I’ve been blogging for over four years now. It concentrates my thoughts and keeps me out of mischief, as well as giving me a record of what I’ve done with my life. I also enjoy reading the blogs of friends. On the side panel of this Blogger page is a link to the five most recently updated blogs on the list of blogs which I read. I had a count-up today. I keep up with developments on twenty five blogs which are written by friends and family. Some are updated regularly; others not so. I enjoy reading the blogs of friends and family – seeing what they are getting up to, seeing what I’ve missed in their lives. Seeing their photos. Sometimes reading about things that I’ve done and recorded in my blog, but seen from a different point of view. Listening to their views on the news and politics of our age. Realising that I can fundamentally disagree with people, but still consider them to be a dear friend.
At the very top of the page is a link “Next Blog”. Most Blogger blogs have this – a link to a random blog somewhere else in the world. This evening I did something I’ve not done for a while. I spent half an hour or so clicking through the blogs of people who I don’t know. I was amazed to find so many blatantly religious blogs. At least half of the blogs I found were proclaiming the religious views of the bloggers. Loads of entries over months, and all of them featuring nothing but twee platitudes.
There’s no denying that when I was younger I didn’t really know what to expect of the future. Perhaps I watched too much Star Trek – I expected high technology. The technology I expected (matter transportation, space travel) never arrived, but computers and phones and tellies are pretty good. I naively expected a world where everyone lived together in peace and harmony (which we haven’t really got).
But what I really didn’t expect was to have so much of the population of the world still being religious. Something that worries me is the fact that we live in a world which is becoming more and more religious. If someone wants to be religious, then that’s fine. That’s their choice. But if two people want to be religious, then it’s been my experience that they can’t do it together, but they will argue about it. No two religion-ists ever seem to agree with each other. And so far from having a world in which everyone lives together in peace and harmony, we still have a world of petty squabbles and intolerances. You see – the problem with a religious belief is that it is utterly illogical.
Take for example an incident which happened to me this week. As I left work on Monday night, a very religious colleague of mine left work at the same time. I told her to be careful as she drove home through the bad weather. She told me (with a straight face) that she had no worries – God would be with her, but she was worried for me going home without God. As I mentioned on Monday’s entry I had a skid on the way home, but just a slip across the road. I wasn’t hurt – no one else was involved, and it was all over in ten seconds. The girl who drove home with God (presumably He was in the passenger seat) pranged her car into another car in the ice. When we recounted our tales this morning, she crowed and claimed that her point had been proved. Because she wasn’t seriously injured in the crash. Somehow the fact that the one who’d gone home with God having the prang, and the apathetic agnostic merely having a bit of a skid totally proved the agnostic theological viewpoint to be utterly wrong. Apparently claiming that you won’t crash your car because God is looking after it, and then crashing it less than an hour later proves (beyond a shadow of a doubt) God’s regular interventions in our daily lives. It stood to reason, and if I couldn’t see that, then I never would.
I’m open to enlightenment on this one…
Meanwhile the young chav isn’t the only one with a chopper. Frosty the Snowman has quite a large chopper, and he’s not averse to showing it off.
RU12 seems quite impressed, and ICUP is more than a little jealous.
I wonder if the decrease in religious belief in the UK explains the increase in prominence of Health and Safety.
ReplyDeleteI share your observations, and your concerns. It's like the story I saw the other day about the family whose house burned to the ground, but they thanked God for the miracle of them not being hurt. Surely the "mysterious ways" excuse is wearing a bit thin by now? But there's no logical argument that will counter "faith" when faith is pretty much defined as "belief in something despite all logical arguments to the contrary"....
ReplyDelete