Two for the price of one

Tell you what – it’s just as well I’m doing this thirty days of truth thingy-ma-bob because I don’t actually have anything else to tell you about* It’s all very calm and steady here at the moment. Broken brain is on best behaviour and is busy making a few small plans for the future. The Future Starts Here – fingers crossed eh?

So – what does thirty days of truth have in store for me today then? Don’t worry about guessing… I’ll just come right out and tell you:

Day 19: What do you think about religion? Or what do you think about politics?

Oh bums. This is the one I’ve been dreading…..

I suppose I might as well tell you my thoughts on both things. If I’m going to upset people I might as well go the whole hog. Besides, I’ve got time on my hands and one of them won’t take very long.

1. WeeGee’s thoughts on politics.

Two words should do it: deeply cynical.

Just in case you’re interested in few more words here’s a whistle-stop tour:

• I’m very liberal**
• I believe that equity, justice and tolerance should be at the heart of governance
• Democracy matters
• The welfare state matters as well ***

You don’t need any more words than that, do you?

2. WeeGee’s thoughts on religion.

You’ll notice that I left the difficult one until last. Before I go any further I should say that what follows is nothing more than my own personal view of religion in the broadest sense of the word. I understand that some people reading this will have very different views but I hope that will be okay – differences of opinion are all part of the fun after all.

As far as religion goes I suppose the closest thing to a name for my views is agnostic. To put it bluntly I find the possible existence of some kind of all powerful omnipresent being to be a completely baffling concept. The trouble is that I can’t understand it and if there’s one thing that sits in the middle of my brain it’s a compelling need to understand EVERYTHING****

The existence of god defies logic as far as I can see. It goes against what little I know about science, and time and being. At the same time, I suppose it would be fair to say that the existence of god fits quite neatly with my ideas about hope. Maybe what I’m saying is that I want it to true, but I also can’t accept that it is.

It’s interesting, and perhaps a little convenient that there doesn’t seem to be a way that humans can prove the existence of god. The best we can hope for is to disprove it – but that is completely unsatisfactory when you come to think about it and especially when you factor in the way that human knowledge has, and continues to evolve….

I also struggle with the idea that there is only one god. After all, human beings across the globe seem to believe in a multitude of different gods. It would be tempting to a see that as cultural interpretation of exactly the same thing were it not for the fact that a great many religions condemn those who follow others. It’s impossible for everyone to be right and if they are everyone is surely going to hell….?

Finally, as I’ve already mentioned justice, equity and tolerance are incredibly important to me – those things are essentially my moral code. Unfortunately, from the outside looking in, organised religion seems to have little to do with any of those concepts. As far as I understand it, organised religion provides rules about the right way to do things, and the right things to think. Any other way is fundamentally wrong. I can’t accept that we should operate that way. What about live and let live?

I was listening to Radio Four last week (as is my wont). It was a programme about the role of the Catholic Church in Ireland*****. I mention this because it showed that although a recent survey of the congregation and indeed of society were in favour of both gay marriage and women priests,  the governing body of the church refused to acknowledge that change in opinion. I could probably have  just about accepted that to be fair enough if the refusal to acknowledge was some kind of fundamental theological issue. But, as was quite clearly stated by the said governing body (and I paraphrase) ‘It is possible to change doctrine in light of popular opinion, if changing doctrine IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO’. It would seem that the vast majority of a congregation is not capable of deciding what the right thing to do is….

In conclusion I have this to say: morality and religion are often bound up together. Above all else this is the thing that I can’t find a way to understand. I don’t follow a religion, and I don’t actively believe in any kind of god but I have a strong moral code. It can be summarised thusly:

Be kind. Always and to everybody.

Love from WeeGee xx

*Well I do have one little thing to tell you about but I’m saving it for another day

**With a VERY deliberate lower case ‘L’

***I believe in it in an old fashioned way. We all put in, we all get out: it’s a social contract. The world doesn’t owe anyone a living but we DO owe one another one

****I’m the daughter of an engineer. It’s in my genes

*****Other churches are available******

*******Sorry – is that a bit flippant?