h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to play alter-ego here...this isn't what I believe, so don't be afraid...

We are all sinners, and through Jesus we can be forgiven. This means that Jesus forgives us when we think bad thoughts. It even means he forgives us for acting on them. Once someone has invited Jesus into their hearts as their personal savior, it's a done deal. I can go on a murdering spree, because Jesus understands that I am only human, and he loves me and accepts me for who I am. He will forgive me for wiping out the entire population of a small town, if I am really, really sorry. So yes, I am a Christian, just like the millions of others, and I will go to my eternal reward in Heaven from the electric chair. But that poor, dumb bastard who tried to be heroic and protect those kids by shielding them with his body, that upright citizen who lived a good life and never hurt anybody, he's gonna burn in Hell, since he never quite believed in all that Jesus mumbo-jumbo.

I was gonna say that!
Yup, according to the bible (all you christians please don't think I'm gunning for you), Peter Sutcliffe will go to heaven if he says on his deathbed "ok I love god", but somebody who goes through life thinking "I really don't get this xtianity thing" will burn forever.

Which is what you said, yeah!

Personally, I think people who go around forgiving people left right and centre are fools. Pure and simple. If you forgive somebody, they will take advantage of you. They will continue to 'sin' because they know they can get away with it.
I made the mistake of forgiving people ages ago. I just don't do it any more. And yes, I have taken advantage of people who forgave me. They deserved it.

OK, for someone who has claimed to have read the Bible, the concepts of grace and forgiveness seem to have eluded you.

"Grace, living in a state of"

Is that what you are referring to, with your previous rant? OK, I know that this _is_ actually a complicated subject, no offence intended to anyone here because it actually is. you can't just explain it away as simple as that.

You are right on a few points. Once you actually _repent_ which is the important thing, and isn't just "dear Jesus I am sorry for all the bad things" but is a conscious decision to change lifestyles, then the act of forgiveness takes place. All the crud which stopped you relating to God is removed and forgotten about. Even if you still remember it, God doesn't. However, it is the act of "repentance" which means to turn around, that is important. If a guy says he is "sorry," then goes out and kills a load of kids, whaddaya reckon the chances were he was really sorry? Not high. Therefore, when he gets to heaven he says "hey God, I said sorry and you forgave me, yeah?" and Jesus says, "who the Hell are you? Bye!" It's like everything else in life - if a guy smacked you, said sorry and then smacked you again, you'd think he was taking the piss, wouldn't you? True, Christians screw up, but because of the act of repentance, and the (hopefully) positive outlook on life which tries to get the best out of everything (OK, most Christians _don't_ do this, but they should) they won't "screw up" by shooting kids in the head. If a "Christian" went on a murdering spree, you can say that there's a lot of stuff which happened before that, and probably long before he picked up the gun, he moved out of grace, where God no longer considered him a Christian. "Grace" is not freedom to do screwed up stuff, it is freedom _from_ doing screwed up stuff.

Oh, as for all the "good guy goes to hell stuff." Let me explain what _I_ actually understand the Bible to say on that. "There is no sin without the law" is what Paul had to say in Romans. So, what does that mean? Simply, I, take the whole section in Romans to mean that people who have never heard and understood "The Law" to be exempt from judgment under it. So, if you've never heard about Jesus, there can be no way that justice can be served if you are condemned for not accepting someone you've never heard of. Similarly, if you heard but did not understand, how can you be condemned for not understanding? What if all you've heard all your life is "allah akbar" (sp?)? Therefore, if you haven't heard the message, you are judged "on the light you have been given." If you kept the faith in Allah for the sake of the faith and not the sake of the religion, then I believe you stand a much better chance of receiving post-mortem rewards than a "Sunday Christian", or a Southern Baptist minister who preached racism.

However, the issue of "salvation by works," ie the good man going to hell, the murderer going to heaven, is a thorny one. You can say, "well, if I were God then murderers would go to hell no matter what they said they were sorry," but what about everyone else? Can anyone go through their entire life and not do anything wrong? Maybe a three-week old baby, but eventually, you're going to mess up. So, as a human being, what cut-off point would you say separates people from heaven/hell? What about crimes of passion? A man can stab his wife to death for commiting adultery, and regret it utterly as soon as the red mist has gone down. Would you let him off? What about the wife? Caught in the act? But she was driven there.....so the husband isn't as innocent as all that..... How much "good" do you have to do to earn the favour of God, if you were hypothetically God and made the rules up.

