I am not kidding now, and I am pretty serious: Apart from being a uni prof (retired now), I
have been an Anglican priest in the rank of bishop of an independent Anglican Communion
operating worldwide in 8 countries across the globe.

The kind of work that you referring to is humanitarian work and I commend you for it. The fact that this kind of work is often affiliated to a church or a mission of some kind gives rise to society's belief that churches are good and that people involved with churches are good people.

That is a given. However, you know full well what I am talking about. There are plenty of good people in this world who engage themselves in charity work and who would happily join you in the kind of work you have been involved in. However, those people don't have to be religious, nor believers in god, in order to contribute.

It's a two-sided coin. On one side there are genuinely good people that do the wonderful work that you have involved yourself in, and on the other side we find the sanctimonious hypocrites who expect everyone to think, or believe, they are good people simply BECAUSE they go to church or stick a fish symbol on their car. These same hypocrites also have groups that harbour certain ordained ministers who take great delight in abusing choir-boys and students. (The Christian Brothers is one such group of abusive scum-bags, - easily found on the Internet).

Then we can go one step further and find people who believe every word of the bible as if it were historical fact and the law of god. Yet most chapters and verses of the bible are open to interpretation by the reader, but only if they can understand the middle English words in the first place.

Don't think that I am writing with indifference either. I fully understand the good work that churches around the world do, especially Anglican churches, and they have my greatest respect in that regard. What I cannot respect however, is the blind faith, the extremist belief structure, and the actions of people who convince themselves that they are carrying out the word of god when they go around murdering anyone who doesn't conform to their way of thinking, or in their opinion, violates 'god's law'.

That, my friend, is a world away from helping the poor and unfortunate people who dwell in the slums of Nairobi.

Serious rant over.....

Now, let me ask you one question. As an ordained priest, if you went to a library to borrow a bible, where would you look - Fiction or Non-Fiction?
It's 2016. Religion, (per se), has not moved on one iota since the days of protestants and catholics fighting over whether we can have sex whilst using a condom or not.

For anyone who is interested, there is a wonderfully funny Australian comedian called 'Jim Jefferies'. Now Jim hates religion in all it's forms and he has written a lot of material that he uses in his stand-up routines. Most of this is brilliantly written and extremely funny insofar as he is able to make even the most religious person question their own beliefs - albeit perhaps only for the duration of his show.

One of my own personal favourites is when he asks why there are ten commandments when only one is required. 'Don't be a c*nt.'

If you have access to YouTube you can see heaps of his shows, and if you decide to do so, check out the one he does on foreplay. It might even amuse amused, but I won't hold my breath, lol.