Blog Post #4900

By the time I reach my five-thousandth blog post, I'll have been blogging for ten years. Perhaps I'll back off on the frequency of posts at that time, but I haven't really decided. It's been a good discipline for keeping me active in photography and I have enjoyed the interaction with other bloggers.

I've made it a practice to use blog-anniversaries as a time to depart from my usual photo-centered posts and either talk about the internet or reveal something about myself. This 4900th post happens to fall on Easter Sunday, so I feel challenged to say something about religion. I rarely talk about it although I post many photos of churches because I love their charm and beauty!

I don't way to say that I "consider myself spiritual and not religious" because that is such a cliché that it sounds like a cop-out. And besides, I do classify myself as a Christian even though I don't go to church very often, partly because I get impatient when someone preaches that they have the correct answers and that somehow the vast majority of humankind is wrong. I have felt most at-home with Unity Church which holds that there is good in every approach to God.

Religious intolerance has been a major problem in world affairs, and lately we've seen some terrifying examples of violence in the name of religion. It seems like this is usually the result of someone abusing the power of religious feeling to control their followers. How disturbing this is and how tragic!

Many (many!) years ago when I was in high school, I read The True Believer, and I'm still reminded of it when I find myself puzzling over some of the terrible things people do. Have you read it?

Speaking of high school, I remember feeling as impatient with my atheist friends as I was with overly-sure believers. Some of them would rudely pounce on someone else's beliefs, trying to show how much they knew, or thought they knew. Sigh! This is not being tolerant! And consider, please, that even if you are so disillusioned with what your religious leaders taught (or did), there are other belief systems that you can consider... or not. If you have decided you cannot believe in something that cannot be seen or proven, I ask, "Do you believe in love?" I don't mean the emotion of one person, but rather the invisible bond between people... does it exist?  Of course it does. I could go on with that analogy but this is already quite wordy for a blog post.  So... let's pray for insight and hope for peace.

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