OK, sorry this post was really, really long. I hope that it does go some way to actually explaining where I stand at least, and also some of the issues which you, no offence, didn't understand. I know that it is also the viewpoint of many people I know, so I'm not just a single person.

I ain't on ICQ, but if you have an IRC client and mail me ([email protected]) I'm sure we could set up an IRC room.

As for the length of my posts, it's because I come on infrequently (my last visit was about 6 weeks ago) and I try to answer a lot of complicated points in one go. If you add up all of everyone's posts, I probably don't really submit any more than anyone else - I just do it with a gap of a month in between I just get caried away, I suppose. As for how I spend my time, 1) I have a typing speed of about 45wpm and I enjoy this, so it's not too much of a drag

OK, I'm sorry. I reread my post and it was incredibly hot headed and not very clear. I should be clearer, because I find that I end up reclarifying stuff that should have been clear in the first place. I guess I get too emotional:

my "distrust" of science does not mean I disbelieve it. Most practical science obviously works, you are typing your messages on a computer which could not have been designed without maths. The trouble is, I am ready to accept that 1+1=2, but I am also ready to accept that if you warp the number plane a certain factor towards the imaginary axis, 1+1=3. I am a maths student, I know what I'm talking about . Lots and lots of things are "proved" every day, and then other things which don't agree with them are also "proved." A wide and eclectic view of the sciences will only lead you to the conclusion, as it led me, that two mutually contradicting things can be true at the same time.

Similarly, "we see now through a glass darkly." Personally, I believe that Christianity is the best way to work spiritually, for everyone. I believe this because I see it as a version 2 of all the other religions. However, I stuck with MSDOS 6.22 until about mid-97, so I am well aware that although 95 was, in theory, better, it was not entirely necessary (until 97) to "upgrade". Upgrading enabled me to do more, but my 'puter did not stop working without it. (I can't believe I just compared Christianity to Win95. the analogy police will string me up!! )

"Religion" will never give all the answers to everything. Neither will "science" or "art" or anything else in the world. The search for answers is futile because, as Adams himself said, we never really knew what the question was. Even Jesus won't give you all the answers, because if you knew everything, you'd never get any work done.

Does this explain further? I'm not irrational or illogical, I've just spent far too long listening to every side of the argument to believe that there is a side that's entirely right - including my own.

I understand perfectly, thank you.

'Salvation by works' is a part of the original Catholic dogma. The theory is that there was a balance sheet on your soul, with every good work you performed counter-acting an equivalent bad one. It is still taught in Catechism today.

'Salvation by faith' is the cornerstone of every other Christian religion. This says that no matter what you do, you are forgiven, as long as you truly repent. It also says that faith is the ONLY way to Heaven. My uncle fears for me, because he knows my beliefs, and he is convinced that I will go to Hell because I have no faith. Salvation by faith is the reason for a chaplain in every prison that has a death row. The scumbag killers who spent an entire lifetime spreading hate, violence, fear, and death, are going to Heaven, because, when they are forced to face the gas chamber, they become REALLY sorry. Proof of this: I came across a webpage that lists the last meals of executed prisoners. Among the t-bone steaks, you'll find several who requested communion for their last meal, and others who sent back the request covered with religious claptrap.

So my model is correct. And not only is it correct, but there are dozens of cases every year of maniacal murderers doing their thing in the name of the Lord, reasoning it out exactly as in my example. And there is nothing in Christian dogma that says they're wrong. I'm glad you seem to think that there is still hope for my afterlife, even though I'm an idiot who can't grasp simple concepts like the Trinity. But most Christians don't see it that way.

You have a point... however, I like to be able to object to certain points as they come up, ask for more detail, etc... if you're going to argue via a forum, there are always going to be minor points that you disagree with but simply have to forget about... merely because keeping track of them all becomes completely impossible after a while.

Anyway, you can spend far too much time arguing with people via forums... at least if you use real-time methods that's limited.

26199

I understood you too Mr McDuff. What you say is very valid, and had me swayed! but then, Gargleblaster stepped in .

