Enough Already
Religion is a Personal choice
It’s Sunday again, so I have to write my Substack. And of course it happens to be Easter Sunday for the Christian world. But there are a lot of other world religions with plenty of other holidays and observances, so I won’t make a big deal out of this one. My sister and I used to get up very early and go out to get pansies for our Mum on Easter, and I seem to recall we may have attended a sunrise service or two. But as far as dressing up and attending church, that was not part of my childhood.
The weather is rather lovely today and after going out for pancakes this morning, I stopped by Fort Trumbull to enjoy the sense of history. To quote from Wikipedia:
Fort Trumbull is a massive granite fort near the mouth of the Thames River in New London, Connecticut, managed by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The original fort was built in 1777 and named for Governor Jonathan Trumbull. The present fortification was built between 1839 and 1852.
It seemed particularly fitting to be at the Fort the day after the opening shot of the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, when the American Revolutionary War began. And the outcome was that the colonies where no longer ruled by a king. It turns out that the original fort was destroyed by the British when Benedict Arnold betrayed the colonists. I didn’t know that Benedict was born in Norwich, Connecticut, just up the river from New London. He was highly regarded by George Washington and served in the Continental Army from 1775-1780, but then defected to the British. And New London was burned because of him.
Anyway, I was never a history buff but I have lived quite a long time, And these days it feels rather similar to the 60’s except that the leaders we were railing against then were at least human and somewhat sane. Remember Nixon actually resigned. Have we all become so jaded by modern technology that we no longer believe in human decency?
I want very much to believe the opposite. The amazing technology of today made it possible for me to spend more than half an hour this morning chatting with my cousin Colin who lives in Spain, and he gave me a guided tour of the renovations he has made to his beautiful apartment there. I even got a glimpse of the sea beyond his window. I asked what on earth people in Europe were thinking of America, and he feels that many of his friends including some from Ukraine are still rooting for the American people—just not the current regime. Colin and I are both WWII babies from England, so the thought of another Hitler on the world stage is extremely frightening. And Colin used to work on the Cunard line ships that crossed the Atlantic and toured the Mediterranean, so his worldview is quite cosmopolitan. Neither of us could envision a world where the bullies take over.
RESIST ALWAYS
TTFN
Thank you Katharine. I did not know about Benedict Arnold's connection to New London...I fear that too many have forgotten or never learned the lessons of WWII. We do seem to live in "a time of monsters" as we did in the 1930s.
‘Have we all become so jaded by modern technology that we no longer believe in human decency?’
Do not know about all but after watching people today driving, in stores and eating in upscale place and hearing the conversations, my lack of belief is confirmed.
I’m trained in science, statistical analyses and know how to use empirical observation to form what Bayesians call prior probabilities. I saw nothing today to make me want to update my opinion about humanity.