Europe...

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[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Feb 24 2006, 04:26 PM']we should all become Aussies or Kiwis.
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Europe, the US and Aussie-Kiwi lands are about level in terms of morality.

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote name='PadreSantiago' date='Feb 24 2006, 02:51 PM'][b]Murder rates? Six of the seven states with the highest 2003 homicide rates were "red" in the 2004 elections (Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina), while the deep blue Northeastern states had murder rates well below the national average. Infant mortality rates? Highest in the South and Southwest; lowest in New England. Divorce rates? Marriages break up far more in red states than in blue. Teen pregnancy rates? The same.[/b]
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Oh hell to the naww. I've read a lot of lines of b.s. on this board but that one takes the cake. That is THE dumbest article I have ever read. Ever.

If this chickadee writing for the L.A. Times (shocker!) wants to talk about twisting things around, maybe she should look at herself. There are a LOT of socio-economic factors that contribute to such things and has nothing to do with religion. Like, oh, perhaps the fact that a lot of those states mentioned are in the south, are poor, or, dare I say it, have ghettos and racial tensions?

Though I will add that if I had to live in some of those kinds of places, I'd be religious too. I'd be praying to God every day that I not get shot.

If she wants to be more accurate, maybe she should guage such statistics among regular churchgoers rather than gloss over a whole state. Is it just that whichever states happen to magically turn blue or red somehow make their crime rates magically change as well? I know, all the crime rates spike and migrate to where people are religious and vote for George Bush!

[jezic]

and the reason that infant mortality rates are slower could be because the babies are slaughtered in the womb (aborted).

[Ora et Labora]

thats a fact, isnt it?

[King's Rook's Pawn]

Make no mistake: Europe, western Europe anyway, has truly fallen off the radical, secularist, postmodern deep-end. In many, perhaps most, of the larger churches there are little more then museums for tourists. Christianity is often looked upon as an archaic curiosity and there is virtually no respect for their entire civilizational patrimony. Please jettison any notions you may have of Europe being anything like a traditional, Catholic-Christian continent of quaint traditions, majestic cathedrals, crowned heads, and a glorious history permeating its very core. While some Americans may still look fondly on Europe's traditional Christian heritage, their vision colored by the romance of distance, most Europeans ignore it, are ignorant of it, or even hate it.

If there is one beacon of light left in western Europe, it is probably Poland, which has clung to many of ways of older Christian Europe. Eastern Europe, in general, is much less far gone then the West, having lived through Soviet communism and unequivocally rejecting it, even as western Europe lapsed into complacency and what can only be termed and cultural senescence. Ironically, the Iron Curtain actually protected eastern Europe in many ways, offering its inhabitants are stark choice between complete atheistic communism and traditional Christian society. Western Europe, on the other hand, was allowed to crumble incrementally.

This implosion of Europe has occurred mainly since the period of the two World Wars, which utterly unmade the older Victorian paradigm of European society and caused the Europeans to attempt to replace it with this social democratic model of society, which has led to modern Europe being a land of aging, corrupt, rickety, top-heavy welfare states. At the same time, old national boundaries are giving way to the massive, ever-growing, un-democratic, secularist-socialist bureaucratic monster known as the EU. The culture itself has lapsed into what is basically a form a hedonistic nihilism, much worse indeed then in the U.S., in which large numbers of people still adhere to the beliefs, practices, and values of their forefathers and fight to protect them. While WWI & WWII were really the big catalysts, the roots of this collapse are much deeper, going back at least to the viciously anti-Catholic and radical French Revolution, possibly (one could argue) to the Protestant Reformation itself, or even earlier.

Demographically, however, the atheistic, nihilistic, hedonistic Europe of today is probably soon going to get its comeuppance. Statistics show that, what with decades of abortion, contraception, secularism, giant tax burdens, and general anti-traditional family sentiment, the birth rate of Europe is falling like a rock. Few western European nations have birthrates above the replacement rate; their populations are falling and have been for many years now. Worse, about the only group having many children are the millions of Muslim immigrants who, thanks to decades of radically liberal immigration laws, have been flowing into European cities, into filthy insular ghettos where few of the natives dare to go. They are the ones having all the babies, as the "post-Christian" natives prefer to waste their lives in a languid carefree cloud of socialistic handouts and bacchanalia, reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. One may think of modern Europe, therefore, as a cultural vacuum, and a vacuum must be filled. And the far stronger, more zealous, more self-confident culture of Islam is doing the filling. Demography is destiny, and all statistics show that the destiny of Europe belongs to Islam. The ancestors of Europe spilt rivers of blood defending their fatherlands against the Muslim hordes, in the meantime managing to build a civilization unrivalled in its prosperity and sophistication, only to have their descendents, grown decadent on that civilization's plenty, freely hand it over to those same age-old enemies.

