Dogmas and Power

This is a study of the revealed monotheistic religions, and in particular of Catholicism. It discusses the reasons underlying their dogmatism and fundamentalism. The role played by Christian theocracy in the western world over the past two millennia is described and critically analysed: the insertion of religious power into the governance of European political life, the systematic violence exercised against any attempt at autonomous thought which dissented from the official line of ecclesiastical theology or which simply criticised Church malpractice or which might in any way undermine its power. Thus it outlines the history of the main schisms, reforms and heresies and of the terrible ecclesiastical reactions which aimed to crush such initiatives. The obscurantist and antiscientific outlook of the Catholic religion, which turned even more radical with the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent is exemplified by Galileo's enforced recantation and by the rule that definitively imposed celibacy on the clergy, with the degenerative consequences that it brought about. The rise of Protestantism in the countries of Northern Europe, and their removal from papal influence is interpreted as a decisive factor in the civic, scientific and ethical development of those countries, while Catholic Southern Europe on the other hand remained for several more centuries under the retrograde influence of Catholicism. Objective comparative analyses which have been carried out in European countries are taken into consideration, covering a wide range of cultural indicators, highlighting that the Protestant North is significantly more civilised than the Catholic South and that there is a negative correlation between the incidence of religious faith in a given population and its level of civilisation and culture. The second part of this study analyses the most serious shortcomings of the present-day religious caste (the poverty of its "moral message," its hypocrisy, its corrupt practices, its thirst for power and money, its illicit interference in the political sphere) and mentions the courageous attempt of the present Pope, Francis, to revolutionise the Church and its administration (the Curia). This study also examines the main themes that divide the secular liberal concept from the absolutist Catholic one. It discusses the arguments over so-called ethical relativism, and it studies the relationship between the concepts of transcendence and immanence. Finally, the question is put whether religion, even taking into account the positive roles which it still performs (in the sphere of individual psychology and the maintaining of social order) can still make a useful contribution to the society of the future.