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We go back to the place the C of E has in government. It should be none but there they are.
Who is a Roman Catholic of course.
Yes of course she is. And she is a special kind of stupid: she seems to be accepting as truth things that her own Church now considers fabrication (such as the Genesis).
It's nice if you can just pick and choose what bits of the Bible you want to believe, isn't it? Thank goodness for the Catholic Church being there to keep us right in such matters!
Which parts you'll ignore. ;-)
For the fickle believer anyhow...such is human nature I suppose.
People do that with secular law as well, so why not?
Until they end up on the other side of it and then it's a different story. True of religion too, of course!
I'd have respect for the religious community if " They practiced what they preach " :-D
In that regard the Catholic Church is no different than ANY Christian denomination or indeed any Christian. Christians nowadays have no problem forgetting that the Bible is okay with slavery for instance. As for the Genesis it has been debunked a loooong time ago.
They are acting on someone s words.
Long story short, a woman who my family knew passed away last week and, because she was a big Catholic, naturally her seeing off during her church service was full of the craziest Catholic pomp you could ever imagine. Holy smoke was suffocating the place, a bunch of octogenarians were sipping water (sorry, Christ blood) from a cup that everyone before them had their mouths all over (I kissed the Blarney Stone, but somehow this seems more disgusting) and hymns sung in unison were rejoicing in the miracle of God, the blessed figure who ostensibly made this poor woman's life a real wreck at the end, leaving her without a husband and near death via a stroke that debilitated her speech and ability to communicate beyond grunts and coughs. But of course he works in mysterious ways, as we all know.
I keep coming back to this in my impressions of religion, but I was absolutely gobsmacked that in 2017 these kinds of services are still going on, rituals that are so removed in relevance and logic from the modern experience of being human that it is only on tradition and blind faith they are still practiced. There is no recognition of metaphor, allegory or parable during these services, folks: these people believe that with a few words and a swish of religious totems, a woman in body can be taken (at least her spirit/soul) to "God's kingdom," like the casket and rosary beads are two major elements in one big magic act. To give you an idea of the minds we're dealing with here, the priest leading the service today reflected that, if we can transfer blood from the healthy to the sick and graft skin from one part of the body over another, why can't we, in all fairness to logic, transfer the blood and body of Christ and the grace of God on to a dead woman? Seems pretty legitimate, no? How I didn't burst or crack a grin at that moment, I don't know. Perhaps my inner amusement was overcome by the very real confusion and immense depression I felt when I saw firsthand that all this was being taken as gospel by the churchgoers, to forgive my pun.
Christ, I honestly can't remember the last time I was so beside myself and genuinely freaked out as I was today, surrounded by the congregation as they gesticulated wildly, their voices stammering with "God's wisdom." It was very culty, but I think I'd have been more comfortable at a Satanic blood sacrifice in commemoration of Lucifer's fall then I was amongst these particularly nutty Catholics. When you're faced with the very real beliefs people hold as human beings in a developed and learned world where fact and reality falls deaf to them, one experiences a very specific form of soul-erosion that burns you right through the heart. It's the feeling that nothing will change these people, zombies to dogma.
To cap off the day, a mother of one of my old high school classmates does a lot of service work around the church, and has an office in the church the service took place in for her convenience. Through the obligatory mingling and trivial rambling of any social interaction, I found myself barking at this woman about one thing or another as we waited for the service to begin. I don't know why, perhaps it was the awkwardness of the moment, but I found myself quipping to this woman how strange it is that just a few centuries ago I'd be an enemy of the very roof I was standing under, jokingly comparing myself to what would be a modern day Martin Luther. It was then that this woman, with absolute shock and disbelief, asked me, "You're not...an atheist?" I am a lot of things, but I'm no liar, and so I was honest with the woman, pointing out that I'd quite fairly qualify in that category. Leaving her quite beside herself, our last remarks to each other beyond some infrequent and awkward stares during the following service were her words of reformation to me as I exited her office, assuring me that she'd fix my atheism and bring me to her side.
In the next few weeks I expect a bunch of nutty pamphlets on Christ's teachings and some packets of miracle water to appear on my doorstep, alongside some prayer books for sinners as this woman now tries to make an "outed" nonbeliever whole again under God's holy spirit. Through an attempt at what I've heard referred to in some circles as "social interaction," I've found myself an open season target of the dreaded radical Catholic faction of the religious delirium community. If I turn up dead soon, or go off the grid, all my fellow atheists will know exactly what has happened. If these events come to pass, rise up, avenge me (I WILL NOT be resurrected), and bring your knowledge, your science, and a few bible based ice breakers and insults that even Christopher Hitchens would crack a smirk over to fight the tide of religious delusion before it takes more victims into its sullen maw.
I can't stand people who try to convert others either but I think laughing to yourself about how stupid the whole thing is at a funeral seems a little disrespectful to me. Surely she's entitled to a sendoff the way she wants it without being judged. Personally even as someone who doesn't believe in God I can sit through church services for weddings, funerals, etc, without it making a blind bit of difference. The religious element just becomes background noise, takes a back seat to the event itself to me. I don't know if that's because I grew up with some Christian family members or just because I genuinely can't be bothered to get that worked up over religion in general but for me, in that scenario none of it really registers as that bizarre or weird. I just sort of tune it out because I'm not there for that, I'm there for the person or people the service is for, so if that's what they want or wanted then fair enough.
I must admit I've never been to a Catholic funeral but the ones I have been to in crematorium's always remind me of a 'sheep dip' in that as you come out the 'side door' there is another deceased waiting to come in the entrance that you'd come through 20 minutes earlier...
I do prefer the non-religious services especially when relatives of the deceased can reminisce about their life instead of a vicar or priest spouting a load of impersonal bollocks that mean nothing to anyone.
I think I like the Cary Grant idea the best. He had no funeral service as per his wishes.
@thelivingroyale, you clearly misread my words. I never actually laughed to myself in reaction to any of it. I was as I always am in these situations of services and funerals, though I disagree with everything they stand for: I was attentive to what I was asked of by the priest, shook his hand as he came by at the end, gave room for those who wanted to practice their faith to approach the casket for the specific ritual of the moment and, for the rest of the time, stood up for hymns that I silently chose not to sing because it was the respectful thing to do and I simply took it all in without a peep. I tried to engage my head with the words the priest was saying, to see how his chosen selections from the bible fit with the picture he was trying to paint of the woman whose life we were celebrating, so I didn't go there to have a laugh. As with everything religious focused, I sat like a real scientist would in the wild, trying to understand how the other side thinks and what stake they put in certain beliefs.
I found most of the service to be what I always think of Catholic ceremonies: overly done, theatrical, indulgent, so covered in pomp that it loses all meaning by the end and, when it comes to the actual content and message of the bible and everything else these people take as fact, very ludicrous and shockingly ignorant. But again, you'd never see me vocalizing any of this because I quite liked the woman we were there to send off (I just laid her to rest in my mind with warm words and a toast to good memories and not by any consumption of water and wafers) and I don't think it's my place to crash a Catholic event under their own roof just like I'd be pissed if a Catholic came to a secular wedding I was at to complain that the hypothetical couple weren't being betrothed and forever united by marriage in honor of God's name and his teachings of the bible.
In fact, as I related, it was the atheist who went into the land of the theists and came out feeling uncomfortable, out of place, and at times unwelcome, and not the other way around. It wasn't I that looked at a religious person and judged them for what they believed outright, it was a religious woman that looked at me and judged me for who I was, so upset and beside herself that I was there with the views I held. I don't quite care either way, but that is just to show that even as an atheist I planted myself amongst the Catholics and, despite avoiding singing hymns that I didn't believe, I kept to myself and didn't take any actions whatsoever to impede the process. I wouldn't do that at the service of someone I liked, but I also wouldn't do that at the service of someone I hated, or anyone for that matter.
