LGBTIQ and God

I don't watch much tv, but occasionally something on youtube piques my enthusiasm. Recently on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the excellent Ewan McGregor, relating his time on Beauty and the Beast, jokingly tries to persuade those from Alabama to avoid seeing the movie due to the sheer amount of gay sex in the film. Stephen tries to temper the interview slightly, saying there is a suggestion that a character is gay because two males dance with one another, but that no conclusion is drawn either way. Much to my amusement, Ewan retorts that 'it's not a suggestion, the character is gay, it's a gay character...its 2017, for fuck's sake!' This was truly wonderful viewing.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Whilst Stephen shifts uncomfortably at the thought of Ewan not only announcing that gays live and breathe air around us but that Jesus may be upset at the fact, the interviewer swiftly moves on to heroin within Trainspotting 2 and whether Ewan has dabbled in the name of research.
What's so fascinating about the interview is the ease that Stephen discusses life-limiting heroin, a drug that decimates life with temerarious abandon, as opposed to a fictional character's sexual preference. You can visibly discern a Catholic Colbert panicking in the realisation "what are my audience going to think?!" 

How this can possibly be when presumably most of Stephen's audience are left-leaning, socialist, pro-LGBTIQ democrats is puzzling to an outsider in Melbourne. Whatever your stance on homosexuality, or indeed any of the LGBTIQ community, there is a incalculable chasm between the rights of human beings and perceptions that, because you're offended, others should be restricted from their freedom. Am yet to see any person of 'different' persuasion attack a heterosexual because they disagree with their preference or orientation. That said, I'm yet to see an atheist physically attack, crusade, shoot or blow up someone of religious fervour.

Knowing God

There is a slight movement within the ranks for atheism attempting to group into a religion, yet by definition it's the absence of religion itself, so attempting to form a broad church seems hypocritical and born of insipience. But it's worth covering the 'ists':

• A theist believes there is a God who made and governs all creation; but does not believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, nor in a divine revelation
• A deist believes there is a God who created all things, but does not believe in His/Her/Its interference with the world. A desist rejects revelation, with the conclusion that observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a single creator of the universe
• The atheist disbelieves even the existence of a God/Gods and thinks matter is eternal, and creation is the result of natural laws and, dare I say, evolution. Can you be an atheist and not believe in evolution? Suppose it takes all sorts.
• The agnostic believes only what is knowable

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New Creed

​I've always depicted myself as a cynical agnostic but a hopeful deist: I know nothing, like the idea of God and a plan and a unifying theory of everything, I just don't see it, and I certainly don't see it in anything man created from the last 2000 years in a religious subtext. Really, at best, we're all agnostics. I think there is desperate need for a new kind of ist though, one that is grateful for their life and those around them, those that feel interference in other peoples sexual preferences or orientation is not only abhorrent but of an unnatural fascination, and that their list of wants in life include a nice cup of tea and a biscuit on the proviso the new diet allows such treats. I announce the arrival of a be-ist. 

Special mention for the passing of Gilbert Baker, the San Francisco-based activist and artist best known for creating the rainbow flag.