I had a wonderful conversation with a retired Bishop from the Anglican church the other day.

From his perspective, the Christian faith welcomes all – men, women, homosexuals, Muslims, Jews, Atheists.

His take on Christianity is that there are two foundations – Love and Freedom. He stated that without these two precepts, Christianity in its modern guise does not meet the criteria laid down by the Creators messenger – Jesus.

Interestingly, he also states that Christianity was just one of the forms of worship the Creator hoped people would be drawn to. He freely accepted that Christianity was but a version of fellowship that the Creator wished to bring to the world.

I told him I had left the Christian faith and looked into myself for some answers. That I was disillusioned with the intolerance, prejudice and dismissive attitude towards other faiths by many Christians and their hierarchy. His response? I could look in no better place than inside for the answers. As that is where the Creator was waiting.

I then told him I did not find the Creator. I did not believe in a specific supreme being. Perhaps I believed in the oneness of the universe and all the responsibility and connectedness that brought with it. His response? I had already found the Creator, whether I realised (or wanted it) or not.

Seems to me that belief and faith are far more important that dogma.

And as the good retired Bishop said – You can shout your faith and the redemption it grants you to the universe but the noise will be hollow if your actions do nothing to resonate the sound in time to the Creators beat.

Quite the wise man I thought.

Setting aside the basis of the retired Bishop's stance - ie. a Church created by a King who couldn't live the Faith He once defended, and which now seeks to remove the Cross of St George from its National Flag - lest it upset Muslim immigrants - the premises of Love & Freedom are sound.

Sound if they also rebuff selfishness and that the self is bound by responsible behaviour.

Introspection is great, if, as the Bish says, you find God, but finding God is not adopting something like the Force. God is a person too, and you can establish a personal relationship with Him - through the person of Christ and His Church. (cf Mohammed and a distant Allah).

Now, if you do not meet the person of Jesus (through prayer and His Church) then perhaps the Church is at fault, but, if you refuse to develop this relationship in spite of the Church, then...

Someone had to bring in the Middle East problems and the bad old US.

And Sancho I am sorry but the second law of thermodynamics has nothing to do with conservation of matter.

Reason, I could not agree with you more. I have a number of clergy friends who feel the same and accept me as one who's outgrown god, as many sensible people have.

Philo and B D's response are typical of the fuzziness of gods followers, constantly changing truth to give a meaning satisfying their fantasies. I said the universe was in a state of chaos, not it was chaos, or evolution is the creator. Both evolution and controlled chaos are active states of the universe, not it's defining creation.

The second law of thermodynamics, only relates to our known universe. Not the ones we don't know of, in the form of other dimensions containing forces and matter we are yet to understand.

Morals are a construct of illusionary power over others, they suppress and destroy peoples free will, giving monotheists an excuse to carry out their barbarity. God's followers are unevolved barbaric slaves, requiring a set of rules, to enable them to function beyond their infantile understanding. Those understanding universal ethics, have no need for suppressive restraints. They're evolved enough to see how the beings of our planet conduct their ethical lives and emulating it in our lives.

There's nothing in common between Yahweh and evolution, one is an ongoing progression of cause and effect. The other a barbaric destructive illusion determined to enslave and destroy, in deference to what reality and truth places before us.

A perfect example of the depth of lying and barbarity monotheists will got to, is the finding of thousands of unexploded cluster bombs, dropped by the jews across Lebanon after a cease fire had been determined. It's an excellent example of how deceptively moronic god's followers are.

Philo, "Thou shalt not kill!" now that's a complete lie. It's all gods works have ever done, kill, kill kill. Believing in god, is a lack of the evolution gene, that switches on and off during gestation, giving us the ability to think forward. Sadly some miss out.

Reason

Feeling warm and fuzzy about your post, thank you.

Your retired Anglican Bishop sounds like a wise man. Another retired bishop, John Shelby Spong states:

"My quarrel with fundamentalist and conservative Christians is not their right to believe as literally as they wish to believe. It is rather with their attempt to define Christianity so narrowly that only fundamentalists or conservatives can be included within the definition. It is their need to impose their truth on all Christians as the only truth that I resent. At this point biblical fundamentalism and the official position of the Roman Catholic church with its defined orthodoxy and papal claims to infallibility are remarkably similar, if not in form at least in intention. Both are, in my opinion, remarkably wrong and remarkably destructive to Christian truth and to a Christian future."

Talking about fuzzy thinking, I have started a discussion group about Animal Welfare - it is going very well, however, not a single fundy/conservative christian has thus far posted on the topic - no contribution, no interest. Given the concern over foetal life by said christians, I have to wonder why this concern doesn't extend to ALL living creatures.

"And Sancho I am sorry but the second law of thermodynamics has nothing to do with conservation of matter."

That was Philo's comment (which I quoted). I know perfectly well what the second law is!

There's a nice summary of creationists vs the laws of physics here:
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html