Lestie posted this on the Mexico Site and since I feel that it is more appropriate for the A/A site, I removed it from there and am placing it below:

Hi Les and all,,
Of course you may - no fuss at all.

A friend of mine saw this and won't post her thoughts so I will do so here.

She has been following the general conversation about A/A as well as some of the Random Toughts and says you guys are mad to take on such subjects, you can never solve anything by your tweeny opinions. I was thrilled at being call a tweeny (?) opinion holder but let her carry on (and on and on) Anyway, somehwere in amongst what she was protesting too much about methinks she said something I thought more useful than not about the weakness in organised religion. Two things actually that I remember in the tirade.

One is her perception of the weakness of the GOD/NO GOD thinking. She said that the virgin birth belief, Darwinism and the Ascension were okay for her - "I have enough imagination for this, but what I can't see as making any of this stuff real is that you just have to go and tell some guy in a booth what you think you did wrong once a week, he 'forgives' you, tells you to say some prayers and try not to do the wrong thing again and well there you are, you can just carry on as before. "When did you hear of the 'one week' adulterous affair?' was her point she used for this. Just carry on being stupid and mean and misbehaved and greedy and generally horrible and get free forgiveness here weekly! All you need to do is pay regularly with your guilt and wrong actions. She was brought up a Catholic actually but gave that up when she was aroud 20. She is now 45 ish.

The second idea she had went around self righteous indignation surrounding my religion is the only religion and yours is nothing in comparison. Everyone fusses about what they do best to get to 'GOD' is the best way and are intolerant of what is actually going on. It seems it is okay to ban the bible and the word God in the Chrisian sense of it all but to not say anything about the traffic being stopped while huge groups of people put down mats in the middle of the city and 'pray'. Or for greetings not to be allowed like Happy Christmas but other faith based greetings are okay. Just who are we kidding? Not me! Intolerance rules.

When I asked her what she thought about it all she said nothing! De nada! Tosh (and I include A/A here). I am my own benchmark. I know when I have done wrong. I am the one who is responsbbile for myself. I will take steps to say I am sorry if sorry I must be. I am the one that has to put up with me so I am the one to whom I will report.

She is a lovely person who keeps on disappearing into the Game Reserve to commune with Gaia and no, before you say anything, she is not a God and she does not live on Olympus and no she has no set of rules I can break except littering.

I eat what I like, how I like it and if I don't like it well then if it does not hurt another I stop it or do it. Me. I am in charge of me. Yes I do stop at the red light, yes I do renew my drivers licence and yes I do what is expected of me when it comes to living with in and around people. I do not believe in anything as a God or Leader or bible-like book of instructions. I am a citizen of the world.

I asked her if she thought about if everyone behaved like she did what sort of world would we have. See there you go again, setting me up to defend myself against your programming and brain washing and system thinking. No I won't have it. Just leave me be and stop asking what I think. It doesn't matter what I think and I do not care about what you think in general about religion or lifestyle or systems or whatever, you go and have your silly arguments and defend yourselves against yourselves. Go and pray to your own Gods and non-Gods. It is a waste of energy time and space to try to convert me to your ways. Let it be, that is what the people should say, let it be. I can't wait to evolve and become as intelligent as a Grandma Elephant or a bird. We have so much to learn, wish we could just learn it faster and move up the scale.

Well maybe this would interest you? I am not going to get drawn into any sort of chatter as I cannot say much about what she thinks. She is a really nice person, caring and kind and loving.

Cheers now
_________________________
"Walk to the beat of your own drum."

Lestie Mulholland
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