4 ms·

All these references to his atheism. As a European, it's hard to believe that that was/is so important.

• sanoli 13y ago
  As a South American (Brazilian, biggest catholic nation by numbers), it's the easiest thing for me to believe. Outside intellectual/academic/art circles, stating you are an atheist = stating you are a satanist, almost.
  • VLM 13y ago
    No not satanist, communist. The communists had a bit of a "thing" for atheism and the general public is pretty stupid about the use and care of Venn diagrams, so for them its close enough that a commie is an atheist so an atheist must be a commie, right? And even worse, the communists did have operatives in the Manhattan project, it wasn't just paranoia. The other part that really pisses off law enforcement is church members are expected to provide great references for each other. And every clearance "disaster" involved an agent or whatever clearing a bad guy, which is kinda bad for that agent. So when its review time for the security officer who Fed up, he really, really wants to be able to say something like "Well, yes, he did turn out to be an axe murderer. And yes, there were bloodstains in the carpet of his pleasure dungeon and the neighbors did report occasional screams. But his religious leader is just one step away from God himself, and he said he was a great fellow who tithed generously and who are we to declare ourselves more holy than gods representative on earth so clearly I shouldn't be disciplined because either a direct representative of St Peter was also fooled OR disciplining me would be an insult against religion itself" Just a big exercise in CYA.