The Jon Blog

Now I Know Why Those Candles Cost So Much

Goodness, can you believe how much the Pope's funeral is going to cost? I mean, you could feed many African villages for quite some time...

I'll be honest. One of the reasons I've never been a huge fan of organized religion is that I feel like it's, on many levels, a stupidity tax. Not that I'm opposed to charity when it is routed properly, but if you look at religion, especially Catholicism, but many other Western religions as well (I don't know enough about Eastern religions to comment, although I am pretty convinced that my argument does not apply to Buddhism), they've been one more way to keep the rich people rich and the poor people poor.

Look at history: The Catholic Church and the Nobility were the only institutions and people which had money and/or education during the Middle Ages. The grandeur of the architecture of the great cathedrals of Europe was to inspire awe and fear in the masses. Education was the domain of the church, not a right of the masses, and literature and knowledge was secreted away inside monastaries. Because it was easier to get the will of the people to bend to the will of the Church and to the will of the Nobles when the masses were uneducated.

And today, I don't think it's entirely different, even though it's vastly different. And I think it's ironic that the Catholic Church, whose employees are supposed to take a vow of poverty, is such a wealthy organization. Sure, they'd be wealthier if their membership hadn't declined as much as it has in many of the industrialized nations, but I think a lot of people have realized that there is more to the world than giving money to a Church so that the leaders can run around wearing golden dreses.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing against Faith. I am arguing against using Faith to cover up greed and corruption. And I think it's clear from the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Pope's death, that the Catholic Church's fiscal priorities are not in line with what they say they are.

Just one of the many reasons that I'm not a religious person.