The Man Who Founded America

You wrote:

“While we are on the subject, Why I am not a Catholic.”

We weren’t on that subject. And why are you posting to yourself?

Ping for later reading.

But I’ll just note once again that, for a group of folks who think no human being ever deserves credit for doing anything, Calvinists sure take credit for doing a lot.

You wrote: "My posts are already long and I do not have the room for nuance. The simple fact is that England had (1) more liberty than any other nation (prior to America) and (2) more industrialization than any other nation (prior to American). That includes the Spanish." And there is no evidence that either one of those things is related to Protestantism. England was very free even in the Middle Ages. Magna Carta ring a bell? And England became industrialized because of geography more than anything else: the woolen trade. "The numbers of Catholics are growing because of Hispanic immigration. By conversion, their is a net trend towards Protestantism." The number of Catholics is growing even without the influx of immigrants. "Go pick up any book on American history (I recommend "Albion's Seed," which specifically deals with the patterns of early immigration). The settlers in the North were primarily Puritans and Quakers who came to America for religious reasons. Many hangers-on came along with them, but that is the main engine. By contrast, immigrants to the south, while religious, came for economic opportunity." That is not cause and effect when dealing with 200 YEARS LATER! We aren't talking about the 17th century but the 19th - the Civil War. You're making a claim with no evidence at all. “My main point is this: Aquinas reconciled Aristotle with Christianity. This was a huge accomplishment - the inability to do so sent the Muslim world into anti-intellectualism. But the Catholic Church then rested on its laurels. A medieval and Renaissance world that was growing in intellectual might soon surpassed Aristotle. But the Catholic church continued to make Aristotle the main pillar of their intellectual thought and this held them back. This is a generally accepted point by both Catholics and Protestants. Did this mean that there weren't important Catholic thinkers? Of course not. But Catholics sequestered themselves from the evolution of western thought, and thus were cut off from the further development of the ideals of rights and democracy that reached maturity with Locke.” Again, not true. As I pointed out and I listed the names of those who live far ahead of Locke. “I never claimed that. My point is that the Catholic world was stuck in an Aristotilian rut for quite some time, but they did eventually get out. But this happened *after* Protestants like Locke developed the philosophy of human rights. Are there powerful Catholic intellectuals developing Christian morality and ethics today? yes. Were there during Locke's time? No.” Yes, actually there were. Bishop Adam Stanisław Krasiński comes to mind immediately as does Bossuet in regard to “there powerful Catholic intellectuals developing Christian morality and ethics.” Again, if you are living in the English speaking world, and a product of the public schools, you may not even know these men existed. “To the contrary, my story has been consistent. Catholics did great stuff in the 13th century then became stagnant.” I already proved they didn’t. Suarez was stagnant. Bossuet was not stagnant. Vladimiri was not stagnant. You are ignoring evidence. “Protestants like Locke picked up the baton. Eventually Catholics got our of their rut and today both Catholics and Protestants are making great accomplishments.” Your comment is sweeping in its avoidance of reality. “The American revolution did not happen in a vacuum. It happened because the colonists were from the English culture of common law and liberty. They simply took things to the next step in the progression.” So how is that progression and not stagnation but you say Catholics stagnated after the 1270s when I already posted the evidence they didn’t? And what culture of common law and liberty are you assuming here if America had to rebel? Rebel against common law and liberty? “Spain and its imperial ambitious did much of this, along with Portugal.” CATHOLIC Spain. CATHOLIC Portugal. “But it also did not stick. Syncretism became the order of the day (this is common with Catholic conversion, it is also why England outlawed Christmas - it was another pagan tradition mixing with Christianity).” Utter nonsense. Christmas is not pagan. No matter what pagan god in ancient days was celebrated on that day no Christian celebrated anything but Christ’s birthday. The people who make these idiotic suggestion often forget we have today is Thursday – THOR’S day. If Christmas was ditched by the Puritans because it was pagan then surely they would have done the same to the days of the week. They ditched it because they were generally down on celebrating much of anything with feasting, drinking and spending money. Also, syncretism IS NOT COMMON WITH Catholic conversion. “There is still a lot of hard work needed to fully Christianize Latin America and Asia.” Yes, indeed, and Protestants need to be brought to orthodoxy as well. “And again, Protestant denominations are spreading faster and gaining more converts in both regions.” With little impact thus far. Many of the “converts” you speak of leave within the first year. “This is not about "making a buck."” You just suggested it was. “It is about breathtakingly poor countries looking for hope against grinding poverty and oppression. And America is their City on a Hill.” There city on a hill should be the heavenly Jerusalem. I do not confuse the gospel with America. The two are NOT THE SAME. I love both, but know only one is from God and always true. “That is not quite true. A middle class developed among the early Christians during the Roman empire.” It already existed in germ form. “There was enough commerce and opportunity before the Empire went into decline, even with the periodic persecution of Christians. This happened again in the Middle Ages, although it took the development of the free cities and other capitalistic structures as prerequisites.’ The Middle Class, as we would recognize it, is a medieval invention. It is a Catholic invention in that regard. One only needs to think of the trading guilds to know that. “Even the Catholic Church estimates that about 3000 Latin Americans become Protestants every day. And that estimate is probably low. Overall Catholicism is growing because everywhere Christianity is growing (except maybe Russia). But Protestantism is overall winning converts faster, and from among Catholics.” No, actually Catholicism, world wide, is probably growing just as fast as all of Protestantism combined. You are making the mistake so many make and looking at one set of data and ignoring others. “It is not anecdotal that Catholic New England is in a state of apostasy.” There is not now, nor has there even been, a Catholic New England. Try again. “Hence the liberal politics and low rates of church attendence.” Apostasy certainly leads to those. Then again, Pius X, a prophetic man, said Protestantism leads to atheism. That has been seen to be true as well.

