[Buddha-l] unwed couples are like Krishna and Radha

[Richard Hayes]

Katherine Masis wrote:

> Don't worry, Curt.  Most Catholics in the world are in Latin America and don't listen to the Vatican too much when it comes to sex and/or family planning.

Don't spoil Curt's fun, Katherine. He loves to worry, especially about Christians. It's his svabhāva.

>  Catholicism doesn't have the power in the minds and hearts of people that it had in the nineteenth century. 

I think the same is true in New Mexico, which is allegedly a predominately Catholic society. (Statehood was delayed for about sixty years, because Americans were wary of admitting a state that was mostly Catholic and Mexican.) Every now and then I encounter a student who shows signs of having been robbed of the ability to think clearly and independently because of religious indoctrination, but I don't find many of them, and rarely are such people Catholics. Of course, I teach philosophy, and probably most religiously conservative students avoid philosophy classes, lest they be exposed to Hume or Nietzsche or Laozi or the Buddha.

I have a pretty warped view of American society, since about 108% of the people I hang out with are atheists, which makes me think America has gone back to being an atheist (or at least Deist) culture as it was in the days of the founding fathers. The religiously supersaturated America that Curt describes is outside my immediate acquaintance, so I have a difficult time getting as terrified as he is of Christians.

This topic of religious fanaticism brings up a question. These days there are support groups for everyone; families populated by alcoholics, drug addicts and sociopaths can all find support group to help them deal with their dysfunctional relatives. Does anyone know whether there are support groups for families that have been torn apart by religious zealotry? I reckon there is a need for such groups, but I haven't ever heard of any (except for some of the "anti-cult" groups that are themselves cults).

Richard