Poland, maybe the world's last bastion of faith

I am very new to Polishness. Growing up a child of the sixties in America it was natural for me to abandon my ethnic roots in an attempt to fit in with the cultural and sexual revolution. For forty years now I have watched my fathers predictions concerning the de-moralization of America and the Western world come to pass. As our nation proceeds toward revolution I try hard to understand what events and attitudes have precipitated our demise. Ironically, I look back to the sixties and recognize there that the seeds planted have sprouted into a jungle of corruption and vices against which I was warned as a child.

Earlier this Spring I visited Poland for only a week. It was a whirlwind visit overshadowed by the Smolensk disaster, yet it was by far the most significant journey of my life. Inasmuch as I have read the entries of some very mean spirited and critical people on this forum, I feel compelled to express my conviction and fear that Poland is, despite its horrible history of occupation and persecution, a very strong and powerful nation morally and spiritually. At the same time I recognized that Poland is very likely the last bastion of that same morality and spirituality on Earth.

As Western nations are beginning to realize, there is a very strong and concerted effort on the part of Islam to conquer their nations by attrition. We are seeing this in the U.S. as an unstoppable wave of immigration and fertility. My concern is not so much with what to do as it is with understanding why they hate us so much. And, as I reflect upon the deterioration of our moral fiber I believe I understand better their motives. Politics and economics aside (no remarks concerning western imperialism are necessary) it is plainly apparent that behavior we have come to accept as expression of freedom, and our right, is an absolute affront to an Islamic sense of moral rightness. Our sexual liberation, illegitimacy, prnography, adultery, divorce rate, etc., compounded upon our greed, selfishness, arrogance, laziness, lewdness and gluttony make the ideals of Western freedom odious to their religious identity.

What has gripped me since my visit to Poland is the awareness that I find those same values as repulsive as I once did. I was privileged to live during the golden days of America during which goodness and prosperity blossomed in the post war years. Despite the cold war there was a general and undisputed foundation of propriety and moral expectation that permeated the city in which I grew up. Moral behavior was the norm and challenges to that foundation were openly condemned. The consequences of that environment were only good. Divorce was unheard of, as were cases of abuse, addiction, abandonment, theft, violence, etc. It was a wonderful time during which it was rarely necessary to lock your doors, even if you were leaving for the day. It was also a time in which Christian values and morality were held in high esteem. Churches has significant impact and contribution to values development and enforcement. As those values have been eroded so has the foundation of our country.

In Poland I felt as if I had returned to my childhood. There was evidence of an influential church everywhere I went. From seeing priests and nuns walking down the street to rosaries hanging next to the bus driver, evidence of a vibrant faith were indisputable. To me those were some of the most comforting experiences of the past decades of my life. Yet, I am not ignorant, I realize that in Poland, just as in every nation, there are those whose hatred toward the Church, and toward Christian faith is relentless as is their determination to destroy both. As I toured Poland I realized just how important a part the Church has played in the development of that nation, and every Western country, including the U.S. From education to agriculture and trades, the Church has been the hub around which civilized nations found themselves revolving. The liturgy of the Church has provided order and rhythm to our lives. In Poland the Church still holds influence. I hope and pray it continues and grows for good and not for evil.

Now I open myself up to all your cynicism, criticism, attacks and abuses. I have said my peace.

I could take you up on quite a few things but I won't. It's good that Christian values are upheld here and I like your positive sentiments. Are you a Christian yourself? If so, may I ask the denomination!?

Poles can be quite stubborn regarding religion but mostly it is superficial thing and they don't feel real kinship with their fellow parishioners.

They don't feel real kinship with their fellow parishioners?? What do you mean? How can you tell?

It's not exactly a social club.

I mean that they don't really socialise with them,don't trust them and so on.
Well, I have family in Poland.

I agree with that and there is much self-righteousness in such people. My family in Poland are Christians but don't feel compelled to go to church. They are not self-righteous folk at all.

When as a kid due to circumstances ( too complex to be discussed here)I was living with my grandparents, they insisted that I'm to be a good Catholic boy - it was strange :)

Yeah, my mother had the same and it was highly damaging! Harrowing even! Insistence is the worst way. That's what turned me off until I found my own way.

It must be nice to say that you grew up in a perfect world like that but I'm sure there were ALOT of people who lived around you who experienced abuse, addiction, etc. in secret. They didn't have to lock their doors because the devil was already inside. The church is sometimes a cover or illusion.

It was even stranger provided that I'm Baptist after my father :)
at last I was Baptist then:)or I thought,so :)!

Shewolf is right here. Much was covered but I will let others comment on that.

Baptist? Yet you take such a position? Odd!

Well, there I was a little boy, forced on them by their daughter ! Grandparents expected me to be Catholic, good people, they knew no better:). I have found my own way since and I don't need Church to believe in God.

Anyway its all off-topic and isn't interesting :)

hi dear,..i also agree with this,..thanks for sharing this,..

so basically you're saying that poland is a place stuck in time?
get over yourself and don't be so patronising .

