I’m a little puzzled by religion, if I am brutally honest.
I was brought up a Catholic. I was baptised in a Catholic church at a time when I had no say in the matter. In fact I may have screamed as the Holy Water hit my forehead, which some people might have considered a bad thing – after all, don’t vampires scream when you throw Holy Water at them?
I had to endure confession, when I was a child and found myself struggling not to laugh as I lied to the priest about my sins simply because I couldn’t think of what I had done that was wrong. My penance was to say the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” multiple times – there’s a lot of trust in this punishment because you can simply just sit there and think about what you are having for dinner tonight rather than reciting prayers.
First communion was strange too because I was a child and was offered bread dipped in wine – although initially I don’t think wine was involved because we were all underage.
I then acquired a new name as I was confirmed. I chose John because it was common – not because I admired John the Baptist as I told the priest when asked (another lie).
None of this made me a better person. Worse, there was no proof that any of the teachings I was indoctrinated with were actually true or based on fact. I started to realise that the teachings of the Bible were in fact rather contradictory, which is no surprise when you think about it.
The word of God was written by man and of course, as we all know, man has the uncanny ability to exaggerate to prove a point – I do it on this blog all the time. If you think about it, the Bible has been translated numerous times and even reinterpreted and modernised so some of the stories, as fascinating as they are, are bound to be enhanced for dramatic affect.
My scientific mind has been questioning the logic of what I was taught ever since I was a teenager and I have a relatively clear picture in my mind.
Some of the stories in the Bible basically teach us to be good to each other and not be arses. Whether you believe all of the amazing things that Jesus did is up to you. It’s a stretch to believe that he could turn water into wine, cure leprosy and raise a man from the dead but the words he supposedly spoke and his deeds are worthy of consideration.
I am therefore not anti-religion, despite my mockery of it.
On the contrary, if it makes people happy then I’m all for it. If you are a person who can made happier by spending an hour in church every Sunday praying to God and as a result feel a deep sense of fulfilment and happiness then that’s terrific.
The same goes for other religions too. For example, I have known Muslims who are lovely people and pop off to pray at regular intervals during the day and worship at their mosque. I know Sikhs and Hindus who are content with their religion and happier because of it.
If your religion can make you happy then that’s a beautiful thing.
What I don’t like, though, is when religion is used as an excuse to cause harm. Over the years, I have seen this happen many times. People who look down on me because I am a Catholic, for example. People who actually prefer to mock me for confessing my sins to an “old man in a frock” (their words not mine) are not helping anybody – especially themselves.
Worse, there are those who actually harm people in the name of religion because their views are different. This has happened throughout history and is happening right now.
Aren’t we all past that?
Most if not all religions are peaceful and promote moral ideologies. Yet there are people who interpret the teachings of their religion in a way that suits their twisted minds, even in some cases, harming people with supposedly the same religion, just a slightly different flavour.
And I am not singling out Islam here, by the way – Christianity has a bloody history of doing exactly the same.
The bottom line is that religion, if you choose to believe, should make you a better person, eager to promote happiness and a willingness to help others. It should make you happy in your own belief and if you can turn to it in a moment of despair for comfort and security then that is fantastic.
When religion promotes peace, happiness and prosperity then it is a good thing.
If it is used to oppress and harm people then it is a bad thing and people who use religion to exploit and harm others are using religion nefariously.
By the way, I do not count Scientology as a religion and that is a prime example of how a so-called religion has been used to control and exploit people. It is the opposite of what a religion should be.
I’ll just finish by telling you all that I haven’t been a practising Catholic for almost forty years. I wonder what I would say to a priest in a confessional booth? And how long would I be in there?
I’ll leave you with a joke by the late great Dave Allen. Like me, he was a Catholic and courted controversy with his jokes about religion. Here is one of them:
If you can’t laugh at religion then there is something wrong. I like to think that God has a sense of humour.
My uncle died earlier this year. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in September last year and given six months to live. With the aid of chemotherapy, he lasted a year, but sadly, the treatment took its toll and while it prolonged his life, he suffered badly as a result.
In the end, his condition was so bad that his immediate family regarded his passing as a blessing.
He was 68 years old and his name was Paul.
