I have some questions and hopefully they may be of interest and keep us away from more lumbering logomachy .
TBC - maybe if you told us why you call yourself blue cross. I think George is right to encourage you to read more about the rebels in the good book -even thoughits a very touchy subject for you ; They are only stories and if they are so dangerous, why isn't everybody aware of the detail and pulling them apart ( like what's in the Koran)

I call myself Hanrahan ( special secret between us , mind you )because finding a way beyond the tiresome old greeks at uni over 30 years ago meant that i discovered ( not rationalized )in myself a pessimism and an optimism that actually works to help resolve things - personally and in looking beyond into the public sphere .
Have a good day
What about you severin ?
And what did we all think of the messages flowing forth from the conference?

Simple Hanrahan.

A local believer sent me a card on the world prayer day some time ago with a transparent cross that goes around the neck.

When you join the two ends of the 'chain', it lights up with a blue light... a blue cross.

As horrible a piece of Xtian rubbish as one could ever hope for, quite apart from knowing that some nong is saying a prayer to make me evaporate and turn into Barnie Schwartz of The Age, or worse, if there is worse...well, Brian Houston, George Pell, Kevin Andrews, Phil Ruddock, Kevin Rudd, Tony Abbott.... Family Jensen... the list is endless.

Although I have just watched something amusing on how the Internet is disorganising religion. Seems, if this is correct that is, that there are more declared unbelievers in the world than there are Catholics signed up to the Vatican Rag.

Now, that really is Good News.

I'll ignore your snipes Hanrahan... clearly you and George suffer from eggshells when it comes to justifying your blind faith, so careful where you chuck your bag of stones.

TBC you do me the honor of calling me by a badge name I am happy to wear (about page 20). Yes call me Simple.
I don't think , as Philip Adams has rightly noted now , the leading atheists at a conference badged "rationale par excellente" do their cause much good by calling some people in the other congregation words that do not apply - "earthworms". Without doctrine, the blokes in the back row of the congregation of atheists ,who use the word "cockroaches"( Rwanda etc ) will not be excommunicated effectively .
We won't be remembered for all our words ( us old greeks), but the world will remember all those people murdered (in this century alone) using badges of vilification to justify that action .
See, its not about words- all have their place - its about vilification . Jesus is no woose on this subject echoing the same old simple stuff from the OT .(Sq again ) The atheist congregataion will not function with just behavoiural and desperate word controls (" Don't press that button boys " ) The athiests need to stop denying that they have a view of god before they can move on .
Despite our 34 pages, noone has picked up on the fact that the conference was so predictable - there is denial,fanaticsm( http://fanaticism1.blogspot.com and frustration seeping out everywhere.
4 people who have the ear of Australia( and the world) for a very long time in P Adams and R. Williams case , are a bit edgy . Surely as comrades in questioning and rebelling, we OLO's should try to stand back as observers and understand this (without being told). Is there some reasonable non religiuos explanation for fanaticism and denial ?
Its up to reasonable people to find the reasons and ask the ABC to consider retiring those who , despite all their power and rhetoric over 30 years refuse to give us simple sorts more than we have been getting.(who else is switching off and watching videos? )

Hanrahan...I checked pp.19-21 for this source of this, 'TBC you do me the honor of calling me by a badge name I am happy to wear (about page 20). Yes call me Simple', but could find no reference from me calling you 'simple' or anything else for that matter. I'm not going to go through the whole lot though.

I'm not sure why I am linked into the 'earthworm' comment either, although I may well have a very dim view of Fielding and his ilk myself.

As for this line, a hoary old one that comes out all the time, 'The athiests need to stop denying that they have a view of god before they can move on', speaking only for myself, I can assure you that I do not have a 'view' of god at all, nor God for that matter, other than I have no belief in one...in a 'dead parrot' fashion if you can understand that.

The only time I have considered myself to be an 'atheist' is when I have had to take up a sword to fend off maddogs who do their utmost to impose 'their' views on me and my family.

To be honest, for most of my life 'God' was not an issue.

My grandmother believed in it, but no one else in my family did at all.

Naturally, we were all good Catholics.

It was what others believed in, you know, the protestants.

(sorry-in two parts)

Hanrahan 2

I was happy to let them get on with it. But then, in more recent years, the imposition of religious extremists has become overbearing, and I have started to react to their assaults.

And as this has happened, I have realised that I duped myself for years into thinking these people were 'harmless'.

Some individuals indeed are, many probably, but the institutions that power them are not.

They are rapacious, power hungry, manipulative, dishonest, conspiratorial, and, frankly, dangerous. Or at least, they have a great ability to be that, and a greater propensity too.

"noone has picked up on the fact that the conference was so predictable", yes, well go to any convention/conference on a particular topic and it will be 'predictable', which is why most people go there, since they know what they are going to be doing there.

Go to Mass to pray for the perfidious Jews, or to Hillsong to pray to get rich quick, or to an Anglican stable to do..umm, whatever they believe in, which seems to be always in dispute, and you might find them all predictable too....or a Brethren Stalagluft razor-wired camp, or a Scientology brainwashing session.

The day people flock to a 'jamborre bag convention' or a 'serendipty conference' in the hope that some glimmer of something might touch them on the shoulder is still a long way away... or I think it is anyway.

I doubt you are 'simple', but your posts are hard to understand at times. I could not understand the point you were aiming at with the rest of it I'm afraid... maybe I'm simple?

TBC - Sorry I know i should have checked the page .It was pge 15
It wasn't you that started using the adjective -simple , It was me and as far as names go - its growing on me.
pge15 " And yes, I do have a simple faith and if you think feeding me to the lions works , well ,,have a go ......its a free country. "

Thanks for your openness. It seems so so many resent the way "a church " has sought to shove things down their throats " . I too hate it when members of my congregation ( very big church) blast away in terms that make no connection with the minds of people in the audience or try to prove things that can't be proven.

Which is all the more reason I think you should watch
BRUCE ALMIGHTY . God in the film is not out making much noise. He's mostly, just cleaning up after people .