Faith:
In a podcast on the Jesuits in China yesterday, I learnt that – at
least back then – the Catholic Church believed that God had
(conveniently) inserted 'intimations of Christianity' in all pagan
religions and that these should be built on these to drag
unfortunates towards the real truth. Clearly, there's no limit to
what the human mind can believe when it wants to. I just wonder why
God would bother to go this long way round. Why not make everyone
Catholics in the first place? For divine amusement? Hardly, I guess,
as S(He) would know the outcome of all missionary efforts. Slaughter
included. It's a mystery to me. Though perhaps not a sacred one, like
the unfathomable doctrine of the Trinity.
Which
reminds me . . . . Christianity
then and now:
Back in the 12th century, Christians of the West and the East were
separated by two things:- 1. Persia, and 2. Doctrinal differences
over the nature of God. Was Jesus human or divine? Or both? How many
natures/personalities had God? How many persons was God? And were
some of these subordinate to others? Who the hell knows - or could
know. But, 900 years ago, clever people had precious little else to
argue about other than these esoteric issues. And the Western and
Eastern Churches went separate ways. The current Pope is cosying up
to the leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church but no one believes
they'll ever sink their differences. Nor, incidentally, that some
Protestant Christians will ever accept the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. Nor all of them the doctrine of Transubstantiation. But good luck to
them, anyway. Things could be far worse; they could all be crazy,
doctrine-sharing Scientologists. BTW - The web page of these nutters
says that:- Scientology
is not a dogmatic religion in which one is asked to accept anything
on faith alone. On the contrary, one discovers for oneself that the
principles of Scientology are true by applying its principles and
observing or experiencing the results.This
is pretty hard to credit when their basic (but clearly insane) belief
is that a human is
an immortal spiritual being (thetan) that is resident in a physical
body. Thetans have all had innumerable past lives, lived in
extraterrestrial cultures.
But, as I noted above, there's truly no limit to what the human brain
can believe when it wants to. Or when it's been indoctrinated from
the time it could start to think.
On
a lighter note . . . This has been voted the most romantic line in
English literature or films: My heart is, and always will be, yours. This guff comes
from Sense And Sensibility. It garnered 16% of the
vote, beating out contenders from 'Dirty Dancing', 'Titanic',
'Wuthering Heights', 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Notting Hill', 'Ghost',
'Far From The Madding Crowd', 'Love Actually' and 'Pride And
Prejudice'. So, well done Ms Austen. I wonder if they included the
book which claims to reproduce the erotic bits cut out of your 'Pride
and Prejudice?
Finally
. . . This guy says he knows who the unnamed British actress is who
claimed she'd been sexually assaulted on a mainline train station by
a guy who brushed past her in just half a second. I have no idea, of
course, whether he's right or wrong. Honest.
Finally,
finally . . . Yesterday I added a link to Expat.com to my blog page.
But I forgot to add their suggested text to my post:-
Whether
you wish to live in Spain or you already settled here, you should
have lots of question about your expat project. To help you answer
them, Expat.com offers you to get in touch with expats living nearby
or on the other side of the world. The website is indeed the largest
expat help and support network.
Ask
questions, get answers and discover expat life in Spain. Expat.com
and its members will help you throughout your expat project.
Moreover, the website is totally free!
A
range of features is available to help you: discussion forums, jobs
and housing sections, guides, interviews, classifieds or agenda of
events organized in Spain. You will find all you need for your expat
daily life! It’s also a great way to meet people!
Key
figures:
Created
in 2005 as expat-blog
More
than 1.5 million members
2
586 069 posts
55
551 members in Spain
P.
S. So far, they haven't offered to pay me for this! So God knows why
I'm doing it. Just Mr. Nice Guy, I guess. Masked by my carapace of
churlishness.
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