HMPRESENTLY: Getting skinned and belted by…beliefs?

It’s the feeling of “being certain” of something…that’s how the word “belief” is defined.

Where you are, in Pagosa Springs, and where I am, in California, various things that affect us in one way or another may be the result of the personal beliefs or self-interests of policy makers, which are often taken into account in their decision-making process. .

As when tourism policies and procedures, for a city like Pagosa, are formulated, or when decisions involving taxpayers’ money are considered, personal beliefs can tip decisions in one direction or another. And that’s fine, when decisions work well… when they meet diverse needs and bring good value to communities. But that’s not always how decisions, based on various beliefs, turn out.

They can turn out to be totally fubared, which is slang, meaning something is “completely sloppy or confused”, or something is “extremely bad or certain to fail”. These are soft definitions of a word that can have a harder meaning, given the first two letters of “fubar” and the last three letters, when you think about it as well.

So there you have it…the beliefs, which sometimes can affect us all, when policy makers in government – ​​or in business etc. – bring their personal beliefs, or personal interests, to the table. Or when religious beliefs come into play.

When religions imbue people with kindness, hope and love, it is something to be grateful for.

But sometimes, unfortunately, religious beliefs can push people in other directions.

Now, I’m not a preacher, but if I happened to be one, I might voice concerns about how the raging religion seeping into the government seems to be getting.

Maybe religion doesn’t interfere so much in your local government, or in mine, but at the federal level – and maybe even the Supreme Court of the land – and maybe in some states and governments across the country, religious beliefs certainly seem to be creeping into politics.

What happened to the separation of church and state? Was it not Thomas Jefferson who, in a letter to the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, described the First Amendment as erecting a “wall of separation between church and state?” In 1802, when he wrote these words, was he worried about religion invading government?

Have you ever seen so many politicians exuding – or venting, as “exuding” sometimes is defined – their piety, everywhere? With various politicians totally ignoring the words of someone, who also wrote the nation’s declaration of independence.

Godliness can be wonderful, except when it is discharged.

Which brings us back to beliefs, which can also be wonderful, as long as they don’t cause confusion in procedures and policies.