Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...
Stained glass at St John the Baptist’s Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus’ description of himself “I am the Good Shepherd” (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). This version of the image shows the detail of his face. The memorial window is also captioned: “To the Glory of God and in Loving Memory of William Wright. Died 6th November, 1932. Aged 70 Yrs.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The two things people try to avoid talking about are religion and politics. It just so happens that I love to talk about both of those tabo topics.

Religion first. I was born into the Catholic faith. I was an alter boy along with my older brother. I kind of drifted away from the church when there were so many priests abusing children and never being held accountable. I am more in tune with Jesus when I’m out in the biggest cathedral in the world, the woods. I like to walk in the woods and cut and split (by hand) fire wood. I cut about six cord and sell it because we no longer burn wood.

Extremists of any religion are the downfall of their religion. Those extremists hurt people of their religion and others as well. For proof,  you need look no further than the Muslim extremists killing indiscriminately which gives Islam a black eye or worse. Of course Christianity has those vile “Westboro Baptist” extremists. They don’t like anyone. Seem to hate other religions and soldiers and just about everyone. There are examples of extremists in most all religions.

I don’t have any use for hypocrites who thump on the Bible (a good guideline) and then do the opposit of what God would want us to do. I don’t hate but I sure don’t like some of them.

I believe that Jesus would be upset with many folks for not following his example. I’ll leave it there.

Politics next.

I think our forefathers were brilliant when they wrote the Declaration of Independance and the bill of Rights and other important works. I also think they would be disappointed with many of our politicians today. There is far too much corruption in our nation’s capitol today. Greed seems to be the order of the day. Justice be damned. The corporations are buying our politicians and we don’t seem to have a way to get honest politicians other than the few like Sanders, Warren, and a handful of others who take their oaths seriously. The founders of America didn’t think of everything. They missed GREED and coruption! They also missed multinational corporations! Those are only American  when it benefits them, not when it comes to paying taxes like we have to.

The worst are the corporations that feed at the treasurery trough.

Today we have splinter groups of the republican Party like the TeaParty who are like I was saying about religion, extremists! Not to be out done the Democratic Party has the Blue Dogs, a group of Democrats in name only. (DINO’s) These DINO’s vote against their own party when the party needs them, hurting the party.

I know that I’m opinionated. It comes naturally when you get old and have had lots of experience.

If you have a different opinion I ask that you put it down in a post. We can discuss our differences in a civil way and you might even persuade me to your way of thinking. After all, I’m like a scientist, if you can disprove my theory I am willing to change the theory to fit facts.

So lets have a conversation. Ask questions, give opinions, and most of all engage in give and take.

 

 

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jjgravitas
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jjgravitas

Nirek, great post. Like you, I was also brought up in the Catholic Church. I wasn’t an alter boy, but I did play guitar in the church folk group for a very short while (God, it was lame). By the time I had become an adult, I had broken away from the church. The reason was simple. You can believe in a Creator without hanging on to a convoluted dogma that spins itself in circles to keep itself alive and has no value of its own. The other reason I split was Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus anymore. Not Christ. Jesus. The reason Jesus was important was the profound things he had to say for the way we should treat each other. Christ was the fairy tale about the miracles, the rising from the dead after being assassinated, the after-death instructions about how to build His Church, how JC somehow saved us from something that they were never really clear about. Jesus didn’t save us from ourselves, that much is clear. The Christian church today focuses almost entirely on the paranormal stuff and essentially ignores the Word of the Man. And they wonder why people are turning away from the Church. Worthless.
One thing that survived pretty much intact: the money-changers in the temple. They’re still there. My Dad was one of them. He was part of a group that dealt with the money collected at Sunday Masses. I always referred to them as the “money-changers”, which made my Mom laugh.
Hope the coming year is a good one.

NirekJunior
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NirekJunior

Wait, my dad is opinionated??? How was I not aware of this? 😀 (just kidding, I knew)

Good thoughts overall. Extremism of any kind is generally not a good thing, and I agree that religion and politics should be kept as separate as possible.

I’ve noted being a big fan of the current pope, and it’s relevant here as well – specifically in what he did last summer (I think, I’m forgetful when it comes to dates) in inviting Jewish and Islamic leaders to the Vatican for a joint prayer session. Talk about leading by example – and shows that even the leader of the Catholic church can be open and accepting.

Kalima
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Hello Nirek. I’m one of those people who doesn’t want to talk about my religious beliefs and in fact up until 7 years ago when I first joined an American site, I was never challenged or asked what religion I followed.

To me my beliefs are a private matter, I don’t wear it on my sleeve or judge others because of it. Nor do I harm others. It is in things I do and not things I say. My beliefs are just a part of who I am that neither defines me nor consumes me. Finding the balance between beliefs and how we react to others seems to be difficult for too many people and as long as it persists, there will never been the peace so many of us long for. Sad but true.

Talking about politics is something I’ve only done on a regular basis for the last 10 years. Not because of any lack of interest but because all discussion evolved into verbal fighting matches, and life is too short for that nonsense.

Religion and politics must remain separated and one set of beliefs have no right to make decisions for millions of others with their own beliefs and those who have none.

The irony of the RR crazies is that what they want would look very much like the countries they profess to hate, and the country they are so bent on bombing, Iran. Of course this is lost on the fanatics who like the Taliban, want to take away the freedom of others by controlling how they live their private lives.

Btw, I have never been asked to defend or discuss my beliefs in any of the three countries I have lived in. It took an American site for me to discover that declaring yourself to be a Roman Catholic when asked, could launch such an array of vitorol in my second week of commenting and put me on the defensive about something I really wouldn’t have mentioned in the first place. Live and learn.

Wishing you and your family a very happy holiday season.

Peace.