JP's Corner of The Blogosphere

Some of you have probably been paying attention to my recent post on "the purpose of religion". Chrisp was probably right when he said that no-one would have the strength to wade through 25 posts, and perhaps I should have stormed in with the pepper spray and called it quits. However, I've not had time to respond for a while, but have some thoughts of my own. So to quote the wedding service I attended yesterday, "for richer for poorer, for better, for worse...", I shall now make an attempt to distill some of my thoughts. I was hoping to tag a comment on the end but there seem to be some technical difficulties with that, so I'm taking the rather brave step of putting it all in a whole new post. On the plus side, some of you probably wouldn't have bothered scrolling down anyway, This would have been comment number 26 on this post, so I hope you'll forgive me if I don't respond to everything, if I've missed something important, or if I...

I think that perhaps Gareth was right, when he implied that this post is perhaps in danger of causing a riot. Underneath it all there is an interesting debate going on, and I shall wade in with my thoughts in due course, but there’s been another small drought in this Corner of the Blogosphere recently, and I feel that I should address that issue first. If you were the one who received a random text last Wednesday reassuring you that I was wearing Wednesday’s socks I apologise for the inconvenience. It was an ‘in joke’ (he says, trying not to admit too obviously to the fact he has Days of the Week Socks, on the basis that it might not be A Good Thing). However, as per the second half of the message, if you did happen to have a cold, I do genuinely hope that it’s better. Wednesday was a particular day of Faux Pas for me, but it was all quite amusing. Being Holy Week (the week preceding Easter), I took part in a church service that evening as part of a series looking reflecting on th...

I expect that the Anglicans amongst you are thinking "He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!" Happy Easter!

One of the things which featured in the recent debate on this post is the idea that “religion should be about improving oneself”. This has got me thinking; ‘religion’ of course takes many forms, but in the vast majority of cases I disagree with this. To paraphrase MarkC, religion is certainly something which as a by-product might help with “improving oneself”, but however you measure self-improvement it is not the sole point, certainly not in the Judeo-Christian case. In fact, if your sole aim is to “improve yourself”, why waste your time playing around with the trappings of religion? Most religions are based around the idea of faith in God, and that, surely, is the point. Considering Christianity specifically, Jesus said “ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself ” and so ‘religion’ should not be in danger of becoming all about wo...

Two things have happened in the few minutes since my last post, which have brightened my morning considerably. Firstly, the woman who was filing her nails with impressively annoying volume is no longer sat behind me (and consequently my teeth are no longer gritted and my blood pressure is no longer rising). Secondly, I have procured a copy of the Metro. This is always a Good Thing, but I was particularly amused by today's front page. There's a sequence of photos showing some bloke trying to drive his car at apparently excessive speed across a flooded bit of road. He failed, and somehow, if that wasn't embarrassing enough someone's decided to tell the nation's commuters... Defined by user

It's amazing what irritating things one has to experience as a commuter. I only wrote here recently about the amorous Germans I encountered on my way home, for example. Today the woman behind me is filing her nails. She's been doing so for some time and it's making one of those noises which makes me want to grit my teeth. In the scheme of things, I guess nail filing isn't abnormal but I'm wondering just how many fingers this lady has. Blood is starting t boil. Incidentally, it's been great to watch the debate on my previous post. I've been very busy recently, but I'll wade in with my penny-worth before long. Watch this space. Defined by user