Greeting david f… I'm sure you thought when:

"He told me he proposed and was accepted with the proviso that he must subscribe to the Nicene Creed. He told me he couldn't sleep thinking about it and finally decided he could accept the creed. I later met the young lady. She had exquisite features and a shapely bosom."

It was nothing more than a bit of tit-for-tat.

I feel that we are in 'furious agreement' on most of the themes raised so far. It still fascinates me the way different people "think". It seems a constant throughout human history that the less credible the claims made by the religious the more credulous they 'require' the rest of us to be?

It's like a form of reverse peer pressure – validating their position by mandating our adherence.

One current line of thought I'm contemplating is… An attitude of closed-mindedness has never resulted in any advancement in human history. By way of testing this I've not yet come up with any exceptions to the statement. But to avoid hypocrisy, I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks for sharing the stories about your son, brilliant name by the way. Perhaps you've offered a line of reasoning to be used the next time you have a vigourous chat about Marx… "When we got back home his mother asked William what he saw. With a marvellous exhibition of reducing matters to essentials William said, “We saw a bird eating liver.”"

Is this not precisely the problem with Marx? The correct answer should have been, "I saw a bird eating liver." Since you obviously saw the painting, the myth, the history and the insight. Marx always assumed the 'We'.

Dear Paul,

Perhaps I didn't put it properly.
What I was trying to say was (and
my apologies if I'm being repetitive),
Our religious institutions have far too
often become handmaidens of the status
quo, while the genuine religous experience
is anything but that. True religion is by
nature disruptive to what has been, giving
birth to the eternally new. It's a force
by which we burst out from what is old
and calcified, into a higher mode of being.

Religious institutions, as such, are not
the only arbiters of religious experience.
They don't own the Truth. Nor should they
think they hold some franchise on our
spiritual life. They are consultants and
frameworks, but they are not God Himself.
We should not confuse the path with the
destination.

Organised religion will have to change in
order to survive. Many changes have already
taken place and will continue to do so.
They have to transform, for the simple reason
that many people have become religious in spite of
them.

Spirituality is an inner fire, a mystical sustenance
that feeds our souls. Religion means "to bind back."
As I see it, its purpose is to turn us back into
ourselves, to the well inside from which we are
endlessly creative. A friend of Abraham Lincoln
once remarked about him, "He's so religious
he's beyond religion."

Dear WMTrevor,

Thank you for the laugh.

Actually davidf's paragraph was a kind introduction to my shtick.

I have often argued that religious love and romantic love can be as destructive as each other but also as creative and fulfilling.

That those with little patience for the irrationality of religious love often have a great unquestioning capacity for romantic love. They are more than willing to dismiss the truism that the pillars of love have their feet deep in human secretions.

Surrendering to either or both types for a period in ones life is a deeply visceral rather than aesthetic human experience, one we should not be denying anyone. Society's role is perhaps to curb the excesses and to mitigate the impacts on others, but not to forbid.

David's co-worker, to the unromantic, was simply engaged in the rituals of insemination. To the rest of us he was prepared to surrender part of himself to share the rest of his life with someone for whom he felt deep love.

Irrational, but human.

I rather rudely haven't addressed the thread topic.

I have a bit to do with some students at a prestigious conservative private school. When the subject about gay marriage is broached there is universal support for it. I have not heard a single student express the slightest equivocation. The most frequent explanation is that it's 'just the fair thing to do' and 'what is the big deal, they should be able to marry if they want to'.

The curious thing is when told that neither Julia or Tony are for gay marriage there is often real puzzlement and even a degree of derision. When I ask would a this be an issue they would feel strongly enough to change their vote over. Very few say no.

I think the next generation often has a far better handle on what is fair, and right, and just. I want my generation to settle this issue now rather than adding to the gathering pile of issues not tackled contributing to the scorn we will undoubtedly earn from our youth.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/8957667/Virgin-Mary-billboard-sparks-outrage-in-New-Zealand.html
I recommend the link.
As it says in the link it tells about a bill Bord ,and another like it last year in a Church in NZ.
Some of the things suggested, on a Church website, would offend Some.

But it to me says for Some Christianity is still evolving and Changing.
In to what?

What resemblance will Churches 100 years in the future have to todays.
What we see of todays, compared to that period ago, leaves me to think.

Lexi, just to fill you in on a couple of Australian political tough men, Askin and Hinze. Robert Askin formally Robin Askin, he thought Robin was too girly so changed his name to Robert. Askin was a long serving Liberal premier of NSW 1965-75. A boots and all type, Askin is famous for his "Run over the bastards" quip to US President Johnson when their motorcade was stopped by Vietnam War protesters in Sydney in 1966. Johnson reply was said to have been "a man after my own heart." People were running around at the time yelling rubbish like "All the way with LBJ" and "Mr president make us your 51st state."
Russ Hinze, known to some of us as Puss Hinze, was a grotesque National Party minister in the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government of Queensland in 1970's-80's. Hinze was referred to as the 'Minister for Everything' noting got done in Queensland without the okay from Big Russ.
Both Askin and Hinze were members of corrupt governments and both made sure they didn't miss out. Politically they were both the same,right wing bully boys. The difference was Askin preferred his payola be delivered in a brown paper bag. Hinze didn't care how it come as long as it came.

Paul you replied in the wrong thread.
But yes you delved well back in to history to kick the ALP.
I was there, part of a crowd that reminded Sir Robber/Robin/Robert he was unloved at Harold park raceway.
In the end party's have such, my Nifty Nev was not an inch better.
Time heals all wounds and I hope wounds all of them.
We can talk openly about only the ones who got found out.