That's ridiculous. It's an alternative history debate about what is a hugely significant cultural, political and religious institution which has influenced world affairs for millennia. I hardly think this is a debate about catholic people and whether the world is better with or without them, it's about the institution and its practices. If I bring up a debate about an alternative history of say the British Empire and whether the world would be different in a good or bad way, I'm not suddenly being an Anglophobe. If I'm honest I think a debate about the significance of the Muslim faith in world development would be a useful one, the emergence of the Islamic caliphate and the events relating to it are of significant enough impact to deserve treating as fairly as any other institution or religion etc.

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I wouldn't say it's about the Catholic religion, but more about the hierarchy of it. That's what sets Catholicism apart from Judaism and others: it's basically got its own government. The debate couldn't be made about any other religion, save for maybe Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama is in self imposed exile (I heard somewhere that he threw in the towel recently too).

I don't know how others are interpreting this but I don't see it as an alternate history question but more as a "Is it still relevant?" question. Does The Vatican need to go away? Of course not. Would the world change without it? Probably not too much, but Catholicism would certainly be more diverse, or at least as diverse as general Christianity tends to be. You can go to any Catholic church in the world and they will still be doing communion services that start with The Lord's Prayer and ends with the same bread used at any other church for communion. Services don't change unless someone higher up says they do, and the messages priests give are more or less the same the world over. Christian churches, on the other hand, tend to be more or less up to the reverend running them as to what happens and what is taught, at least with the Baptist churches I've been to. Not that this is bad, but it's what the Catholic religion might turn into if the church suddenly dissolved.

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Eh, Catholicism is setting your sights too low. There are plenty of other Christian churches that are basically the same, and they'd expand to fill any gaps left. Now, you could expand that to Christianity as a whole, but then you've also got Islam and Judaism, which are similar enough to again fill the gap. I think the proper way to do this is to include all Abrahamic religions (the only modern monotheistic religions of major importance), which would introduce some interesting ideas. Historically, monotheistic religions tend to be less accepting than polytheistic religions; the Roman Empire conquered Europe as a mostly polytheistic empire, though they didn't have as much of a common faith then as they did when Christianity took over. One major component to the success of the Roman Empire was the ability to incorporate local gods into the pantheon, allowing the conquered people to continue worshiping the same faith at the same temples.

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I completely disagree with Judaism filling any gap left by another major religion. There are very specific social and cultural reasons why Judaism is not a major (as in, a large amount of members) world religion. I know it's lame to say that and then just end the post, but that's a huuuuuuge discussion I really can't have the time to type out.

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Suuure, THAT'S why you didn't post it.

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Quit calling me names.

1. Judaism is tied to a cultural and national heritage rather than simply a belief system, which Islam and Christianity do not have. When I say "national," I mean the definition of a nation as a collective group of people rather than a state.
2. Judaism is historically an extremely repressed religion/culture which resonates powerfully in today's modern life, as much as we'd like to say otherwise. There are so many examples of this: The remnants of the Pale and anti-Semitism in eastern/central Europe, international affairs concerning the State of Israel (the USA is the only country which speaks aloud its support), Middle Eastern oppression of Judaistic nationality (Islam considers Judaism as "people of the book," but with the five billion things going on in the ME due to Israel's existence...), etc.
3. Judaism does not proselytize, unlike Christianity or Islam.
4. The centrality of Judaism is completely unlike Christianity or Islam. Due to the oppression, cultural heritage, etc, the bonds between people have a close family-style centrality which are hard for outsiders to enter; Judaism simply does not open up like other major religions.

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Meaning Judaism is chock-full of snobs by design, pretty much. The USA shouldn't support Israel as far as I'm concerned; they can do it by themselves. If they can't, they don't deserve their land, no matter what their "holy" book tells them they're entitled to.

EDIT: But hey, that wasn't too long. I think you're just being lazy.

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Quit calling me names.

They're not snobbish; it's a much more reserved culture.

I have very strong views on Israel, but this is not the topic for that. And it wasn't out of laziness - it is a very, very big discussion I tried summing up in four points.

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Bullwinkle: Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
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Sounds pretty snobbish to me. I guess you never wondered WHY they've been persecuted throughout much of their histories? It's because no one can stand being around them when they start up with their snobbery. Duh.

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Quit calling me names.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that

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