In response to an email I received with the subject "What's Pop Corn", I am submitting this for your consideration. Understand that I do not belong to any Judo-Christian religion. I consider myself a spiritual being with out a 'religious agenda'. So if you are curious as to what other citizens of the world think about the controversial issues that the Judo-Christian world agonizes over, and what this particular heathen thinks about the noise over the Mel Gibson movie - read on..

When the early Catholic church welded immense power over Europe and the New World, very few individuals were 'educated' or had access to worldly or historical information. This made it possible for the Church to put a political spin on anything and come up with their twisted logic of Church doctrine and biased interpretations of history (including the Joshua (Jesus to those who prefer Greek names) crucifixion) to justify the subjugation, enslavement, and torture of any race, culture, and belief system that might undermine their stranglehold in their arena of influence.

The paradox of a religion based on tolerance and love, using doctrines to historically justify the wholesale slaughter of people, is only explained by the concept of 'political/economic expediency'. In shear numbers - Christians have killed and tortured hundreds of millions of people - of their own as well as those in other cultures and religions. Unfortunately this Christian penchant for violence persists to this day (one reason why all those bloody movies by Mel are so popular) - which means that ignorance and myths can still be very effective tools in the hands of those with a political/economic agenda.

Does Mel Gibson have a political/economic agenda in this film he just released? Well - that is obvious. Does the positive reception of this film by so many of the Christian religion show evolving religious enlightenment and tolerance? That answer is obvious as well.

If Mel wants to make some really gory movies - he only has to look into the history of the Church since the 8th century for great story material!!!


"If , 'the government that governs least, governs best' - then 'the religion that promotes tolerance, would be the most tolerable'?".

"God save us from those who would 'save us'!"

Brian R. Mommsen
08 March '04

Here is some interesting background info:

Heresy  'Free-will' is the Church's greatest fear.

St. Thomas (II-II:11:1) defines heresy: "a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas". "The right Christian faith consists in giving one's voluntary assent to Christ in all that truly belongs to His teaching. There are, therefore, two ways of deviating from Christianity: the one by refusing to believe in Christ Himself, which is the way of infidelity, common to Pagans and Jews; the other by restricting belief to certain points of Christ's doctrine selected and fashioned at pleasure, which is the way of heretics. The subject-matter of both faith and heresy is, therefore, the deposit of the faith, that is, the sum total of truths revealed in Scripture and Tradition as proposed to our belief by the Church. The believer accepts the whole deposit as proposed by the Church; the heretic accepts only such parts of it as commend themselves to his own approval. The heretical tenets may be ignorance of the true creed, erroneous judgment, imperfect apprehension and comprehension of dogmas: in none of these does the will play an appreciable part, wherefore one of the necessary conditions of sinfulness--free choice--is wanting and such heresy is merely objective, or material. On the other hand the will may freely incline the intellect to adhere to tenets declared false by the Divine teaching authority of the Church. The impelling motives are many: intellectual pride or exaggerated reliance on one's own insight; the illusions of religious zeal; the allurements of political or ecclesiastical power; the ties of material interests and personal status; and perhaps others more dishonorable. Heresy thus willed is imputable to the subject and carries with it a varying degree of guilt; it is called formal, because to the material error it adds the informative element of "freely willed".

Spanish Inquisition - formally ended in 1968, but the mentality is still supported by the influential and powerful.

Ferdinand and Isabella chose Catholicism to unite Spain and in 1478 asked permission of the pope to begin the Spanish Inquisition to purify the people of Spain. They began by driving out Jews and other non-believers. In 1483 Tomas de Torquemada became the inquisitor-general for most of Spain. He was responsible for establishing the rules of inquisitorial procedure and creating branches of the Inquisition in various cities. He remained the leader of the Spanish Inquisition for fifteen years and was responsible for the execution of thousands of Spaniards.


The Inquisition was run procedurally by the inquisitor-general who established local tribunals of the Inquisition. Accused heretics were identified by the general population and brought before the tribunal. The were given a chance to confess their heresy against the Catholic Church and were also encouraged to indict other heretics. If they admitted their wrongs and turned in other aggressors against the church they were either released or sentenced to a prison penalty. If they would not admit their heresy or indict others the accused were publicly introduced in a large ceremony before they were publicly killed or sentenced to a life in prison.

The Spanish Inquisition's reign of terror was abolished by King Bonaparte in 1834, but it wasn't until January of 1968 when the files of the Office of the Inquisition at the Vatican were closed.