Just back from my early morning bike ride along the sea wall. A lovely still gentle morning. Two things have come together in my mind to disturb my karma - ha! I am writing this very short blog in exasperation as a result. I am not going to spend a lot of time doing it because I feel what I know and there is no purpose in debating it - it is a personal thing.
The two things that came together yesterday?
The first - I have been watching a Netflix series called Fauda. It is set in Palestine/Israel. Enough to say Muslims and Jews are slaughtering each other in lands where religious zealotry and piety is acutely intense. Praying before and after perpetrating murder!
The second - I have been re reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles - sat in the sun yesterday late afternoon on my Kindle - ha!. Tess comes across Alec d'Urberville again. He has apparently been saved by religion - gone from a wicked sexual predator to a fiery preacher. Thomas Hardy uses the line "the greater the sinner the greater the saint."
History is awash with religious zealots who have done terrible things. These things have been done recently by so called believers! The shocking systemic pedophilia in the Roman Catholic church priesthood (for instance) - and perhaps the even more shocking cover up! Muslim street grooming of children such as in Bradford. Others shocking examples - 9 11. Lee Rigby. Charlie Hebdo etc etc etc.
I also cannot understand the concept of easy (convenient) forgiveness so readily available in the major religions. Ten minutes in the confessional - a few hail Mary's and you are in the clear - or face the east umpteen times a day and for the rest of the time act like a snake - or lay preaching at your chapel on Sunday mornings as a display of your righteousness when your life is anything but!
On the point of the apparent "forgiveness" of God - another Hardy line comes to mind from yesterday. "Bygones would never be complete bygones until her bygone". Alec d'Urberville can wash from his mind his sins because he has now been saved - he has found religion - he is now on the right path - he is now a pious religious preacher who has found god! (deep cynicism). Tess - so wickedly treated by him is left with her bygones until her death bed - the reality.
Evidently I am deeply cynical about the motivation behind finding god, overt piety and ostentatious religion. It is convenient to self. If it is too good to be true it usually is.That is my experience and my observation - sadly.
Of course - I am an atheist - so I am cynical about everything to do with 'religion' - but each to his or her own as long as they keep it to themselves. The hypocrisy of religion and religious people is more than often, manifest - to say the least! I am sure we should be most wary of those that shout about their religion most - especially the born again zealots.
The two things that came together yesterday?
The first - I have been watching a Netflix series called Fauda. It is set in Palestine/Israel. Enough to say Muslims and Jews are slaughtering each other in lands where religious zealotry and piety is acutely intense. Praying before and after perpetrating murder!
The second - I have been re reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles - sat in the sun yesterday late afternoon on my Kindle - ha!. Tess comes across Alec d'Urberville again. He has apparently been saved by religion - gone from a wicked sexual predator to a fiery preacher. Thomas Hardy uses the line "the greater the sinner the greater the saint."
History is awash with religious zealots who have done terrible things. These things have been done recently by so called believers! The shocking systemic pedophilia in the Roman Catholic church priesthood (for instance) - and perhaps the even more shocking cover up! Muslim street grooming of children such as in Bradford. Others shocking examples - 9 11. Lee Rigby. Charlie Hebdo etc etc etc.
I also cannot understand the concept of easy (convenient) forgiveness so readily available in the major religions. Ten minutes in the confessional - a few hail Mary's and you are in the clear - or face the east umpteen times a day and for the rest of the time act like a snake - or lay preaching at your chapel on Sunday mornings as a display of your righteousness when your life is anything but!
On the point of the apparent "forgiveness" of God - another Hardy line comes to mind from yesterday. "Bygones would never be complete bygones until her bygone". Alec d'Urberville can wash from his mind his sins because he has now been saved - he has found religion - he is now on the right path - he is now a pious religious preacher who has found god! (deep cynicism). Tess - so wickedly treated by him is left with her bygones until her death bed - the reality.
Evidently I am deeply cynical about the motivation behind finding god, overt piety and ostentatious religion. It is convenient to self. If it is too good to be true it usually is.That is my experience and my observation - sadly.
Of course - I am an atheist - so I am cynical about everything to do with 'religion' - but each to his or her own as long as they keep it to themselves. The hypocrisy of religion and religious people is more than often, manifest - to say the least! I am sure we should be most wary of those that shout about their religion most - especially the born again zealots.
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