Thanks Guest
With respect to all believers and non-believers here, none of these discussions should be about belief - what people personally believe or don't believe has nothing to do with today's 'Religious' problems.
Rather, it has everything to do with the way certain individuals and groups in countries which describe themselves as 'Christian' or 'Muslim' or 'Catholic'.... or whatever, use peoples' beliefs for their own, more of often than not, material or political ends.
They adopt a 'pick-'n-mix' attitude to their religions to suit their agendas - it is fine to kill your fellow man, despite your religion telling you it's a no-no, or to be acquisitive, and ignore the bit about camels passing through the eyes of needles... it's not even worth my mentioning the 'love thy neighbour' bit - long-gone.
Yet they rake up obscure claimed utterances of claimed divine eccentrics to justify inter-religious warfare, misogyny, contraception, pregnancy termination, who can go to bed with whom, procreation.... taken as a whole, the use made of religion makes it the greatest threat to humanity today - in subjects like these, that threat has spilled over into matters of health and even life and death on a mass scale.
I've spent most of my life among religious people who I have loved, respected and trusted utterly - forty years of recording Irish people who were devout in their beliefs yet who I have never had reason to disagree or fall out with.
These were the people who took their belief seriously and were happy to accept my non-belief.
I was not so long ago shown a letter from a dear late friend who we had recorded, mentioning my non- religion; it read something like; "he's not one of us but he is in practice a far better Christian than most churchgoers I know" - I treasure that.
It's a somewhat hackneyed truism, but nevertheless true, that if Christ had been alive in 1950s America he'd have found himself in front of the House Unamerican Activities Committee - wonder if he'd have grassed up his twelve buddies!!
Personal belief is fine by me as long as it is personal - it's when it is imposed on others or used to support wars and politics and injustices that we start punching each other.
Jim Caroll