Boaz, some explanations from you, please.

"You have made the ultimate value judgement that all of us should refrain from. You have actually judged 'GOD' thereby setting yourself ABOVE Him...."

This is a very specific interpretation of the word "judge".

We are all entitled to "judge" each other, the Queen, Bill Gates, the Pope etc. in the sense that we assess, and express an opinion. That act in no way sets us as "above" the object of judgement, merely demonstrates our ability to think, weigh, and draw conclusions.

"Being judgemental" is generally regarded to be a bad thing, but only because the very phrase itself is used in a derogatory or pejorative sense. Judging, as in examining evidence and coming to a conclusion based upon that evidence is a good thing, demonstrating a willingness to engage the mind in a constructive manner.

I think you know this, but choose to indulge yourself in this unproductive form of semantic masturbation because it somehow makes you feel good.

Your fellow evangelists on this forum do the same thing. Is there a school you all go to that teaches you these verbal tics? They are all remarkably similar in their construction and deployment.

For what it is worth, I wasn't exposed to C S Lewis as a child, but my two older kids thought the stories were ok. Neither of them said "oh look, isn't Aslan like Jesus!", but that is probably because they are only peripherally aware of the Bible stories.

The film, however, I thought was appalling. I went with my twelve year-old, who quite enjoyed it (the beavers cracked him up), but he didn't make the connection either. I guess you have to be pre-sensitized, which rather defeats its point as Christian propaganda, if that is what it was intended to be.

Similarly, Mark Hurst's article only makes sense if you care one way or the other. Manufacturing some kind of spiritual message, then concocting an "is it black or white?" argument from a bunch of anthropomorphic cartoon characters seems the height of pointlessness.

Dear Rob
I can identify with your feeling of being pressured from the likes of myself and others. I hope you can also appreciate that when you make pronouncements about the Creator, that we will put forth the case on which our lives stand. I'm sure that in such efforts we will have 'Moses Moments' where instead of just 'touching' the rock with his rod as God instructed him, to bring water out for the Israelites, we do what he did -WHACKED it a few times.. he exceeded the boundaries set by God.
We are human... sanctification is not overnight, yes, we sometimes 'whack' and to the extent that we do or have, humble apologies.

Dear Pericles
My eyes almost fell out of their sockets when I arrived at the 'semantic masturbation' phrase..I thought I'd patented that phrase, but then I recalled that mine was 'Mutual intellectual masturbation' which I've used in connection with the eLitist Latte Left in Lygon Street Cafes. So, yours is safe :)

In regard to Roberts comments, I was just making what I thought should have been an obvious point, about what he was doing. Rob was saying "I looked, I saw, I experienced...and after a time, I rejected -on the grounds of my own view of how God should be" (in effect)

This is quite different from the likes of Alchemist who is just a broken record and torrent of rhetoric. Its different from Kenny, who just dismisses Christians as loonies, or various others who have a similar view.

On the Narnia books, I haven't read them. Can't get my head into that type of thing. The Bible is far more living and real to me. I find "Pseudo Christian" stories never make the grade, and are 'off' in some way or other.

OFF TOPIC I note with keen interest that PM Howard is giving a Major Speech on "National Identity" today ! Bravo ! Hmm.. does he have 'people' monitoring OLO or are we in fact speaking for a large majority that coalition polling points to ?

Reading these posts from the devout (devoid) reminded me of the time I overheard the church committee commenting on how someone didn't understand the bible, and was a bad christian. My father, a deacon at the time told them they reminded him of the passengers of a plane telling the pilot how to fly it, whilst they had never been in the cockpit, just sat outside the closed cockpit door.

You all try to express love, but don't understand it, the venom of you fears overwhelms you, allowing your true nature to be revealed. I doubt there is one of you that has ever made an attempt to learn the real history of your beliefs, you just sit in the pews glowing in your ignorance.

I constantly put forward historical fact, but you ignore it and stick to your superstitious nonsense. My knowledge comes from church documents, not plagiarised yank evangelistic garbage.

I don't need to google, I have a life time of study and travel to support me, plus many years within the church. The only one that seems to have any idea is philo, the rest of you are just sad empty husks drained by your delusional fears.

The Catholic church recently issued a decree stating that ID, was not in line with scripture. Any fool that has read the original texts, can see that.

There isn't one of you that has any idea of the true nature of the man, nor life at the time. You have two very short periods of time to base your hypocrisy on and neglect all the factual evidence that shows everything in its true light.

You believe every aspect of life comes from your god, but your examples show that you refuse to live that way. Why don't you use the holy anointing oil that is described in the old Hebrew bible, used by jesus and the apostles. It would probably give you a better understanding of where you are at.

Bd broken records just go round and repeat, thats a religious concept designed to brainwash. Reality is progressive not stagnant.

Pericles

The Judging you talk about is only a good thing in relation to what is done.

We cant just use our limited and flawed logic (particularly with the relativeistic ideas of today)to discern what someone intends to do or why someone did this or that, whether it's showing up late for dinner or stealing a fridge.

I biblical terms we are to judge the fruit and not the heart, because 'only God can know the heart of men'.

How wise this piece of information is, most of the problems we have with friends/family and associates is because we judge the intent of the heart and not the fruit.

For example we are to judge if someone steals something and know that it's wrong, and that that person is a thief, but it's wrong to percieve from their appearance or the side of the tracks they live on or their financial position that the person is a theif.

Its a clear moral principle and wisdom that can only come from the mind that knows His creation and not from secular humanism

its not easy being:Show us a creature that is evidently in the throes of change - boy you do have faith!
RObert:"Show respect for those who don't follow your belief" Good advice - now follow it yourself.
pericles: We are to judge but not condemn.
The alchemist: "bad broken record just etc" describes you to a T
You God-haters who do not acknowledge so do not know God yet you "know?" so-o-o-o much about Him - amazing.
As for the person who rants on about the super drug or holy oil that Jesus used - you do have a vivid imagination. numbat

Mark - a good and timely intervention in the bland world of Christian commentary on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe movie. I especially liked the concluding paragraphs.

C.S. Lewis did, however, cast his Aslan character in more than one guise, and several times refers to him as a Lamb (e.g. in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Aslan appears as a Lamb to Edmund, Eustace and Lucy; and in The Last Battle, the Lamb observes that Narnia is Aslan's and Calormen is Tash's - an intriguing statement in itself - and is identified as Aslan).

See Paul Ford, Companion to Narnia (2005 edition), pp. 280-281, and also pp. 480-482.

Perhaps the rule of God is best portrayed (if we're limited to animals) by a lion-like lamb - as Revelation 5:5-6 suggests?