Dear Mr Johnson

I am not in "Advent" I am in Australia.

Many Australians are not Christians and may find your article somewhat presumptuous if not downright offensive to their own beliefs.

What your articles smashes is any respect for people of different or no faiths. There is no evidence of the birth of Jesus, the story that surrounds him is a mash-up of pre-existing mythologies that include Mithras and the like.

Religion should be like sex, private and personal.

"In lock step with the "secular" delight in order"

What secular delight in order? Please point it out to me.

Secularists delight in individuality as opposed to the conformity of religion.

Dear Johnny... so speaks one who's 'order' is threatened by the incarnation.

"Within our hearts we know; the Incarnation still speaks, and order has been undone."

You may have closed your heart to the word of the eternal WORD, but closing the heart does not alter the reality of His voice and what has been spoken to the world, and you.

"The Word...became flesh, and dwelt among us" This is history.

How we respond to the spoken or written word about that incarnation is our own business. We are blessed with a most generous Creator.

If you wonder just HOW blessed, how patient He is with you, and all of us, how longsuffering He is with persistant and stubborn denial of eternal truth made manifest...you need only look at how Jesus Himself 'stopped' quoting from Isaiah when he read these words of his own mission:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Fortunately for you, and all of us, he stopped before uttering the words .."And the day of VENGENCE of our God"

The Incarnation is 'opportunity', but not unlimited. We have a chance for salvation and redemption in this life, because it is the day of 'The Lords favor'....but just because Jesus stopped at the point He did, does not mean the day unquoted will never come.

His second coming is as sure as His first... let's hope we are all living in His true favor when that occurs, or..that if we die before it, we have died "in Christ".

Boazy

You do as the author, doth presume too much.

My order is workin' just fine mate.

Remember the Jesus myth is just a rehash of earlier ones. That must hurt - guess you practice turning a blind eye more than your cheek, eh?

I'd turn my cheek to you, except right now I'm sitting on it.

*

I get the strong impression you are describing yourself, Mr Johnson.

"We extend and inflate our need for order and resemblance to other people. We accept others according to how they look to us, according to their social position, their occupation, their income, their education, their success, or their sporting allegiance. Our perfected heroes and celebrities are those who reinforce our fantasies of order."

As Tonto once observed, sagely, "What do you mean 'we', Kemo Sabe"

Pericles,

try having a comment about the content of the article rather than seelctive and out of context point scoring, and irrelevant ad hominem.

Johny Rotten,

We may be in Australia, but if we are going to celebrate Christmas then we are also in the season which precedes it: Advent.

Shadow minister,

I couldnt resist your comment. Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch of 'we are all individuals' all chanted in unison. Conformity isnt just the burden of religious ideology.

I am so over this "we" thing Christians persist in getting into.

You are not speaking for me, Mr Johnson. You are speaking to and for the people who think as you do, that is your community, of which I am not one.

The use of the term"we" in a journal such as this is inappropriate. The readership is broad. You are excluding many people. This is extremely bad manners.

As for your statement that "we" are an ordered lot - not only am I not Christian but Im not very ordered either.

Mother of God. When will it end?

Perhaps a little history may help this discussion:

http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/articles/saturnalia

The Germans huh.lol........well its seems that the christian cult is nothing more than a piece from here and a piece from there. Thats why the jigsaw doesn't make sence:)

Johnny...said

"Religion should be like sex, private and personal.
Posted by Johnny Rotten," Friday, 17 December 2010 9:15:02 AM

Well....amen to that.

BLUE

Thank you, Mark, for a lovely piece, capturing some of the anarchic spirit of the season. Our Advent study group recently focussed on the Song of Mary – now there’s a revolutionary manifesto!

Blue/Johnny, I fully support secularity that keeps the State separate from religion, that insists on freedom of conscience and prohibits official religion. We are all free to accept any religion or none. But I will not accept that you can set the conditions on how I practice my faith, still less its content. Authentic Christianity cannot be confined to the private and personal

How Christian-ISM as a would be world conquering power and control seeking IDEOLOGY systematically SMASHED/trashed (or tried to) all other religious and Spiritual cultures on this earth-world.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/cruelty.html

http://www.logosjournal.com/hammer_kellner

Such was/is the inevitable result the moment that the early church was co-opted by the Roman state, and thus became a key player in the Western drive for total power and control over every one and every thing.

