Touching on religion, sort of.

2003-01-08 - 6:01 a.m.

Pookie just wants me to post the "Dear Dr. Laura" letter in response to Bible biggotry, which I don't really want to do, because I've read it so often it's become cliche. Religious intolerance has never had as much relevance in my life as it has in others, possibly because I was raised in a very liberal household, in a quite liberal church (United Church of Canada...about as liberal as you can get before going agnostic.) Religious intolerance still makes me angry, because I've seen how crippling it can be to those it hurts, but it doesn't have much power over me: I've made my kind of peace with whatever power there is, and I'm ready for the consequences. In a worst-case scenario, I can't decide to not be who I am because of a fear of hell, and I don't want to worship any sort of deity who uses fear to bludgeon people into doing what s/he/it says. I'm still going to try to coerce Pookie into helping me with a well-reasoned and -researched response.

Pookie also, rightly, wants me to thank Immanuel...because the desire to help people and to try to bring them into a place of better understanding is a noble desire. I can only hope that, no matter how many people he might hurt, he still does his proselytizing from a sincere desire to lift people up, rather than out of a sincere desire to avoid burning in fire for eternity. I know his set preaches that good works alone won't get you into Heaven, but I hope his set also is open to the idea of good works for the sake of goodness...if that makes any sense.

And I've been living in the big city too long; I just read "sake" as the Japanese rice wine. Or maybe it's just the bukakke connection. Argh. You folks have no idea how many search engine hits I'm getting for that word alone. I really am a masochist.

I have a staff meeting tonight, so presumably I'll find out about the job at some point today. I'm hoping I get it, but I'm prepared to tell myself that it's a crummy job anyway that I didn't really want it that much after all. Sour grapes are sometimes the sweetest thing you can find.

Cheers,

The Magus

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