What I wanna say is, who -really- does the repentance thing properly, other than prisoners on Death Row?I can immagine the sort of person who'd give himself 10 inches space with an axe-head to smash somebody's skull in would be totally beyond repenatance....

(sorry, my imagination's fired up and i'm talking bull...start again)

But like I say, maybe it's just my lack of imagination but I just can't imagine somebody being truly, utterly sorry for their sins. Only people like death row crims of thereabouts would be capable of that.

Here's a quote from Tom Araya of Slayer in an interview:
Q: Do you guys go to church?
Tom: Sometimes. Sometimes when I've gone out and murdered somebody I go and confess and stuff. And then God loves me again.

OK, first of all, before I start this reply, I'd like to get one thing clear which people seem to miss. If I reply, and I get all fired up I AM NOT ATTACKING _YOU_. If it seems that way, I'm sorry. I'm attacking your argument, your standpoint. If I didn't, it wouldn't be an argument. Yes, sometimes I get a bit carried away with it all, but I'm very, very passionate about what I believe in. Sorry if my overexcitement comes across as insulting, but there we are. You didn't like it, you told me, I'm sorry, I'm gonna try and keep it friendly as best I can but all I can say is, don't take anything I say personally. At college, I have an "argument partner." Sometimes we talk about nothing in particular, sometimes we talk about politics and agree on stuff, sometimes we descend into debates about Christianity which have ended, on occasion, with him telling me I'm a brainwashed hypocrite and me telling him he's going to hell. Next day, no big deal. A conversation about stuff, no matter how heated, especially on a board like this, will not reflect how I feel about you as a person, simply because I don't know you. If I met Gargleblaster socially, I have no doubt that we would get along great. Well, probably. I'm good at getting along with people, anyhow. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway.... repentance. k.

As I said at the end of my last post, how many "good works" do you need to have before God loves you. How "good" should you have to be before your own dad says "I love you." If you have to hold down £45K p/a +company car with a wife and two kids before your dad loves you, that's a sick relationship....what was I saying? Oh yeah. There is nothing you can do to earn love or salvation. Looked at one way, everyone is under judgement, from the moment they learn right from wrong. God "desires that no man should perish," and this includes people on death row. There's no way that they could earn enough brownie points to get to the Father in the rest of their life, so God makes it equal for everyone. Everyone has exactly the same decision to make, and that's it. For the rest of your life, you have to change. GB, do you believe people can change? Let me tell you, if people were asking for communion simply because they wanted to earn points with God, then the reply from Jesus when they stood before him would have been exactly the same as if they'd ordered lobster and a copy of Playboy. But, 8 months or whatever is a lot of time to think. If the chaplain has actually explained the reality of the situation, and not just offered a get out, then I believe that they can get to know God in their last few moments.

If I were God, or if you were God, then the situation would be different, I have no doubt. People would come up, and I'd say, "You think you can just waltz in here after _your_ life?" I'll be honest. I'm not, when you get right down to it, a very nice person. But it's the way God has chosen to work it and, if you look at it impartially, it actually works much better. I'm not saying that "works" don't count for anything. Quite the opposite in fact - like I said, and like it says in James, if you don't change after "becoming a Christian" the chances of you actually being a Christian are well narrow. God does mark down what you do - if you're forgiven and repent, the bad stuff is forgotten. Doing stuff right is important, but you can't earn God - He's already paid for and dealt with, you've got to go a different way around it!

Mike A raised the point "What I wanna say is, who -really- does the repentance thing properly." And to that, I can only answer honestly: I do not _know_ for a fact that anyone except me and the second thief on the cross next to Jesus ever truly repented. I can say with 99.99999999999% certainty that most people who say the sinners prayer, or who make a commitment to God, informally or formally, actually mean it at the time. I can also say that probably about a quarter of them aren't still there in a year, which is the figure that's bandied about a lot from church gathered stats. I blame the church, for not being supportive enough. It's sad, but ultimately a reflecton that life as a Christian isn't easy. If I think people are ready to make a decision, I try and scare them off. I say: "Do you really want to get involved in the hardest job ever invented? Do you really want to get a thousand automatic enemies who will come against you just because of what you're going to do here? You've gotta stop with the hedonism, stop sleeping around. You gotta start living right, and you've got to get to know Him and do what He tells you. Are you ready for that?" After that, I've lost some people, but not many. Hey, maybe it's wrong, but I don't think so. I know that if someone is really getting worked on from the *inside*, what I say won't make a difference. I try to make sure that what people are doing is not believing me but believing God. If people say, "well, if you put it like that I don't want it," then I wouldn't put money on them lasting a year *even if* they meant it at that point. I've had people come back though. And there ain't just me telling it, either.

My point, after all this, was that it's quite easy, when you're in a position where you know the reality of the Cross on a personal level, to make that decision. You shouldn't question that - question how many people repent once and decide it's not for them. You never lose the reality of the Cross, it's burned inside you. You can accustom yourself to it, though. You can ignore it, just like you can ignore other stuff. Hey, I spent 4 years ignoring it, pretending I wasn't.

Ohhh....K

Long post. Gonna leave it there, there's plenty more I _could_ say, but it's 2am, (for once, insomnia is useful!) and this post is already far too long.

I look forward to your replies. If I insulted you here, well, I didn't mean it, deal with it. k, bye.

I'm not "trying" to provoke people. I'm making my point, ok, I will admit that my immense reservoir of natural sarcasm has seeped in more than was strictly necessary, but if you look carefully, I try never to attack anybody personally. If people take an attack on their views delivered in an acerbic tone as an attack on them, well hey, we both gotta learn tolerance, haven't we. I accept your comments, I'll try and tone it down, but....

If we, as Christians, can't walk into a bunch of atheists and cause aggro, what are we doing? Did Jesus say to the Pharisees, "OK, well I hear what you're saying and think that you have a valid point..."???? Jesus did not speak in modern Blairite doublespeke. He said "You brood of vipers!" "You are like vessels washed on the outside, but the Father looks on the inside" (OK, I'm writing from memory so forgive if I put a word wrong). I'm not saying we should cause fights, but neither are we meant to lie down and let the world walk on us. Physical warfare is something which I don't think we should do, but OTOH spiritual warefare is what we are meant to do!

You make a good point. We are meant to turn the other cheek, to make them treat us like equals. We are supposed to go the extra mile for our enemies, to make them hate us more. But I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and I _WILL_ defend it to the best of my ability. Why is it that Christians are so quick to defend everything except Jesus? Why defend your Church doctrine, or the Turin Shroud, if people say "Jesus was no the son of God" and we let them just say that? Why should atheists ever believe in God if we don't seem to?

I ain't saying this to get at you. I'm saying this because I've got a passion and a vision and they're both bigger'n me, and I can't keep 'em in. In the end, consider what it says in revelation about Lukewarm people.

Here's the deal, to everyone on this board. I don't drink (for those who want to know, not really a religious reason for this, more as a personal one - my grandad sold my dad's christmas presents for whisky, I don't want to be involved in that), but if I ever meet you socially, we're going to go to a bar, I'll buy you a drink, and we can talk about anything but religion. How does that sound? I'm really a nice guy, so I'm told. Oh, and you can beat me at pool, because I'm crap at it. Done?

"but you appear to be someone with little patience and a closed mind, so this stuff will probably only anger you."

Hmm, despite this, I'm still here, on this board. I got a more open mind than you think, GB, don't be so quick to jump to conclusions. If you ask people who really know me (about six people) they'll tell you that I always give people the benefit of the doubt and that, scarily, I'm right more often than wrong. I can see the good in every human being on the planet, which is a frikkin wierd-ass irritating state of mind to be in! Don't try it, you'll only get a headache.

Now, unfortunately I haven't had time to read any more Nag Hammadi. I've been at Church all weekend (seriously - heavy lifting and strobe lighting all over the place). I'd just like to say, though, that I am going to take a stand and say "I believe what I believe and I believe it more than anything else in the world." If that means I have to make a hard decision and say, "right, I'm going to take this new stuff with more salt than the "real" (for want of a better word) Bible" then so be it. Don't be fooled that I believe it because of what people say, or what the Bible says. Even people who have less liberal views on Scripture than me agree that if you only read the Bible and never talk to God, you'll dry up drier than Ezekiel's cows. Like I said, I have a personal experience, day by day, that is as real as the tug of gravity on my body to me, and just as hard to ignore. You don't have to believe that I'm anything other than insane, that is entirely your perogative and I would not want to do anything to force you to change your view. (I may not agree with you, but if the inquisition started up again I'd be the first on the picket line getting it shut down, and if need be I'd die for that cause)

