Why are Polish so conservative and religious?

People move from place to place, ideas change, historical factors that shape behaviour (and in the case of Poland the excessive role of the RCC and reactions in certain circles against any innovation) come and go. Since the days of the early Celts or the Neolithic Beaker People, Europeans have been adopting new cultural packages and ditching some older traditions while keeping new ones. Just the way things are.

You once mentioned "the withering of religion" which is always a sign of decline and collapse. Except your observation was only partially true. One religion withers only to be replaced by another. That was the case with ancient Rome and that is the case today. Judaeo-Christianity is withering but Islam is dynamically and aggressively expanding.

Antiquity - Middle Ages - Modernism -Post-Modernism...and there is nothing left but the collapse of Western Civilisation as we know it.
Yes, the religion of Rome eventually became just a decorative cultural artefact devoid of any spiritual or ethical dimension. The family went into decline, and eat, drink and be merry ruled the day. The only thing we haven't yet achieved today is the loss of defence capacity. The Roman army became so fat, flabby and pleasure-mad that they hired barbarian mercenaries to do their fighting and those gradually infiltrated the state. We may still have some time, because so far we there is still the all-powerful USA/NATO system, and it doesn't appear that ISIS terrorists will be invited to replace our good old GIs any time soon.

Back around World War One Spengler predicted the "Undergoing of the West" ("Der Untergang des Abendlandes"), and the atrocities of the 20th century may well have been the convulsive death throes of the forthcoming demise.

The decline probably cannot be stopped - after all the West had had its two millennia punctuated by numerous "golden ages" and that's quite a lot. But perhaps it can be slowed down. However today's influential forces of anarcho-libertinism seem to be doing everything to accelerate the collapse. On the one hand the "anything goes" pleasure-seeking mentality morally disarms people and focuses their attention on "me, myself and I" here and now. Secondly, it reinforces the enemy's belief that the West truly is Satan incarnate and bolsters his resolve to destroy it as soon as possible.

A human irony, oft repeated throughout history, is that those most opposed to what fanatical and aggressive Islam stands for are its most effective, albeit unwitting allies.

It happens anyway, Pol3, and you can't turn the clock back. Change is good - nobody in their right mind would want to be stuck in some parody of a Golden Age which never existed. Impossible anyway.

You'll change your tune when ISIS takes over and starts going after not only Chrsitians and Jews but also pleasure-seekers, feminists, sexual deviates and all those who refuse to embrace Islam. "Change is good!" choked and sputtered jon357 as the smoke from the stake at which he was being burnt swirled up throuhg his nostrils....

Not very relevant to the thread and full of the usual nonsense. There's no suggestion that ISIS are going to 'take over' in Poland and whether you like it or not, the country is drifting away from the ultra-conservative Catholicism that was thriving under the unusual conditions the country experienced.


You object to pleasure? Can't be much fun in your house...

Who's talking about Poland? Spengler predicted the decline of the West, and today hardly any serious scholar debates that view. Serious academicians only differ as to when and how and what configuration will replace it.

Devil-may-care eat, drink and be merry is hedonistic folly.

This is not about turning the clock back but about observing what is currently taking place. The leftist-liberal advocates of multi-culti (which Frau Merkel for one has fortunately seen through) are shooting themsleves in the foot because the chief benefactors are not interested in blending or assimilating but in capturing yet another beach-head and setting up a stronghold for the future conflagration. The de-Christianization of Europe and its culture of sterile secularism leaves the continent morally disarmed and weak in the face of Muslim fanaticism. The so-called "progressive" permisivists are so blinded by their own obsessions, prejudices and unholy pet causes that they don't see how they're playing right into the hands of their mortal enemies.

So Polonius .... you are a Christian version of ISIS ??
You certainly sound like them .

Who's talking about Poland? Check out the thread title. Spengler, by the way, is much debate and his hypotheses are far from a given. The world does change, constantly, and no, you can't stop that in Poland or anywhere else.

To stay closer to the thread title, it's actually a false question. In the cities Poland isn't that conservative and is getting less religious all the time. Whether you personally approve or disapprove. And yes, I do think the world is becoming a better place.

