What would an American Catholic theocracy look like?

[Rence]

I can’t help but think i fit was some sort of way Orthodox Catholicism that this would not be something even many Catholics of today would want. But beyond that - the last poster mentioned - what happens to those that dissent? I think that we would wind up having some kind of “Catholic Police” situation “ooh…I think I say my neighbor’s girl go into her boy friends house…this is something that could be an occaision of sin…oooh I didn’t see my next door neighbors at Church and I went by to visit and none of them were sick and no one would tell me why they wern’t there…ooooh I think I say such and such do such and such and that’s against Catholic teaching…” – There’s a reason Thomas Moore’s Utopia never came to be. Even an American Catholic theocracy would have to have humans in it - humans who sin and make mistakes - humans who are going to get some power (be they lay people or Priests or Bishops or whatever) and there are going to be abuses. A theocracy in America or anywhere is a nice thought - but in reality, I could see it becoming like other societies where religion is part of or is the law - and there are going to be a lot of people in America who wouldn’t want anything to do with a Catholic theocracy - I can’t imagine America ever being one don’t know I would ever want to see it. Heaven may be a theocracy but we’re all put through the fires of perfection before getting there - no body down here is perfect.
God Bless
Rye

LOL, yep, that’s what it boils down to. No matter what religion people are, they’re still people. They’ll be good or bad no matter what religion they are.

 

[Rence]

For me personally, I have no desire to live in a theocracy - at least not on Earth. I do live in America (haven’t always) and I happen to enjoy my freedom - but God also gave us freedom - freedom to make choices. All choices have consequences some good some bad. But forcing someone to uphold the Catholic Church - it really does sound like going back to the middle ages-(do you really think God had in mind forcing us to be Catholic? If He did, don’t you think He could have made our society that way?). It does remind me of some of what I heard about the first Europeans to begin colonizing America - within a couple of hundred years, everyone was so into everyon else’s business that in Salem you had witch trials. Alot of it had to do with people watching each other to see if they were doing right or wrong in the mind set of the people of the area. But granted they did choose to move to America -
But making Catholicism compulsive? I am curious, how are you going to enforce Catholic teaching? What’s the punishment going to be if I miss Mass and I’m not sick? How invasive are you going to get into people’s lives? You going to start checking out my medical records if I’m married and haven’t had a child by my 5 year anniversary? One poster didn’t seem to thing that there should be any more ‘rich’ people - so what- we’re going to divide equally among each of us - no matter who works more or who works harder? It almost sounds like something my dad used to say jokingly when I’d bring home my report card and want my suprize for doing so well - he would say “the reward for doing good is no punishment…”

I think an American Catholic theocracy would not look that great at all. I think it would look like a whole lot of unhappy people. Once the fear of civil punishment for breaking Catholic laws was removed, what did people do? They broke those Catholic rules. They protested. And the cruel punishments against them for protesting only made them stronger and increase in size. The same thing would happen here if it started out as a Catholic country, and worse would happen now that the horse has been out of the barn for so long. People aren’t going to easily let go of that personal freedom and autonomy.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

This would never happen because of our Constitution and if it did, it would be a much worse situation than we have now, IMO.

Sw85, this quote of yours is quite snarky and rude.

Of course most Catholics wouldn’t want to live in such a society. Many (perhaps even most) Catholics are heretics and functional apostates. They want to have contraceptive sex with their live-in girlfriends. They want to receive communion unworthily the two masses a year they actually attend. They want to drop $3 in the offertory basket and then criticize churches for not doing more to help the poor. Most Catholics, frankly, suck. Who cares what they want?

 

[sw85]

Why do I even post here? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter how many times I point to the fact that modern society murders its children wholesale in the name of the “freedom” you all insist be preserved at any and every cost, that the supposed pathologies of earlier confessionally Catholic states are hugely exaggerated (largely because of the lies of leftist historians), or that, at any rate, there is no reason to suppose that violence is a necessary feature of Catholicism given that non-Catholic states have historically been even more violent for far less worthy causes. All I get is yet more rah-rah-Americanism.

And many (maybe even most) Catholics *do *suck. The evidence is all around us. Opinion poll after opinion poll confirms it. The erupting heresies in the European Church confirm it. How can I be rude to a statistic? And at any rate, since when is impiety and heresy entitled to kids-gloves treatment?