Yes, I pray and get answers. You've already given your views on this, if you want to say them again I won't stop you. But the reality of the Cross is so real that the world around pales in comparison to it. To try and explain it is foolish, to try and convince you to understand this part of my faith, the solid foundation without which any amount of churchgoing or bible reading would not sustain my belief, would be like trying to get you to experience my childhood from my memories - unless you can crawl inside my head, you'll never know why _I_ belive so fervently, even in the face of what seems to you to be one insurmountable obstacle after another. Call me closed minded. To some, who don't like me for what I am and don't need me to help them, I probably am. To others, who so desperately need a shoulder to cry on that they'll take anybody who'll accept them; who need more than a drop of change in their hand but who really appreciate the half-hour in the cafe with a paid-for cup of coffee and an open ear; for the guy who got £20 so that he could feed his dog, even though I only had his word that that's where the money would go; for people like this who don't give two hoots about the Nag Hammadi, or even about the Bible, but who just care about where their next meal is coming from; try telling these people how closed minded and impatient I am.

Sorry if I sound like I'm blowing my own trumpet here, but I've never said "Gargleblaster is closed minded." Sure, I called you a "little pan-galactic," but I didn't even write that as an insult, more as a term of endearment. (hmm, now that I think of it, you'd probably have got insulted if I called you "darling" as well....ueeueeuuhg)

Damn, why do I always get so frikkin verbose and forget how to shut the hell up?!?!? Hey, GB, no hard feelings, eh?

Regards, McD

"Anyway, you can spend far too much time arguing with people via forums..."

You said it man.... 3am? What am I on???

Hey, in the end forums have their good points, realtime has it's good points. A combination of the two would be best, but in the absence of any real Inet standards.....ho hum. This debate is on a bulletin board system, so I'll use that. I live in England - it's wet and cold and we lose our right to protest next month and our right to trial by jury in about 2003, but it's where I'm at. Make the very best of what you've got and you'll not go far wrong.

Be nice. I'm going to bed now. zzzzzzz

PS. Damn, at this hour I don't half spout some *CRAP*

A word on the prison comments:

I hope this adds to the discussion. It's kind of personal, but I thought I'd share it anyway. I just found out something recently that shocked me a whole lot. I recently found out that my father, when he was younger, committed a very serious crime. When he was a young man of about 20 or so, he was accused and convicted of murdering his own brother. I have it from his own mouth that he was guilty. I don't know all the details, but sometime during the ten years he spent there, he came to know Jesus Christ. Today my father is one of the Godliest men I know, and his dedication to study and worship are near absolute, far surpassing my own. Yes, he still has problems and difficulties, and I don't always agree with everything he does and says. But I do know one thing, that my father is no murderer. The man who had killed his own brother died in that cell, and a new one was born in his place. To me, this has shed a lot of light on verses like this:

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
-2 Corinthians 5:17

It is true that the example of my father does not hold true for all prisoners who claim to have "found God" in prison. Yet I hope that it does show you that true repentance does exist.

True repentance does exist, and I would suggest that your father is an extreme case. I could go on to examine his motives in 'finding God' after such an event, with a string a psychoanalytical stuff to back it up, but I imagine you would be rather offended, since this is your dad we're talking about here, so I'll drop it. If you want to credit God for his change, so be it.

McDuff: I realize that your feelings run intense in this area. Mine run just as intense. I even managed to offend someone in another forum when my rhetoric got out of hand. The trick is to keep these discussions open, and that openness evaporates when you start name-calling and heating up your rhetoric. By doing so, rather than winning converts, you'll just alienate your side more.