@darkdawk

As strongly as I would agree with what You've typed and think i have to disconnect with all of these. I am a native Pole. I am agnostic (it's usually being confused with ateism) but i really want to know Your reasoning about God being "their imaginary friend". Waiting for Your insights.

@Nocymrok, Dardawk last posted 3 years ago.

Google the phrase you're interested in - it's much to do with the very human habit of anthropomorphising the unknowable. He is using it ironically (and misplacedly) in the context of religious tradition in Poland B.

Isn't that what the science does? Maybe not "anthropomorphising" (i doubt You could use the term since most religions consider gods as more than humans) but those are still ideas of belief.

The whole point is that humans anthropomorphise. In Europe anyway. All those depictions in human form. Science tries to do the opposite; it accepts nothing without proof. A long tradition of that in Poland, centuries old and running parallel to the concepts that Pol3 prefers.

Interesting about the human instinct to believe - this runs very deep and seems the same whatever the person believes in.

There is a huge difference between change and collapse. The Roman Empire did not change in a peaceful and evolutionary manner. It collapsed on the one hand through implosion when run-away fat and flabby hedonism outstripped common sense, and on the other -- under preponderant barabrian pressure from without. That is what seems to be in store for the West, although some refuse to see the writing on the wall. They are horse-blinkered into deluding themselves that this is the best of all worlds, where half the people of our planet go to bed hungry each night. The only unknown is whether the collapse will occur 10, 30 or 70 years from now, whether it will take place in stages and, if so, how many, and what role be played by aggressive Islam, the Far East, Russia or some as yet unforeseen constellation of forces? Oto jest pytanie!

Then I must be one of a kind. :) You made me feel precious. :)

Hard to see the point you're making Pol3. You seem to be prophesying an inevitable downfall without one single positive comment or, (frankly ignoring the best traditions of hysterical prophecy) making any suggestions about how to avoid the unavoidable. Except perhaps by trying to turn the clock back, cling blindly to traditions formed under different circumstances, and never change - which we've established is impossible.

@NocyMrok, you make a very good point, as always :-)

The point is that those blindly wallowing in their fat and flabby decadence in a world of such extreme poverty and suffering are proving to the ISIS barbarians that they are somehow less than human, that they are bereft of any semblance of social conscience and do not deserve to live. These are the people overindulging in food, drink and drugs, wallowing in luxury, travelling to Thailand to bugger 10-year-old boys, etc., etc. as if oblivious to the countless poor Africans trying to escape hunger, disease and physical coercion only to drown in the sea while trying to reach Italy. And that is but a minuscule snippet of the misery in what the luxury-blinded and pleasure-minded regard as "the best of all worlds".

That's nothing new. In fact all of those things are more of the past than the present. What you're in effect saying is that you just hate life.

If one has to bugger 10-year-old boys and wallow in decadent luxury to love life, then I guess you're right. I think it's better to love people, especially the underprivileged and disadvantaged.

This is no longer about the thread subject despite the latitude given.

You're quite right. I have strayed. Mea maxima culpa!

Polonius makes some interesting points which ring true. The whole decadence is feeding the isis barbarians and the flabby hedonism thing appears real as well. The whole hedonist, gay, flabby thing is well and alive here and we are going backward. Some pom says poles are conservative and religious but fails to mention that societies who did the other thing have persished and the romans weren't the only ones. Some pom says poland is conservative while emulating traits from societies long dead and failed from 2000 years and longer ago, a recycled copy cat road to nothing branded as progress. The ulimate conservatism. Don't be religious and comftable they say, subscribe to money only, drinking and drugs only, accept everyone without blinking even though they may be destroying your society in front of you. Even having a family is too much hassle you won't make enough money, don't bother we will import 3rd worlders to replace your would be kids. Don't believe in good, your daughter is a slut but that's ok because that's no longer considered bad she should open up for whoever wants if it doesn't work out she can always get on ice, after all it's freely available everywhere. But ohh no don't belive in simple 10 commandments Are you mad? Hopefully poland will keep something?!?!

Have you forgotten that ISIS-style atrocities were once committed in the name of the Christian god, too? Religious fanatics are always dangerous. The question simply is where faith ends and real fanaticism begins (Rafał Trytek, Tadeusz Rydzyk)

Exactly. And in Poland, there have always been different opinions. There has always been a conservative current just as there have always been a liberal one. Due as much to the religious establishment and the judgemental behaviour -


- of people from certain tendencies as sociopolitical factors and the appeal of progress, Poland is becoming less conservative and traditional by the day. As I say, it's impossible to freeze time.