What I found amazing about him was the way he dealt with his condition. I went to visit him and I found a man who was surprisingly cheerful and even joked about his appearance and the treatment. He was very candid about how he felt but, with a smile on his face, he told us how he had remained optimistic. It was clear that he had accepted what was happening to him and the inevitable conclusion.
I was proud of him. He was a very brave man.
His immediate family held him in the highest esteem and effectively had a year to prepare themselves for his eventual loss. When I heard, I called my aunt and cousin to express my condolences and my own pain too and they seemed to be okay but understandably heartbroken.
Mrs PM and I went to funeral where the family turned up and a lot of friends.
Paul was a popular guy and the funeral was very moving.
During the ceremony, his coffin was present with a photograph of him with a cheerful smile that I will remember him by.
I liked Paul a lot.
But one of the main things I remember about the funeral was his choice of songs to play as we all celebrated his life, songs that might just accompany him onto the next phase, if such a phase exists. He chose three songs that he loved – one by Elvis Presley, one by the Beatles and another rock and roll number that I didn’t recognise but was totally upbeat.
Although we were all upset, it kind of made me feel positive in a strange kind of way. I’m too sceptical to believe in an afterlife and, although I am a Catholic, I don’t really buy the idea that we will all go to meet our maker if I’m honest. I realise that if God reads my blog (as he surely must – because he is omnipotent) he may be noting down things I’ve written about Purgatory and Heaven.
He may know that when I openly say “Yes I believe in God”, that in my mind, my own scientific mind is analysing the whole idea of Christianity and thinking “Really?”.
But the whole point to this post is not to dwell on the religious aspects of death; I want to portray the positive undercurrent of the funeral, which, although is a desperately sad occasion, can also be and should also be a celebration of the person’s life.
And what better way to depart than to have people talk about the good things and celebrate his or her life with the music that they loved.
Of course, I realise that being a lover of heavy metal and rock music, some of my choices of the songs to accompany me on my way to the next dimension might be in poor taste but I think I might opt for three songs that were all positive.
In fact, I hope that my demise is a long, long way away – I plan to live forever – and that by then my collection of songs will be so enormous that I will it hard to choose.
I have well over 7000 songs in my collection and I could have gone through the entire lot and spent a month whittling them down to choose three songs to send me off. However, while I love my own music, I decided just to swiftly scan them.
I came up with the following, deliberately rejecting Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin because, as much as I love it, I think it is a little too corny.
So here they are:
Blue Öyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Okay – I know you may mock me for this choice because it sounds a bit corny, similar to Stairway ToHeaven. The difference here is that I genuinely love this song and, while there is a theme of death, I personally think it is very positive, basically seeing, don’t fear death, we can fly and eventually we will all be together again in eternity.
Oh – and I love the guitar solo in the middle of the song.
Journey – Remember Me
I have been known to mock power ballads and AOR, and in the past Journey have been a great target because they personify the essence of what I dislike about this style of slushy, lovey-dovey nonsense.
Yet, as much as I dislike Journey, they have produced three brilliant songs that I simply cannot mock. Remember Me is one of them – a beautiful piece of music that I wish they had embraced more often.
The song is about somebody leaving a relationship, but I think that the lyrics apply perfectly to the loss of a loved one. This song would be directed at Mrs PM, but I think that the rest of the funeral congregation might also find meaning. It would effectively my dying wish imploring the people I love not to forget me.
Dream Theater – The Answer Lies Within
This is a beautiful song and while it sounds quite melancholy, once again the lyrics are wonderful and positive. While the last song may have been a little selfish (with me saying “Don’t forget me!”) this song would be my positive final message, asking my loved ones to carry on and just be as brilliant as I know they can be:
You’ve got the future on your side
You’re gonna be fine now
I know whatever you decide
You’re gonna shine
And finally ...
Well that’s all a bit morbid, isn’t it? I’m sure that if I were to run through my music collection with an impish glint in my eye, I might choose this one – the lyrics are very funny:
I hope God has a sense of humour and forgives me on Judgement Day.
And, Paul, I’ll miss you! Say “Hi” to my Dad for me.
The fourth part of my mini-series on the meaning of life was going to cover happiness, leaving death until the end. However, Christmas is approaching faster than a speeding Santa so happiness is a fitting topic to finish on.
Sadly this means I have to discuss death now.
