Another day . . .

Another day, another story of breathtaking horror! Thirty two random murders in America one day, one hundred and sixty murders in Iraq the next. No wonder the parasitic pedlars of the apocalypse feel that things are going their way.

How tempting it is to look to religion and its manifest failure as the reason for the unreasonable actions of so many.

Have you noticed the links between religious apologists and the National Rifle Association? The mantra of the NRA is that, “It’s not guns that kill people, it’s people who kill people.” Religious thinkers who look at the carnage which their religious beliefs so often bring about say, “It’s not the religion that kills people, it’s people’s misinterpretations of religion that does the damage.” No wonder the image of Pontius Pilate washing his hands is such a strong one! And applies to so many situations in the world today.

As the bloody horror in Bagdad seems to be perpetrated by Islamic bombers on Islamic victims, it is instructive to look at the divisions within the faith that allow this murder.

The major division in Islam is between Shia and Sunni.

An informed discussion can be found at: http://islam.about.com/cs/divisions/f/shia_sunni.htm but I was interested to read that the division is more political than religious in its historical basis.

The vast majority of Islam is Sunni and a small minority of some 15% is Shia.

The differences arose from the disputes which resulted from the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Who was to take over the leadership of the Muslim nation? The Sunnis agree with many of the companions of the Prophet who elected the close friend and advisor of the Prophet, Abu Bakr to be the first Caliph.

The Shia, on the other hand, believes that the leadership should have stayed with the Prophet’s family and therefore they believe that the succession should have passed to the Prophet’s cousin and son in law, Ali. Ali was the first in a line of Imams which Shia believes are divinely appointed.

I know that I am simplifying a complex historical, religious, and social mix, but the differences are instructive.

The Shia believes in divine appointment, venerate the Imams as saint-like characters and complete pilgrimages and ask for intercession. The Sunni reject a divinely appointed spiritual hierarchy and the concept of saintly intercession.

It is not difficult to see the parallels between the divisions in Islam with the divisions in Christianity. In both great divisions of religion there is a fundamental belief in the central tenets of the faith, but the differences which have evolved with the different interpretations of authority have made them infuriatingly distant.

As an Anglican atheist I can see some aspects of the Roman Catholic / Protestant split in the Sunni / Shia division, though the numbers are reversed. If you take the veneration of saints and the concept of divine appointment as the Roman Catholic position, and the more democratic Protestant stance then the position becomes a little clearer.

I feel that I am straying well outside my area of competence, but the vicious horror of the religious wars which have torn Europe apart over the centuries by combatants who all prayed to the same God should be a dire warning to other faiths which fail to unite.

The real trouble with religions is that they have to deal with human beings and that invariably brings all-to-human frailty into the equation and, in my reading of history – religion invariably loses out.

On a more digestible note, I had an excellent meal in the restaurant of the Macdonald Holland House Hotel on the Newport Road in Cardiff. The meal was quite pricey with a three course lunch cost £28, with a more than adequate glass of Rioja and a cup of coffee the total was £36.75!

I was the only person in the dining room for the whole of my meal, I felt rather guilty at arriving fairly early for my meal and interrupting the maître d'hôtel having his! In spite of the natural resentment that he should have been feeling, I had excellent service throughout the meal: attentive without being assertive.

The range of food was good with various appetising alternatives. I plumped for the crab tortellini on a bed of wilted etc etc etc. You get the general idea, but what intrigued me was the addition to the various listed ingredients of ‘crab foam.’ This is not something I have come across before and when the dish arrived looking very clean and elegant, the foam looked alarmingly like spit on top of the tortellini, but with rather more adhesive quality. And it tasted good. Nothing on the plate was wasted. I had already been provided with excellent onion bread with two types of butter and a small dish of olive oil. This was used to good effect to mop up the delicious foam and accoutrements!

My main course was medallions of tenderloin wrapped in black pudding and ham, set on a bed of mustard mash with a small lake of jus.

My other vegetables consisted of truncated baby carrots up ended and placed in a row looking like those contrived Chinese islands which you assume only exist in the imagination of Chinese scroll painters and then are astonished to see in reality. Rather like my line of orange incongruity!

Dessert was just as imaginative, but I plumped for the cheese. This provided the only discordant note in the meal, as; when it arrived it was rather chilled. The selection, however, was excellent with an adequate range of bread and biscuits with chutney and half a fig.

Why half? What do they do with the other bit? Does the chef eat it as one of his perks or is it placed to one side waiting another person to order the same? As no one arrived during the whole course of the courses I imagine that it must have been used as an unexpected ‘garnis’ for a startled guest!

As usual I feel a metaphor forming itself using the half fig as its basis, but, rather unusually, I will restrain myself.

Prepare yourself for an outburst later!