Belly,

Thanks for prioritising it.

It is scary that the leader of the group became a leading televangelist.

Maybe you need to give your finger a complete rest or start using another finger.

"And I can not ever forgive those who think killing followers of another God is justified because only the God they follow is worthy.
Tragic that humans can think like that."

True

mjpb more info on that bloke he went on to be extremely good at his job.
not calling for donations he bought many to his faith.
on first seeing him I though here we go and while a member of another church by then I just had to watch him.
He fell out of favor, was expelled, because he left his wife and remarried.
but went on to start another church still without calling for cash he is at least an honest Christian.

Well, it appears that “react” in, “If this means you do not wish me to react again to your posts, you have my promise I won't”, actually meant “respond” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10306#168772).

Thanks George. Very mature.

I can’t help but wonder either, if the word “react” was chosen over “respond” to imply that my posts aren’t worth responding to and only draw “reactions”.

Perhaps I’m just being a little paranoid there though.

OLO talks more about Gods than any other subject.
We come at it from every side all sides of the existance of God.
Upsetting references to child molestation in some Church's, more than one.
We talk about others Gods and here I wanted to talk about what we may do without a God.
Well known I am not a believer but even I think if we had no God we would invent one maybe many.
So over all I would like a few things to change.
I want an end to tax breaks just by being a church.
An end to interference in education politics and daily life of nonbelievers.
I want assurances children in care[ not thinking catholic] Church's and cults get proper education and a real chance to make life choices.
others could add to the list.

Dear Foxy,

Thanks for the info about Gavelis and his book. I probably won’t have time to read it (as you might know, I am more at home with maths and science than with literary criticism), however I googled it up.

I didn't understand what you meant by “a different slant on Lithuania”. Perhaps you were referring to something like what I found on http://quarterlyconversation.com/vilnius-poker-by-ricardas-gavelis-review:

“Gavelis is … is critiquing that which makes a people surrender its individuality to a corrupt state. What is it that makes a people … a willing participant in its own enslavement? Gavelis is not sympathetic and considers such people weak and undeserving.”

Here I would beg to disagree: Gavelis was too young to have personally witnessed the post-war years. I am old enough, and know that the Baltic experience must have been even worse than the Central European, namely the absolute HOPELESSNESS of their situation between the Soviets, the Nazis and back to Soviets. Like the girl, who having been raped, welcomes a “liberator”, just to be raped by him again and then thrown back to the original rapist. This is how some Ukrainians explained to me the situation, and I suspect many Lithuanians must have felt it similarly.

Perhaps hopelessness could provide - at least partly - an answer to the Gavelis/Vargalys question above. Hopelessness that finds relief in desperate conspiracy theories (Gavelis’ “Them, a shadowy group that’s taking over, crushing the souls of people”). Hopelessness, lasting for decades, up to those Gavelis himself did live through.

The inscription on the gates to hell in Dante Alighieri’s ‘La Comedia Divina’ is not a listing of all the tortures awaiting the hapless, but a simple “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter”. During the brief 1956 thaw (before the crushing of the Hungarian uprising) I could visit Vienna. I remember these words of Dante reverberating in my ears when crossing the Iron Curtain on my return home. For me the hopelessness lasted only another 12 years, others had to wait for 43 more years.

AJ Philips,

>>I can’t help but wonder … if … my posts aren’t worth responding to<<
That is not the point. As you could read in my post to mjpb, “I offered not another contribution to these never ending discussions on whose world-view is more right, not even an argument, but only a personal testimony”. You did not accept it, fair enough.

Nevertheless, as I already asked you on another thread, please respect my negative personal experience with one version of atheist activism, the same as I respect your apparently positive experience with another version of it.

In particular, please understand that I cannot react or respond to attempts at explaining away what I personally witnessed, since the subject matter of that much suffering could make me too emotional, and I do not see any point in that.