Death is a problem for our age as it was not for ages past, precisely because (speaking of the non-religious majority) we behave as if it were a problem we had already solved. Church-goers are confronted week in week out with images of agonising death, talk of the "mystery" of death, exhortations to prepare for it, prayers for those approaching it. What Larkin called the "vast, moth-eaten musical brocade" of religion serves to soften us up, week after week, to its odiousness and inevitability, the wormwood and the gall.Makes me wonder what church he's not going to.
(via Althouse)
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