Death is a nasty part of life – which is kind of weird really because death means the end of life. Some people become preoccupied with death in the later stages of life and become obsessed with it.
I hope that doesn’t happen to me.
I have faced death in a major way, as regular readers may know, when I watched my father die at the tender age of 44. Obviously that was a traumatic event which time helped to cure. The problem was that because his death was so unexpected and so sudden that it planted a seed of anxiety that lay dormant until I approached the same age.
Reason was cast aside and for a whole year, a part of me expected my own life to come to an abrupt and meaningless end. The feeling was totally irrational and while it didn’t dominate my life, I found my thoughts drifting towards the Grim Reaper more times than I would have hoped for.
My 45th birthday was a great day because to me it meant the end of what I described as the year of death. I felt like I had reached the finish line of a great race.
Looking back now, some seven years later, I have no such fears and I can’t believe the thought ever crossed my mind. Furthermore, I really ought to be worrying about it more because I am older and, realistically, closer to the day when the Grim Reaper comes knocking to collect me.
And I can’t help but wonder why that is.
Death is the inescapable conclusion to life and, unless you have discovered the secret of immortality or are a vampire, it will happen to you.
Why worry about it?
There is no reason.
Life is great and when the time comes, it will come; there is nothing you can do about it.
What’s more, death may not be the end. The premise of most religions is that death is merely a transition to a higher plane of existence – or possibly even the chance to pop back to Earth as another person or another creature.
As a Catholic, I have been indoctrinated by the premise that when I die, I will be judged and, having been a naughty boy (and I have been a naughty boy), I will suffer the consequences in Purgatory before joining the legions of the dead in Heaven in eternal happiness.
I could go to Hell of course and spend the rest of eternity being tortured and tormented by demonic forces. My punishment would almost certainly involve being locked in a cell with Piers Morgan with diabolical pop music blaring out of speakers at a high volume.
Reincarnation seems a reasonable option – if options are available. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be born again as another person and live another life? Of course, it might already have happened and I may have been a slave in Pompeii, or a jester in the court of Henry VIII or an explorer sailing towards America with Christopher Columbus.
Apparently it is possible to be hypnotised and drift back through your past lives. I am tempted to have a go at this but I am too sceptical and realistically I imagine my “past life” will come from a historical novel I have read or a blockbuster movie.
Other options exist; what about the science fiction concept that death is just a way of entering a new plane of existence? When we shuffle off this mortal coil, do we shed our old bodies and float off into space in an alternative reality?
Or the idea that we all drift off and continue to prevail in death? In the Necroscope series of books, when people die, they exist in a different form and continue their life’s work in death.
Apart from Hell with Piers Morgan, most of the alternatives sound appealing in one way or another.
And being a positive person, I would like to think that there is something more. The scientist within me is very sceptical and informs me that we will simply cease to be. After all, we don’t remember anything from before we were born do we?
I have no memory of anything before October 1962, my birth month. I suspect the reality is that I will return to that emptiness.
But I may be wrong.
Death could be the beginning of a brand new adventure.
Finally, please excuse the morbid tone of this post but people can’t talk about death without some negative overtones.
To cheer you up a bit, here are a couple of funny videos relating to death:
I was in my final year at school and A-Levels were approaching like a speeding train. I had mad hair, so mad in fact that my form teacher, a certain Mr N, decided to humiliate me in class by saying the following in front of a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds:
“Mr Mancunian...” – actually he had no idea that I was going to end up in Manchester – but just go with it.
“Mr Mancunian. Before you come to school please, in the name of God, stick your head in a bucket of water.”
After the inevitable riotous laughter had died down (it took about 20 minutes). He continued:
“Do you know, Mr Mancunian, you remind me of a boy at my old school. He had copious amounts of unmanageable hair. Do you know what we used to call him?”
This was like comedy gold to each and every member of my class – apart from me.
“They used to call him The Boy with the Chrysanthemum Head.”
I think that some kids in my class are still laughing even now.
What on earth was he thinking?
Anyway, that’s just setting the scene.
Back in 1981, we were typical 17 year old lads with all of the pitfalls associated with that particular point in life. I was a mad-haired, rebellious, arrogant, hormone-enraged arse, surrounded by similar people with varying degrees of self-importance and mane madness (it was just a little past the 1970’s after all).