Now, I have been a practicing Christian, but rather unorthodox, so I went to various churches, searching for a system that I felt truly comfortable in. I've been in Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist (Southern and other), Lutheran, generic Protestant, and even Seventh Day Adventist churches, so I consider myself somewhat of an expert on the common threads of the religion. One thing that seems universal is that of the overriding emotion brought forth by church attendance. People talk about the 'passion' and the 'grace' experienced by followers, and I have experienced that, but that euphoria was dimmed and dominated by something more powerful: guilt. No matter where you attended church, you were unworthy to be sitting there, unworthy to hear the message, unworthy of the gift of God, in fact, you were nothing but the scum of the earth, and only entitled to salvation because Jesus loves you so much. You were scum if you didn't help out with the bake sale, scum for not putting enough money into the donation plate, scum because you felt lustlful feelings, thought unholy thoughts, and occasionally flipped the bird at an aggressive and foolish driver.

Makes me wonder how the whole thing got to be so popular, when all it does is make you feel bad about yourself. I feel great about myself, ever since I left that foolishness behind. Now I can look myself in the eye (in the mirror of course, otherwise, it'd be a pretty nasty trick) and say that I am a good man, a moral man, that I've led a good life, and will continue to do so, and that no other judgement really matters except my own, and those I love.

Wow, when the "sorry if I offend you" takes up nearly half a massive posting, I'm slightly afraid you're gonna tear me to peices.
I read -most- of that, but long postings -are- difficult to read. I make the foort to read as much as possible so I know what's going on, but towards the end I musy admit that my attention seriuosly went to pot.

I guess I agreed with you on most points. If there were any bits I didn't agree with you on then I must have skimmed through them *^_^*.

So, I've got a feeling I may be doing a bit of contradicting of myself later on. I'll try and find time soon to -really- read that hard. But remember religeon isn't my favourite subject to read thesis's about!

Hmmm.......

GB, I see your points there. I also accept that I am not talking to someone who has just ridden in on a high horse. I thought that you were straight out of the Southern Baptist fold, from earlier stuff you said. Personally, I find that people who move about in churches a lot tend to be going for what they can get rather than what they can give, but that's something else entirely and I'll leave that alone.

One thing I would say, I have a sister and a girlfriend who study psychology, one at A-Level, one at Degree Level. I can out-argue my sister in most psychological avenues, and my girlfriend holds the entire system in high disregard. Psychology is strange discipline, in that it isn't quite science, but isn't quite art, or religion; it is, as we say in the North, "neither owt nor summat". It's very nature, the study of the human mind, means that it is intrinsically middle ground on everything. A lot of stuff which _sounds_ good, such as several forms of psychoanalysis, are actually fairly unethical, and no matter what form of psychology you intend to use to talk about how the brain creates its own God, there is another strong group of people who will point out the flaws. Psychology is _MUCH_ more splintered than any other science, primarily because it is dealing with such complex and abstract subjects.

Still, enough of me science-bashing again....(really, I'm surprised that you haven't picked up on the splintering of the Church into a thousand different groups, given that my "I don't trust science" arguments talk about splintering a lot.)

Oh, and I'm not here to "win converts" as you put it. The Internet is a really, really bad place to show people what Jesus is like, so I'm just here for the debate.

On to your main point though - is it passion or guilt that we feel?

I think that you have kind of half heard the message, or heard it and not quite got the implications. Yeah, I'll go along with some stuff there - we are "unworthy" of salvation: we didn't earn it. I don't agree with your extrapolation from there though - no human being is "the scum of the earth." Why are you so convinced that if anything is good in your life, it has to be you who made it, which is the implication of you post. Sure, we only get salvation because God loves us, but God loves us no matter what we do. Can you not see that it's intrinsically more "feel-good" to get something which you don't deserve than something you do? And anyway, it's still down to you to make the decision and live right, even if everyone around you isn't. I'm not saying that you're not a good man, I totally believe you there. And if you want to go through your life trusting only humans, then, just as with ddombrow giving God credit for his dad's change, that is entirely up to you.

Maybe you were made to feel guilty or like "scum", but you must have hit all the wrong churches. Trust me, there are more "wrong" churches, where God doesn't even turn up on a Sunday any more because it's so boring and full of hypocrites, than there are "right" ones. I hate the way "the church" works, where people have forgotten their first love and concentrated on having more people at their coffee-morning than the church down the road. In my area, we held a "Millennium Celebration" where all the churches in the area could get together to try and put aside the differences. People kept on saying how "radical" it was, even though the only "radical" thing about it was that we were sitting Catholics next to Anglicans - something that we should do *anyway*. And one church stayed away because another one was going to be there. How stupid and petty! This, I know, is the sort of attitude you'll have encountered. The people in the church will have been all grace and love until afterwards, when the gossip started and the facade fell away, and the people revealed that the "change" they talk about hadn't really changed them - they hadn't committed totally to anyone!

