Speech 1 - "Such is Life" (1976)

SUCH IS LIFE

(Written for & Delivered to Essendon Toastmasters meeting – May 1976 by Warren Maloney)

 

The words “Such is Life”, attributed to Ned Kelly as he brazenly moved towards the hangman and death, are used as a titular reference not to the substance of my speech but to its subject matter. For it requires the bold and brash nature of Kelly to speak as I want to tonight in an Australian suburban, middle-class environment about Religion.

 I was to use a quote to refer to the substance, I would look to the words of Christopher Marlowe in his Prologue to the Jew of Malta, when his character says –

“Religion is but a childish toy and

 In hold there is no sin but Ignorance.”

Well there’s the substance and now for the Development. Most of us are familiar with the spiralling love affair that Man historically has had for Religion.

 We know that early Nomadic Man conquered his fears of the Unexplainable with a variety of Gods, such as Wind, Fire, Rain, Water.

 In the Tribal State, this was refined theologically to one or two Gods with power over these natural forces e.g. the omnipotent Jupiter.

 From the underprivileged and oppressed Jewish Clans came the concept of One God, protecting the Chosen or Super-Race.

 Religion then began its institutional structure with places of worship, which is still the framework of the Synagogue, the Temple and the Church.

 The institution of necessity meant laws of Custom, with the strictest probably including the Old Jewish Law and the Calvinist teaching from Zurich.

 Along this path came the Anti-Establishment figures of Confucius, Christ, Mohammed, Luther, Wesley, and Smith. The Cults became diversionary and, later of course, binding Institutions.

 That’s a brief and inadequate Outline, which could also be summarized in another quotation – this time from Jonathan Swift in his Thoughts on various subjects –

“There is only one religion but there are a hundred versions of it.”

I’ve spent time on the Anthropology of Religion not to speak in a theological debate but to use the brash bemused tone of Kelly’s “Such is Life “to one query –

WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR BASIC RELIGIOUS DOGMA?

 

 

 

 


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