And by the FACT that christian-ISM (the religion ABOUT Jesus) wrongly claims to be the one true "faith"/way/revelation. Implying of course that all other faith traditions are necessarily false and thereby HAVE to be converted to the "one true way".
Such a claim and motive to convert all nations is also wrongly supported by the completely BOGUS "great commission".
Never mind that NOBODY ever heard Saint Jesus of Galilee say that.

Could not have heard him say that, because Jesus did not create the Christian religion - he was a Jew as were his direct disciples. He/they certainly would not have called themselves "christians".

Briar Rose...this may come as a bit of a shock...but I am persistently ANNOYED by the use of.... the 'Christian we' :)

Oooooh...at our Bible study group, one of the participants often shares how 'we' do nothing to win people to the Lord.. 'we' are lame.. 'we' are this.. 'we' are that... 'we' need to 'really get back to the basics'
and so it goes.

Just about every week I share about something I've done.. someone I've spoken to.. some debate here.. some public act which stimulates discussion about Christian things.. but still 'WE'....grrrrr...

JOHNNY.. you are welcome in the name of freedom to have whatever order you wish, it is said of Jesus:

"Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God"— (John 1:12)

If an individual does not wish to receive Jesus, He is not going to force you or anyone to do so...but maybe one day you will surprise me when I maybe meet you in Glory.. I can tell you this much..when the Lord draws someone, it's difficult not to be drawn...and while we have our free will, if you are on the "list" in the book of life... you will be there :) I shudder to think of any other 'order' which people trust their destiny to.

It's amazing how little attention some of you pay to the article. If you have looked at it you would have seen a photo of Chrys. She is definitely not a "he".

And then we just have the thread hijacked to the usual obsessions that various posters have.

What about addressing the article for a change? Chrys isn't having a go at Christians, she's looking for a meaning for those who aren't Christian.

Seems a reasonable atttude to me. I'm amazed at how much Christmas has changed for my family, even though we're practicing Christian - well at least Mum and I are. Which is an issue that must arise for a lot of families. How do you deal with the Christian members and the agnostic or atheist ones?

Is Christmas just a day of idle celebration, or is there a religious component to it, and how do you accommodate the various views whilst maintaining family coherence?

GrahamY

I think you posted on the wrong article.

<<Is Christmas just a day of idle celebration, or is there a religious component to it, and how do you accommodate the various views whilst maintaining family coherence?>>

Incoherence is also a problem at OLO.

Life bad, Christ good, no evidence -- got it. Next, please.

Dear John J

actually there is very good evidence for....

-The birth of Christ
-The life of Christ
-The death of Christ
-The resurrection of Christ
-The future return of Christ.

It's not lack of evidence which is the problem mate...it's 'attitude' to it.

I suspect it would not matter if the Lord came and gave you a personal shakeup of 20 on the Richter scale, you would find some way of rationalizing or refuting it.

How do I know this? Simple: when Jesus healed a man blind from birth, who the whole community KNEW had been blind from birth... and who Jesus healed instantly and publically.... the only thing the Pharisees could think of was.....

*How can we KILL this upstart?"

So the issue is never 'lack of evidence'....it's what is in our hearts.

Hi Al,

Well, if there is good evidence for any of that then you had better get busy putting it out there, because it's not to be found in any book, article or website that I have ever seen. And bearing in mind that atheists on average actually know more about religion than Christians, it's hard to see how we could all have missed it.

By the way, it's JONJ, not John.

Season's Greetings!

"Jesus of Nazareth ...spoke to the outcast, to the poor, to the weak; he befriended sinners, ritually becoming what he associated with, and was thereby exiled from that other deity of purity and might."

Christianity is a plagiarized version of Horus, Mithras, Krishna and enough deities to fill this comment. It's purpose was to enslave humanity to the yolk of perpetual fear. Jesus gave only one thing to humanity that was outside our existing nature: Hell.

