I've been reading the book, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago. The style he uses takes a while to get used to, but now I find it quite compelling. So this morning I decided to look on-line for some more information about the author, other than the blurbs on the book jacket. I was surprised to find that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. I must have been asleep in 1998. And I found this…
Saramago has been a member of the Portuguese Communist Party since 1969, as well as an atheist and self-described pessimist. The first two don't bother me, but his being a pessimist can create some tension for me. I'm a cynic and that's often mistaken for being a pessimist, which I'm not. So perhaps he really is a cynic after all. I would like to think that he is.
And some more reading revealed that Catholics and Jews are given official sanction to hate this author. In fact, he had to leave his native Portugal because the Catholic government of Portugal became quite oppressive concerning his books and he now lives on the Canary Islands, a part of Spain.
I'm a christian and I have always found it strange that Official Christian denominations find it necessary to defend and protect God. Am I missing something here? My God both created and stands outside the universe. That's big! He, or She, is all knowing and all loving. Why would He or She need to be protected? Or…is it that 'thinking' needs to be curtailed as it might somehow affect the Official Church? Believers only! No thinking allowed!
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