Carrying the Idiot Ball

[alasdair1076]

   I’m pathologically liberal, despite an upbringing in one of the last pockets of the 1950s left on the planet.  The Isle of Man is a tiny community halfway between England and Ireland and, by dint of its presence in the centre of a pretty hostile environment, it’s very conservative.  Gay rights were a huge issue when I was growing up there, to

Comments

[cfw]

I was still Catholic when I came to Uni but various events turned me atheist by about the time I left. A big part of it was meeting non-believers who I knew were good people but who were allegedly doomed to hell. Previously, I just knew a lot of Catholics. When one of my friends committed suicide, I found that I found that I just couldn't believe the standard line on that any more. I then decided to actually read the Bible from front to back rather than just listening to what you hear in church and found after a few pages that I had big problems with the morals in it

[ext_59464]

Al - thanks for putting this out. Gotta be tough

[tchernabyelo]

Good post.

Really not much I can or want to add to that. Context, I guess; I'm not religious, but I try and explore religion in some of my work beause it has an interesting conflict with my main thematic element, which is personal responsibility. The difference between the "good" and "bad" people in my work is often whether they are prepared to take personal responsibility for their actions - the obvious result being that organised religion can often come across as the "villain", but it's not really religion per se that I'm against, it's just that (for many people) organised religion saves them from having to think for themselves or claim responsibility for their actions. I try to include "good" religious people, too, even if they sometimes tend to be seen as heretics or apostates...

Thanks for the post.

[k_matic]

Fantastic post

[marshaldillon]

Hey Al