Hindsight is always seen through rose-tinted specs

Deliberate pun? ; )

The last bastion of faith for Christianity comes with the duty and responsibility of protecting the chosen people Jews and the Holy land (Israel) from Muslims, currently shouldered by USA, Canada and Australia. Poland should contribute its fairshare and should be more vocal in supporting Israel at the UN and international affairs.

Since when are Jews chosen? Why not Hindus?

What crap are u writing here? Why should Poland "contribute" to "protect" Israel? It's the same sh1tty thinking like for Afghanistan and Irak. Israel is not Poland's problem. Let the locals solve it. If they cannot, f*** it.

Sorry, but since when does Israel need help if it has US&A and the UN on it side?

Did u know that Israel never was called in front of the UN for committed war crimes?
Doesn't that tell u anything?

What are the Aussies doing there so far from home?

obviously you dont think that what they do to the palestinians, who land it actually is, wrong.
boo to you ma'am, boo to you
The brits & the frence just made a nice document giving a land they had no right to give to a people that had no right to live there.

I've been to isreal and it's a disgrace what they do

Today on the news .pl there is a report that says that almost half of Polish parents do not want their kids to be taught religeon...

My response to Strich's interesting commentary is a question: how and why did this come about? Philosophically it could be traced to Nietzsche's 'God is dead' so be your own god which led to Nazism and today's 'anything goes' mentality. Then there was Freud who effective reduced people to brains-betweeen-the-legs creatures, communism which reduced man to a tiny cog in a huge bureaucratic machine, initially commie-loving Sartre (he later wisened up!) who said 'hell is other people' (rather than 'love thy neighbour') and Dr Spock who stressed discipline-free child-rearing.

Against that background their emerged the mid-'50s-era consumer abundance (it took Europe at least another decade to achieve something similar). It was fuelled by the unbridled consumption-promoting profit motive which created a grab your fun and run mentality. You were 'born to buy', so 'shop till you drop'. It peddled such anti-value slogans as ‘numero uno’, you only live once, 'be the first on your block', live beyond your means, ‘no money down’, live on credit, cutting edge, etc. Money-mad Hollywood and MTV are the supreme authorities, actresses and rock stars the main role models.

No-one is forced into that mould, of course, but how many can truly resist the round-the-clock brainwashing of the high-powered news, entertainment and advertising media? And they start them young by using the world's most successful marketer, Santa Claus, to suck three-year-olds into the channel of brainless consumerism...and the movers and shakers behind it all smile as their bank accounts bulge.

Well, here the next one comes. First he says this:


Then come the doubts:


Then follows a lot of blahblah...Muslims bad...blahblahblah...US down the drain...And so forth. Then comes the redemption:


And now the evil lefties and progressives, which joys he claims to have enjoyed as a child, have turned into evil Golgothans and get their turn as they want to destroy the Church, but look at all the thing the Church has done for us:


I could respond to all this, but I get too much of a "Touched By An Angel"-feeling with this post of yet another individual who wants to turn the clock back some 200 years. So I won't.

>^..^<

M-G (busy - afternoon coffee-break)

M-G: lots of snide remarks but no substance. I gave my analysis for what I regard as soem of the stepping stones leading to the mechnaism of decay. What is your explanation of the deterioration we are now experiencing? Turning the clock back two centuries would put us near the mad frog period which ended in a huge blood bath. I don't think anyone in his right mind would want to go back to that!

What deterioration? Our society is progressing nicely, thanks!

(S-H : head firmly stuck in sand.)

I for one find a lot of truth in what the OP posted. I lived thru the post war years. Speaking for America I can look back and see how this country has gone down hill. I see the same thing happening in Europe. France is a good example. The Muslims are taking Europe over. Blame most of it on globalization.

I don't know if it's that rampant really. The media likes to talk about it here and Canada because a Muslim Europe scares everybody and of course the US media makes money from that fear.

There's 500 million in Europe.. what percentage is actually Muslim? Is it even 10 - 15%?

Any society that produces unhappy children is sick. Children need warmth, security and good two-gender role models. That is not being provided by single mothers and their string of passing-through BFs, patched-up families (his kids, her kids, their kids), new mummies and daddies or 'uncles', short-term, homosexual or otherwise dysfunctional households due to substance abuse and/or violence, etc., etc. We live in times that seem to promote the unnatural and dysfunctional, so how can one speak of happy, well-adjusted kids? But it does has one redeeming factor: lots of hot, sensational and titillting topics for today's tabloidised media, steamy soap operas and films to cash in on.

Far fewer than that.



You keep on mentioning homosexuality - obviously it occupies your mind rather a lot...

that's what I thought.

I am also concerned about the dangerous spread of substance abuse and incomplete or otherwise dysfunctional families as well as youngsters eschewing sport and other active after-school pursuits to stay glued to computer games and pûrn all afternoon and then watch TV all evening. Above all to brainless shop-till-you drop consumerism and how it not only depletes family budgets but also clutters households with wasteful unneeded junk. I also wonder about people who seem to go through life horse-blinkered without seeing what's going on all about. I reckon that's where they recruit the brainless consumers who fall for whatever is being currently peddled.