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Why do I even post here? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter how many times I point to the fact that modern society murders its children wholesale in the name of the “freedom” you all insist be preserved at any and every cost, that the supposed pathologies of earlier confessionally Catholic states are hugely exaggerated (largely because of the lies of leftist historians), or that, at any rate, there is no reason to suppose that violence is a necessary feature of Catholicism given that non-Catholic states have historically been even more violent for far less worthy causes. All I get is yet more rah-rah-Americanism.

And many (maybe even most) Catholics *do *suck. The evidence is all around us. Opinion poll after opinion poll confirms it. The erupting heresies in the European Church confirm it. How can I be rude to a statistic? And at any rate, since when is impiety and heresy entitled to kids-gloves treatment?

Well, with that attitude, sir, you are not going to get a great reception to any parish you join…If you think that burning the house down is a way to cure a common cold, to mix metaphors…I admire your zeal, but you are not going to start another Crusade, especially by the Church against itself.

 

[tafan]

I should point out that my thoughts on starting this thread weren’t meant to take us down the rabbit-hole of political reform. I was thinking of an exercise much more fundamental and abstract in nature.

In other words, if we Catholics of today were suddenly presented with the same opportunity that was given to America’s founding fathers, which is the grace of having the ability to craft a completely new form of government from scratch, how could it be constructed in such a way as to build the City of God while being careful to ensure justice and respect of persons that are hallmarks of modern America?

Since I am unfamiliar with Confessional governments, I will have to research this. But it seems to me that it may not be relevant whether this new government (I will call it Catholicland, to simplify things) is Confessional or Theocratic.

Nothing in the article of the original post implies a theocracy. A theocracy,by definition, is a form of government by the Church. Outside of the Papal States and teh modern day Vatican, I no of no Catholic Theocracies that have ever existed. I do not believe the Church has ever condoned the idea of a theocracy. So that is a red herring term we should not bring into the discussion.

I believe what theprivious poster meant by confessional was that the government would recognize Catholocism as the official religion of the land. It certainly seems that would be a requiremend from Dr Marshal’s article. It also presupposes that the vast majority of the people would be practicing Catholics. As do all of my following responses:

Some ideas for our hypothetical and ambitious Catholicland:

1. Should Canon Law be the ultimate foundation of the Law of the Land, informing and limiting all levels of government?

Certainly not. You have never looked at Canon Law have you? It has almost no overlap with secular law, so it would be woefully insufficient for what you are proposing.

1. All government office holders must be practicing Catholics. I think this goes without saying.

If Catholocism was the state established religion, then the answer could very well be yes. And that would be quite practical.

1. Would it be appropriate to have Judicial, Legislative and Executive branches divided into a Senate and House as it is with the United States?

There would be nothing imcompatible with a representative republic and a Catholic country. So it would be a fine option.

1. Would the government be able to keep non-Catholic influences at bay such as pornography, immoral TV shows/movies, gay pride marches, non-Catholic churches, abortion activism, etc…? Remember, it is a just and virtuous place so inhumane treatment must be completely out of the question. History is clear about how effective those methods are.

This would likely be very unwise to try to suppress all non-Catholic influences… I refer you to Aquinas’ summa newadvent.org/summa/2096.htm#article2 on “Whether it belongs to human law to suppress all vices?” He gives it a resounding answer of no and gives good guidelines for what should and should not be attempted. But some of your list could certainly be made into law.

1. Americans love their property rights and capitalism but these are at odds with the teachings of Holy Mother Church. Would distributism be the best economic system as several Popes have championed?

Property rights are NOT at odds with the Holy Mother Church, quite the opposite. And a distributism economy have A) not been championed by popes, but bylay catholics attempting to apply principals in the Leo XIII’s teachings, and B) require a protection of property rights by the state.

1. Should the government administer entitlement programs such as health care, foster care, homelessness and unemployment? If so, what legal mechanisms would be required to prevent abuse and inhumane treatment?

Most of what you list are not entitlement programs,but are welfare programs. Entitlements are programs to which there is an implicit contract between the government and a citizen that they are entitled to a specific benefit in return for something they did in the past. Examples of entitlements are social security, medicare, military pensions, civil servant pensions.
As to the welfare programs and other programs you mentioned, they are not necessarily at odds with any Church teaching.

