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

Are we having fun, yet?

Isn't it convenient how Constantine received a deathbed conversion?

Or the Brigham Young bunch have a habit of retroactively baptizing people who have been dead for years or centuries...

Of course, the early Christians had no problem colonizing native deities and legendary figures into their canon of saints.

I am in the naive position, as a PK (preacher's kid) raised in a 'non-denominational protestant (small 'p' intentional) re-re-formationalist church', of going back to the words of Christ and Paul.

Theology bores me, as do libraries of 'jot and tittle' arguments.

Christ proscribed very little in the way of Ritual and he dictated no liturgy. Yet, when the disciples came to him and asked him to rebuke a man who was using his name to cast out demons, he was curiously unbothered. "If they are not against us, they are for us," I half-remember him saying.
The 'Lord's Prayer' is a classic case. He did not say, "Thou shalt!"
He said,"If you must, then do something like this..."

The 'Lord's Prayer' is nothing of the sort. It is a magnificent parody of what the apostles had actually asked him for. And yet, look what happened?

I sometimes think, as Malthowich the Apostate pointed out in another instance, that the worst thing that ever happened to Christ is that someone wrote a book about him.
Words can get you killed. Written words can lay on you and crush you.

The best thing that can come out of a bureaucratic framework like a monolithic religion is that a truly imaginative and compassionate person can use that authority to actually accomplish something while the rest of the idiots are 'jot and tittling'.

As our pastor has said from the pulpit in the Southern Baptist church I hang around,"This room is full of people who will have a big surprise when they meet their maker. God decides who he likes and it doesn't matter whose tag you have in your ear or whose brand you have on your behind. He decides what your pedigree is, not you."

When asked by anyone what church I belong to, I simply reply...
"All of them. And every mosque, and every temple, and every group that meets in the name of peace and accountability".
I usually get funny looks about then, but I will not discriminate on the basis of faith
I've had some pretty flaming discussions with some fundamentalists, as well as some charasmatics (charismaniacs), about spiritual issues, and some people just don't have much of a sense of humor about these things

I'll just continue to love everybody
lady Karen

As I recall, the dead got to choose whether or not to accept the baptism...

Why not write a book about Christ? No, the worst thing that could have happened to Christ was misinterpretation.

- Jordan

Don't say that, in a hundred years some people might accuse you of being omnipresent and worship you!

- Jordan

"As I recall, the dead got to choose whether or not to accept the baptism... "

- Jordan

Pack up your crystal ball in your old kit bag,
and seance, seance, seance!

When you talk to the dead, you're having a seance. When the dead talk to you, your no longer with us...

According to my , you occasionally at inappropriate moments...

- Jordan

Don't work!

- Jordan

The dead talk to us all the time
We usually just don't listen to their wisdom

Karen

I'm getting something from the great beyond!

What is it?

Long distance charges!

I'm getting something from the great beyond too!

"What is it?"

The 'b', of course; the 'd' is 'on' the bottom!



- Jordan

We have lots of dead people who live with us
Our driveway sits right beside the village cemetary

Seriously, learning from our own history is something we forget about doing sometimes. We'd all be better off if we did learn from the past, so we don't keep repeating the same stupid stuff

Did somebody already say that

Karen

'b'on 'd'.....


Methinks me out of me depths!

Yes, s don't normally venture into shallow water...

- Jordan

Just had a couple of LDS elders (all of eighteen or nineteen, by the look of them) in my living room. Almost freezing and they were out in short sleeves!

They seemed to have a marginal knowledge of the New Testament or the Protestant Reformation. Earnest lads, though. Kind, considerate, and thoughtful.

I told them I wasn't a joiner.
Actually, it's more complicated than that. Because of the possible Asperger's, I am impulsive and resistant to change by turns. And I don't like being cornered. Of course, the corner I normally find myself in is usually one I painted myself into, but that doesn't mean I like having help.

Short sleeves?!? The fools! Perhaps I know/will know some of them - they shall be mocked for their foolishness. Though maybe it was a ploy to get into your house...

There are all sorts. There's the type you describe, then there are the ones who aren't really happy on their mission, and there are others who quote approximately the bible, and several other religious books...

'...possible Asperger's...'

Ditto here!

- Jordan