| | I'm just coming across this post. John Paul II is one of my heros - a philosopher who fought for freedom philosophically, who grew up under the Nazis, celebrating the end of World War II only to see Stalin roll in from the East within a few weeks. His work at the University of Lublin helped lay the foundations for the Solidarity movement, which ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union - without a shot being fired.
The idea that Objectivists must "fight" and "wrest" from the Catholic Church the language of spirituality reminds me of a scene from history - Napoleon took Pope Pius VI into captivity. At one point Napoleon told him: "I will destroy the Catholic Church in one year". To which the Pope replied: "My dear man, if the clergy has been unable to do that for almost 2000 years, what makes you think you can do it in one?"
The point that must be grasped by those who view the Catholic Faith as a kind of belief akin to a belief in Santa Claus, is that it is an entirely reasonable faith, and can be defended on the basis of historical evidence and careful reasoning. If you don't understand this, you will be attacking a "straw man" - imaginary opponents who don't really exist. If you want to attack a religion you should learn what it is that you are attacking - what it is that that religion teaches. Unfortunately, people don't want to investigate these matters too closely - a pertinent passage from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited sums up the situation nicely: (N.B. - it is striking how little has changed since 1945.)
The view implicit in my education was that the basic narrative of Christianity had long been exposed as a myth, and that opinion was now divided as to whether its ethical teaching was of present value, a division in which the main weight went against it; religion was a hobby which some people professed and others did not; at the best it slightly ornamental, at the worst it was the province of “complexes” and “inhibitions” – catchwords of the decade – and of the intolerance, hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity attributed to it for centuries. No one ever suggested to me that these quaint observances expressed a coherent philosophic system and intransigent historical claims; nor, had they done so, would have I been much interested.
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