G'day Odsoc.

People often think Jesus was meek and mild. On close inspection of the Gospels its clear Jesus said some terrifying things, that he acted with power and authority when confronting wrong doing.

He told demons to 'shut up' and get out, threw out the tables of the money changers with furious anger at their damnable behaviour.

He must have been furious also with the stupefyingly hypocritical Pharisees when he asked them how they expected to avoid going to Hell.

Jesus hated evil, he used warnings to remind people what they were doing eg

"the wheat and the tares",
"the sheep and the goats" (sheep and goats almost indistinguishable back then)
"Lazarus and the Rich Man"
"the parable of the Sower".

These are His people - the Godhead's people. He had authority to admonish them. Hell is not the place for humans.

But as we know humans slowly tortured to death our luminous Nazarene. People have never enjoyed being told the world view they have taken decades to construct is a house of cards. We kill and enjoin others to do the same rather than face up to ourselves.

Christianity has had billions of eyes on it for two thousand years now. Many have been envious hateful ones that have stopped at nothing to destroy it. The Church and what it stands for has been clawed and stabbed in almost every conceivable way from physical to intellectual assaults. If a fundamental weakness has been missed it hasn’t been missed through want of trying. It has stood like a beacon to all humanity and with alacrity do we attend to the job of trying to snuff it out.

Jesus and His Church.I’ll stand on this. I’ll build from here.

Others can have their private unscrutinised protected beliefs I want the real deal the stuff publicly tested by time and fire. Remember Christianity must be something remarkable indeed to attract such hateful attention.

The wrathful face of Jesus is hidden mostly from the masses. It is because the great mass of us are terribly broken and weak and need to hear the forgiving, gentle Jesus more than anything.

For posters in here who are foolish and would go whistling and skipping into Hell and who seek company on the journey - holding up a mirror to their beliefs is a loving act. It is following Jesus’ example, but the one that is kept from mass consumption.

Its none of my business what God wants of them, but one cannot be a Christian and let lies go unchallenged.

Honest error no worries, but those who should know better, those who pretend to speak with authority and spread lies about Our Loving God how can anyone be silent about this?

Wednesday's article from the International Herald Tribune is interesting and begins to unpick elements of the dark ages under discussion. Just as the "West" is no monolithic bloc, presumably Indonesia is no junior mouthpiece for middle east groupthink?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/15/opinion/edraslan.php

Hi Robert,

Apologies I guess I lost my sense of humour for a while there!

Never mind, here is a Muslim joke on Islamist extremists:

An Islamist extremist group managed finally to reach power in the country x.
The first decision they made was to cancel police A& army ranks and replace them with ‘beard length’ structure: the longest beard being the highest rank.
In the police head-quarters, a beardless man walking in the corridor bumped into a man with a long beard. To his surprise, the beardless man did not salute the bearded one.
The bearded stopped the other man and said “do you know its an offence not to salute a higher rank officer?”. To which the beardless responded: “I outrank you”. He added while dropping his shorts down “but I am in the secret service”.

Hope you got it and you liked it.
Apologies to Scout & Kalweb if it sounds like ‘boys jokes’.

Peace,

Well now y'all
No answers to my questions from the christian posters.
Now, Irfan, your article is good and has echoes in the interview by George Negus with Tariq Ramadan on Dateline. However, the question that really goes to the heart of this debate is the extent to which your views resonate in the Australian Muslim community. I make no judgements.

If, however, there are things that I, as a white anglo -(saxon/celtic) Australian can do to build bridges with the Australian Muslim community (of whatever drivation and descent), then I would like to know. How do I, in a practical way, engage with the Islamic community in Australia so as to make them feel welcome, valued, and accepted as belonging here? And, how will I know, besides your article, that the Islamic community in Australia value being Australian and contribute to Australian life? The answers to these questions are only hinted at in your article. I realise that few, if any speak for Islam in Australia or for non-Islamic Australians, in totality, but some more and more public indications might assuage some people here (unless, of course they are beyond reason).

odsoc

odsoc

I and many others (R0bert, Fellow Human, Reason) have tried many times to engage in meaningful dialogue with Christian posters. All I ever receive in return are personal insults or lecures on the error of not believing exactly as they do. This approach to non-christians has a lot in common with fundamentalist Islam. I guess that fundamentalism of any type is about the pathological desire to control and dictate to others.

I have asked many times to be treated with respect - am still waiting. I find the bullying attitude and the constant derision to be highly offensive. This is why R0bert turned to humour - because intelligent discussion appears to be impossible.

We really need to reach out to each other and communicate, such as Irfan and Fellow Human have been trying to do. All they receive is vitriol in return. If either of them even become remotely defensive - they cop further derision.

As R0bert said "The christain fundies are aliases for the same extremist who is trying to make christainity look bad by the appalling attitudes and lack of fairness, justice etc expressed in their posts."

One has to consider what these posters hope to gain by these strange tactics.

That Irfan has written a rational and well reasoned article flys over the heads of those whose goal is apparently to offend as many people as possible.