SimplyMaggies

I tried avoiding writing about politics as it seems everyone is doing so (and I have a big problem with being just like everyone else). However, it also seems I cannot escape the topic. Granted, the current presidential campaign is the hottest subject on any news station, group meeting, family gathering or you name it.

Putting my personal views aside, I am getting tired of the Republican Party spinning any negative comment about Sarah Palin and screaming sexism, especially since not so long ago they were the ones spewing all the sexists remarks towards Hillary Clinton. Double standards, if I ever saw one. So why does everyone need to tiptoe around Palin for the simple fact she is a woman? Isn’t it a bit offensive towards women in general?

What really gets to me (and I call it simple hypocrisy) is the fact that if anyone even suggested that certain comments regarding Hilary were sexist, at the least, (and many were, to be honest), the media, experts, politicians and the whole bunch instantly said “tough it up”, “get on board with the boys” etc. While Hilary really took the heat, it seems to me Palin is being treated like this fragile china dish that has to be handled very carefully. Heck, if all these guys (and women) were so tough on Hilary, they should be as tough on Palin. Where the hell is the equality, I ask?!

One hope remains though—that majority of women are smart enough not to vote for McCain/Palin just because she is a woman. After all, most of her views and policies are somewhat medieval and I, for one, wouldn’t want to take this huge step backwards. Not after everything that we, women, have achieved in the last century.

“Behind each secret is a truth.
 Behind each truth is a sacrifice.” - front cover of the book

When Thomas Knight finds out about his priest brother’s mysterious death in the Philippines, he becomes suspicious, especially after all his questions are met with a dead silence from the Catholic Church authorities. Accidentally, when retrieving his brother’s belongings from his last parish, Thomas is dragged into the search for answers to his brother’s untimely death and his research into the history of Christian symbols that seem to have led to his death. Following his brother’s clues, Thomas travels across the world trying to unravel the mystery. However, there are fanatical agents pursuing him at ever corner who will stop at nothing to keep him from finding out the secret his brother stumbled upon. The secret they will do absolutely anything, even kill, to keep hidden away.

“On the Fifth Day” is A.J. Hartley’s second bestselling book. It is a thrilling suspense novel, which combines elements of archeology, history and conspiracy. It will take you to Italy, Japan and the Philippines with the descriptions so vivid you will see the places in you mind’s eye as if you were there right along the characters. The novel is fast-paced and filled with historical mystery, intrigue and unexpected events at nearly every corner. It will keep you turning pages into the wee hours of the night.

A.J. Hartley is an excellent writer who does not shy away from using complex and sophisticated language to convey an amazing story that both challenges and entertains the readers. My only wish remains that there were more writers like him out there. For reading this book was an absolute pleasure. Not only because it took me to the familiar places I long for (Italy) but also for showing me other parts of the world so enchantingly, entertaining me with a gripping story and for delivering all this in a beautiful language. What a treat!

A few days ago someone asked me if I believed in God. While that same question would have flown by probably unnoticed a few years ago, this time around it irritated the heck out of me. I seem to have developed a strange allergy towards anything Christian. And to think I was brought up Catholic!

So why the change? In 2004 I researched certain issues regarding the history and dogma of Christianity for my Master Thesis. The process led me in a totally unexpected direction and yielded results that were both painful and invasive. It took me places I didn’t really want to go and it forced me to examine not only my own beliefs but the ones I was brought up in. And surrounded with an enormous wealth of evidence against the Church that I might have thought insincere (but until then hadn’t seen stated bluntly in black and white), I had to admit certain truths and irrefutable facts. And thus the whole experience began…

It took me months of agonizing battling with myself, going back and forth between logic and deeply indoctrinated habits, to finally be able to think, much less say aloud, that the Bible I was taught to swear by was a book of myths, legends and letters of one chauvinistic man and which was created at least a century or two after Jesus’s death. And once my eyes were open it was difficult to keep them shut.

So do I believe in God?  I don’t think so, at least not in the Christian sense of the concept. And I don’t believe Jesus was the Son of God either. He was a great man (no doubt about it) and a charismatic leader and it’s a shame that so many documents describing him as such were destroyed by petty, narrow-minded men with grand political agendas. Such is the course of history, I suppose, but still I regret not being able to learn about this extraordinary man who, willingly or not, has changed the world for millennia to come.

In my humble opinion the idea of God (the power above and beyond) was created by man at the dawn of civilization because the thought that we are alone in this vast universe must have been unbearable. It is this human need for assurance, acceptance, belonging and being a part of some community that drives the existence of religion. It’s as simple as that.

Am I better for being stripped off my illusions? I cannot say. This question is complicated and runs deeper than a simple yes or no. I don’t like being lied to and withheld information from. I don’t like other people making decisions for me without giving me an option of deciding for myself and I don’t like people taking the choice away from me. So I guess in this instance at least, I’d say yes.

But the issue at hand remains the same—I’m still extremely allergic to all things Christian.