Suffering, Euthanasia, And The Passion Of Jesus Christ

I don’t often write about religion as I don’t mind it as long as you’re not either pushing it on others or attacking science in the name of it. As an atheist I might consider it an unsupported position, but it’s called faith for a reason. The most you’ll get from me is a shrug or me rolling my eyes if it’s a particular strange belief. But sometimes the religious say or do something that just doesn’t go down well with me; this time it actually got me quite angry.

Before I go into what this was there’s something you need to know about me. I have a disease called X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy, as it’s a bit of a mouthful this is often abbreviated to X-ALD. It’s a metabolic disease caused by a mutation on the X chromosome, people who have it can’t produce a certain protein. Without it very-long chain fatty acids — a type of saturated fats — cannot be transported to the mitochondria in cells and metabolised. This is problematic as fats do not dissolve in water so your body cannot get rid of them, these fats then will start to accumulate in cells and organs.

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Hypatia – The Secular Patron Saint of Librarians

I’m not often jealous of religious people.  I mean, yes, they have a faith community that’s sometimes nice, and they have the whole “consolation of the afterlife” thing, but almost all of the time I’m fine accepting the reality with which I’m presented and not having to invent more of it in the form of fanfic.  However, one area in which I really do think that religious people have it figured out is that of saints, or specifically patron saints.

A patron saint in a religion like Christianity, and especially in its business wing the Catholic church is a figure who embodies entirely a particular place or a particular virtue, to the point where instead of praying to God about that thing you pray to the saint.  I think of them as being God’s cabinet, or maybe his collection of regional vice presidents.  A form of heavenly middle management.  So, if you’re having a problem getting online, you drop a quick prayer to Saint Isidore, patron saint of the Internet, and… well, let’s be honest, bugger all will happen but you might feel better about the bugger all that’s happening.

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