I went to a grammar school and it was, kind of, meant to be for the brightest boys in Walsall. In the sixth form, conversations veered between total immature, hormone-driven stupidity and all manner of intellectual subject matter, embracing just about everything else in between.
One such topic for discussion was religion.
In 1980, I noticed an alarming explosion in the number of born again Christians in my school year and as more of my friends succumbed, I found myself having to defend myself for being a Roman Catholic.
One particularly arrogant mate of mine said:
“I told my pastor that you aren’t a true Christian because you are Catholic. He told me I shouldn’t try to ridicule you; I should try to convert you.”
The fact that I was a lapsed Catholic and had given up going to church two years earlier was irrelevant. My rebellious streak urged me – no – ordered me to fight my corner.
And then Ian Gillan released a song. This song actually made it into the UK charts. And it stirred up a hornet’s nest, causing several major arguments and several friends to fall out with each other.
It’s called No Laughing In Heaven and, to a born again Christian, the lyrics are totally offensive. I, and many others, found the lyrics amusing.
Here it is – with lyrics. You may not like the song – but stick with it.
Did we argue about the lyrical content of the song? Of course.
Did we fall out about the song? Absolutely.
I think I started the ball rolling with:
“Surely you find it funny. A man changes his lifestyle so that he can go to Heaven and spend eternity partying, only to find that Heaven is like a perpetual church service and that Hell is the place where the party is. Don’t you understand irony?”
And my final pièce de résistance:
“Hasn’t God got a sense of humour?”
You can imagine the reaction. Those who liked the song or couldn’t see anything wrong with it were lambasted mercilessly.
“You really WILL spend the remainder of your existence burning in Hell,” they said.
And of course I reacted with:
“I’m Catholic – I’ll spend some time in Purgatory and then get my pass from St Peter.”
Since my schooldays, I’ve mellowed a lot though I am still curious about religion and why a born again Christian would regard me as heathen, despite my being a Catholic and despite having spent the first sixteen years of my life praying in church, confessing my sins to a priest and taking communion.
One of the problems is that you simply cannot argue with some of these people. I enjoy having a discussion with anybody, particularly if I am curious about the subject. I find it difficult to talk to evangelical Christians because their argument is always something along the lines of:
“It’s God’s will.”
And the discussion terminates at that point.
I watched a comedy routine from Reginald D. Hunter and he pointed out this exact thing. He said something along the lines of:
“When a Christian says “It’s God’s Will” that really means “I’m done thinking”.”
There’s many a true word spoken in jest, so the saying goes.
If you are a born again Christian, dear reader, please be aware that I am not here to mock you or your beliefs. I am genuinely interested in why you have the views you have and will gladly and willingly have a chat about it and why you think I am going to be Satan’s plaything for eternity just for trying to have an open mind about these things.
I have a scientific mind and I would dearly love to see proof that God really does exist and that he has a sense of humour – and probably most importantly, if he can divulge what will happen to me when I shuffle off this mortal coil:
(a)Spend eternity in a vast empty void of emptiness … or
(b)Be condemned to eternity in Hell for writing this post and laughing at “No Laughing In Heaven” …or
(c)Be punished in Purgatory, alongside Ian Gillan.
Knowing my luck, it will be (b) – and I will be chained to Piers Morgan and forced to eat rhubarb while listening to opera and Shakespeare for the rest of time.
A trip to Manchester city centre can sometimes be entertaining and thankfully a visit last Saturday did not disappoint.
Mrs PM told me that she planned to go to the city in the morning in order to buy a couple of things, in particular a new watch for her fortieth birthday courtesy of her mother. She wanted my opinion and so I agreed to go.
Regular readers will know that I have always suffered when shopping with Mrs PM mainly because she is a woman.
Shopping with Mrs PM can be particularly irritating because I am usually dragged around shop after shop and left standing looking like perverts in the middle of the lingerie section while she tries on the umpteenth item of clothing.
However, in this case, Mrs PM promised that we would only be a couple of hours and that all she wanted to do was to buy the watch and for me to help her choose it.
I agreed.
We decided to go early to beat the crowds and a miracle occurred; Mrs PM chose her watch in the very first shop we tried and it only took about twenty minutes. She was happy and I was elated.
“Can I just look around for a handbag?” she asked. I was buoyant after the success of the watch purchase so I agreed.
