"it is not my intention to trample upon all that is good and sacred in this world or to teach men how to enslave the good men. If I state these things too accurately, it is so man should know them the better to avoid them..."
Nicolo Machiavelli


It is scarcely credible to think how our perecptions of the world have changed in just 6 months. Certainly, the NGO s in their formulaic way point out that the poor are poorer, the powerful still more powerful, &c, but "something" has certainly changed, and the outcome we may not live to see through old age.
Two citadels of faith have now come under attack; the World Trade centre in September 2001 and the Church of the Nativity in April 2002. While the indignation at the first was understandable and right, the outcry over the second has been a little underwhelming to say the least; skeptical Christians may feel it confirms their suspicions that Money, not Jesus, is the modern idol after all, but still a question begs ? Why havent the world's churches come out in absolute clamour at the barbaric desecration of Bethelehem ? Even aethiests with a taste for the classical and the antiquarian seem to be more shocked than the average Christian.
For the first time in my life I feel a twinge of pity for Christianity, that nauseous, usurping religion with all its silly, contradictory myths and rudimentary philosophy; As Nietzsche pointed out, a God which has lost its power to provoke fear is a God no longer, and watching the smoke rise from Bethelehem I feel, finally, that this God, with its cult of Crucifixion, is truly Dead. None of its High Priests will save it; the Pope mumbles about Peace (as if many people really enjoy war; they dont) and the Archbishops Envoy is led away meekly by the New Crusaders. One doubts Jesus would have acceded quite so readily... one God is dead and the second is wreaking revenge across the world.

Gotterdammerung