Thoughts

On this Christmas Day 2019 the first thought I had for the day was to thank God for sending His Son Jesus into this world to redeem it.

My second thought was about polarisation - that this world is becoming more polarised, more intolerant, more nationalistic, more patriotic.

These days it seems that you’re either right about everything or wrong about everything. It is difficult to hold a view that is in opposition to someone else without being painted as wrong in many areas. There are the progressives or liberals versus the conservatives (despite the slightly odd naming conventions in Australian politics); pro Brexit or anti Brexit; pro Scottish independence or anti Scottish independence; pro man-made climate change or anti man-made climate change; pro same sex marriage or anti same sex marriage; pro Israel or anti Israel; pro America or anti America; pro free choice in abortion or anti free choice in abortion; pro democracy or anti democracy; pro euthanasia or anti euthanasia; pro free markets or anti free markets. But the problem is that as soon as you declare a position on any of these you are immediately painted with that label and all of your other ideas are either venerated or dismissed (depending on whether the assessor agrees or disagrees with your stated position on topic A).