“While you are looking for your bag, I’ll pop into HMV,” I suggested.
After browsing through the CD’s on offer and the new releases, I decided that HMV was too expensive and that I could get what I wanted cheaper via the internet. I left HMV on Market Street slightly early and decided to watch the crowds while I waited for Mrs PM.
And I was in for a treat.
First there was a guy playing a guitar just like Hank Marvin. He had a small crowd around him and entertained them and me with his rendition a song by the Shadows. A bit further down the street, a young couple were salsa dancing, which was very brave considering the drizzle that was drifting down from the heavens. Even further, a guy sitting a massive green umbrella played a mixture of songs by Dire Straits and other similar artists; he had a great singing voice and played a mean guitar.
I saw Mrs PM approaching and as she did, my attention was drawn to a man standing in the middle of Market Street who was shouting at everybody.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Mrs PM who had walked past him.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t listening.”
“Can I just walk past him?” I asked.
“You attract nutters,” she warned. “Keep your distance.”
As I approached, I began to smile. He wasn’t a nutter at all but he was very brave and very foolish.
He was a normal looking guy in his late thirties with black hair and a few grey tinges and was wearing a black coat and jeans. He was clutching a well thumbed Bible and bellowing at anybody and everybody who walked past.
I wanted to go closer as we approached but Mrs PM pulled me to a distance that was close enough to hear him but far enough to make a quick getaway in case he made a threatening move.
“You! Yes you there!” he yelled at a particularly sweet old lady. “You are EVIL! Your wickedness knows NO BOUNDS!”
I laughed.
“SSSHHHH!!!” hissed Mrs PM.
The old lady and others ignored him; yet I was fascinated that this man had the balls to chastise every person passing. He looked into his Bible for guidance and then starting screeching scripture at people accusing them all of being fundamentally evil and committing a major sin by merely existing.
I caught his eye.
“Your EVIL is beyond measure,” he bellowed across at me stabbing his Bible with his finger. “You seek reward in this life. You will not be rewarded in the next.”
I smiled at him and was very tempted to go to him and find out why he was having such a bad day and to advise him that he should perhaps stop accusing every person who passed of being evil personified. After all, somebody might just punch him.
Mrs PM dragged me away before I could act. But this man did get me thinking – and that is a dangerous thing. It got me thinking about religion and people’s interpretation of it.
I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, something I abandoned as a rebellious teenager. The problem I found with being a Roman Catholic was that no matter what I did, I was in the wrong. My soul was stained with Original Sin (through no fault of my own) and as a consequence I had to live my life in a constant state of repentance, confessing my sins on a weekly basis to a priest who would punish me by making me recite thousands of prayers.
And at the end of all that? I would end up in Purgatory being tortured before I was worthy enough to pass through the gates of Heaven.
I know that one or two readers of this blog are very religious and that they feel it is their solemn duty to spread the word of the Lord to the fallen, like me. I’m okay with that – I am fascinated by it in fact and I will do absolutely nothing to stop them from preaching the Word to me. In fact, I actively encourage it.
I don’t mean to belittle the beliefs of anybody who is a Christian at all but I would like to know how certain people can be so convinced that because I am sceptical of their words that I will burn in Hell. I was told that as a child even when I was religious – so what’s changed now that I am not?
When I was in the sixth form at school (aged about seventeen), there was a sudden surge of religion amongst my friends. One or two, like me, had decided that going to church was not for them. A fairly large number, however, travelled the other way and became “Born Again Christians”.
What is a “Born Again Christian?”
It is a person who has been reborn spiritually and sees spiritual life and belief in a completely different way. I was fascinated by this and at the time I actually started to interrogate friends who had undergone this transformation.
In those early days, my tone came across as scornful as if I were making fun of them. These guys didn’t help themselves. One guy who had been reborn a week before accused me of being Satan in human form because I listened to heavy metal. Another said that I was not a Christian even though I was a Roman Catholic. I would have to be baptised AGAIN if I wanted to become a “true” Christian.
As you can see – the lines are clearly blurred between the various Christian factions. I didn’t help myself because I was cruel in those youthful days.
