Time to think a spell
Looking at the shelves at the polish store can have a negative effect on my psyche – religious books, conservative magazines and papers, Christian tokens in many forms lie about in all corners.
I can’t help but wonder how I’ll fit in when I come face to face with it in Poland – the country where I was born, the country that had trouble becoming part of the EU due to its seemingly non-existent separation of church and state. If freedom is the space between church and state, Poland will feel very confined.
How does one look in the face of the people from which a recent Pope was chosen, and who see Mother Theresa as a wonderful human being? (In fairness, much of the civilised world still sees Mother Theresa as some sort of saint.) Atheists – yet alone anti-theists – appear to be as rare in Poland as human decency and scientific inquiry is in organised religions.
I don’t mind being a heathen in the eyes of the religious, I find it a kind of compliment on the same level that being a “good christian boy” is an insult. It’s the sheer number of the ignorant that concerns me. There is after all power in numbers.
I can’t help but wonder how I’ll fit in when I come face to face with it in Poland – the country where I was born, the country that had trouble becoming part of the EU due to its seemingly non-existent separation of church and state. If freedom is the space between church and state, Poland will feel very confined.
How does one look in the face of the people from which a recent Pope was chosen, and who see Mother Theresa as a wonderful human being? (In fairness, much of the civilised world still sees Mother Theresa as some sort of saint.) Atheists – yet alone anti-theists – appear to be as rare in Poland as human decency and scientific inquiry is in organised religions.
I don’t mind being a heathen in the eyes of the religious, I find it a kind of compliment on the same level that being a “good christian boy” is an insult. It’s the sheer number of the ignorant that concerns me. There is after all power in numbers.
