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Real Men Still Do This

October 11, 2012 pilgrim 5 comments

I was at lunch with a new friend the other day and, as a matter of course, as we were leaving the café, I opened the store’s door for her. Her reaction was one of utter surprise! She asked me if opening doors was an “English thing”! I replied no, it’s a “real man” thing.

It’s a complete joke!

You may have heard the joke that if you see a man opening a car door for a lady then it’s either a new lady or a new car. Unfortunately, this joke appears to be, in fact, reality. This is tragic! It’s so sad when a man does not think enough of the lady in his company so as to perform this simple act of kindness. It’s even more heartbreaking when a husband does not do this for the woman to whom he has pledged his life.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies… – Ephesians 5:25, 28

Catholicism

Church and Professionalism

October 10, 2013 pilgrim 4 comments

Quite some time ago Msgr Pope from the Archdiocese of Washington DC wrote a blog entry about the wages of Catholic employees, noting that a recent study at that time suggested that their pay now finally comes close to matching that of their non-Catholic counterparts. Great news!

However, unfortunately in my personal experience I have found this not to be the case. Many of my friends are employed by the Church in some capacity or other and the question very often isn’t whether their wage is competitive, but as to whether it is even a living wage.

professionalism

Catholicism

Bad Islamic Apologetics

September 19, 2019 pilgrim Leave a comment

I was in an apologetics discussion group and someone posted the following:

I told the members of the group that I didn’t like this line of argumentation. Several people responded by saying that since the Qur’an claims that there are no contradictions within its pages, the passages cited above were clear evidence that the book is not of divine origin.

In reply, I explained that they were interpreting the Qur’an in a way which forced a contradiction and then declared it to contain contradictions. I pointed out that they would never accept a Muslim exegeting the Bible in this way.

Even without digging into the context of these passages from the Qur’an, it seemed immediately obvious to me that the statements could very easily be harmonised by simply recognising that “first of” can mean “foremost among”. This would mean that, according to the Qur’an, Moses declared himself to be foremost among the believers of his time and Muhammad made the same claim for himself in his own generation. Interpreting the passages in this way eliminates the contradiction.

There are many apparent contradictions in the Bible, but careful exegesis can show this not to be the case. If you wouldn’t accept bad methodology when interpreting the Bible, you shouldn’t force it on the Qur’an….

Apologetics

Best of British/Irish: Part 3

December 12, 2011 pilgrim 5 comments

Last week I began a series of posts about comedy shows from back home. I have found that American exposure to these comedians and shows is rather limited. I’ll sometimes meet people who have seen Monty Python, Absolutely Fabulous or Benny Hill [rolls eyes], but there’s so much more on offer!

Since I usually write about subjects related to religion, today I’d like to focus on one show in particular that concerns Catholicism: the very excellent “Fr Ted”.

Fr. Ted is a priest who lives on a tiny island off the coast of Ireland with two other priests: an idiot and an angry drunk who has a fear of nuns, together with a housekeeper who has an obsessive need to serve people tea…

Despite the fact that this show deals with the subject of religion (a touchy area when it comes to comedy), it really pulls it off brilliantly because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Speaking of which, have you ever wondered what would happen if a group of priests got trapped in the lingerie section of a department store? Well, thanks to Fr Ted, wonder no more…

Catholicism

Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 3 (“Abundance”, …)

December 10, 2016 pilgrim Leave a comment

Continuing through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters:

Surah 108 – “Abundance” (Al-Kauther)
A three-verse chapter in which Allah tells Muhammad that He has granted him the most abundant good and cut off Muhammad’s enemies from good things in this life and the next.

Questions

Q1. Muhammad is told to “offer sacrifice to [Allah alone]”. What sacrifices did Muhammad offer?

Things that make me happy

December 1, 2012 pilgrim 6 comments

The other day I was thinking about things which make me happy. It’s actually quite a difficult exercise – if you don’t believe me, give it a go. What are the things which make you really, truly happy? Where are the places you can always find joy?

After sitting down and writing the list I’ve concluded that I’m actually quite easy to please. Although in many ways I’m extremely demanding of myself and others, it doesn’t actually take a whole lot to make me happy: