Mark David Chapman
Earl(?) Bremmer
John Hinckley

I had to rack my brains for Hinckley. Of course, since I'm an American, these hits hit closer to home.

I used to go to a lot of Beatles conventions, because my girlfriend was in a Beatles cover band, and there was always someone sitting at a table trying to get people to sign a petition demanding that Chapman never be paroled. I don't think John would have approved of someone devoting so much energy to a campaign grounded in hatred and anger. (Any more than Jesus would have approved the persecution of the Jews.)

Looked it up -- it's Arthur Bremmer.

"The problem with communism is that it displaced the ultimate allegiance owed to God with the state and that gave the state unlimited power to produce the result we all know."..Sells

Could we not equally say:-
... the problem with Christianity/Islam/Judaism/Paganism is that the ultimate allegiance to a God concept displaces allegiance to the common good that can give religious fanatics the unlimited power to produce the result we all know.

"Imagine" isn't so much about universalism as it is about giving up divisive illusions. There's nothing about giving up ethnicity, culture, history or the diversity of ideas. When the song talks about religion, God and Heaven, it's referring to the delusion that these mental constructs have an objectively definable, external reality -- the delusion that these are things which it makes sense to fight about, or be imprisoned by. If you remember the Zen koan/Donovan song: "First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then there is;" "Imagine" refers to the stage of realizing that there is no mountain.

To those who do not understand faith and hope in a future and for a better place. Faith is the energy of the immagination that dreams of better things. That we are not locked into a limited physical experience. There is a movement in the human psyche that we are not locked in a fatal existence but in a movement toward better and higher experiences.

Philo believes in pie in the sky when you die.

Why is that these believer types are so terrified of the prospect of personal extinction on death that they have to invent God + heaven + hell + souls etc so that they can believe in life after death? Fear: that's what ails them.

I'm not exactly overjoyed at the prospect of personal extinction either (I'm mid fifties, so there are fewer days ahead than behind) but I can accept that that's how it is. Of course were I wrong, then according to the just and merciful God I was taught about by the Christian Bros (who did not molest me, either) I'll get to warm my toes by the fires of hell forever.

Mhoram

Mhoram

I'm mid 50s also, 56 to be exact.

I'd rather reach out to you than 'bomb' you with words :)
The 2nd part of my post, was straight out of Ecclesiasties, written by King Solomon son of David.

One other thing he states "God has placed eternity in mans's heart, but not so he can know the beginning or the end"

The man tried everything, power, pleasure, empire building. None of which most of us get to do, and his conclusion was that mans duty is to 'remember your creator in the days of your youth' and work hard, obeying God in your life.

This is the dude from whom we get the saying "The wisdom of Solomon"

The point I was making, is that this guy was no slouch, and he has been and done a heck of a lot more than you or I have. If ever there was someone who did not "need" God, it was this guy.

So, while your independance and strength are admirable in some ways, I just question whethere you really should be cutting yourself off from your creator like that ?

Your experience of the Christian brothers, the education you received, may not have given you a picture of spiritual bliss, but I assure you, that to know Christ is without question the greatest experience of my life, so I urge you Mhoram, to enquire in the gospels yourself, to meet 'The Main Man' so to speak, and I pray you will experience His forgiveness and love in your heart, and the new life which knowing Him gives.