I am going to go out on a limb here on Sunday and argue the case for more religious intolerance and not less. The festering wound of inter faith and inter denominational faction fighting has not run its full course. As a 'dirty black protestant bastard' myself I feel that the Wesleyan and Calvinistic traditions of 'free will' and 'pre-destination' have not the opportunity for full freedom of expression. It is a damn shame in my opinion that 'Presbyterianism' especially in Scotland is associated with British Unionism and Rangers Football Club. As I write this, I have two people reading the Lord's Prayer on the radio out of sync, a Scottish man and an Australian woman. The usual droning platitudes invoking the Lord our God. Listening to this pair I think I would choose being a vengeful God. Well slap my thigh, I have 'inadvertently' tuned into a worthy station. Have a listen https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000pdqq
I am of the Welsh Language generation who were dragged kicking and screaming on a Sunday morning to say 'Adnod' in Capel to recite a verse from the bible in a voice more boring than an Essex Village Postmaster. "First or Second Class Stamps?" It was an experience that laid its mark of religious oppression upon me and as an adult and looking back and think I would have liked to have turned up at Sunday Worship of my own 'free will' but being a child and then a teenager I would have probably stayed at home and read my 'Look & Learn'. My father, whose own father had been an elder in a village chapel and had encouraged his own many children to attend three times a day, was having none of it. He and Calvin had decided that I was 'predetermined' to attend and pretend to pray and listen to a sermon which forty years later, I cannot remember a single thing from any of them.
I do remember being 'confirmed' into the denomination at 14 years of age and the kind and well meaning Minister running classes and asking the question
"Where is God?"
As the snotty nosed little bastard I was I replied before any body else could get their wisecrack in "I haven't seen him". I regret that answer to this day because in my prison cell in Amsterdam in 2005 I didn't see him but I spoke to him/her and felt their presence with me because it was here that my 'ego' shattered and I gave up any controlling interest in my life. "I gave it up to God". In the unlikely event that you don't know and don't follow me here, I over reacted to the London Bombings of 7/7 whilst under the influence of a strong everlasting strain of Cannabis whilst in Amsterdam. The bombs that exploded that day killing 52 people set the timer on my own ticking time bomb, my mind. These bombs along with their suicide escorts were set off in the name of 'Religious Intolerance' hence the name of this particular post. In their minds, they were exploded in response to 'Western Foreign Policy' but this has become such an off pat defense that Western Powers need to itemize the atrocities committed in its secular name.
Secular France will be coming out of their lock down about the same time as their ancient foe, England. That will give approximately four weeks for yet another atrocity to be committed on secular French soil or in a church. Yet another 'Halal' offering to the Gods just in time for Christmas.
You will probably be surprised that a self proclaimed 'lefty' on social media holds such angry and prejudiced views against organised religion. I have no problem with 'Faith' but organised religion can go and take a running jump in the biggest artificial lake. The representative of the Catholic church only this last week, heavily implicated in the child abuse scandal, said that he had sympathy for 'some' of the victims. Not all of them mind you.
So the next time a Minister of the (touching) Cloth quotes Matthew Chapter 19 Verse 14
"But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven"
think twice.
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