1. Obviously, it would be impractical to attempt to enforce all aspects of faithful living such as attending mass and alms-giving. Nothing comes to mind of any parallels in American society that would provide insight into such a thing, but would some type of merit system be effective in rewarding faithful behavior while discouraging unfaithful behavior?

Again, see the Aquinas article I referenced above, it provides pretty good guidelines for some of this.

 

[slate]

A vision closer to a utopia for Catholics, and varying degrees of oppressive for non-Catholics. I think a lot comes down to what the punishment for breaking a religious law shall be. In general, I don’t think a theocracy would want as many religious laws with punishments because this implicitly imposes your beliefs on others unwillingly. AFAIK, this is not what Catholicism desires. Instead, I think this kind of society would use incentives to ensure that Catholics got better government services than non-Catholics.

A few big changes:

1. Abortion would be always classified as murder.
2. Contraception would be banned, with a harsh punishment.
3. The court system as we know it becomes much less important when it comes to interpreting and enforcing law. Perhaps this is obvious in a Theocracy but I though i’d say it anyways.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

I can’t help but think i fit was some sort of way Orthodox Catholicism that this would not be something even many Catholics of today would want. But beyond that - the last poster mentioned - what happens to those that dissent? I think that we would wind up having some kind of “Catholic Police” situation “ooh…I think I say my neighbor’s girl go into her boy friends house…this is something that could be an occaision of sin…oooh I didn’t see my next door neighbors at Church and I went by to visit and none of them were sick and no one would tell me why they wern’t there…ooooh I think I say such and such do such and such and that’s against Catholic teaching…” – There’s a reason Thomas Moore’s Utopia never came to be. Even an American Catholic theocracy would have to have humans in it - humans who sin and make mistakes - humans who are going to get some power (be they lay people or Priests or Bishops or whatever) and there are going to be abuses. A theocracy in America or anywhere is a nice thought - but in reality, I could see it becoming like other societies where religion is part of or is the law - and there are going to be a lot of people in America who wouldn’t want anything to do with a Catholic theocracy - I can’t imagine America ever being one don’t know I would ever want to see it. Heaven may be a theocracy but we’re all put through the fires of perfection before getting there - no body down here is perfect.
God Bless
Rye

You would need a powerful secret police with a large network of informants to really enforce Catholic morality on the individual level.
Something like the Saudi Arabian Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (here’s the wiki link for general information on this vile group: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Propagation_of_Virtue_and_the_Prevention_of_Vice_(Saudi_Arabia).

Of course in a strong theocracy, that would be all too likely

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Cause, you know, all religions are exactly alike once you brush aside all the unimportant stuff, like what they believe and why they believe it.

Not necessarily. Our dominant social creed is basically leftist atheist utilitarianism, even though true leftist atheist utilitarians are extremely rare, probably fewer than 1 in 10. Outside the universities and mass media, most people are ordinary, white, heterosexual, hard-working Christians.

People really overestimate the strength of democracy. Even in democratic nations, the people follow the elites – both in opinion and in the law. Recent history gives us plenty of examples of the state acting against the people’s wishes and the result being not the reformation of the state’s will but the deformation of the people’s wishes. Gay “marriage” is only one example of this.

Of course most Catholics wouldn’t want to live in such a society. Many (perhaps even most) Catholics are heretics and functional apostates. They want to have contraceptive sex with their live-in girlfriends. They want to receive communion unworthily the two masses a year they actually attend. They want to drop $3 in the offertory basket and then criticize churches for not doing more to help the poor. Most Catholics, frankly, suck. Who cares what they want?

Nobody wanted gay marriage ten years ago. There practically weren’t any polls on it because it wasn’t even on people’s radars. I bet if you did one, you’d find support in the mid single-digits range, about the proportion of the population suffering from severe mental illness. Now it’s law in like a dozen and a half states and support is north of 50% in most places. Clearly, what people want doesn’t matter even in our supposedly enlightened and tolerant and democratic times: what the elites want matter.

A confessionally Catholic state would have far lower ambitions than the modern atheist liberal utilitarian one. A Catholic state would simply aim to make it difficult to commit certain sins (like adultery or blasphemy), and to make Catholicism the most respectable religion around. Our modern atheist liberal utilitarian state is actively trying to re-engineer human nature to accord with some made-up conception of the good.