By the way, drink, drugs and the love of money have always been around in Poland, even in this mythic Golden Age that Pol3 would like to see return.

I agree these things have been around for ever and in poland definately so. The danger is when you make a whole society like that and allow minority to over heavily influence with their traits. Yes poland will become less religious and all that, there is no escape from this. All I am saying is don't sell out completely, leave something. I don't go to church at all but that doesn't mean I have to ditch everything. Yes there was all that stuff done by christians funny how for example the crusading countries are now least religious. Feeling guilty about it? Well the repeated attempt by islam to invade europe and get rid of christians has not made them feel guilty they are still at it just strategies have changed. So feel guilty if you want its what they are betting on.

Why would anybody in his right mind feel guilty about the crusades? The simple truth is that the countries in Europe become increasingly secular.

I see what you mean about not throwing the baby out with the bath water - an idiom which by the way exists in both Polish and English - however unlike Pol3 I believe things are changing for the better. As for minorities, one change is that as society becomes less rural and more pluralistic in Poland (i.e. a virtual urbanisation caused by increased mobility - a century ago most people never left their village, and a real urbanisation caused by population movements) people who do not fit a real or imagined 'norm' are simply less unusual and less excluded. And after all, urban Poland has always been a pluralistic society.

Inevitable change in Poland or elsewhere doesn't mean discarding valuable traditions, merely discarding the less desirable mores of the past.

@The Other, yes, nobody today should feel guilty about the crusades. In any case they were motivated by greed rather than religion - the religious aspect was part and parcel of the contemporary habit of seeing everything through a filter of religion since they knew no better. Interesting if there were any Polish crusaders? There were certainly some German Silesian ones.

Some of my comments stem from conversations with the exreme left, face to face ones. We do have left wing fanatics here and until recently I did know a couple of people like that. They irk me more than the extreme right but not anymore, I don't talk to them any more which makes me feel much better. Anyway, poland is heading in the modern direction and will continue hopefully they will retain the stuff that doesn't need to be thrown out. Wish I was there to be part of it but that is impossible.

So were the North Africans that went on a rampage in French cities a few years ago rampaging for Islam or for their ethnic difference? When someone burns, destroys, loots, maims and kills, does it real matter what his motivation is? Stalin did so for purportedly "progressive" reasons and Hitler for nationalistic ones... Crippled is crippled and dead is dead regardless!

"So were the North Africans that went on a rampage in French cities a few years ago rampaging for Islam or for their ethnic difference? "

Great point. That is what, in my opinion, makes the polish society so much stronger today than most western societies (maybe just comparable to the south of USA).

A immigrant can riot and beat people that doesnt share his religion in the streets of Paris or London because those societies doesnt have any belief, so they feel that this rioter is not disrespecting their culture (despite burn everything). Meanwhile the polish society HAVE their religion and their beliefs so will not accept imposition of Islam or any other religion.

That is why Britain or France are drowning in Chaos with illegal immigrants destroying churches while the "backwards" Catholic Poland is a peaceful land.

To get back on thread here..............
Back to the first post of this thread started three years ago.


Maybe six or less ?


Not that I am aware of Mike, maybe a hundred total in this country.


Not true Mike, it has been voted down more times then not.


You wre wrong again Mike because he has not so far so "who" are these "legal experts".


That hasn't happened in the last three years since you posted that and there are no future plans to do it either.


I was just there a few weeks ago (three years after this first post) during spring break and while there were a few topless in select areas of all college students, 95% had covered up breasts. So another lie.


Again, it never developed.


As they would here in the United States Mike.


Hopefully never Mike.
'MikeUSA' is gone now from posting here but a prime example of the secular liberal lies that are being promoted here on
the Polish Forum to destroy what the Polish moral culture stands for.
(Most likely guest MikeUSA is still here only under another user name, anyone want to guess who ?)
A prime example how liberals brainwash our youth to their "progressive thinking" with lies.
Poland is conservative and religious because it is the right thing to be to stay strong.
Hopefully Mike is living his fantasy bliss in secular France or England.