Why do religious sometimes irritate me?

The other day I spent time at a party where there were a number of religious people! In the end I find them irritating unless we can find some other graounds for common interest. They are often nice, intelligent kind people but there is something which worries me.

Perhaps it is in the end that religion, certainly those derived from the old testament beliefs are about man's vanity. Probably man is appropriate rather than human. They exist in a world where man is humble before god BUT god created man in his likeness. What this does is to elevate man above all other creatures on earth. So the faith justifies the superiority of man above all others, so feeds mans vanity.

We have the spectacle of Anglican bishops flocking to the Church of Rome because they don';t want to have women bishops, what greater outporing of man's vanity could you expect. This is all done in the name of religion. Added to this as the wonderful claim that the chosen book, whether it be the New Testament, the Old Testament or the Koran are really the work of god so cannot be questioned. But god has only given this status to man so we can lord it over others, whether the be mice or elephants.

Perhaps the animist religions are less susceptible to this vanity of man but I must admit to some ignorance of these faiths, similarly Hinduism, but it seems to have some difficulties with caste system, creating superiority amongst humans.

Is it it related to the difficulty we have of accepting that we have no purpose and are just an accident. We just want to think that man is more important than a flea or a tree. So a belief in god who has made us makes us important and feeds our vanity. One has only to watch or listen to those who have climbed the tree of organised religions to feel the vanity they exude, even when expressing humility before god, there is very little in their attitude to their fellow man.

It is OK to believe if it makes you a better person and for some that might be true but when it turns into a crusade against others or even a belief in your own self-importance it it is the slippery slope to arrogance , which should always be avoided

Munich by mistake

It is curious that David Cameron made his racist speech in Munich. Was that a mistake but did the resonance with Hitler chime with his own views.

Notice that he only attacked extremist Islamist groups not extremist, Jews, Christians or Hindus. All of whom have some views which are antagonistic to British values. Very recently some Christians were taken to court for not allowing a gay couple to share a bed. Mind you it was not so long ago that the gay couple could be sent to prison for wanting to share a bed. Not so far from some of the extreme Islamist views, there were even those advocating chemical castration of homosexuals. It was not so long ago that people like Alan Turing felt so hounded for his homosexuality by the law, he committed suicide .

Then there are the Anglican bishops who left the church and joined the papists because they oppose equal rights for women. How come the churches, of all varieties, are allowed to ignore the legislation which applies to everyone else. The real problem is not any particular religion but the inordinate respect that is given to religious views.

But somehow it is OK to criticize the brown skinned religions rather more than their white skinned varieties and that is just racist. You have to remeber who Mr Cameron has allied himself with in Europe to understand that civilisation does not run very deep in the modern Tory party.