I quote this because I chose to bring this up in the "non-religious" area of HoF, even though the topic is essentially of a religious nature.The name "Lasto Beth Lammen" is from a spell that Gandalf used to try to open the doors of Moria. It means "listen to the words of my tongue". It is a reminder to people to try to really listen to what other people have to say, and not just talk past each other.
This was prompted by a recent encounter with a family of fundamentalist faith. I was working in Bunratty Castle as usual when I was made aware that one of the young women at the banquet was a contestant in the recent Rose of Tralee Festival. Before continuing, I should explain that the "Rose of Tralee" festival is an Irish institution and although ostensibly a Beauty pageant, it has more to do with the Irish diaspora, and what they and their subsequent generations have chosen to pursue. Naturally, all the girls are attractive, but personality and goals have a huge part to play in the competition. There is no "swimsuit round"!
Anyway, I was chatting to the Arizona Rose, a lovely girl called Danielle McBurnett. Her parents and sister were with her and we were having a grand old chat. While discussing the problems in the north and issues between Catholics and Protestants, I remarked that most of those issues were consigned to the past, and that I felt the US had bigger problems than us, particularly regarding the "Fundamentalist Right". Well, as you may have expected by now, the family promptly informed me that they were Fundamentalists. My response was "Well, yeah, but surely you don't believe in a 7000 year old Earth". They did.
Not only that, but over the next half an hour, they informed me of the following:
They believed that Dinosaurs and Humans lived on the Earth simultaneously. (Proven apparently by the fact that diamonds can be created in a lab)
They believed that the Grand Canyon was created by the actual events of the Flood.
They believed that there was no possible rationale to excuse abortion, even if their 16 year old daughter had been raped. In fact I was informed that they would feel privileged to raise the child and that their daughters would be both happy and thrilled to raise the child of a rapist.
They believed that Jesus Christ and God were personally known to them and that they "could not wait to die" so that they could "meet him face to face".
Now, I consider myself to be a Christian, and a Catholic, but these proclamations seemed to me to be the ravings of lunatics. Lovely people, yes, but inherently unstable. But then I stopped and considered. In a strange way, these people are more Catholic than I. They believe the literal truth of the bible, while I believe its a guide at best, and more likely a parable to be pondered rather than a fixed instruction. More so, I found myself wondering if an atheist finds my beliefs as incomprehensible and absurd as I found those of a Fundamentalist.
So why have I posted this here? Because I want to examine religion from a purely practical angle. My religion, yours, those none of us believe. Is Scientology more irrational than Christianity? Or Judaism? Or Buddhism? Aside from what we believe what is there about any religion that makes it better than another? If we strip back to the provable facts, what makes one religion superior?
(No offence intended here. I simply wanted to give an honest reaction to what prompted this post.)