Re: Catholics in Space!

Bif Smith wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Kevin Balentine <balentine_media@yahoo.com>
> To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 9:31 PM
> Subject: Catholics in Space!
>
> >
> > --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> > > Bif, you did see "Knights Templar" in Don's
> > > description, yes?
> > >
> >
> > For a further exploration of this theme, try George
> > R.R. Martin's collection of short stories, "Sand
> > Kings."
> >
> > It has a very nice sci-fi story about an Inquisition
> > soldier off to put down heresy in the outer colonies.
> >
> > __________________________________________________
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> I was thinking along the lines of a catholic battle fleet, under the
command
> of the vatican. Instead of a captain, you would have, say, a bishop in
> command, and a lowly preast would be manning the systems (etc, etc).
Instand
> enemies for the IF (keeps them off everyone elses backs, anyway). For
how,
> you just say some planet were settled by strict catholics, and the
church
> was the controling factor, but these systems had enough resources to
allow
> them to build their own fleet (purely to protect against the heathens,
never
> to be used against sinners <G>).
>
> BIF

And I thought the GZG UN was implausible!  I could see the Holy See
(sp?)
sending out long range probes to explore space, discover new intelligent
species
and cultures, and translate the bible into the local language, but not
anything
more aggressive than proselytizing.

Hordes of starships stamping out heresy is a Puritan (protestant) thing,
more
likely to spring from a tightly knit group of born-again christians,
than from
Roman Catholics.  A Catholic battlefleet (the only probable excuse for a
Swiss
Space Navy)  would be purely defensive.  The odds of them being in
combat with
the IF is just about nil.  The evolution of the western idea of seperate
spheres
of influence makes it unlikely for a purely "catholic" fleet.  The
Church may
annoint the leaders and caution them against sin, but (except for
squelching
unjust wars), will let the temporal authorities deal with temporal
things, while
the Church takes care of spiritual affairs.  Unlike Islam or Judaism,
Christianity does not explicitly spell out how to run anything but your
spiritual life (Islam defines how everything is to be done, and includes
a
complete code of laws).  The inquisition pretty much came to an end with
the
Protestant schisms that were driven by papal excesses.

What really scares me are battlefleets of "we are not a
turn-the-other-cheek
sort of religion" scientologists.