Being a member of one of the non-Catholic, Protestant churches myself, I always wondered what the real differences were between my religion and Catholicism. I knew the general differences, such as the numerous traditions and rituals within a Catholic church that my church never did and how they have a priest/father and I have a pastor, but I did not know the specifics. The chart on page 464 was really helpful to me. Just wanted to point that out since this information was particularly interesting to me.
I think its ironic how religion is centered around what is holy, pure, and sacred, but yet they are linked to material ambitions, warfare, and large-scale deaths. The very thing that is supposed to bring people, societies together is actually tearing them apart. When I came across page 465, it surprised me at how many wars/actions were the product of conflict between the Europeans and the Catholic church - war between the Huguenots, Edict of Nantes, 30 Years War, Peace of Westphalia... Hah, that is quite a list.
The Protestant Reformation, however, was a vital and necessary part of European history because of what came of it - established divisions, separate countries that have agreed to run their people their own way. In many ways, it is a much better idea to divide the "work" rather than trying to control an entire continent of unhappy, suppressed people. In my religion class, I remembered a saying that all religions - Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism - have the same message/goal that are expressed to different groups of people in different ways. I like that. Perhaps if the early Europeans saw it from that perspective in the first place, they wouldn't have had to go through those hard, murder-inducing times.
And to think that all it took was one man to stand up and say something against the Catholic church, which I'm fairly sure were problematic for thousands of people as well.
I can't imagine what it would be like if there were only one religion in the world. It would pretty much suck to be forced into believing something, just because there were no other options. I don't think faith can be forced upon an individual because then it loses the joy that should come along with such beliefs.
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