Into What Religion Were You Born Or Raised?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Tuff, TristusKhan was born 'ni dieu, ni maître'. It is a classification in itself.

The concept doesn't translate well into an American cultural context. Americans have five hundred religions and one broad concept of atheism. France is divided into one broad concept 'religious' and five hundred different ways of radical non-religiousness.


By the standards of this poll, you can mark Tristus down as a Roman Catholic. ()

I am a baptised Catholic. But not Roman!
But I'l spare you this distinction.

[Koga No Goshi]

Tuff, TristusKhan was born 'ni dieu, ni maître'. It is a classification in itself.

The concept doesn't translate well into an American cultural context. Americans have five hundred religions and one broad concept of atheism. France is divided into one broad concept 'religious' and five hundred different ways of radical non-religiousness.


By the standards of this poll, you can mark Tristus down as a Roman Catholic. ()

I am a baptised Catholic. But not Roman!
But I'l spare you this distinction.

Could you give us a cultural approximation or explanation of the French term? I'm curious to know.

[Sarmatian]

Both my parents are Orthodox, but in reality they're Atheists/Agnostics. I wasn't baptized at birth (communism and all that), but did it out of my own volition a couple of years ago. So, I'm officially orthodox but in reality I'm an agnostic...

BTW, what's the point of the thread? Doing a research, Tuff?

[ICantSpellDawg]

Both my parents are Orthodox, but in reality they're Atheists/Agnostics. I wasn't baptized at birth (communism and all that), but did it out of my own volition a couple of years ago. So, I'm officially orthodox but in reality I'm an agnostic...

BTW, what's the point of the thread? Doing a research, Tuff?

Nope. The same reason that I want people to fill out their tab in the political affiliation thread. I like to see where people are coming from. As many people and as much personal information as I can get to better relate or understand their sentiments.

I relate with you guys on a day to day basis and none of this information is written in a book that I can read. We are essentially creating our own.

[CountArach]

I relate with you guys on a day to day basis and none of this information is written in a book that I can read. We are essentially creating our own.

So true.

[LittleGrizzly]

Im stuck between anglicanism and protestantism, they both have fairly plain churchs right ?

If yes anything major to differentiate between the two ?

Is anglicanism C of E ? If so then protestantism...

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I was raised celebrating Christmas, but that's about it. I've only been to a church for a religious service maybe once, I was never baptised, and I've probably been to a synagogue for exactly as many services as I have to a church. Which is one. Bar Mitzvahs rock!

[lars573]

Is anglicanism C of E ? If so then protestantism...

Yep, Anglicanism is Church of England (it's what I was raised, before I walked away from childish things like believing in a higher power in the judeo-christian sense). Yes there is quite a bit of difference between Anglican and other Protestant sects. Really C'o'E and Catholics have much more in common doctrine wise than C'o'E vis-a-ve Lutheran/Calvanist/Preysbeterian etc.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Could you give us a cultural approximation or explanation of the French term? I'm curious to know.

Of 'Ni dieu ni maître'? It is an old radical battlecry: 'No God! No Master!'

This touches on the recent thread about Laïcité, where I think the reasons for us storming the barricades in revolutionary anger baffled many.
'No God, no master' shows the link between religion and supression. In France, the revolutionary quest for freedom had to overcome the Catholic hierarchy as much as the worldly hierarchy. Non-religiousness, or a religiously neutral state, and freedom go hand-in-hand. (At least, for many it does, certainly for progressives. I won't go into reactionary criticism here)
This in contrast to America's experience. Several groups of (European) Americans settled in America to seek religious freedom. This they duly found. And so, to this day, religion and freedom, and freedom of religion, go hand in hand in American thought.

Uh, that sounds so simplified as to be almost false, but it'll have to do for a quick forum post before I go to bed.


Edit: Or I could've thought about simply giving a link. Strangely, the English Wikipedia doesn't have an entry. (Be the first, Tristus!) Luckily, the www is infinite:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"Ni dieu ni maître!"--Neither God nor master!--is a phrase coined by the socialist Auguste Blanqui in 1880, when he published a journal by that name. It became an anarchist slogan.

Louis-Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881) was nick-named " l'enfermé "--"locked up"-- because over half of his adult life was spent in jail. He was involved in failed insurrections in 1839, 1840, and 1870. His supporters, known as "Blanquists", made up a substantial faction of the Paris Commune insurrection of 1871. Blanqui supported the notion of class struggle, spearheaded by an elite "revolutionary vanguard" of intellectuals, on behalf of the workers, the proletariat, against the bourgeoisie, the middle class. While somewhat influential in France, his theories obtained practical efficacy when adopted by Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks for their own particular revolutionary brand of Marxism.

The phrase pops up in a couple of places in Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, first in Section 22, in a critique of the notion that "nature" dictates a morality of equality before the law--"natural law"--and then again in Section 202, where he identifies it as both an anarchist slogan and the motto of "herd morality", the morality of compassion for others--which Nietzsche apparently did not consider to be a good and noble thing.

Blanqui's phrase has particular resonance for anarchists in Portugal, Spain, France, and other places where a reactionary Catholic Church hierarchy was deeply involved in government and devoted all its resources to counterevolution. In such places, it was difficult not to conflate religion with slavery.

[Sarmatian]

Of 'Ni dieu ni maître'? It is an old radical battlecry: 'No God! No Master!'

Why does everything sound cooler in French than in English?

Compare Ni dieu ni maître to No God no master, or La Garde meurt, elle ne se rend pas! to The Guard dies, it does not surrender!.