Category: Religion

Another Day, another attack.

My heart is breaking for Barcelona.

I love the city, I love the people of the city, it is a place of many happy memories.

Once more though an attack has been launched on the innocent. Just reading this morning about the many people that have died and the many people that have been hurt in this attack was terrible, I shed tears.

As far as I can see, none of these people had any military or government, or heck, even church leadership or influence.

This is literally slaughter of people that do not have any influence or probably an opinion in the ongoing conflict with Isis/Isil/IS/Daesh.

It feels that we are attempting to deal with a bunch of cowards.

But then, as I pointed out in when Paris was attacked, it is very, very hard to wage war on an organisation rather than a country.

As far as I know, Spain does not even have a hand in the war against Daesh, beyond actually being a western country.

Once again though, my heart is breaking for Barcelona.

The next American civil war ?

I used to think that the next American civil war would be caused by an uprising of the great unwashed. The red-necks, the cowboys, the NRA nut jobs and their ilk.

I believed that one day they would all jump in their good old boy F150 pick-ups, loaded up with more ammunition than the average third world militia owned and head to Washington to teach the ‘guvmint’ a lesson.

I imagined that it would be a fairly short, but incredibly bloody confrontation, resulting in perhaps thousands of casualties, perhaps a lot more if the red-necks managed to make a few bombs.

I suspect that the red-necks would become domestic terrorists, protesting government over-reach, protesting laws that protect those that they hate – basically everyone that is not a  white heterosexual male and that the civil war would probably all be over fairly fast.

That was before Trump.

I see now that this can go two ways. 

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Arguing over imaginary friends is futile

When I was a young child, I had a pair of imaginary Afghan Hounds. Apparently I would pick them up to cross the road and spend time talking to them. As far as I was concerned, they were real.

I cannot remember any of this, but my father will jump at any opportunity to remind me, usually in front of friends about my ‘afdams’. He reminds me of this because he thinks that it is hilarious that a young child would have imaginary friends for some reason. I think that he also likes to remind me that I was a very, very late talker and got many of my words muddled, but that is a whole other subject.

Except, and this is something I do not understand, many people around the world spend significant amount of time, energy and money on their imaginary friend and very few people think that this is not normal. 

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Oil is the Problem

As I type this, there are a bunch of politicians in London discussing wether or not the UK will go to war with the Islamic State, ISIS or ISIL. The proposal is that the UK will help with strikes against the training grounds and the control centres.

Given that ISIS/ISIL have pretty much waged war on the west, on the face of it, blowing them to bits and wiping them off the planet seems like a no-brainer.

The problem is that we, the west, created ISIL in the first place.

How about a little history lesson ?

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Terrorism – Again

ParisOn Friday the 13th of November 2015, almost 130 people were killed by a small number of terrorists.

The people that died were simply out enjoying their Friday night in Paris. They were not a part of an army, they were not even joined by a single demographic. The victims of terror were male, female, young and old and spread across their political and religious beliefs. They were a diverse group.

As far as has been reported, none of the victims had any ties to groups that may have been targeting the terrorists. At least no further link than being in a country that opposes terrorism and has taken part in the global action against the Islamic State group in Syria.

On Monday 16th November it was reported that France dropped around twenty bombs on an IS stronghold in Syria. At best this is revenge, this is probably the thing that the French public, and much of the world that is appalled by Friday’s attack would like to see.

I doubt that this will really prevent future attacks. 

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Thoughts on the challenges that the new Pope will face…

When it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI was stepping down, I wondered what the real reason behind his decision was.

As the leader of the Catholic Church, I like to think that he was aware of pretty much everything that goes on among the rank and file priests around the world.

Therefore I cannot see any reason why he would not be aware of the appalling instance of priests that sexually abuse children.

The Pope, is, or at least should be, the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church and as such should, in my opinion at least, be responsible for bringing to justice those that abuse the exalted positions that allow the predatory priests access to those that they crave.

To me, at least, Pope Benedict failure to change the Vatican’s traditional methods of handling child sex abuse by priests and so abuse of children is criminal.There is no way that he was unaware of what goes on in the churches around the world. Every time you are exposed to the news, it seems that more and more cases spring to light almost daily.

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Belief and Cultural Differences.

Of the many cultural differences between living in the UK and the US, probably the single biggest difference revolves around belief.

In the UK, belief is very much personal, foisting ones belief onto friends and colleagues is seen as ‘bad form’ and is something that is rarely done. In general this type of behavior is restricted to the more ‘extreme’ groups. Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormons and the minority but vocal ‘Born again’ folks. In general though it is considered to be ‘poor form’ to even discuss your religious stance.

Many English churches are lovely buildings, in the village that I lived in as a teenager, we had a simply beautiful church, it was the center-point of the village and a landmark in many ways. As a family we went to church on an irregular basis, but as far as I can remember, my church attendance, or otherwise in later years, was simply not a subject of any conversation with friends and colleagues.

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A Bit Bloody Sensitive…..

I guess you learn a little every day.

Saying ‘god damn‘ is, apparently, about as extreme an expletive as it is possible to use when in the company of a christian. As I recently upset someone by defending a friend that used the expression I learned a lot in a short space of time.

So I guess that it is time to temper my language somewhat and have therefore decided that rather than  yelling ‘god damn‘, I will replace the phrase with something less offensive.

Doing a little research turned up the following list of potential replacements…..

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