It is an ironic, ignominious, and tragicomical end to a glorious and unsurpassed history, but given that probability that Europe would otherwise on the fast track to the New World Order, an Islamic caliphate might actually be seen as the lesser of two possible evils...

[jezic]

i still question the idea of "prosperity" as a good thing (the type that Europe had)

There is hope yet though. They can still wake up and it could come back around, it will take something big, but i wonder if the Islamic people declare shriah law in a country some of those Europeans might be roused a bit.

[jezic]

i still question the idea of "prosperity" as a good thing (the type that Europe had)

There is hope yet though. They can still wake up and it could come back around, it will take something big, but i wonder if the Islamic people declare shriah law in a country some of those Europeans might be roused a bit.

[Ash Wednesday]

I agree with you, jezic. Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we ever wake up. Such may be the case with Europe.

[Ora et Labora]

Did America "wake up" yet, Ash Wednesday?

[Maria]

[quote name='RandomProddy' date='Feb 23 2006, 07:56 PM']Less than most, and it varies. Northern Europe is the least corrupt place on earth, the south much less so.
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Hmmm...
Sweden is in the north, and Malta is in the south.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Maria' date='Feb 26 2006, 12:30 AM']Hmmm...
Sweden is in the north, and Malta is in the south.
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Agreed. It seems to me that Europe as a continent is generally irreligious. The Bishops of England and Wales have taken to calling their province 'neo pagan' and I see no reason why this term shouldn't likewise be used to describe the continent at large.

[Ash Wednesday]

[quote name='Ora et Labora' date='Feb 25 2006, 03:51 PM']Did America "wake up" yet, Ash Wednesday?
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[misereremi]

Moral corruption is everywhere, I think it's difficult to generalise for a whole country or continent. And if it is concentrated in Europe, then all the more reason to go there and make a difference.

Our Catholic faith has all but died here in Europe. I live in "tolerant" Britain. Our Churches are not museums for tourists (although yes we have many beautiful old churches that tourists do visit). I'd be lucky if I find a seat if I'm 2 minutes late for mass in my parish. Immigration has played a part in increasing our numbers, bringing in Catholics from the Philippines, Africa, South America, Poland, etc. I've seen a movement in the young people of Europe, inspired by the late Pope John Paul II which gives me much hope for Europe in its faithful. There really is scope for evangelisation as the generations of young people brought up without faith, particularly in the more deprived areas, are now seeking it. Many are turning to Islam for its strict laws. In a sense decades of liberalism have created this trend against faithlessness, so there is much work to be done here, and much hope left. May God help us in our mission.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='misereremi' date='Feb 26 2006, 02:10 AM']Moral corruption is everywhere, I think it's difficult to generalise for a whole country or continent.  And if it is concentrated in Europe, then all the more reason to go there and make a difference.

Our Catholic faith has all but died here in Europe. I live in "tolerant" Britain. Our Churches are not museums for tourists (although yes we have many beautiful old churches that tourists do visit). I'd be lucky if I find a seat if I'm 2 minutes late for mass in my parish. Immigration has played a part in increasing our numbers, bringing in Catholics from the Philippines, Africa, South America, Poland, etc.  I've seen a movement in the young people of Europe,  inspired by the late Pope John Paul II which gives me much hope for Europe in its faithful. There really is scope for evangelisation as the generations of young people brought up without faith, particularly in the more deprived areas, are now seeking it. Many are turning to Islam for its strict laws. In a sense decades of liberalism have created this trend against faithlessness, so there is much work to be done here, and much hope left. May God help us in our mission.
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Absolutely. I do not think Europe's case is hapless particularly with people praying for conversions. But how would you suggest we engage people?

[misereremi]

Maybe through street evangelisation, like the Fransican Friars of the Renewal or what they do in Brixton- street catechesis, youth work, going into schools (e.g. what John Pridmore does is fantastic), or getting young people to come to Youth 2000, and through media like music (we need phatmass MCs in the UK). It's a mission for sure, but I've seen conversions. I find kids in estates all around the country are suprising me, asking questions about faith, interested in coming to Church. A decade ago this would have been much less likely.