So here, you're right, if you looked at "the Church" you'd wonder how the whole thing was so popular. "The Church" makes more people leave than it makes come in. In fact, "the Church" can't make anybody come into the kingdom. The reason it's so "popular" is that there's a reality behind all the splintered churches, the gossip, the guilt that people are made to feel so often even though they shouldn't. I'm sorry that you didn't find it, but it's still there. Sometimes you have to look much harder than you should, and it sounds like you gave up before you found it. This probably happens a lot. I was lucky, I got to know about the reality only a few years after I found out about the guilt and the pettyness. And you know, any "guilt" I felt vanished; any bad feelings about myself went the way of Walt. I have been in the church, out of the church, in the church, and finally in the Kingdom. Emotionally, there was a difference because I had a good church with mostly good people, but the true change came when I got to know what it was all about.

another long post.

McD

Sorry my posts tend to be a bit long. The trouble is, I don't want to miss out points, because then GB calls me up and I have to put them in anyway. I am glad, however, that I have at least convinced you that there is more to Christianity than meets the eye, and that sometimes, (just sometimes) our reasons for doing things may be a little different than people think .

Thanks for listening.

Oh, just one more thing?

Do you have friends who Email you from Japan? I ask because this:

*^_^*

is a Japanese emoticon, and I've only ever seen one other person outside of Japan use it! Just curious, it's not important or anything...

McD

Oh, I picked up *^_^* from the Justin & Jenner Shrine (Secret Of NIMH website), so you'll have to ask the owner of that where she got it from!

Hmmm, you mentioned something up there about us Brits losing the right to protest...is this serious or what???

Basically, it's right. The Blair regime wouldn't do it obviously, so it's all wrapped up in other stuff, but the situation as I understand it (which is fairly well) is as follows:

The new "Terrorism Bill" is being rushed through, I believe next month but I could be wrong about the exact date. Many people have already pointed out flaws in this bill, but that does not appear to be stopping it. Basically, it is worded very, very broadly, and there is sufficient leeway within the bill to mean that if you protest against _any_ government regime, that you can be clasified as a terrorist.

For instance, take the J16 or J17 last year, where damage was done to buildings in London's Square Mile. Even though the protest was designed to be peaceful, under the new law the organisers could find themselves facing prison sentences of 3-4 years, possibly more. If you are in "Any form of leadership" at an event which is deemed unlawful by the government, you can be classed a terrorist. There is no need for any actual damage to be done, either, because if they can get an "intent to damage" label on you, that is just as bad. There is sufficient space in the bill to allow people to arrest you for, for instance, protesting outside No.10 about the Chinese Government, or protesting about the Pinochet Regime, because if the government so desires it can classify you a terrorist.

The chances are, that at least for the first few years, the government will not exercise this to its fullest extent. However, the potential is there for any government to now legally classify protestors as terrorists - and experience of history shows us that it is only a matter of time!

Here's another question - you don't believe in God, you don't go to church, that's entirely your right. However, would you agree with a government which did not allow me to go to church? Where's this government, you ask? Iran? Iraq? Well..... in the UK, there is no law protecting my right to worship. Zip, nada. The only "church" which is legal is CofE, no Catholics, no independent churches - these exist only if the CofE lets them, which it does. The moves are being made to disempower the CofE from its position of State Church. Once this happens, our Government will be legally able, probably not will, but be legally able to shut down any place of worship, be it Christian, Moslem, Jew, Mormon, whatever, because they will technically be illegal. Also, if the "multi-faith blasphemy" laws get through, they will have legal course to shut us down. If we say "Jesus said: no man comes to the father but though me," and the Mosque down the road says "There is no God but Allah," we are technically both blaspheming the other's religion. Do you see where I'm coming from? We both get shut down, and any spiritual element in the community is lost. I'd prefer a Mosque to nothing!

These things are extreme cases, I know, but the point is, they _could_ legally take place in the UK, a democracy. Happy Days!