> Catholic Church is notoriously top-down and hierarchical

It has a hierarchy, but it has multiple hierarchies. It is not all that top down. Bishop's ave a lot of autonomy, and most decisions are made at the diocesan level. Dioceses have their own property and funds held by their own trustees. On top of that religious orders have their own hierarchy (and property and funds etc.). Then there are the rites such as the Ukrainian or Syro-Malabar churches that have their own hierarchies.

Historically this was the result of the fact the church predates modern communications. It was not possible for a Pope to direct things the way a CEO of a modern corporation does, but in recent times it has been recognised as guiding principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_%28Catholicism%29 that has been adopted by other org anisations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

> It's not uncommon to see traditional Javanese processions integrated right into the mass.

That is encouraged, as long as there is not conflict with Catholic belief https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inculturation#

Side note as another Catholic:

Saints Josaphat and Barlaam never had an official decree of canonization. That process didn't exist (in its earliest form) until 1170 AD. Saints before that were generally just acclaimed by the Christians in the area and probably recognized by a local bishop.

The Vatican does keep a "Roman Martyrology" by which they try to keep a list of all known saints, but the saints that existed before the canonization process are known as "pre-congregation" saints and our certainty about them is generally less, well, certain.

In this case, these two names were removed from the Martyrology. That isn't to say that the Vatican has declared they are not saints, but is no longer actively making that claim.

There have been quite a few other pre-congregation names removed from the list when historical study has found little evidence of their existence or life story.

Its called syncretism. The Greeks and Romans have been doing it since the time of Alexander the Great.

One of the stranger aspects of Roman history is that for centuries, there was a fight over who gets the public space. You'd have the local mystery cults defacing whatever the Christians put up and vice versa. Assimilating local traditions rather than demanding people just adopt theirs fits in with a faith that aims to be higher than all others. Jesus has no need to fight Vishnu, and never did.

We're just looking at this through the lens of the Protestant Reformation so this pragmatism is often lost.

I'd think you overrate christianity too much. Javanese culture is known to be very welcoming of other traditions.

I don’t think anything assimilates religions better than Hinduism. New belief system? Just throw in a new avatar of Vishnu to legitimize it and carry on.

I really don't think that that use of "in particular" is correct or notable? Cross culture motion of mythology and storytelling is the rule with humanity, not the exception.

Really it's only in the last/final generation of religions, where they started writing them down in canon/scripture/testaments/writs/dogmas/whatever, that you started to see unique stories get associated with specific religions.

Before that? It's all mush. Aphrodite descends pretty clearly from the same line as Astarte/Ishtar/Innana (maybe Isis too), etc... People steal good stories. People get conquered and then confused by retelling the stories their new overlords tell. Again and again.

> the Roman Catholic Church has a long, pragmatic history of absorbing local traditions

One of the most studied issues in Catholic evangelism is the Chinese rites controversy which is also one of the historical reasons why religions are suppressed in China (aside from ideological policies ascribed to communism).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Rites_controversy

(That and the Taiping rebellion which was estimated to have killed as many people as World War 2 on the higher end. It was led by a failed scholar claiming to be alleged brother of Jesus. Most of the deaths were due to starvation. Not quite Netflix material but interesting plot nonetheless)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion

Catholic church tries to be practical but inadvertently poisons Christianity. Christianity is way different from the Catholic church.

Because catholic church is whatever the newest model is in the distro but other distros try to be very very clean and try to follow the original texts and their meaning but catholic church is like the new iphone trying to be like whatever is the trendy trend nowadays.

I disagree. What changed was that the Roman Empire stopped persecuting Christians. There are still places where Christians are non-conformist to the point of execution. Christianity is often in conflict with governments. One example is the criticism of Thatcher by Church of England bishops.

Idk. The establishing act of Christianity supposedly consists of Paul (?) saying that newcomers don't have to follow the strict rules from the Old Testament.

Can I interest you in Jesus also being Emperor Andronikos I? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_chronology_(Fomenko)

> Classicist Thomas J. Sienkewicz analyzed additional heroes using Raglan's pattern, including Mithridates VI of Pontus (22 points), Krishna (21 points), Jesus (18 points), Mohammad (17 points), Beowulf (15 points), Buddha (15 points), Czar Nicholas II (14 points), Samson (13 points), Sunjata, the Lion-King of Ancient Mali (11 points), Achilles (10 points), and Harry Potter (8 points).

