Saturday, April 23, 2005

What I Love about Humanity Is...

Isn't it amazing that the same bad ideas, or heresies, if you will, keep popping up? Consider the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Albigenses:
Hence, the liberation of the soul from its captivity in the body is the true end of our being. To attain this, suicide is commendable; it was customary among them in the form of the endura (starvation). The extinction of bodily life on the largest scale consistent with human existence is also a perfect aim. As generation propagates the slavery of the soul to the body, perpetual chastity should be practiced. Matrimonial intercourse is unlawful; concubinage, being of a less permanent nature, is preferable to marriage. Abandonment of his wife by the husband, or vice versa, is desirable. Generation was abhorred by the Albigenses even in the animal kingdom. Consequently, abstention from all animal food, except fish, was enjoined.... War and capital punishment were absolutely condemned.

If you allow a mirror-inversion of doctrine, that the flesh is Good and the Spirit (or Mind) is Evil, you can find a one-to-one symmetry with modern radical environmentalists, neo-Luddites and anti-globalization protestors. Really, we should give up our modern nomenclature and go back to the ways of the Mediæval era, with Albigensianism, Pelagianism and Manichæism all fighting for our souls. It just sounds much cooler.

"War and capital punishment were condemned..." Hmm, maybe we aren't too far from the bad old days, after all.

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