Right on my doorstep

I see the Church of England as some fusty old sofa. You know the type - dusty, washed out and frayed around the edges. It would look stupid in a modern home, lets put it that way.

I've never imagined fundamentalism to be rife within its parishes. I thought the C of E left that to the Americans.

It seems that I've been had.

This week the rain has been incessant. Biblical even. And there have been deaths. Tragic, unfortunate deaths that will devastate families. Towns and villages have been flooded causing much damage.

Now, for the UK this is extreme weather, but it's hardly unprecedented. It has happened before. This time however, some of the pious have come out and attributed the weather to the wrath of god.

From the Telegraph;

The Rt Rev Graham Dow, Bishop of Carlisle, argued that the floods are not just a result of a lack of respect for the planet, but also a judgment on society's moral decadence.

"This is a strong and definite judgment because the world has been arrogant in going its own way," he said. "We are reaping the consequences of our moral degradation, as well as the environmental damage that we have caused."

"We are in serious moral trouble because every type of lifestyle is now regarded as legitimate," he said.

"In the Bible, institutional power is referred to as 'the beast', which sets itself up to control people and their morals. Our government has been playing the role of God in saying that people are free to act as they want," he said, adding that the introduction of recent pro-gay laws highlighted its determination to undermine marriage.

"The sexual orientation regulations [which give greater rights to gays] are part of a general scene of permissiveness. We are in a situation where we are liable for God's judgment, which is intended to call us to repentance."

To quote Charles Babbage (credited with inventing the first 'computer' in 1822) "I am not able rightly to apprehend [this] kind of confusion of ideas".

And how about this quote taken straight from their god;

Genesis 8:20-22: "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease."

Sometimes I despair. I really do.