david f is very close to finding out if his scepticism is right. He is somewhere between 90 and 100.

Christians should reject being told how or what to think by advocates/fundamentalists/fanatics who believe they speak for God or claim they do.

Every believer has to decide what they privately believe and how to express that private belief. Based on the ring of truth that rings for you in your heart of hearts.

If you believe that the son of God died on a cross to pay for your sins, you need to hold in an open mind the possibility that the opposite could be true.

And you can worship your God from anywhere, even a green cathedral or under the stars or in your home.

I mean 2 thousand years from now the Harry Potter stories might be taken as literal gospel? Especially if there is a nuclear war and much of current knowledge goes up in Smoke and is lost in the annuls of time.

And at the end of the day, we're all sons and daughters of the universe.

And we know that the universe and everything in it is a unified field of energy.

Can the universe think? Well, you and I can and we're an integral part of the universe.
Alan B.

Footnote: And what David f says.
Alan B.

Alan

I agree with your opening sentence. Buy I'm not sure what the "opposite" of dying on the cross for our sins would be.

The article has profound things to tell about Christianity, which I generally agree with, however I do not agree with its terminology:

'Religare' indeed means to [re]bind, but this binding is with God, not with practices, beliefs, mores or laws.

Being bound to practices, beliefs, mores or laws indeed limits one's freedoms, but being bound to God is the ultimate freedom, because God has no limits.

As a result of Constantine's distortions, Christianity has not become religious - it became secular, it became part of the establishment, it became bound to practices, beliefs, mores and laws!

Jerusalem at the time of Jesus was not a center of religious power, but of secular hypocrisy concentrated on a national god, falsely claimed to be God in order to frighten and subdue the masses. These hypocrites had no real connection with God.

Likewise, Popes exercised only secular power, not "religious and secular power" as the article claims.

All this is not to say that practices, do's and dont's have no place in religion - they actually do at times, especially for beginners on the spiritual path, but to progress spiritually they must be self-imposed: enforcing them by authorities is definitely counter-religious.

Dear ttbn,

I am 97. When I am dead I don't expect I will be aware of anything.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night