If the masses of men are sinners we may as well desire a government that actually acknowledges as much and acts accordingly. The idea that we can’t do such without ushering in a benighted age of horrors is simply nonsense. There have been plenty of confessionally Catholic societies that flourished throughout history despite being run by and filled with sinners. Those societies produced thousands of saints, beautiful works of art, soul-stirring music, stunning architecture, etc. etc. – and they did this despite constant foreign invasions from murderous serial-killing Muslims, famines, the plague, etc. Modern society has given us… what, exactly, besides the corpses of 50 million infants unceremoniously flushed down their mothers’ toilets? Soul-destroyingly-ugly buildings? Avril Lavigne? “Artistic” photographs of crucifixes soaked in urine? To Hell, literally, with modern society and all the “freedoms” our cafeteria Catholic brethren desire.

They do obviously.
If you despise most other Catholics that says more about you than anything else frankly.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Cause, you know, all religions are exactly alike once you brush aside all the unimportant stuff, like what they believe and why they believe it.

Not necessarily. Our dominant social creed is basically leftist atheist utilitarianism, even though true leftist atheist utilitarians are extremely rare, probably fewer than 1 in 10. Outside the universities and mass media, most people are ordinary, white, heterosexual, hard-working Christians.

People really overestimate the strength of democracy. Even in democratic nations, the people follow the elites – both in opinion and in the law. Recent history gives us plenty of examples of the state acting against the people’s wishes and the result being not the reformation of the state’s will but the deformation of the people’s wishes. Gay “marriage” is only one example of this.

Of course most Catholics wouldn’t want to live in such a society. Many (perhaps even most) Catholics are heretics and functional apostates. They want to have contraceptive sex with their live-in girlfriends. They want to receive communion unworthily the two masses a year they actually attend. They want to drop $3 in the offertory basket and then criticize churches for not doing more to help the poor. Most Catholics, frankly, suck. Who cares what they want?

Nobody wanted gay marriage ten years ago. There practically weren’t any polls on it because it wasn’t even on people’s radars. I bet if you did one, you’d find support in the mid single-digits range, about the proportion of the population suffering from severe mental illness. Now it’s law in like a dozen and a half states and support is north of 50% in most places. Clearly, what people want doesn’t matter even in our supposedly enlightened and tolerant and democratic times: what the elites want matter.

A confessionally Catholic state would have far lower ambitions than the modern atheist liberal utilitarian one. A Catholic state would simply aim to make it difficult to commit certain sins (like adultery or blasphemy), and to make Catholicism the most respectable religion around. Our modern atheist liberal utilitarian state is actively trying to re-engineer human nature to accord with some made-up conception of the good.

If the masses of men are sinners we may as well desire a government that actually acknowledges as much and acts accordingly. The idea that we can’t do such without ushering in a benighted age of horrors is simply nonsense. There have been plenty of confessionally Catholic societies that flourished throughout history despite being run by and filled with sinners. Those societies produced thousands of saints, beautiful works of art, soul-stirring music, stunning architecture, etc. etc. – and they did this despite constant foreign invasions from murderous serial-killing Muslims, famines, the plague, etc. Modern society has given us… what, exactly, besides the corpses of 50 million infants unceremoniously flushed down their mothers’ toilets? Soul-destroyingly-ugly buildings? Avril Lavigne? “Artistic” photographs of crucifixes soaked in urine? To Hell, literally, with modern society and all the “freedoms” our cafeteria Catholic brethren desire.

Life saving medicine (and longer life spans), communications technology (such as what were using right now), lower infant and maternal mortality, a higher standard of living (instead of having to fight hard for simple survival), etc., etc.,

 

[AngryAtheist8]

From an outsider’s viewpoint (Australian, where we don’t wear our religion on our sleeve so much), you wouldn’t be the USA if you had been Catholic. For a start you had Protestant origins (Pilgrim Fathers), despite being “discovered” by a Catholic (Columbus).

Both the Protestant US and the Catholic Latin Americas were settled around the same time. But the difference in accomplishment has been startling. Exactly why this should be I don’t know, but I suspect a major difference has been what might be called the Protestant Work Ethic, plus greater freedoms.

