BLASPHEMY

One of the news stories is of Madonna, an overaged rock star (not a great singer, but a manipulator of the media) pretending crucifixion.
She's had blasphemy in the past, and her blasphemy ironically is neither original nor heroic. Indeed, it doesn't make sense except to grab a headline. Indeed, such blasphemy is old hat: Both Jim Carey and Penn and Teller have done similar blasphemies in the past.

There has been increasing distortion of Christian beliefs in the opinion pages, and I say distortion because having lived in Oklahoma, what is being claimed is skewered.

It reminds me of some of my patients who know a little bit about medicine and then insist they have an exotic disease, or refuse to take a much needed medicine or vaccine because they "know" it causes side effects...their knowledge has holes in it, so they are not really able to judge these things and thier beliefs are absurd to one who has studied medicine (and has seen the diseases that the vaccines prevent and what happened in the days when those medicines were not available) .

Are we in a persecution? Well, I suspect few will lose jobs over religion (then again, with abortion and euthanasia, maybe we will).