Interesting post. Bumping to myself to research later.

Sorry the post came out as one paragraph. It did not appear that way when I was writing it!

The gold of the gospel is about faith and grace - not about being in the black.

Agreed, but I will say that thrift and industriousness are solid Biblical principals. A perpetually stagnant economy is a sign that Biblical principals are not being observed.

You wrote:

“Agreed, but I will say that thrift and industriousness are solid Biblical principals. A perpetually stagnant economy is a sign that Biblical principals are not being observed.”

What Christian country ever had a “perpetually stagnant economy”? I can’t think of any.

Wish I had been able to jump in earlier, but I don’t have the time to post like I used to.

When it comes to “prosperous” nations, it is a bit disingenuous to speak of a rule of thumb that Catholic nations are poor, and Protestant (I assume you mean of the Reformed type, not the Lutheran or Anglican) are richer. For one thing, there were many poor Protestant states and many rich Catholic ones.

What was initially different was the relaxation of usury laws in places like the Netherlands and later England allowed for much more speculation and loans to be made that were viewed in other areas as not just illegal, but un Christian. So you get a magnified boom bust cycle in Holland that made them very rich and also brought the tulip craze and the resulting crash.

However, one thing to remember was that the world before World War I was vastly different than the world today. France, England, and the new German state were the main powers, with Russia following close behind. They had the money, power, industry, and culture to go with it. And in a space of a few years of war they managed to kill off enough of there people that Europe was changed forever.

Before that, there were jokes about the “Protestant work ethic” and using that as the reason for the success of England, but semi Catholic France had as successful of an economy and empire and England. England had an advantage in the over seas colonies, which was partly do to the legacy of naval tradition by Cromwell (little known fact, he was the father of the English navy and the New Model Army).

But there were poorer Protestant and Catholic nations also. Spain had the largest gold reserves of any country in the world till their civil war in the 1930’s, but the inflation was such that it didn’t do them much good. Sweden and Norway also missed much of the boom that brought the rise of the great powers like France and England. Both Spaniard's and Scandinavia's have good work ethics, but both didn’t succeed like other states did for a variety of reasons.

My point is that judging God’s favor by the economic prosperity of the nation is not only un Biblical (remember, Jesus was pretty clear that to follow Him meant that the world would scorn you), but a bit silly. You can’t really argue that the US is a Christian nation, it is a nation based on the Anonymous god of Freemasonry more than anything else. Our wealth is a gift from God, but the USA is not the new Israel. We will fall from prosperity (and probably sooner than later), not because we are becoming more Catholic or Protestant, but because we have been foolish.

My point is not as black and white as it may appear, as I have periodically tried to explain, the truth is more nuanced but a message board does not lend itself to a full exploration of the issues.

I do not preach liberation theology of the gospel of wealth. Rather, my thesis is that the most devout Christian nations tend to be both (1) more free, and (2) have a stronger sense of marriage and work ethic. Thus two taken together result in wealth and prosperity, but they are mere byproducts.

In any case, I’ll bow out at this point so feel free to take the last word. My rule for maintaining sanity on the Free Republic is not to pursue threads beyond a single day.