Well said, Killarney,

I couldn't have said it better.

Now we're just left to wonder when will this cleansing apocalyptic cataclysm arrive?

Ah it is interesting isn't it, that at least one of the main churches expects it's clergy to work a 48 hour week in direct defiance of the ILO recommendations. It also calculates superannuation on the cash component of a stipend, ignoring the remaining parts of the Clergy "package," free rent, utilities and car allowance. (which don't apply if you are a clergy couple, only one set is paid.) No wonder so many clergy find themselves living on the edge, reliant on Locum work to eek out the pension before moving into a church run nursing home. It may sound bitter, but surely the labourer is worthy of his/her hire?

Oh god, here we have Killarney proving she has not a single clue, just a nasty streak. She directs this towards those who make her comfortable life possible, employers.

Love most people go to work because they have no idea how to support themselves if they didn't. If it was easier to support yourself with less work, most would do it. Western society is sliding into failure by trying to support those who want to avoid any work, even for themselves.

If you want to live in a cave, or a bark humpy, & think you could find or catch enough to eat, go for it. There are plenty of places where you can still do it, if you really want to. Do learn how to weave tight mats first. Like the people of the Sepik, you'll want lots of mats pulled over the end of your hollow log you sleep in, to avoid the biting insects. It is a simple fact that those places that support lots of natural food, also support lots of biting insects.

You could use a mosquito net, but hay, that would involve earning the money to pay for it. Not many employers in those subsistence suitable areas. Hell even those smelly people in Nimbin could only survive because we were silly enough to give them the dole, while they "subsisted".

The modern world requires thousands of people, with thousands of skills to work. You are depending on all those people, mostly employees for your existence, let alone comfort.

Best be thankful for your luck, being born into a functioning civilisation, even if it means you have to work to share it. Without it's support, I doubt you'd survive.

ok its the time before/the saviours return
let judgment day begin..6 may..

hasbeen..your witness number 3
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6293&page=11

BITCHEY IS NUMBER TWO

NOW WHERE DID SEQEB/CHRIS GRAPH Et'AL GO?

end time holy days..shorten the unholy work

anyhow for now watching the gods must be crazy
after WATCHING SOME ANT THING..ANYHOW THIN ABOUT IT IT WILL BE MUCH FUN..LINK IN SOME BIGGER ISSUES THAT US VERSus them

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6339&page=0

anyhow the bushmen is in court
the whitefella colonisation trap

its classic stuff

Such totally muddled thinking is standard fare for Christians these days. But this piece shows more than the usual level of confusion about what "people" think, and do.

"That we lack this leisure seems strange, for we have whole industries dedicated to our entertainment, wellness, and recreation."

Ummm.... would it not follow, that those industries would rapidly wither and die, if people were not being entertained? Or attending to their health? Or having time for recreation?

Surely, the very fact that these industries exist and thrive, is a direct result of our having the non-work (or, "leisure") time available to devote to their product?

Seems entirely self-defeating to me.

"What we need instead is rest for its own sake, one that is entirely separate from work."

That would seem to be exactly what we have, according to the author's own observations.

But that would be too easy, would it not.

"True leisure may lift a person out of their everyday life but it is no escape from the world. Rather, the leisure of which Pieper speaks is of the 'mindful' variety. In offering us a vantage point from which to see more deeply into the whole of our lives, Pieper's leisure leaves us in a better position to assess our relationships, the appropriate place of work, and our self-understanding."

So we are asked to subscribe to Pieper's view of leisure, without questioning its relevance, validity or even its foundations.

"So far, so good until Pieper provocatively suggests that leisure, in its affirmation and celebration of the world, is deeply connected to religious worship: 'the highest conceivable form of approving the world as such is found in the worship of God, in the praise of the Creator.'"

Forgive me the obvious observation, that this definition is entirely self-serving, even self-referential, in that it is nothing more than an opportunity - and a blatantly shallow one at that - to promote his religion.

As is this entire "article".

Dear Pericles,

Worship of God is indeed the best form of leisure, but it was unwise on the author's behalf to mention this on a general forum like this where many readers are either not religious or follow a religion which does not include the practice of worshipping God.

Instead, in order for religious people to have more time to worship God, everyone else should be helped out of the rat-race as well, then everyone can do with their spare time whatever they choose themselves.