Romany, beautifully put.

R0bert

Yes, I agree with RObert, well put, Romany.

I'm not quite as sanguine as you are, however, that Polycrap and his ilk represent a minority of Christians. Well, I guess they still do at this stage, but that intolerant and prescriptive minority is definitely growing in number, certainly in Australia, if not in China where you are.

Like you, the Christians I know personally, are indeed sincere and decent people, whose understanding of their faith leads them to love and care for others and the planet in the true spirit of the teachings of their Christian inspiration, Jesus Christ. And I agree, we have at least one fine such example here on OLO in Foxy and possibly others I'm not aware of too.

The reason I never hesitate to sink the boot into Polycrap's religious rantings though, when I can be bothered that is, is that I strongly resent the growing influence of his narrow and bigoted brand of Christianity. Christian fundamentalists are infiltrating education and government in Australia in a way unprecedented in our history. Just when the world needs more in the way of acceptance and inclusion, these ugly voices of hate and division are growing louder and ever more strident.

I still haven't worked out whether the best way to treat Polycrap is to confront his every statement as we usually do, or whether we should be ignoring him completely and starving him of oxygen. And of the notoriety that he seems to revel in. Every thread he starts seems to draw us in like bees to honey. I don't think I've seen a thread of his yet that hasn't reached double digits and fairly quickly at that.

Dear Bronwyn,

Although I agree with much of what you say I object to your reference to Polycarp as Polycrap. One can disagree without denigrating.

From my observations I have seen little or no correlation between religious belief and behaviour.

From knowing that a person is a Christian, Jew, atheist, Muslim or whatever I can make no judgments about their behaviour.

I can’t even make a blanket judgment about Fundamentalists although I share your concern about their infiltration in education and government in Australia and the US. I have met Christian Fundamentalists who have been pacifist vegetarians, quite open to hearing the views of other people and willing to treat those others respectfully and courteously even though their own beliefs may coincide with those of Polycarp.

I think it possible that religious belief often merely provides justification for acting in a way people are conditioned to through their family, their peers and their society with the mix modified by their individual personality.

However, I find myself straining my liver and getting angry at his posts so I will not respond to any of his posts until at least the end of the month.

Polycarp has had an effect upon me. He has posted ugly hate passages purportedly from the Koran which he apparently from non-Muslim sites. One of them I checked was inaccurate, and Polycarp had an explanation.

However, I wanted to see what was actually in the Koran and am reading “Readings in the Qur’an" by Kenneth Cragg. Gragg’s motivation was to explore the differences and similarities with Christianity in the Qur’an. I feel I know enough about Christianity to appreciate that approach.

In one way I feel Jesus is not as good an example as Moses, Buddha and Mohammed. They all appeared to have heterosexual impulses. I regard homosexual activities as better than avoidance of sex. We not only teach by words. We teach by example, and I regard a sexless role model as inculcating guilt to those who have a sex drive.

Romany ,
“Polycarp fly in the face of every honourable and sincere spiritual leader I have ever met or studied. One of the reasons he arouses such animosity is that these views, sentiments and opinions are the antithesis of spirituality as most people understand the concept and consequently are offensive to people of good faith no matter what their creed”

But I wonder if our time and place encourages a particular type of spiritualism. And, in a different time and/or place you would have heard the same spiritual leaders express very different spiritual
principles: is what you are hearing from such superficially disparate sources more an echo of our dominant ,mainstream secular values than an expression of their native character(?)

To quote from another, unrelated thread on OLO “There is a universal tendency to airbrush history to suit current political sensibilities”

David F ,
My favourite scene from the Muslim tradition is The Isra' Story, which relates that Muhammad made a journey to Jerusalem astride , a mythical winged creature, in the company of the archangel Gabriel. There he meets with Abraham, Moses, and Jesus and officiates as leader of their joint prayer session, and afterwards, he has all of them acknowledge his primacy – it surely paints a picture that is worth a thousand words

david f

"Although I agree with much of what you say I object to your reference to Polycarp as Polycrap. One can disagree without denigrating."

With the greatest of respect, david, I will refer to Polycarp in whatever manner I see fit at the time. The term 'polycrap' is nothing more than a fairly innocuous anagram of his pseudonym; I doubt he'll lose any sleep over it.

Any poster who stirs up hatred and division to the extent that BOAZ_David has always done and then covertly reinvents himself with a pretentious moniker like Polycarp, is just setting himself up as fair game, I'd say. Besides, he thrives on it; he doesn't need protecting. He dishes it out to others and knows he can only expect the same in return.

If you're going to start lecturing posters about denigrating others, david, I'd suggest there are plenty of others to have a go at before you start in on me!

Horus - "But I wonder if our time and place encourages a particular type of spiritualism. And, in a different time and/or place you would have heard the same spiritual leaders express very different spiritual principles"? Indubitably: perhaps I would have heard the words of Jesus as those of an Essene had I lived in another time and place. And perhaps I would have heard the words of an Anglican bishop as those of a Dissenter in still another time and place. The interpretation and reception of any spiritual creed, in order to grow, perforce develops in order to fit the times - the number of different creeds which have developed from the same original source of the Old Testament serves to illustrate this.

I don't think I agree that the sources of other religions and creeds are "superficially" disparate, however. I think they are genuinely discrete sources and reflections of disparate cultures and experiences.I have not spent very much of my life living in cultures which could be considered as reflections of "dominant ,mainstream secular values" so the voices I have listened to have not tended to be more weighted towards such values than to others. While the search for spiritual meaning seems to be a universal concern, humanity appears to conduct this search through a plethora of means.