One guy, a very intelligent lad who ended up at Oxford University, stood up in front of the school at assembly and told us a story that his pastor had told him that illustrated his beliefs and explained why he had begun to follow the Lord. He said:
Two men were on an island with the tide rising. If they didn’t leave they would drown. A man appeared on the water and held out his hand. “Follow me,” he said, “ and you will be saved.” The first man was sceptical and had no faith. “I will not follow you – if I do I will drown.” The other man had faith and took the man’s hand. He departed leaving the sceptic behind. And what happened to the sceptic? The water got him.
All of this proves that you must have faith in the Lord. If you have faith you will be saved. If you don’t – the water will get you.
Nobody argued – except me. After the assembly, his fellow Christians congratulated him on his speech.
“Hang on,” I said. “What if the man who suddenly appeared on the water had been Satan and had tempted the man to follow him? Wouldn’t he have followed the man off the island straight into the Gates of Hell to have red hot pokers stuffed up his arse for all eternity? How can you use that story to illustrate faith?”
The problem was that because he believed his story without question, he accused me of doubting the word of the Lord and consequently I was embarking upon the road to Hell itself.
“But how do you know that the man in the story wasn’t Satan? How would you know? Didn’t Satan attempt to tempt Jesus?”
That did it – they all refused to even consider my argument and walked away proud, yet sorrowful that I was going to become Satan’s plaything for all eternity.
This is what irritated me about certain groups of Christians; they refused to argue and debate about it.
Many years later, in Birmingham, I was sitting outside the library on a bright sunny afternoon when a Christian came up to me and told me that I was going to Hell.
“I beg your pardon?” I said. “How do you know?”
“Do you acknowledge that our Lord is the Way the Truth and the Light? Do you embrace Him without question? Do you have faith?”
“I’m a Roman Catholic,” I replied. “What are you exactly?”
“I’m a follower of the One True Lord,” he said.
I tried to debate with him but he, too, told me in no uncertain terms that I was going to Hell.
“Hang on,” I asked finally, now very annoyed with him. “How do you KNOW? How do you actually know that I am going to Hell? What proof have you got? Who told you?”
“God,” he declared as if that were proof enough and sufficient to end the discussion.
“So God has just told you that I am going to Hell, has he? How did you hear Him? Did he come down and tell you? Am I not privy to this secret conversation between you and the Lord?”
“It’s not too late,” he said mellowing slightly. “Come with me and you can be saved. Open your heart and let in the Lord.”
“The Lord is in all of us,” I said fighting back. “You have no right to declare that I am going to Hell just because I don’t walk the streets talking to strangers about Satan and his minions.”
These days I am much more relaxed about it, having met and chatted to quite a few born again Christians. I welcome their input and I can have a good conversation with them about their beliefs. They have faith that I don’t but they do not seem to scare me into believing that I am going to Hell.
I have noticed a trend though and I don’t really want to say that this is why people are “born again”. A lot of people who suddenly find the Lord seem to do so when they hit rock bottom and are embraced by a crowd of friendly and supportive people at a Christian gathering. It is that support that lifts them up and breaths new life into them. Not all people hit rock bottom but when they get involved in the church, the support of the congregation can be mesmerising.
This was certainly the case for Mrs PM’s grandparent, Tom and Paula; they never hit rock bottom but they became Christians when they were welcomed by an Evangelical Church in their early sixties.
When I first met them, about fifteen years after their rebirth, I thought they were wonderfully happy people. I had no idea that they were seriously religious until Tom died.
I saw Paula shortly afterwards and said “I’m really sorry to hear about Tom. He was a lovely man.”
She said “Thanks very much – he’s with the Lord now.”
And then I realised something – her faith helped her cope with the loss.
The funeral was very sad for the family but I realised that Tom belonged to a much bigger family than his own flesh and blood: the Christian family at his church. The pastor led a celebration of Tom’s life in a packed church full of friends that they had met through religion and many of them shouted out prayers asking the Lord to look after Tom and guide Paula through the hardship. Songs were sung and Tom’s life was celebrated – it was almost a celebration of his passing into Heaven.
It was pretty much the same when Paula died a couple of years later All this has taught me that, if nothing else, belief in the Lord and faith makes people happy and guides them through life with no fear of death.
I think that is a good thing, which is why I try not to mock devout Christians.
There are a few bad eggs though and it is those who annoy me. A man standing in the centre of Manchester telling everybody who passes that they are evil is, in my opinion, wrong.
