this be the post

As a theist myself, I find any discussion of God or religion quite interesting. Popular culture also has at least a passing interest in matters theological, though its treatment is usually debased by the simplicity or egotism of the argument. References to God are scattered throughout popular song lyrics, replete with a heavy dose of moralising. "If there's a God in heaven/what's he waiting for/if he can't see the children/then he must see the war" writes one lyricist. They might just as well have said 'We got ourselves into this mess, so you get us out". Not especially fair, is it? This kind of appeal is to the God-who-must-keep-the-good-times-rolling.

On the other hand, another song goes, "I don't believe in an interventionist God', which, I think, is quite an ambitious line in the undemanding realm of pop culture. To his credit,the writer eschews the idea that God has a role in human history, an honest appraisal which throws responsibility back onto, just us, apparently.

Poets have taken a slightly more serious approach, as poets do. Still they can be just as visceral, such as the bard who opines "That'll be the life/No God any more or sweating in the dark/Or having to hide what you think of the priest". Will the older, once God-fearing generation really have such envious thoughts of the young? I wonder. Surely there is a ledger for these kinds of profits and losses. In fairness, the same poet does express doubts himself, for he writes of churches, that, despite their fall into relative disuse, "..someone will forever be surprising/a hunger in himself to be more serious/ and gravatating with it to this ground" perhaps with the view to gaining wisdom.

Here in the Blue Mountains we have a thick stew of religious beliefs, particularly of the New Age variety. So God, or a variant of God, comes up quite often, though this God tends to have a smorgasboard of user-friendly rules and conventions. Acolytes can have a relatively pain-free, and deeply self-centred experience should they wish to, though I don't doubt that growing to self-awareness, if that is the goal, carries it's own backback of pain. It's not that I don't think these modern takes on old ideas and practices don't have value, they do, it's just that they are generally incoherent and too easily bought into and out of.

Me, I'm a bit of an old-fashioned theist - somewhat at the liberal end, but happily anchored to a more traditional way of seeing God.I don't mind what people believe really, so long as it does no harm.