VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Dinah|DATE|1384713030|CONTENT|The central premise behind this talk is that we all strive to conceal our ‘brokenness’, our disappointments, our physical and mental scars and our inadequacies.  I suppose fifty or more years ago this might have been true.  Now, grown men on the football pitch openly cry.  There are dozens of television programmes which encourage people to discuss intimate problems, both mental and physical (in one programme those with a Web cam are encouraged to show the medical doctors their intimate parts).  Counsellors and relationship specialists make a roaring living inviting individuals and couples to discuss their conflicts.  I don’t think we are quite literally as buttoned-up as we used to be. 
 
I suspect a hidden agenda here.  Christianity thrives on making us feel inadequate, sinful and lacking something, and then offers Jesus as the answer.  Or as Christopher Hitchens admirably put it, ‘Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well.’  On the box this morning Anne Widdecombe was lamenting the lack of contrition, of penance and of self-denial.
  
I do not deny that most of us have hang-ups and problems of one kind or another, many of our own making.  But by encouraging us to wallow in guilt because we are unable to attain impossible standards of behaviour and extolling suffering as somehow virtuous and purifying, Christianity does us few favours, and has probably screwed up more people than it ever helped.

In any case, I do not think that occasionally showing a bit of stoicism in the face of adversity is as bad for us as Ms Beeching makes out.  It is one way of coping for those who would rather not reveal their deep and darkest secrets to the world, and shows a bit of consideration for other people who don’t necessarily want to be subjected to someone else’s misery memoirs.
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