Saturday 17 March 2012

I'm Still Here

Life has been whizzing by at an unusually high speed and I find that my wisdom dispenser has been clogged with the dregs of everyday business but today I am taking a tooth pick to the little holes from which wisdom drops like pearls on swines ears. I think I may be mixing my metaphors but what is a metaphor, if not for mixing?

Lots to talk about and where better to start than the announcement by Rowan Williams that he intends to stand down from the post of Archbishop of Canterbury. I hear that he has been headhunted by some university who wish to study the microscopic life in his eyebrows.

Initially I was pleased to think he was leaving but then it hit me, who will replace him? The scary thing is that people are touting Sentamu, Archbishop of York. Although his eyebrows are not that impressive (and he seems to have lost his dog collar) his attitude is a little more evangelical than Dr Williams and that cannot be a good thing.

I know he has a high profile and has done some good work in denouncing Mugabe for example, but I am a little concerned over his very old fashioned stance on equality.

It's early days yet and no doubt other Bishops will throw their mitres into the ring but whoever we end up with will not have been elected by the people of this country and yet they will feel they have the right to speak for us all...I mean who do they think they are, messengers from God?

There have been discussions about reforming the House of Lords, in which 26 of the blighters dwell, and I think it is time that we limited the voice of the almighty in parliament and let it do its work on its own time and in its own buildings.

I am a realist, I think religion is here to stay but I think it should be a personal matter and not a matter for the state.

I do get angry with the religious elite because of their views, and there was another example this week.

Anyone who has seen how awful a disease cystic fibrosis can be, will surely be supporting the research into a gene therapy study announced this week. A two year blind study in which atomised gene replacement therapy tries to reduce or stop the progression of mucosal build up in the lungs of sufferers.

Well, not everyone thinks this is a good idea - because some true believers think messing with genetics and stem cell research is all the devil's work and we should not be allowed to tinker with such things.

I wonder how many of them take pain killers when they have a headache?

Here is my point, if you take their argument that God's plan should be allowed to unfold then why do we have medicine at all? If you fall ill, it is God's will and so let God decide if you live or die. After all what has a religious zealot got to fear from death? They believe they will be taken to a better place. To be honest if they live in some parts of the world, death might well be a better place.

It's the same with the Catholic stance on contraception, how they like to condemn the condom.

Two devout Catholics (a man and a woman of course) meet, fall in love and get married and decide to have children, sorry and then proceed to have children as decreed by God and the church.

Their first child is born and found to have an awful disease linked to a genetic problem with one of the parents. A doctor tells them that the chances are that all future children will be born with the same illness and that their lives will be short, painful affairs.

Quite a dilemma for the couple who decide that they do not wish to have more children but still wish to have a sex life. Of course having sex without any contraception other than natural family planning is risky  and opens up the chance of conception, which is what the sexual act within marriage should really be about in the eyes of the church.

You can see how daft this whole scenario is getting, do the couple trust that they can avoid conception or do they commit a sin and use contraception?

Don't get me started on how ineffectual natural family planning is in preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

It is these sort of issues that make people like me scratch their heads in disbelief.

People have brains and we have the need to use them, to learn things and to progress, to evolve.

As individuals, as communities and as a world, we should be finding ways to make life better for all.

Complete change of direction - David Cameron has been to America to see President Obama. The American public have seen our leader on their tv screens and still don't know who he is, where he comes from or what he wants...America is a very insular place we are told and to some extent I suppose it is. It is such a huge country and some people never leave the state they are born in, let alone know where Canterbury is.

David Cameron could appear all day and night on tv talking about the future of Sudan, but in getting arrested yesterday outside the Sudan's embassy in Washington,George Clooney has done the world a favour.

You see, the story will be on news channels and on entertainment channels too and if even 1% of the people who see the story think to look at why George made this decision, thousands of eyes will be opened.

I have a new favourite saying: you only have to have your eyes opened once before you start to see everything!

Well done George Clooney and we in England want to repay your efforts by making same sex marriage legal so you can come over here and settle down...












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