We should embrace life and be tolerant of those whose beliefs differ from our own.
Even Jehovah’s Witnesses – I am one of those people who love discussing religion with them. Most people slam the door in their faces – whereas I will chat about the differences in our beliefs until the cows come home. Perhaps that’s why they don’t call anymore.
Anyway – I will leave you with the words of a much loved Irish comedian who was one of my all time favourites – the late great Dave Allen. Here he is:
Apart from the obvious pain involved I think that I might just be in a bit of trouble when I finally meet my maker. Why? Because I have sinned.
Those of you who are atheists will almost certainly say:
“You are a stupid idiot. When you die, you cease to be. Remember that time before you were born? You can’t can you. Why? I’ll tell you why. You simply didn’t exist. And that is exactly what will happen when you shuffle off this mortal coil. You will cease to exist. Sinning is irrelevant.”
Those of you who are religious in any way will probably say:
“Why? What have you done? Surely it can’t be that bad. God will forgive you.”
I am a Roman Catholic. When I say “am” I really mean “was baptised”. I stopped going to Mass when I was sixteen and have only popped back for weddings and funerals.
I think the reason I did so was because I found it all terribly boring. When I used to go to church, the main High Mass on Sunday was at 11 o’clock and sometimes in Latin. I studied Latin at school but to sit there for an hour and a half listening to “Credo in unum Deum, patrem omnipotentem …” sung out of tune by an old priest who was out of touch with my youthful exuberance was just too much.
I almost fell out with my mother because of my rebelliousness.
Roman Catholics will probably tell me that I should renew my faith and go back to church to have my sins forgiven. I can imagine sitting there in confession:
“Bless me father for I have sinned. It is 32 years since my last confession. I hope you have a month or three to spare because boy have I got some stories to tell you.”
I can honestly say that I won’t do that. If Catholics are to be believed then I when I die I will face my maker who will sentence me to a stint in Purgatory where I will be cleansed of my sins with pain and fire.
In fact, as my soul is being cleansed in the punishment camps of Purgatory, somebody will probably read this blog post to me and tell me that I have sinned simply by writing it. The fact that I haven’t attended Mass for so long and have actually mocked my religion and made fun of priests will undoubtedly lead to a lengthier sentence.
But have I really sinned?
Let’s take a look at the seven deadly sins and see how I have fared.
PRIDE
What is pride?
Pride is extreme self believe or vanity or self obsession. From a religious perspective, pride is really focussing on yourself rather than God. Purists will suggest for example that if you pursue knowledge for the benefit of God or others then you are doing fine. However, if you learn for your own benefit only, to basically say that you are better than others then I’m afraid you are on the slippery slope to committing this deadly sin.
The sin of pride is a particular grey area for me and I personally believe that deep down every single person is guilty of it – myself included. I write this blog for example so that people can read it and be entertained or learn something. However, I also write it for myself because I want to practice my writing techniques so that, in an ideal world, I will write a book and obtain steaming great piles of cash and fame from being a successful writer. God doesn’t come into it. That’s why I am committing the sin of pride.
VERDICT: I’m stuffed on this one.
ENVY
What is envy?
Envy is the dislike of somebody who has something you don’t have, for example a possession or a job. If a mate of mine were to win the lottery I would be happy for him but, for a moment at least, I would hate him for it. Why? Because he would be free and be able to cast aside the chains that bind him to the interminable rat race that I am so desperate to escape from myself.
And I cannot believe that there are people out there in the world who do not commit the sin of envy. I frequently hear people say “I envy you” but the fact that they come clean and say it to make the other person feel better doesn’t detract for a second from the fact that their opinion of that person plummets even if it is only for a second.
I envy people and I admit it. I don’t hate them permanently but I am jealous. I am jealous of successful authors. I am jealous of people who can afford the Ferrari that (once again) Father Christmas failed to bring me on his overloaded sleigh.
VERDICT: I’m screwed on this one.
GLUTTONY
What is gluttony?
Gluttony is the need to consume excessively. This post has come so close to Christmas that I am still smarting from the vast quantities of food that I have forced myself to eat. On Christmas Day I ate a dinner that was so huge there was snow on the peaks. I followed this up with mince pie and then chocolates. At the end of the day I was laid on the settee and couldn’t see my feet over my huge wobbling belly.
