Old Blogs

Where has my sympathy gone?

One of the horrible side effects of growing older with a progressive disorder is a hardening of the spirit. Maybe its a defense mechanism or a refusal to waste time on crocodile tears or even to tolerate being around those who seem to love producing them.

Recenlty I have heard of a few people diagnosed with various forms of cancer, and all the compassion I can muster is to hope that their suffering is short and minimal. At least there is an end in sight. and ultimately they had a long healthy run. I don’t think I will be getting any Nobel prizes for compassion anytime soon!

Although in my defense, a cancer diagnosis does not have the same implications that it once had. In a lot of cases it will be a conquerable and fixed time inconvenience. I think that is much preferable to a long drawn out illness attacking on so many different fronts.

A friend of my brothers gave me a book (in hopes of challenging my errant beliefs presumably) called “The Devil’s Delusion” which of course is the religious answer to Mr Dawkins “The God delusion”

Far from changing my opinions, the literary arrogance of the book only fuels them further.David Berlinski keeps rehashing paper thin religious arguments that say man is fundamentally morally bankrupt, and that without god everything is permitted. I do not have enough speed in my fingers to get through most of his scare mongering attempts to get us back into the pay, pray and obey position, but this is one example of it when he talks about euthanasia in Holland.

“A great many elderly Dutch carry around sanctuary certificated indicating in no uncertain terms that they do not wish their doctors to assist them to die, emerging from their comas when they are ill,. just long enough to tell these murderous pests, for heavens sake to go away”

And they wonder why the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin at te moment is so poorly attended, thankfully only by the blue rinse brigade and the otherwise repressed. The idea of spending all eternity with that blinkered lot is enough to gladly choose a hell (if another one exists).

0 0 0 0 0

Comments are closed.