I'm currently away from home, in beautiful (and wet!) North Queensland, with sporadic internet access, but I'm delighted to see that our cyber-missionary BS artist is being kept suitably occupied by his intellectual betters in my absence.

As for this -

Bugsy: "I see you whacking something Boaz, but it ain't a snake."

That's almost too funny. If I splutter more coffee over my laptop once more I'll hold you guys responsible!

Boazy, has anybody ever told you to stop it lest you go blind?

Now you have totally obfuscated your original statement, let's take another look at it.

>>My main thesis is: "You can tell false religions by their fruit"<<

But now you claim that fruit from the Christian tree can only be so-called if it is somehow "pedigreed".

Yet as you point out, there exist (non-metaphorical) tree variants that still are classified along with the original.

I know we are veering off into Platonism here, but let us assume for a moment that there is an "ideal" apple tree. The fruit are "ideal" apples, and only propagate further versions of themselves.

Let's call these Jesus apples.

In your view of the universe, these are the only fruit that may be termed "apples". Anything else - Cox's Orange Pippins, Fuji, Pink Lady or whatever - are not apples, but "false apples".

I know it will come as a surprise to you, but when the rest of the world looks at these, they first see "apple", then the variant. They do not say to themselves "well, they are not Jesus apples, so they cannot be apples".

Which one they pick, of course, depends on whether they are in favour of messianic preachers, bloodthirsty mediaeval knights or sex-starved priests, but the "rootstock" is the same.

So we look at the fruit and say "apple".

We look at the Crusades, Oral Roberts, Adolf Hitler, paedophile priests, ducking witches, the Spanish Inquisition, the Borgia Popes, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy etc and say "Christian".

Simple, really.

I'm not surprised that you walked quickly away from this aspect of your analogy:

>>This illustration falls down in one area, we know that the "wild" rootstock in fact makes the 'intended' fruit tree more robust<<

Forget the strengthening bit for a moment, and concentrate on the other side of the coin, which is what happens to purebred stock - of any species - after generations of inbreeding?

After a while, their resistance to infection diminishes, until they become a mere caricature of their original selves.

Over-introspection will do that to you, Boaz.

Open up to new ideas before it is too late.

*smiles*....Pericles, using work time for OLO ? :) I guess ur also ur own boss eh.

Please don't spend toooo much time on the intricate details of everything I say, as it will obscure the major point....which I will simply re-iterate here.

Religions.

-Founders, foundation documents= 'standard by which all followers may be judged'.

If the founder is flawed, the religion will be flawed no matter what.
A faith which has a sound beginning can be corrupted, but a faith which is corrupt by nature, will simply continue being corrupt. Even if it experienced a 'fundamental revival' a ..back to basics revival, it would still come back to the corrupt foundation.

In the case of Christ, if we go 'back to basics and fundamentals' we will find the Master washing the feet of the disciples, healing the sick, berating his followers when they edged towards violence and self glorification.

We can evaluate Quiboloy also in terms of the foundation he claims.
Does he emulate Jesus ? No, clearly he does not.

Osama bin Ladin, does he emulate Mohammad ? yes.. clearly he does.

Here is a most interesting story
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/01/136765_comment.php

"NAZI converts to Islam" then... read the story to see how this once 'violent aggressive' Nazi, is now a violent and aggressive Muslim.

"Myatt is reportedly the author of a fascist terrorist handbook and a former leader of the violent far-right group Combat 18. But now — in his mid-50s and sporting a red, bushy beard — he subscribes to radical Islamist views"

"Radical" ? "May Allah destroy them" (Quran 9:30).. kind of says it all

CJ.. For a bloke who glories in his position at one of Australias universities in the social science dept, that last post was a tad whacky and unbefitting.

Does Jesus juice come from Jesus apples?

And Boazy: if you are the "fruit" of your religion, isn't your argument self defeating?

I guess that's the difficult bit, Boaz.

>>Please don't spend toooo much time on the intricate details of everything I say, as it will obscure the major point<<

If it were the "intricate detail", it wouldn't be a problem.

But you contradict yourself at the top level, not in the detail - as in:

>>My main thesis is: "You can tell false religions by their fruit"<<

The "major points" you make are always the same.

"Christianity is what I, Boaz, define it to be"

"Christianity is good, every other religion is false"

"And while I'm on the subject, did I mention how evil Islam is?"

Unfortunately, the arguments you put forward in support of these statements are riddled with errors of logic, observation and fact.

It is sometimes difficult to maintain a sense of humour in the face of such blind intransigence, but so far I've been able to see the funny side of someone who can only respond to logic with dogma.

And when you so clearly lose the plot and make such utterly fatuous claims as "My main thesis is: 'You can tell false religions by their fruit'", it's actually quite fun.

Have a great day.

This is all getting so confusing.

I'll try and summarise BD's points as I see them
- By their fruit you shall know them (well the rootstock really because there are both good and bad mossies and christains so you have to go back to the rootstock).
- Islam has a wild rootstock with a tame trunk grafted on by some. You can tell it's a bad tree because of the shoots coming up from the rootstock.
- Christianity has a tame rootstock and has a bad trunk grafted on by some.
- BD's pear tree has a wild rootstock with a tame trunk grafted on because as everybody knows you get a healthier tree and better fruit that way.
- This really, really wasn't just another swipe at Islam disguised as a discussion about a new false religion (BD crosses his heart and hopes he doesn't die). True, no really etc.
- CJ hit a bit to close to the mark on that last one.

R0bert