I'm no fan of religion, and in some ways I despise it, but the people I saw at the service were a lot of people I knew, and friends of this woman who I had no desire to attack or belittle. My anger isn't at them, but at the system beyond them and their comparatively small town lives that has an actual stake in the world and that does effect too much power in the world, governments, law and beyond. As always, it's the institutional nature of religion that really irks, but not so much those that practice it. In many ways I felt like a modern scientist observing cavemen in the reactions of surprise I had that so much in the bible was being believed by the parents of kids I went to school with or those in the community I'd had secular discussions with in the past, but again it wasn't my place to go into their place of worship and raise hell or judge them outright. And that really is the story of atheists and atheism for all of time: they laid quiet, often didn't loudly vocalize their counter-beliefs (largely because they knew they'd be persecuted or killed, mind) and perhaps were a bit too easy on religion than they should've been.
But it wasn't a day I was looking to "act out" during (again, I cared about the dead woman and those there), and even when I admitted my atheism to that woman it wasn't with a wide smile or feeling of rebelliousness or trickery, it was just pure honesty, spoken out loud tonally as if I was telling her she had dressed nice for the service. And in the same name of honesty, I simply admit to feeling uncomfortable by the whole thing and quite sad, far beyond the simple fact that a woman I liked and in many ways cared for was dead and hadn't had a great last few years. Sadness because in 2017 what I saw in that church was still going on and was widely accepted as fact by those there.
Even still, I don't think anyone there from the outside looking in couldn't picked me out as the atheist of the group, because I never make a show of it or care to, as I know how atheists are received (not well, if you can fathom it, even though we usually and ironically have the more progressive and morally upright views of the world in tune with Jesus' teachings). After all, I am the guy who, despite being at another religious service two years ago, got up and eulogized my grandmother in front of a crowd of worshippers at a place that I didn't feel comfortable speaking at and under a roof that held no love in my heart, or even a bit of respect. As it was at the latest service I attended, however, I knew I was there for someone I cared for (the difference being that my grandmother was my world, so I cared even more about representing myself properly) and I did what I did and acted as I did because it was simply the way I was raised and the way I would expect a religious man or woman to act at a secular event: respectful, agreeable, and willing to let the service progress without hindrance.
And I think that all comes from the view I hold of atheism and the experience of being an atheist, a view I think most atheists feel: I hate being an atheist, and wish all the beautiful things said in church were real. It's just that my experiences in the world and what I know and have learned over time make it all seem improbable to downright ridiculous, and that's a damn shame. There's nothing I'd like more than to see my grandmother again in a place approximating a heaven, but part of why I got busted up and broke down while hearing the news over the phone just minutes after she'd been pronounced dead is because I knew I'd never see her again.
So when I say I acted respectfully at a church where rituals were being done that I found beyond illogical and disagreeable, it was because I understand why people believe and why it's so tempting to give in to those comforting and rose-tinted views of life. The promises of the bible are things we all want, as they give us a positive view of life that plays to our ego and our wildest dreams: life isn't the end, there's paradise forever if you're good, and everyone you've lost will be there with you again in harmony. It's glorious, uplifting, comforting...but also a big fairy tale, and in the end I and the majority of the people here made a personal commitment to be honest with ourselves and through that principle we live our lives to the fullest because we know there's no great journey at the end beyond our death.
It's interesting to inhabit a church service of the "other side" once in a while as I did this week for that reason, to reconnect with the idea that yes, the bible is still a history book to people and is still a part of the world and its many systems, from law up to government. It's not a pleasant thought or experience to have, but as an atheist one is used to being disappointed or saddened as our entire belief system is built upon the idea that the sunny viewpoints of the bible are false. We're acclimated to having bad days and facing the bad of the world with an honest face that puts aside comforting lies for what the truth of the matter really is.
Even with all this in mind, and where atheists and theists divide, I came to the service this week from the viewpoint of a sociologist or psychiatrist, far more interested in how the mind believes these things in the bible and why than I was at being a rogue atheist protestor, as my curiosity and later dismay at the Catholic rituals and the actions of the worshippers well overwhelmed any feelings I could've had to revolt.
It was an education, to say the least, and not a revolution.
Thank you for sharing that.
It gives me some inspiration to be honest. Perhaps I should wear one of those blindfolds too in my school, where dozens of "immodest" women are among my colleagues. If anyone says anything about it, I'll just refer to this article and to my freedom of religion.
Saying the BBC has a left leaning bias, is the same as saying Jimmy Saville was a bit of a wrong 'un.
And they backed him to the hilt too of course!