Dribbling from the mouth is common in the very young and the very old. Dribbling on the soccer-field makes up 90% of the game, and seems to be as instinctual and as effortless as the disgusting habit of infants and patients in a geriatric ward. The former form of dribbling requires no talent or training. Rinaldo and his ilk have spent their lives perfecting their gift.
The distribution of physical and intellectual prowess is notoriously uneven, if not unfair. The gamut runs from the handicapped through the also-rans to champions and pure genius. Within the same family, some seem to have been dealt a lousy hand while others discover they have four aces. Such inequality is a challenge for all of us. Many wisely accept the status quo and make the most of the talents they have. Others, even the exceptionally gifted, sometimes waste their talent, while others again succeed in overcoming their handicaps, thereby winning the admiration of all but the terminally jealous.
Jesus could not resist sharing His parable of wasted talents, though the talents in question were in the form of hard cash. It is even more tragic when the talents are immaterial and far more precious. Jesus would be unhappy to hear me apply His parable to many of His own followers. Some of them, including former colleagues and priestly confreres of mine, far more intellectually gifted than I, spent their whole lives without questioning and rejecting the myths and superstitions of the religion He founded. My talents may be few, but I’m glad I used them to discover how ridiculous religions are, and how pitiful it is that intelligent, talented people fail to recognize their absurdity.
RIDENDA RELIGIO
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
This new post shows just how you cannot leave well enough alone, I suppose, and perhaps may alienate a few more of your Catholic friends. Fear not : this Catholic will need a lot more before she gives you the heave-ho. Talent, and the topic of how you use what you were given, resonates with me at a time in my life when I look back at achievements and challenges, and how happy I was to have been in the line of reliable hard workers when talent was being handed out.
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You’re right, of course, dear Amy : don’t make waves likely to become tsunamis ! Only justification I have is that this was not just the expression of personal faith, but an explicit, Facebook appeal to share that faith. The rosary beads were too silly to be passed over in silence : a classic example of Religio Ridiculosa !
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Just learnt that Jesus founded a religion, Christianity I presume I always thought he lived the life of a practicing Jew and died that way.
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Hello Herb ! Have you never heard of the New Kingdom that Jesus preached or read the founding statement of Catholicism : “Thou art Peter and upon this rock (!) I will build my Church” ? I suppose you are being ironic. Hard to be as ignorant as you pretend. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe even in God, let alone His supposed Son. The very existence of Jesus is seriously questioned by some scholars. So what’s on your mind ?
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Sorry Herberta. I remember you now as the Lady from Jamaica. Tell me what’s bugging you.
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Admire your ability to welcome a good discussion, even argument, and perhaps maybe even a bazooka! Tolerance, tis thy name. Have you ever read Rhymed plea for tolerance by John Kenyon?
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If I say, “Yes, part of it”, you and other cognoscenti will know why. It’s not a poem; it’s a marathon. I imagine that few make it to the finishing line. But Herberta should check it out, at least for the Jamaican Connection.
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Have I told you just how much I admire your decision to leave the church and priesthood. You could quite easily have continued on as a priest seeing the church as a career and climb the greasy pole becoming who knows what. I can’t help but imagine that many in the church at all levels go through their lives knowing deep inside that god doesn’t exist. I see those priests, Cardinals and higher on the TV and they are obviously intelligent and therefore some must be faking it. Have you ever met a priest that has confided to you that they no longer have faith.
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Stephen, I too have had my doubts about priests “faking it”. I never did. I remained a believer for fully ten years after leaving the priesthood to marry. No, no practising priest ever confided to me that he no longer had faith. But loads of them privately reject many of the more outrageous superstitions and beliefs, while clinging desperately to continued belief in God and the “afterlife”.
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