This past week has been extremely upsetting. It started out by me realizing just how people are probably going to hell, only to be confirmed almost every day this week. People just don’t care about God or anything related to religion. They think that by denying the existence of God, heaven, hell, sin and everything else, that it actually makes it not exist. If they don’t believe in it, they no longer have to worry about it.
And today, in my world lit class, we finally talked about something that didn’t have to do with sex. Instead, we ventured into an even less-understood realm: Catholicism. The beginning of the discussion was fair enough, as usual, then it quickly became centered on false ideas (just like every class). We (or should I say, the professor) ended up concluding that the saints are gods that Catholics worship, and how Cortes’ letter to Charles proves this. I haven’t been that mad in a class in a long time.
So he doesn’t understand saints. I think a lot of people don’t. Saints are not gods and Catholics do not worship them like they are. Saints were real living people on earth. They never claimed to be god, and in fact, there entire lives shows that the only thing that matters is God and doing His will. Since saints were human, they had interests, professions, walks of life, just like everyone living today does. That is why some are associated with particular things. Not that they somehow rule over an area of life (say animals, or agriculture), but that they struggled, and/or prevailed in these areas, and hence are more connected to them. It is not thought that a saint alone can grant you anything. God is the only one that can work miracles and answer prayers. Asking saints to pray for a cause only emphasizes this fact. Also, since saints really lived and pleased God, they are an example to us of how we should live our lives as well.
Saints and deities have nothing in common. To think so shows a total lack of understanding as to who the saints are.
Oh, and happy All Soul's day! Pray for all the saints in purgatory!
Wait... what? How does Cortes' letters prove that we worship saints? I've read them and they don't prove that!
ReplyDeleteYeah, exactly. My prof pointed out how Cortes replaced their most important idols with images or Our Lady and other saints. He says it's hypocritical because its basically the same thing. “You asked so and so god for this, now pray to this saint instead”. I really want to record him when he talks just to figure out how he arrives at certain things. We were reading from the second letter.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's just crap. In fact, one of the reasons for which the image of Our Lady wasn't very well received by the Spaniards at first was that they weren't really sure if the natives understood that they shouldn't worship her because she isn't God.
ReplyDeleteI think being an english teacher (esp world lit) should require a good grasp of history. Today we were talking about ancient mexicans. I kept thinking of how awesome it would be if you were in that class! Then maybe he would stop making wild statements. that class is so fustrating.
ReplyDeleteHaha, I would go crazy on him, who does he think he is to talk crap about my peeps?
ReplyDeleteYou see, the problem is that the History we learn in school (even at a college level) is rarely based on Truth but rather on the biases that teachers (and our culture in general) have towards certain historical events. History is not used as a means of discovering truth but more like a means to push certain ideological agendas. The case of the Spaniards is one of the most notorious because, until the Nazis came around, they were considered the most barbarious and savage of all people. That image was the result of centuries of what is known as the "Black Legend" forged by the English and by Protestants as a political means to undermine Spanish power (because the Spanish were for many centuries the defenders of Catholicism).
Can you come "get crazy on him"? That would be great!
ReplyDeleteHistory is interesting because it all is an interpretation of events from someone. I've enjoyed my history classes at auburn though. We read some really interesting stuff disputing "accepted history". if you wrote a book about the history of your peeps, i would totally read it : )
Haha, well, I'm not a Historian so I doubt that I could make a half-decent book about History...
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