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For my commentary on our trip to Northern India in 2009 Read here...
In August 2008 we visited Morocco; before going to Spain and Portugal. We flew into Marrakesh from Malta and then used the train via Casablanca to Fez; before train-travelling further north to Tangiers.
Recently I've been re-reading Point Counter Point by Aldus Huxley.
Many commentators call it his masterpiece. Modern Library lists it as number 44 on its list of the 100 best 20th century novels in English yet there it ranks well below Brave New World (that's 5th), also by Aldus Huxley.
The book was an experimental novel and consists of a series of conversations, some internal to a character, the character's thoughts, in which a proposition is put and then a counterargument is presented, reflecting a musical contrapuntal motif.
Among his opposed characters are nihilists, communists, rationalists, social butterflies, transcendentalists, and the leader of the British Freemen (fascists cum Brexiteers, as we would now describe them).
Taken as a whole, it's an extended debate on 'the meaning of life'. And at one point, in my young-adult life, Point Counter Point was very influential.
In order to be elected every President of the United States must be a Christian†. Yet the present incumbent matches his predecessor in the ambiguities around his faith. According to The Holloverse, President Trump is reported to have been: 'a Catholic, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, a Presbyterian and he married his third wife in an Episcopalian church.'
He is quoted as saying: "I’ve had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion..."
And whatever it is, it's the greatest.
Not like those Muslims: "There‘s a lot of hatred there that’s someplace. Now I don‘t know if that’s from the Koran. I don‘t know if that’s from someplace else but there‘s tremendous hatred out there that I’ve never seen anything like it."
And, as we've been told repeatedly during the recent campaign, both of President Obama's fathers were, at least nominally, Muslim. Is he a real Christian? He's done a bit of church hopping himself.
In 2009 one time United States President Jimmy Carter went out on a limb in an article titled: 'Losing my religion for equality' explaining why he had severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades, incensed by fundamentalist Christian teaching on the role of women in society
I had not seen this article at the time but it recently reappeared on Facebook and a friend sent me this link: Losing my religion for equality...