What kind of apostate are you?

I noted a couple of posts back that I am not only in no way notorious but actually also not an apostate as I was never a religious person and therefore could not leave the faith. This was quite a realisation for me, it having been beaten into my head that I was a Catholic when I was a child – a nonsensical idea if I’ve ever met one. Aside from that realisation I have also noted that I am more and more writing about the appalling effect organised religion has on politics and, in fact, on politics in general. This has made me realise that not only does the Catholic Church consider me to be a notorious apostate but so do my previous political associates. Allow me to explain.

In my wild youth I was an active member of one of the parties that are now aiding and abetting Dubya’s destruction of the planet. Yes, I was a right-wing apologist. I wasn’t so right wing as to support the kind of policies that are being now pursued but I did think that the right had a monopoly on sensible political ideas as I felt that anything left of centre was more or less communist. Such a simplistic view of politics was caused by having grown up in the cold-war era and was unsupportable in the face of the real political experience that being involved in and, in fact, at one time running a right-wing student organisation gave me. I got to meet and know a lot of people, some of whom are now in government, and came to understand that their values, such as they were, were foreign to me and my way of thinking. I remember well the various discussions I had with them and the slowly dawning realisation that their view of the world was essentially cold and selfish. Not surprisingly their government is one that appeals to that reptilian hind-brain that we all carry about, one that would have us fight for a scrap of meat atop a balance beam.

So, due to having abandoned that party and its ideology, I am much more a political apostate than a religious one. Of course, if things keep going in the same direction as they are now, the difference between the two will soon disappear.