It's no accident that descriptions of heaven are balms for the fear of death; seeing loved ones again, living for eternity, tripping out on deity love, yadda. But hell is described in infinite detail, given amplitude by the church over the centuries to ensure one thing only: Fear.

Control of humanity is slavery. To control another's thoughts is to have more power than a chain and neck iron upon them. Jesus hated his mother and despised the notion of family. Consider Matthew 10:35-37.

Whatever was sought by *all* the Gospel writers is not the Christian Lie. The Judas Gospel hints at the pagan rituals and the fact Judas was to become the greatest of all disciples. This in no way offers truth to the biblical myth. It merely reinforces that the birth of Roman christianity was a crushing barbarity to human intellect and culture - the beginning of one of the most vile, violent and bloodthirsty lies in human history.

The fact that it is axiomatic that the Lie was crafted from existing texts but that this denial is essential to become 'christian' makes today's Christian pursuits an intellectual repugnance.

To claim love and piety at the same time as threatening toddlers with eternal suffering or abusing women and railing against free thought and advancement of humane qualities is a most curious aspect of this fantasy.

The Christian message is simple. Believe or suffer for eternity. This is barbarity beyond the realms of defence. All else is simple Secular Humanism, usurped by Christians.

Be careful what you wish for, Boaz.

>>I suspect it would not matter if the Lord came and gave you a personal shakeup of 20 on the Richter scale, you would find some way of rationalizing or refuting it.<<

If he were to appear, *poof* goes religion. Out the window. Fini. End of story.

Douglas Adams nailed it.

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore, you don't. Q.E.D.."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Just think for a moment, how much religion relies upon the concept of faith.

Instead of the act of prayer, you could simply become a Facebook friend, or tweet @God, whenever you needed an answer to a ticklish question, such as, is corporal punishment appropriate discipline for a teenage daughter? Or, how come you're the same guy that Muslims worship?

Now that would be interesting, would it not?

That is a good point Fire snake, but in a greater context to what you would write; 500 odd years ago, the Church was the State; everyone was born into the church. The Church Ruled , or the despots attached to the church ruled ; somewhat apart from religious verve; also remember that the monarchs needed it to gain favour from the church gatherings, and thus the Monarchs were in most the divinity as so granted by the Church (God save our King / Queen; Christianity for its part gave us the Philosophy to reason and create civilizations , and the Church is likened to Atheism and the State of today; You have just traded Faces and end up with the same warlords bustling for power – wealth and self indulgence.

Perhaps it would be fully advice to know and understand the philosophy that gave birth to the religious creed that is Atheism; it is not as people would have believed, just like Agnostics- The closest relative to this phenomena in Modern times is the Church of Scientology; Despotism and fatalistic despotism that formulates Cults ; Atheism is but one .

Oh Al.......and others....I would just love to hear your reply that one.

"Control of humanity is slavery. To control another's thoughts is to have more power than a chain and neck iron upon them. Jesus hated his mother and despised the notion of family. Consider Matthew 10:35-37.

Religion just takes advantage of an already built in system called the love with-in all. Almost Every animal shows this to be true. Jesus was no different to the likes of Martin-Luther king or Mother Tresa......and a great many more, that the people in times of distress will follow.

Rhian......you said'

"But I will not accept that you can set the conditions on how I practice my faith, still less its content. Authentic Christianity cannot be confined to the private and personal....

Iam glad you've brought that up.......religion is or faith...as you put it, is causing untold damage to the second and third world people by telling them not to use conventional contraception. Maybe in the first worlds of people your argument has substance......where one can see the truth in what old writings...... one of sound mind can de-code.

You religious people are still coming into the main stream of pubic life and tell us non-believers how to think and behave........I and 100,s of millions more need not your god.........and if people continue to put it forward.....that we are sinners from their point of view.......you are in fact changeling all of humanity to a fight of the conscious minds which since the dawn of time has being programing one individual from another.

However....if you kept it private.......no-one wouldn't even know religious people even existed.........But that's the point isn't it!

And how's business going any way:) Caught any more new sheep?

Have a great Xmas...........just don't push your thoughts on to me in the pubic arena.

BLUE

Deep Blue

I have not tried to impose my faith upon you. I respect your right to hold to any religion or none. But Christianity – and many other religions - cannot be confined to private piety. As well as a relationship between individual Christians and God we are in relationship with each other. Christianity has a social dimension that entails both a critique of how human society is organised and how it can go wrong, and a call to social action to improve the society in which we live.

The beginning of Mark’s article describes some of Christianity’s social critique.

If we ignore this social dimension we fail to meet the demands of our faith. This demand calls many Christians to work in charities, NGOs and social services, politics etc

Rhain.

"If we ignore this social dimension we fail to meet the demands of our faith. This demand calls many Christians to work in charities, NGOs and social services, politics etc.......

.....well then that leaves your religion wide open for criticism, and with that..........you should not be getting up-set. Evangelism is now seen as the pushing weapon of choice that most will repel......and I like how you have avoided the question of the effects of religion on second and third world people.

I agree all must see their beliefs through in all that's commonsense, however one must have a responsibility too others....and I thank you for the respect.........on what the negatives of old writings can have. Good and evil is just an interpenetration on what the pagan people observed upon a reflection...........which one can see in the animal kingdom. Baby Jesus smashes systems of order........after much investigation.......in the 21 century........many naive cultures just existed on the "your word for it"........but in the first world places.........hopes have all but gone. ( believing in ) The little believing new world of people.....are going to be hard to convince.... so your point which I agree on is just fine and respectively so.

There are a few posters on here......that make Christianity unbearable to read....no matter responding to........and I believe this is causing embarrassment to those that are not extremists........and that just wish to live and let live.....with-out pushing the gender to the point of too far.

I may not believe.........However the tree is up, gifts are under the shining stars that hang and shimmer, with the songs of joy.....and will ring through-out the time you give your respects to the birth of your Jesus.....which brings you happiness.

Oh and try not to eat too much:)

BLUE

Deep Blue

I agree with you that Catholicism’s prohibition on contraception is harmful in the developing world. I also doubt that it’s obeyed much, as falling fertility rates attest.

Against this you have to weigh the great good that religion can do for people in developing countries, whether working to improve material conditions, pushing for changes in the political systems that perpetuate poverty, or simply giving hope and meaning to lives that are otherwise often pretty grim. There’s a reason that Christianity is growing in poor countries even as it’s declining in its old power base in the West.

I’m not upset, I have enjoying this discussion. Even the discourteous posters are interesting to follow, and you’re not one of those.

Have a joyful Christmas, in whatever fashion seems good to you.

And I’ll try to watch the calories!

i have only read the first page of your taddle
and see not a real lot of info

worse you call the messenger god
have you not heard the ten command-meants
there is the rule..of having no god before god

so at least get that right

anyhow i mentioned your twaddle here
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4184&page=0

i had to cut this from the last post
so leave it here..just to finish off that thought
[then go to read the comments]

which dont read too well
going/from the first two replies

anyhow this belongs here
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4184&page=0

there is also the runour that jesus can turn sewrage into water
but he tells us ..to inform the settlers..he dont swing that way..and for them to stop sending it downhill into the meager water supply

he advises that..one third of the world
hasnt got pottable water/supply
[clean-drinkable water]...

and sending..even more settler sewrage..isnt good enough

he reminds them[and us]..that we do to the least
we do to god..[dont say you wernt told]

he is angry with the ursury/banking cartel
and says support the audit of the fed

as well as reaching out and touching someone
put a little love in ya hearts folks
where is the love?

runner is correct
seems the comment should have been directed here
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11375&page=0

hope i dont get into trouble..putting up my patch/fix
linking back the comment
to the topic

i relieved to find gray
is as hunam as the rest of us

it does look a rather long thread
going to take all day to read it
65 pages..[or so..from memory]

of athiestic thinking
oh lord why do you help me notice these things
why cant i just..let it be..its not easy being me..nor he

anyhow thats why i went off
this time limited.. topic
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4184&page=0

xmass cards..has lots more life in it
so lets wait..and see

runner is correct...lol.....OUG....It must be lonely out there....come in...where its warm:) Its alright to be Human, as it started.

BLUE