Congratulations Nick, finding God in the most unlikely of places. Not only finding the big guy/gal but finding such a nice reasonable very English version as well! In the English countryside God is clearly a shy retiring sort as befits the traditional English character; a sort of kindly old uncle, the type you only remember at high days and holidays. You forget He's alive until Christmas and Easter and then you're a bit embarrassed not to have stayed in touch but He's really old and being all seeing and all knowing means your present to Him is hardly going to surprise Him is it, and He's certainly going to slaughter you at Trivial Pursuit...
We all have voices in our heads, call it conscience call it the Voice Of God, it might just be that you've still got your I-pod head phones on... the point is surely that not many people outside secure accommodation have ever felt it necessary to actually follow that inner voice. "Voices in my head made me do it" is an explanation given by the mad but it is also a common expression voiced by the religiously inclined. Suicide bombers on the internet tend to say they are doing God's work, in the States TV evangelist Pat Robertson has said that God wouldn't mind if the American army was to take out the President of Venezuela... take God out of the equation and what these quarter-wits are saying is I want to blow people up and I want to kill a south American head of state.
God's will always confirms personal opinions, whether it's an athlete winning a medal "with God at my side" or a suicide bomber on the tube set for Paradise and all those virgins (what's so great about virgins anyway? How did they die? Or are they just part of a Branson franchise? Or is it the one preposterous patriarchal fantasy Christians and Muslims have in common?)
David Hume said that religion couldn't be true because if one faith was right it would totally destroy the others, yet no believer is going to concede their one true faith... Organised religion, a recipe for conflict, a global game of my God's better than your God. It's amazing how each nation and time has a very different version; medieval French versus contemporary Islam anyone? Or how about today's Church of England versus its Crusader ancestors? You couldn't make it up... well actually...
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2 comments:
That just about sums it up.
There was a story today that suggests people leave the church because of petty squabbles - about the way the organ is played, the flower rota, dressing smartly, etc - rather than religious doubts. It's a hotbed in there. I think you'll find the Crusaders wouldn't stand a chance.
It's the same reason people leave any organised group. Political groups are the same although it was usually over difference of anaylsis: Soviet Union - degenerate worker's state of state captialism?
It's terribly important that you come down one way or another. Personally I want the organ played louder. A few years from now when loud noises really annoy me, I'm going in the other direction.
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