An Interesting Comment

I got this e-mail:

tom sheepandgoats has left a new comment on your post "Zealots of Religion":

'No. Not about the fringe group, anyway. But I'm not so sure about this, which we hear so often it seems popular wisdom:... 'it is the height of unforgivable hubris to say, "Mine is the only right one and the rest are wrong"'. I don't know why that conclusion has to hold. Religion, after all, is a path. A lot of paths don't really lead anywhere or even lead a way we don't want to go. If only one group was making such claims, probably we would, albeit with a little grousing, make examination. But when such groups are a dime a dozen, it's hard to resist bundling and dismissing them all as nutcakes, I agree.'

I'm not sure if Tom is defending religious groups in general or agreeing with me. I found his blog and it looks like the main focus is religion. And I agree with his description that it is a path. I guess it is up to each person what it is a path to; but when groups kill children, what possible good thing can such a bloodsoaked, body-littered path lead to? Is it like the extremist Islam believers with the 77 virgins? Or avarice beyond imagining? What kind of god would be forgiving of such a thing?

I wonder all the time about religion. I don't wonder, however, if it is wrong to kill people. Or marry girls off to old men. Or bombing any other country in the name of my god. I never have to wonder - I don't think any being with that much intelligence requires obiesence in that way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interesting Aftermath a From Season Five of "MasterChef"

Image
Do I agree with this? You will have to read it first and decide for yourself. I had long since made up my mind before finding this article. MasterChef Season 5 Fixed: Courtney Lapresi Won Finale After Getting Preferential Treatment – Former Stripper Favoritism BY  STORMY ELIZABETH  ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 "They say if you can’t take the heat, you should get out of the kitchen, but what if you like it hot? If you’ve been watching  MasterChef this season 5 , you may have noticed that one contestant in particular seems to  be “winning” challenges  when her dishes don’t seem to be quite up to it.  Courtney Lapresi  has been billed as an “aerial dancer” on the show. So what exactly is that, you ask? It’s a fancy word for stripper. You may term what she does as burlesque, but nekked is nekked and she takes off her  clothes  when she dances, so you have to call them as you see them. Plus is it really fair that she’s up for a MasterChef win aft
Read more

A.W.A.D. - 14-Letter Words, 14-Letter Definitions

Back in 1994, when I founded Wordsmith.org on a Pi Day (March 14), I had no idea that one day we'd be celebrating its quadridecennial. Here's what the last 14 years look in numbers: So far we have sent out 3,782 unique words and 297 AWADmail compilations to 640,000 present subscribers in 200 countries, that is more than 1.6 billion pieces of email. Well, this week we're seeing all things 14. We'll feature words that are 14 letters long, and define each of them in 14 letters. acritochromacy (uh-KRIT-o-kro-muh-see) noun Color blindness. [From Greek akritos (undistinguishing) + chroma (color).] tintinnabulate (tin-ti-NAB-yuh-layt) verb intr. To ring; to tinkle. [From Latin tintinnabulum (bell), from tintinnare (to jingle).] tinctumutation (tinkt-myoo-TAY-shuhn) noun Change of colour. [From Latin tinctus (a dyeing) + mutation (changing).] Brobdingnagian (brob-ding-NAG-ee-uhn) adjective Of gigantic size. [After Brobdingnag, the fictional region where everything was enormous
Read more

An Interesting Wife Swap...

Image
I'm catching up on our Wife Swap recordings. I'm watching the epiode Burroughs/Padovan-Hickman one that aired on 17 April 2009. The one I watched just before was really quite satisfying - the families both learned a lot and seemed to really take it to heart. This one, however, is back to the familiar mold of putting families that are so totally diametrically opposite families together that they almost can't get along. This is interesting, though, because the Padovan-Hickmans have electricity but don't use it, don't flush often, go for a week without showering and then the whole family uses the same bathwater... I can see where that would be hard, especially for me in that I have very oily skin and hair and would look rather wretched after the next day. But the family themselves are very likable and fun, the father looks more like a kindly grandfather, but really is quite intelligent and pleasant. I would have trouble with the clean thing and I'd miss my iPod
Read more