Next day I was relieved to see that my belly had shrunk somewhat but then it all started again when we travelled to Blackpool to visit Mrs PM’s dad.
Why did I eat so much? Because everybody else did. I am not the only one. Thankfully I am really quite slim which I could say is evidence that I have not committed the sin of gluttony. It is, however, poor evidence, because I know that I have been a greedy pig and will be again – and I’m not just talking about Christmas.
VERDICT: Dear oh dear! I think the jury will scream “Guilty, your honour” for that one.
LUST
What is lust?
Lust is the excessive desire for pleasures of the flesh.
This particular sin is just plain ridiculous. Since the age of around thirteen my body has been betraying me in this particular area and I simply couldn’t help it – I still can’t. I craved sex from that age. I am a man and testosterone floods through my body creating a chemical reaction that has visible side effects. It is only will power and self control that stops me and just about every male from wanting their wicked way with attractive women. Men are driven by lust. There is no use denying it. Women too can be driven by lust (or so I’ve been told).
Maybe the key word here is “excessive”.
One thing makes me laugh. When people get checked into clinics for “sex addiction” I think to myself “Crikey! I must be a sex addict too.” If the sex police had injected me with a truth serum when I was eighteen years old and asked me “What do you desire more than anything in the world?” I would have blurted out “SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX!”. They would have carted me off to the clinic to cure me of sex addiction alongside every single other eighteen year old man as well.
VERDICT: They are building the gallows for me now.
WRATH
What is wrath?
Wrath or anger is a negative and potentially destructive emotion that inflicts every single human being on the planet – and most other creatures too.
There are quite a few things that make me angry. I am fairly laid back and on the rare occasions that anger overwhelms me, I try to control myself, mainly because I hate the consequences. That doesn’t mean that I will pick up the nearest blunt object and bludgeon the target of my wrath to within an inch of their lives. What I hate about anger are the arguments and the perpetuation of arguments.
When I am genuinely angry I tend to explode like a mini nuclear bomb and then get the hell out of there. Rather than letting anger take control of my body I allow a certain amount to erupt against the source of the anger (usually a tirade of abuse) and then I walk away and allow the rest to dissipate. In fact, I find that writing provides a great outlet. If I convert my wrath into vitriolic words, the anger flows out, enabling me to read about and process the source.
Others use different ways to get rid of their anger, some acceptable others totally unacceptable.
Every human being is different but the key thing here is that every human being gets angry and those that say they do not are liars.
VERDICT: I would be in the Tower of London now if Henry VIII was my judge.
GREED
What is greed?
Whereas gluttony is the desire to stuff huge quantities of food down your gullet, greed is the desire for material possessions. From a religious perspective the added caveat is that it is material gain for yourself while ignoring God and the spiritual realm.
We all want bigger and better things for ourselves. A lot of the time we want a bigger house, a bigger car, more money, a yacht and many other things that make our lives just that little bit easier. I have said, many times, that I want to win the lottery so that I can escape the rat race and live my dreams. I want to travel the world and write books about my exploits. Is that greed?
This is another sin that I think is a little nebulous. We all want material possessions – even priests.
VERDICT: The axe man draweth near.
SLOTH
What is sloth?
Sloth is the evasion of physical work. Moreover, from a religious perspective, it is the avoidance of spiritual work.
I am lazy by nature but I have a job which demands a lot of my time. When asked to do extra work I am usually willing to do so (to a limit) and have been praised for it.
Yet when it comes to chores around the house I am truly lazy. The only reason I do stuff is because the alternative is less desirable – an argument with Mrs PM.
VERDICT: I think the jury might be struggling with this one unless they look at spiritual sloth, in which case I am as guilty as a cat whose mouth and whiskers are covered in cream.
Well, dear reader, it looks as if I am going to be sentenced to a little fire and brimstone when my time on this little blue planet is over. A stint in Purgatory seems inevitable. I won’t really be able to argue because there are too many examples from my life to let me off the hook.
The good news is that I think I will be in good company because I reckon that most if not all of the human race will be by my side as I am purged of my sins.
My only hope is that people like Jeremy Kyle or Piers Morgan are next to me so that I can see the smug grins wiped off their faces as we all suffer.
