Dear Evan

Thank you for a very honest and realistic article.

I have been a mental health nurse since 1978. The "sickest" people I have nursed have been those who have been drawn into the Pentecostal, Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, The Bretheren - and other similar off shoots of Christianity.

In particular, people with the illness of schizophrenia tend to be the most vulnerable. Such wonderful people are usually hearing persecutory voices that other people do not hear. The last thing that they need is a group who talk in "tongues" and about removing demons - as is the case with the Pentecostals.

Contact with the above organisations, from my extensive experience, always compounds the persons mental illness. Very sad stuff I can assure you.

Cheers
Kay

What's wrong with moulding the minds of our youth towards God? Young minds are supple, desiring of knowledge and open to religious inflection. The spiritual need is requisite, as necessary as food, air or water. This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. The youth must be instilled with the knowledge that best serves our time, our time being one of war with Islam; the primary entry point for this schooling is through our education system.

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... we need believing people.

I fundamentally disagree with Evan on this. How else can we expect to produce the future soldiers of God?

Jasper
http://blackbilebox.blogspot.com/

Agree with BD's first post. Lots of fakers out there. I recommend http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/08/24/law-and-gospel-getting-the-right-mix/ . Beautifully summarises the pitfalls of a seeker-sensitive Gospel rather than a Biblical one.

Noah- first of all the ark was huge. Second of all there weren't nearly as many species back then, and the Bible doesn't mention the word species, it mentions "kind" which Bible-believing scientists interpret as genus. 2 of every genus in a massive ark- possible.

Dinosaurs are mentioned in the Bible but the English word for dinosaur was made up after the English translation of the Bible, so you're more likely to see the word "behemoth" or "leviathan".

Fossil record dates are untrustworthy. Yes, dinosaurs existed, but not enough evidence to work out if it was millions of years ago or 10, 000's of years ago. Natural disasters can change the rate of decay of fossils.

Why did Jesus need to die? Yes, there is a God, and the bit we know about Him is He's all loving and that's why He killed His Son and is sending a bunch of people to hell. Um... what?

The Bible also talks about a righteous (good) law at work. It's a law that hates evil and loves good. Its one in which evil culminates in death. Death is the opposite of life, life is defined as knowing God, i.e. intimacy with God. All goodness originally springs from God. Rejecting good is rejecting God and leads to spiritual death. (cont.)

(cont.)

The idea of Jesus dying in our place is to satisfy the moral law that exists. Would God be moral if he suspended morality? would a judge be compassionate by sparing a convicted rapist? is that compassionate for the rape victim?

You see to punish the person who sinned and to forgive the guilty is rather impossible at the same time. When u sin u hurt God and/or something/someone He made. So he wants justice. At the same time, He loves u, so He wants mercy and a second chance for u.

God sent His only Son to the earth to live as a human and be treated by humans in the way that we (symbollically) treat God every day when we sin- by "killing" Him. We are responsible for Christ's death, not God (and certainly not just one particular ethnic group- everybody!)

The thing is, "even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". We might have spat in his face, pushed the crown of thorns on his head, hated and reviled Him for preaching the truth, but He still loves us. Because He has taken that death that justly follows sin onto Himself, it doesn't have to fall on us. It's up to us. Do you take the death you deserve in order for justice to be met, or do you allow the Judge's mercy, the Son's love, to take that death away and allow you to be in an intimate relationship with the One your soul was created to love?

You might not believe all of the above, but hopefully I've served to clarify at least some of the more puzzling elements of the Gospel.

Thankyou very much for the responses to my article.

I actually described three different 'groups', the first fully blown Pentecostal, the second of which didn't believe in all the tongues and miracles stuff, but did think the world was only 9,000 years old, etc. The third provided the background for my childhood and teenage learning - a very strict, military-style traditionalist school which mixed 'Christian values' with 'war/regimental values'. At that time I was exposed to a range of other denominations too.

*BOAZ_David: I found that basically all Christian groups say 'That other church, they don't teach the right thing. Come to our church, we teach the right thing'. Regarding the 'Welsh Revival', the whole 'Baptism of the Holy Spirit' thing and associated miracles, speaking in tongues, etc. was quite prominent.

*TurnRightThenLeft: That's exactly right. First convince people that they are doomed and damned, then offer them a solution to that problem. It's exactly the technique many sales people employ - 'You need this product'.

*Alan Grey: I don't think your counterfeit money analogy really works here. Belief is not a case of what is real or not, it's just belief.

*Narcissist: My humble opinion is that organised religion replaces that feeling of belonging that being part of a tribe used to provide for people.

*Joe Karachi: I think if I was writing an article specifically intended to convince others not to believe in Christianity it would look different. I am interested in discussion and other people's opinions and experiences. But maybe you're right, perhaps I should have written an article about smoking instead.

*Lorese: 'You know, you don't have to have any religion to live a life with ethics.' I think that's absolutely right.

*coach: I have described my experiences accurately. I used to read the bible and pray every day - why doesn't that resemble true Christianity?

*gusi: Many, if not most people who become Christians are looking for comfort, hope and love. Nothing wrong with that of course.

*bennie: The current President of the USA believes that God speaks to him. Should we be worried?

Continued from above:

*runner: 'Surely anyone smart enough to write this article is also smart enough to see that the teachings and writings of Jesus are second to no one who has ever walked this planet.' I am smart enough to know that there are no writings authored by Jesus Christ.

*The alchemist: Thankyou for your comments. I would also like to write an article about science.

*rossco: 'Get real, the earth is many millions of years old, long predating the arrival of humans.' About 6 billion years or so apparently. And only in the last couple of years some x-ray telescopes have been able to see into the centre of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time ever, helping astrophysicists to conclude that there is indeed a supermassive black hole there.

*Pericles: 'These tend to be people who are already searching for some "meaning" in their lives, and the message is internalized at a fundamental and emotional level.' I agree that's the usual pattern. Again though I would stress that it is not 'wrong' for people to feel that way in the first place.

*kalweb: Thankyou for your comments Kay. I have a great respect for those who work in mental health, as it must be very demanding at times. I hope other people listen to what you have to say.

*Jasper BBB: Your comments on your blogsite are very very hateful against women. How did you get to be that way?

*YngNLuvnIt: 'Do you take the death you deserve in order for justice to be met,..' We all have do die sometime. My opinion is that these types of feelings (ie. heavy guilt) germinate during childhood.

........

"Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice." - Henry D. Thoreau.