Musings

• Christians portray themselves as the LOVE AND GOODNESS RELIGION with cherubs playing harps in heaven, but Christians are the ones who insist on killing you if your belief system is different. It was Christianity that murdered people in the Crusades and the Inquisition.

  Even today, self-styled Christians hound children caught with pentagrams on school property. Get this: some Christians insist the ancient goddess beliefs are not even religions. Maybe your religion has to have murderous cherubs playing harps in order to qualify as a bona-fide religion. Everything else would be (gasp!) witchcraft (exhale) -- as though something with that word immediately disqualifies it as a religion.

• Buddhism sounds cold-blooded. An ancient koan (Q-and-A) goes like this...
  Q. Why is there sickness and evil?
  A. It thickens the broth. Seriously mean, right? But, can you name a single "buddhist war"? Can you say one event where somebody was killed by a practicing Buddhist because of the other person's religion? I can't think of a single incident in the entire history of that religion.

And what is it about the pagan religions -- especially Wicca -- that really makes Christians go nuts. Except for their fair share of fruitcakes, Wiccans I know are much more peaceful than the average Christian. It is like lady I know who sits up at night daring any squirrel to set foot on her property. When I ask what the squirrels did to deserve this white-knuckled attention, she says they steal pecans from her tree. She doesn't eat all the pecans, but it is her tree. And if you know this person, do not under any circumstances mention that squirrels were living there before she moved into the neighborhood ... as this will set off a chain of events that will unravel every sense of decency the poor soul knows.

Christianity uses meek imagery but is really a blood-thirsty religion with adherents who are happy only when they are beating up on someone.

Buddhism uses violent words but ends up with peaceful believers.

Then there's the matter of training.

Catholic priests spend so much time in school chopping, slicing, and dicing their subject matter that many lose the spark that makes their religion interesting. Catholics say believers should trust the Holy Mother Church. Some priests still have that enthusiasm, but many don't. I know several members of that religious-preference who say they believe in spite of the church and its ministers.

Most pagan priests and priestesses have much less training. Some are good teachers, but some are awful (undertrained, un knowledgable, etc). I asked somebody teaching astrology this question: what is a planet actually doing when it is said to be "entering Capricorn." The reply: shoulders shrugged, and that told me the teacher didn't know or couldn't be bothered with my question or that I shouldn't be asking such questions.

Two sides of the training coin: overtrained Catholics, undertrained pagans.

And both sides lead to the same, unappetizing result: a religion that succeeds in spite of itself, if it succeeds at all.