But for the sake of the argument, a Catholic America, for it to work, would have to rely on a much greater use of (name removed by moderator)ut from the laity than the centralised Catholic Church of old. I don’t have a lot of admiration for Martin Luther, but I think there were two reasons God allowed the Protestant Reformation to go ahead - one was the speeding up of democracy, which took it’s strongest root most quickly in Protestant nations, particularly the English speaking ones, for whatever reason that was.

The other was criticism of the Bible, which in turn opened up freedom of thought in other areas.

The problem now is that we’ve seen where untrammeled freedom leads. It invariably leads to rebellion against God.

But there would be no way for example that a Pope, hoping to assert authority over a “Catholic America” could bring into being two committees on the issue of the contraceptive pill for example, then make a unilateral decision to ban it even if the committees approved it’s use for married couples (as did happen), and then expect the broad mass of educated Catholics to simpy shrug their shoulders and say “divine fiat”.

Any hope that sort of thinking would prevail would be sheer self deception, after two centuries or more of the struggle for the broad mass of the people to think and act for themselves.

And I don’t think God would even want it. He’s allowed us to develop the sort of public education we’ve got now for a reason, even if it quite often goes against Him. He wants us to make ethical decisions, and I don’t know that bringing in the form of a Catholic America would do much to alter the substance or, if you like, the way people think.

I suppose it would be possible, but there’s no way that the Church could just make unilateral decisions and expect the people to obey them without question. They’d expect to be told “why” at the very least.

I suppose this reminds me of some Prussian military figure used by George Washington to fight for him, if my TV memory is correct (Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben?). He allegedly compared his experience in Prussia to his US experience - in Prussia he said to a soldier “Do this” and he did it. In the US he said to the soldier “Do this”, and the soldier said “Why?”. He then said, “So I told him the reason, and then he did it.”

Any hope for a Catholic America (or Australia for that matter) would face the same hurdle of independent thinking.

I don’t think that any society of Catholics in the 18th century could have developed into a nation that respects freedom and human rights like the Protestant United States did. Catholicism was too closely tied to monarchy, paternalism, and the idea that it deserved state power in that era (although I admit I am a somewhat biased observer).

 

[AngryAtheist8]

For me personally, I have no desire to live in a theocracy - at least not on Earth. I do live in America (haven’t always) and I happen to enjoy my freedom - but God also gave us freedom - freedom to make choices. All choices have consequences some good some bad. But forcing someone to uphold the Catholic Church - it really does sound like going back to the middle ages-(do you really think God had in mind forcing us to be Catholic? If He did, don’t you think He could have made our society that way?). It does remind me of some of what I heard about the first Europeans to begin colonizing America - within a couple of hundred years, everyone was so into everyon else’s business that in Salem you had witch trials. Alot of it had to do with people watching each other to see if they were doing right or wrong in the mind set of the people of the area. But granted they did choose to move to America -
But making Catholicism compulsive? I am curious, how are you going to enforce Catholic teaching? What’s the punishment going to be if I miss Mass and I’m not sick? How invasive are you going to get into people’s lives? You going to start checking out my medical records if I’m married and haven’t had a child by my 5 year anniversary? One poster didn’t seem to thing that there should be any more ‘rich’ people - so what- we’re going to divide equally among each of us - no matter who works more or who works harder? It almost sounds like something my dad used to say jokingly when I’d bring home my report card and want my suprize for doing so well - he would say “the reward for doing good is no punishment…”
Listen, I think Utopia sounded great - but it wasn’t real (perhaps it is and it’s what it’s kind of like what Heaven might be like - but without work and pain, etc)- . It was something Thomas Moore wrote about - his ideal life - which if you have like minded people going for the same goals (like I mentioned with those Europeans first coming to the American Colonies)- will be difficult enough. If you have the idea that then everyone else can leave and not be a part of it - well then you won’t need America - you might need Delaware or perhaps Rhode Island (or a state that size) - to house your theocracy. Some of what certain posters have mentioned almost sounds socialist to me.
You want to try out a Catholic Theocracy - go ahead - buy an island and try it – if you have any resources, a non Catholic society will come and rob you - will you have any military or will you simply ‘turn the other cheek’?
God Bless
Rye

As I said before, you would need religious/secret police for that.