Politics and problems don't stem from the story. The story is an after the fact rationalization

Christian and Buddhist monastic traditions are so uncannily similar it's difficult to really think they developed without influence. That's my opinion. Even the Europeans who first set foot in Asia during the age of discovery thought they were being played tricks on, so I don't think it's that wild an idea

I didn't realize that, super cool.

> many religions are nothing more than stories.

All religions are nothing more than stories. If science doesn't prove this, then all proclaimed religions are cults.

There's many a true word said in jest. Like this passage from Red Dwarf:

> Mr and Mrs Rimmer were very religious, taking the Bible scriptures at face value. The Hoppists were primarily concerned with a particular verse from the New Testament. St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13 had been misprinted in a certain edition of the Bible. In their version, the verse read "And now these three remain: Faith, Hop and Charity. But the greatest of these is Hop".

> The Hoppists took this literally and insisted that their followers spent every seventh day hopping. They would hop to church, hop through the service and then hop home again. The Rimmers even served their Sunday lunch whilst hopping, causing them to wear protective clothing to avoid burning themselves.

This is obviously a joke but there's load of examples of people getting hung up on seemly minor details like that.

E.g. The Umbilicus Adami discussion. If the bible is literal and God made Adam then Adam didn't have a mother. So that leads to the question, did he have a belly button?

If he didn't have a belly button was he human?

It sounds ridiculously trivial but people have died over that, which is itself even sillier.

Buddhism didn't start from a blank slate either and incorporates various supernatural beings like deva (linguistically linked to Latin deus) or asura (similarly linked to Norse æsir), but they're relegated to minor roles, trapped in the cycle of reincarnation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Paths Then as it spread throughout Asia, various other local traditions got assimilated as well. Not unlike turning the Buddha into a minor Christian saint in the article.

I think it's less hypocrisy and more the desire to integrate all available information into a consistent framework. When you encounter something that doesn't fit, you can of course reject it and fight bitterly over who is right, but you can also file off the sharp edges and puzzle it together with the rest of your worldview somehow.

> I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes

That doesn’t really make sense to me. Do you mean the hypocrisy of people who follow those religions?

I tend to think that blaming outside forces for bad behaviour by people lets them off the hook a bit too easily - in particular it lets leaders off the hook far too easily - and disincentivises change because “I do X because Y makes me” rather than “I do X because I choose to”, which is the truth.

Religions might contain good teachings and bad teachings but, ultimately, people choose how they behave and so it’s the people who show hypocrisy.

Indeed, "Signore Galilei" makes one think "Galilei ladies" -- sisters, perhaps.

> Why Galileo?

> Galileo is my actual, real life middle name! “Signore Galilei” is supposed to mean “Mr. Galilei” in the native Italian of Galileo Galilei, considered by many to be the father of modern science. I try to bring a Galilean spirit of curiosity to every post and video I make. An Italian-speaking viewer of mine has informed me that “Signore” should grammatically become “Signor” when it is used with a specific person’s last name rather than as a general term of address, so “Signore Galilei” really means something more like “Mister! Galilei!” instead. I guess that’s still okay with me.

From the about page

I'm Italian, I thought using the full word instead of eliding the last "e" was an archaic florentine habit that the author used, didn't think much of it tbh.

Catholics don't formally recognize them but most or maybe all orthodox christian churches do.

St. George is likely based on Michael, but I imagine the logic would be that the dragon was some kind of convoluted version of the King of the Nagas.

Religion is very closely tied to social support structures: You can only "make one up" if the people who you are close with go along with you.

> Get your facts correct.

Would you call them "facts"?

Did you read the article, or just the headline?

The article isn't an explicit claim that these Christians were the Buddha, but that the story told about them is an apparent retelling of the Sidhartha story. It closes with:

  All this tells me that there’s something about our relationship with the divine and the sacred that transcends individual eras and places. A place or a festival or a story that appeals to our common senses of awe or morality or wisdom can reach people of any faith tradition. Perhaps they’ll interpret it through their own lens, of course. But in the end, isn’t that all we have?