Foyle,

LOL

"So, if you're not a church-going Christian, you're not fully human?" Clownfish

There have been about eighty billion homo sapiens living or have lived. Say, three billion are or have been (dead) Christians, by Peter's reckoning the vast major are without Christ and not fully human.

I suspect Peter feels that to be without a belief in Jesus is to be without context, purpose or feeling. For billions of non Christians this is not the case, I suspect.

Peter,

Payment for Baptism was a means to pay for Herod the Great's palaces. Herod was appointed by Juluis Caesar and delegated baptismal activities.

Of course, there are constructs outside science, but that does not mean there is a God, be it Zeus or Jesus.Because something is hard to qualify using scientific method, the gap does not have to be filled by an appeal to mysticism.

Eighty billion homo sapiens?

I find this pretty hard to believe- where'd you get that from

I guess you mean well Peter. However,being baptised and joining a church does not necessarily transform an individual into a human being of worth.

Other posters have nominated a few of the drawbacks and I would add that a good look at the religious individuals around the world who rule our societies and claim to be 'human beings'fail the test miserably .

The dogmas they espouse create tensions,disunity and distrust that invariably lead to conflict, death and destruction.
Churches don't have a franchise on the parting phrase, Go in Peace, Goodwill to all.

It may be even more than 80 billion Trav:

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx

Oliver was probably just being conservative.

Now, how many Christians (that were "true" christians of course, not those nasty types that purged the Jews and started the Crusades and Inquistions and stuff) have ever lived?

Actually, to Sells defence, he did say "authentic" human not "fully" human. I guess I'll just have to live with being a non-authentic human.

But what it really gets down to is: My pan-tribalism is better than your pan-tribalism. So there.

Oh and Sells, you mixed up psychologist and psychiatrist, swap 'em around and it makes more sense.

Sells

A fine article, with a proviso later. But first an observation.

Just as the secular adherent has to filter out the religious fundamentalist for serious discussion to happen we people of faith need to do likewise with the anti-religionists who fill the more ugly ranks of the otherwise worthy secularist legions. They yet again seem to be overrunning your citadel of fine faith talk.

How sad they display the same ignorance and intolerance they themselves condemn of the religious fundamentalists.

Perhaps we should attempt to look behind the behaviour.

You say "join a church, be baptised". I figure, through small glimpses of wording and sentiment, that most of your critics are older men ( I am willing to take a hit on this) who have been baptised but have "moved on" leaving a residual, in their self proclaimed enlightened minds, a knowledge of Jesus and his Church learnt over 40 years ago. A lot has happened in that time and they deny themselves the richness of it.

However I suggest the remedy is not to act. If a seeker walked into my Church at times it would be, I am afraid to say, a deja vu situation. Nevertheless there are many paths.

Rather than act, be still, read Scripture, seek exposure to prayerful existence without pressure**, and reflect. With contemplation will come the act from within and thence begins the real battle of the will. Such act will be discerned, real and deliberate by a loving person attached to Jesus, the Risen Lord. A person yet to experience the Dark Night of the Soul but on the way to wholeness in living an assertive life of service. It's not a bad life! - to use an Australian colloquialism.

Cheers

** My little journey has been nourished by the stillness and informative talks on things spiritual by the Carmelites at Varroville - Sydney.