Humble pie

I saw a sign in the back window of somebody's car today which I liked very much. "Caution" it said "I drive just like you."

As I've commented before, we're all more fallible than we'd like to admit, so I rather appreciated the refreshing humility of the sign. Humility's not a very fashionable virtue - in fact it seems to have had rather an image problem ever since Uriah Heep, which is a shame since we humans are imperfect creatures who we could use some occasionally.

The only people who consistently talk up humility these days seem to be the religious. Humility, as clerics of all religions like to say is almost a Unique Selling Point for faith. Politicians, business people, scientists, journalists, salespeople, they tell us, are constantly bombarding us with arrogant certainties, but only religion can offer the wisdom of true humility. A sales pitch which could easily win me over ... if it wasn't such utter brain-sapping nonsense.

The "humble" people of God are, let's not forget, those with absolute certainty that they are in possession of The Ultimate Answer To The Question of Life, The Universe and Everything. These are the people who not only know, without a shadow of a doubt, that God exists, but exactly what He wants those of us in this microscopic corner of His creation to do with our lives; some of them know exactly what He wants us to eat, who we should sleep with, how much of our time we should spend praising Him (because, despite the fact that he's omnipotent and omniscient, He apparently suffers from low self-esteem and needs a lot of support and positive feedback) and what punishments will, or should be meted out in this world or the next for disrespecting Him (whatever other attributes He possesses, His followers certainly seem to think He has self-esteem issues coming out of His ears).

Me, I'm on the side of those who still have the humility to doubt, reflect and think - the sort of people you don't see too often in pulpits.

That was part 2 of an occasional series about the problems I have with religion...