Gyros_Pretcel said:
It doesn't matter. Any other non neoliberal system could potentially use the industrialization to a different outcome and for its own goals.
Besides that. Sophistry.
I never said feudal theocracy existed, it's just what I felt you envision.
I don't see where Catholicism is superior on paper. Protestantism seems at least closer to Jesus' original teachings. Maybe it is to tolerant for you, idk, but if you are not a true believer anyway, you might as well dump all this religious bullshit and become a scientific advocate for whatever system, which benefits society the most in your opinion.
God is just used for whatever the current elite needs to advocate for, it can't replace rational self-advocacy.
But enlighten me about what your true catholic traditionalism specifically offers making it so distinct that you have to deflect any broader categorizations.
Btw I contentually agree to your original statements. In absolute terms we might do better, but in relative terms not that much. The (imo) questionable feudal power structure just got replaced with a new elite, granted they know better how far they can go and have the ressources needed to keep the necessary precentages of the population in check, but we already had this discussion elsewhere.
Catholicism and Protestantism are different like night and day. In many things, Protestants even have much more in common with Muslims in their understanding of society and how it should function than with Catholics.
For example theocracy was never a concept that even existed in Catholicism. Theocracy exists in Judaism and Islam, and certain Protestants examples in the past were also theocratic. In theocracy a secular ruler is supposed to be chosen by God like for example Muhammad leading Muslims or Caliph in Caliphate. So in such way, God rules through him and the laws, eg. "theocracy". But in Catholicism the pope is not a secular ruler, secular states were ruled by Kings and other secular rulers. This is why in Catholic medieval ages a very complex political and social system emerged that can't be categorized and compared with anything else. Jesus himself said that his kingdom is not of this world so it would be weird to be "theocratic" sensu strictu in Catholicism. Instead you need to push towards certain Catholic values being represented in society and spread religion.
It's hard to see Protestantism being close to Jesus' teachings when they can't even agree with what those teachings were. There are hundreds of protestant "churches" and they differ radically in their interpretation of Christianity between each other not even counting all the individual protestant "Christians" who think they can interprete the Bible on their own and pick and choose whatever they like. Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church which has apostolic tradition and continuity - if you're a Catholic you believe this. If you're a Protestant then you somehow believe that Jesus founded 1000+ different churches for whatever reason. Like one Catholic priest once said, "If you believe in Protestantism you need to believe that God made a mistake when he created his first Church and why would God make mistakes?". This is why Catholicism is the only form of Christianity that makes sense. You could also make an argument for Orthodoxy because they have a similar continuity and their doctrine is pretty much the same as Catholic. Everything else is just people making up their own personal religion without any authority.
Protestantism and similar heresies were a result of local elites trying to become more autonomous and it lead to secularism and destruction of traditional type of society. Luther was protected by German nobles. There are also numerous other traits that Protestantism left that lead to what we have now. For example the famous book from Weber talks about the connection with capitalism and so on.
The problem with protestantism was also that Catholicism got protestantized as well after the reformation and adopted certain things. Like for example translating the Bible into vernacular languages which led to a lot of confusion and mistakes in translation. Catholicism right now is heavily distorted and many Catholics are very unfamiliar with the doctrine.
There is also for example a huge difference in attitude towards art, music, marriage etc. In this case Protestants are very close to Muslims, or at least they were in the past. For example Protestants prefer to have this minimalistic religion, while Catholicism is about huge cathedrals, art, music, greatness. Catholicism also considers celibacy to be the most superior form of life, priests have to be celibate, there is monasticism. In Protestantism even priests get married, there are no monasteries. Again, similar to Muslims.
Protestants believe in predetermination just like Muslims in Jews where God supposedly predestined certain people to hell and they have no free will. This is why it would be absurd for incel to follow protestantism because protestants have this attituted that if you're ugly and poor God has somehow probably predestined you to hell and this is your punishment. Weber argues that this attitude inspired capitalist mentality which flourished in protestant states like USA - if you're rich that means God loves you, justification for wealth etc. In Catholicism you have free will, you're responsible for your action or whether you get in heaven or not.
Also protestants are against saints, just like Muslims. They consider this "paganism". Catholicism has a bunch of saints and relics.
And so on and so on.
