CJ & Runner,

I am in no way connected with the Children Of God cult. I go to an ordinary Protestant Church.

Runner, you don't agree with my support for Bill Henson and my association with the Nudist movement. That's fine, you don't have to.My faith in God comes first, my interest in the Nudist movement is a much lower priority in my life, and I have other hobbies and interests that come before that.

Sells,

"He (Greg) draws a picture of secularisation as the transformation of Judeo/Christian ideas into a modern equivalent." - Sells' cite

I would restate the above, as, secularisation is the transformation of humanistic ideas derived from old religions, including the Judeo-Christian, into a modern equivalent. Before the OT, there existed Laws and there were Moral peoples.

Moses (Law) needed to hold his little band together, so they would not move to worshipping agricultural gods (calf), while his crew were still henothesists en-route to monothesism. Self-actualised, Jesus (born 7 BCE during the reign of Herod the Great), the humanitian, was a highly educated claimant to the throne of David, ministering the Jewish faith to the Gentiles. The sermon on the Mount posits him a highly moral human.

[Both the Law of Moses and the Sermon on the Mount, had alike predessors. No doubt developed by, not suprisingly, legal and humanistic minds.]

Religions have acted to drive and restrain humanitianism depending on who has been at the wheel.

Secular humanism two hundred years from now one trusts will support a mature and rational society, as well as a moral and law abidding citizens, whom appreciate that their one, limited life, as a metabolism temporily existing against the second law of thermodynamics, is the real miracle.

O

Ian D

I respect your right to have a relationship with your God and I admire your statement:

"This enables me to respect, and celebrate the fact that others maintain their relationship with God through different vehicles (One River, Many Wells by Matthew Fox is a terrific read)."

It is nice to hear a Christian say that, because so often we do only hear the tribal stuff and the arrogant assertions.

I liken religion a bit to the gun debate in that while the weapon does not make the decision to do harm, it provides the means to commit harm. Perhaps religion in the wrong hands becomes a kind of evil, where authority and power is abused.

I feel safer and more comfortable in gaining the same things you do through 'God' via other means which I cannot really express but I guess it is a form of spirituality (to borrow a term from the religious folk). Feeling a part of the earth and connected to all other living organisms through life itself, realising the importance of living in harmony with our environment which in turns looks after us. That feeling of tending your garden and then reaping the benefits of the food grown in healthy soil without contamination and the feeling of knowing your children are eating 'real' food, for example.

As I warned, I am not good at explaining exactly what 'it' is but I do hope that people of all "belief systems" will one day let each other live in peace with whatever it is they believe (as long as it does not harm others of course).

I am guilty of passing judgement on religious folk at times because I get a bit sick of the arrogant assumptions connected with terms like sinful or evil. Those that don't see the light cannot be saved or washed of their sins etc - emotional blackmail based on primitive unsubstantiated beliefs of any kind irk me.

[PS I will find a copy of that book and give it a read] :)

Gods, Sons of Gods, Spirits of Gods, Devils, Angels, Virgin Births, Hells, Heavens, Demons and Resurrections. Sounds like a new novel beckoning for Dan Brown. Can see it know, "Machinations of the Council of Nicaea" or "How the churches indoctrinated humanity into childish faith and learned to extract their tithe". There's a whole universe out there if you look, and none of the gods of men (man's greatest myths) had anything to do with it. Maybe we could restart the bible with a new prologue for genesis: "In the beginning there was a big bang, Adam and Eve perhaps!"

Hi Oliver *waves* :)

You said:

<<Moses (Law) needed to hold his little band together, so they would not move to worshipping agricultural gods (calf),>>

I wonder if it occurs to you (and Pericles..who's last paragraphs of his last post were barely comprehensible and stopped in mid air) that the very fact of Moses Law being in direct conflict with 'natual religion' ie.. calf worship/agricultural/seasonal deities is in fact evidence that the source of Moses law and it's focus on the Creator Yahweh was in fact God Himself?

We often hear that 'religion is a creation of man'....but the evidence in the life of Moses and the Israelites goes against this like a large piece of 2x4 belting a cockroach.

If the evidence points to the intervention by God, and is a construct which denies the claim that it was simply invented by man...then we are left with no other rational conclusion than that it was from God.

The choosing of Abraham first..then confirmed through Isaac and Jacob/Israel...and the 12 tribes was always with an over-riding purpose of bringing salvation and blessing to the rest of humanity.
It certainly was not 'tribal gods' territory.

It reaches a crescendo in Isaiah "He was wounded for our transgressions, brused for our iniquities" and fullfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ who after he was recognized as "The Messiah".....

BEGAN to teach his disciples that "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be killed and after 3 days rise again"

He warned his disciples "If any man would follow me.. let him DENY Himself....." This is not popularist religion, nor is it popular.
People don't invent such unpopular ideas.

How typical of Porky to begin his post by claiming that Pericles' finely crafted prose is "barely comprehensible", and then proceed by babbling on in barely comprehensible, infantile mumbo-jumbo. Trust me, Porky - you're completely outclassed in English comprehension and expression by Pericles. By attacking his excellent writing you just make yourself look even more stupid than usual.

Steel Mann - I'm pleased to hear that you're not involved with that particular Christian cult.