 

[AngryAtheist8]

Why do I even post here? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter how many times I point to the fact that modern society murders its children wholesale in the name of the “freedom” you all insist be preserved at any and every cost, that the supposed pathologies of earlier confessionally Catholic states are hugely exaggerated (largely because of the lies of leftist historians), or that, at any rate, there is no reason to suppose that violence is a necessary feature of Catholicism given that non-Catholic states have historically been even more violent for far less worthy causes. All I get is yet more rah-rah-Americanism.

And many (maybe even most) Catholics *do *suck. The evidence is all around us. Opinion poll after opinion poll confirms it. The erupting heresies in the European Church confirm it. How can I be rude to a statistic? And at any rate, since when is impiety and heresy entitled to kids-gloves treatment?

Apparently you enjoy talking down to other Catholics

 

[AngryAtheist8]

A vision closer to a utopia for Catholics, and varying degrees of oppressive for non-Catholics. I think a lot comes down to what the punishment for breaking a religious law shall be. In general, I don’t think a theocracy would want as many religious laws with punishments because this implicitly imposes your beliefs on others unwillingly. AFAIK, this is not what Catholicism desires. Instead, I think this kind of society would use incentives to ensure that Catholics got better government services than non-Catholics.

A few big changes:

1. Abortion would be always classified as murder.
2. Contraception would be banned, with a harsh punishment.
   **3) The court system as we know it becomes much less important when it comes to interpreting and enforcing law. Perhaps this is obvious in a Theocracy but I though i’d say it anyways./**QUOTE]

And what would we have instead?
Something like the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice perhaps?

 

[TheRealJuliane]

As I said before, you would need religious/secret police for that.

Time for the Spanish Inquisition perhaps???

The Spanish Inquisition

 

[slate]

3) The court system as we know it becomes much less important when it comes to interpreting and enforcing law. Perhaps this is obvious in a Theocracy but I though i’d say it anyways.

And what would we have instead?
Something like the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice perhaps?

Yes, probably something closer to that vision.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I love Dr Taylor Marshall’s ideas.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Dr. Taylor Marshall recently planted a powerful and tempting seed for me on his blog, Canterbury Tales, entitled If America were a fully Catholic country, here is what it might look like….

America is and always has been a country founded on the basic tenets of personal liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In the beginning, when nearly all men had a moral compass, even if it was Protestant in nature, Americans enjoyed a modicum of decency. But today, freedom’s chickens are coming home to roost and Americans’ morals and fidelity to Christ are crumbling at a rapid rate. We are seeing the inevitable culmination of the freedom that was given to us.

I know there have been discussions here in the past about theocracies, but I feel compelled to further explore Dr. Marshall’s ideas as to how a truly Catholic form of government could provide a virtuous and respectable society to live in. I am particularly interested in how we can incorporate the more fruitful lessons learned from the Great American Experiment. Dr. Marshall isn’t in the habit of dipping his toes into the political arena so please don’t get the idea that he is “stirring the pot” of revolution or anything as seditious as that. He is simply playing out a thought experiment of what a modern day version St. Augustine’s City of God could look like.

NOTE: I am looking for an academic discussion here and not a flame war!

Thanks!

He isn’t describing a theocracy, he’s describing a state where the vast majority is Catholic.

Iron hammer (#5), point 4 is wrong, property rights are very much supported by the Church, indeed that’s one of the criticisms of Socialism/Communism. Unconstrained Capitalism has been condemned because of abondonment of the poor, but if people actually donated to charity this would not necessarily apply. point 5 is unnecessary as in a state where the vast majority are believing Catholics there would be enough given to charity to convert social needs.

Jerry Miah (#9) Not even close as Catholicism and Fundamentalism are incompatible.

ryecroft (#12) There is a reason the Church is centred in Rome not Berlin. Oh and regarding St. Thomas’s Utopia you should read Albert Duhamel’s “Medievalism of More’s Utopia.”

Bob Crowley (#16) Actually it is the terrain they settled, notice how both Chile and Argentina are modern first world nations that still retain Catholicism to large degrees. The Protestant Work Ethic as described by Weber is preposterous as the premise is that capitalism arose from it yet capitalism had already existed in the Italian city states before the Reformation.

 

[BrJuniper]

Ireland

 

[gentle_atheist]

Would we have to dance without moving our arms?