius IX did specifically attached the American Declaration of Independence and did condemn to Hell ‘those who assert liberty of conscience and of religious worship’. Yep, Pius 9 was a real supporter of freedom and rights etc. He did a few other shitty things too. His “official policy” was that no one had any rights, they only had whatever the nobles and the church saw fit to let them have. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2010, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373/80 "2010-06-01T18:15:42Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > and helps poisen it, and helps us kill each other more efficiently with better weapons. > > and…helps clean up the mess it made. Science is nice. Try living without it for a week. Give up anything invented since 1600 and go fend for yourself in the woods. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-religion-jump-the-shark-for-great-thinkers/541373.md?page=5)