All Things Bright and Beautiful
I don't usually get involved in discussions about religion. As you may know if you've read this blog before, I'm not religious - - and yet I do believe in the ethos behind the Ten Commandments.
If everyone just did their best to follow those, then the world would be a far better place. End Of.
My problem, however, is with people who try to bend so-called religious beliefs to make them fit with whatever they feel like doing, or feel like believing.
I always enjoyed singing hymns at school and one of my favourites was All Things Bright and Beautiful.
I sang two different tunes at school, one at primary school and one at secondary school, and I liked them both. Here's Harry Secombe singing an arrangement of the version that we used to sing at primary school:
But he's missed out at least one of the verses, with the lines that our little childish voices used to sing:
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate
God made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate
That's just some Victorian's way of trying to get the masses to believe that their grinding poverty was all God's idea. Infuriating, vile and just plain wrong.
At the madder end of the spectrum of so-called religious belief are this lot, the Westboro Baptist Church.
I saw a television programme about them a few months ago and everything they believe is - to me - so deeply wrong that I just don't know where to start with it.
The main tenet of their beliefs seems to be not love of God, or even love of mankind - - but hatred of homosexuals. They spend most of their time protesting about homosexuality in a rather lurid way. Here's their jolly Christmas song:
It particularly bothers me that they're involving their children in it all. Of course, anyone with strong religious or political beliefs tends to do that. The Communist had a pretty good try with me - - though it didn't work.
But bringing up children to hate, rather than to love - as this lot are trying to do - is totally abhorrent to me. These bonkers Baptists are just one ridiculous side alley of all the many mad beliefs that are about.
I think it would be good if everyone, religious or not, could just try to work towards - well - all things bright and beautiful.
If everyone just did their best to follow those, then the world would be a far better place. End Of.
My problem, however, is with people who try to bend so-called religious beliefs to make them fit with whatever they feel like doing, or feel like believing.
I always enjoyed singing hymns at school and one of my favourites was All Things Bright and Beautiful.
I sang two different tunes at school, one at primary school and one at secondary school, and I liked them both. Here's Harry Secombe singing an arrangement of the version that we used to sing at primary school:
But he's missed out at least one of the verses, with the lines that our little childish voices used to sing:
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate
God made them high or lowly, and ordered their estate
That's just some Victorian's way of trying to get the masses to believe that their grinding poverty was all God's idea. Infuriating, vile and just plain wrong.
At the madder end of the spectrum of so-called religious belief are this lot, the Westboro Baptist Church.
I saw a television programme about them a few months ago and everything they believe is - to me - so deeply wrong that I just don't know where to start with it.
The main tenet of their beliefs seems to be not love of God, or even love of mankind - - but hatred of homosexuals. They spend most of their time protesting about homosexuality in a rather lurid way. Here's their jolly Christmas song:
It particularly bothers me that they're involving their children in it all. Of course, anyone with strong religious or political beliefs tends to do that. The Communist had a pretty good try with me - - though it didn't work.
But bringing up children to hate, rather than to love - as this lot are trying to do - is totally abhorrent to me. These bonkers Baptists are just one ridiculous side alley of all the many mad beliefs that are about.
I think it would be good if everyone, religious or not, could just try to work towards - well - all things bright and beautiful.
posted by Daphne at 4:38 pm
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