Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
I don't think I'm bothered at all.

You asked if anyone could help Sludge out - and I replied to say he doesn't need help (not on this subject anyway: when it comes to coalition governments or heavy metal he clearly needs a lot of help).

But you (with a little bit of help from Gofer - who adopts a very different approach even if he shares some of your core beliefs) have carpet bombed the Alt Board in the past 8 months with your religion, or faith, or ministry, or whatever you call it.

It is hard to avoid - and hijacks endless threads. You want a reaction, but when you get one you complain that the reaction doesn't conform to your reference points or language. Tough.

I remember discussions around faith on this board many years ago - but they were not so strident and swivel eyed. As a side issue or as a philosophical conversation they can be interesting.

I said in the past that I rejected Christianity aged 12 as part of the Congregationalist Church membership process (most others in my group became Church members after a summer of discussions led by the minister). My Gran was a denominational tourist in Cardiff (Congregationalist to Methodist to Baptist) and we had endless conversations about her faith and what I had just read in the Communist Manifesto! Most of my family considered themselves as non-conformist Christians, but gave little thought to it - they just liked the social familiarity of people, place and ritual.

My dad was a deep thinker who was very active in the Church until he died - but was hostile to organised religion, regarded himself as a Christian but didn't (I think) believe in God or the Devil, heaven or hell. He used what he saw as 'Christs's teachings' as a moral code for life on earth now. We argued about politics and religion all my life - and enjoyed the argument. He was part of a group who called themselves 'The Heretics' and were always at odds with the minister. One of their close friends and a church member was Professor John Davies who was deputy to Bernard Lovell at Jodrell Bank Observatory. He led discussion groups at the church on relativity, space/time and black holes! I think (as an astronomer) he shared my dad's world view. I have also been influenced by Jewish and Islamic friends over the years - many of whom have a cultural affinity to their inherited religion but few accept the religious side.

We live in a corner of northern Europe with a cultural legacy of 16 centuries or more of Christianity that was all pervasive up to a couple of generations ago, and exposure more recently to other faiths and cultures. Of course it is part of us and part of our lives. But we don't have to accept the baggage that comes from an accident of birth - of time, of place and of circumstances. We can think for ourselves and adopt our own questions and standards of evidence, using our lifetime of experience to decide if we need a supernatural answer to those questions, or can use our best understanding of science and nature to reach conclusions. I go with the latter. Nothing else makes sense to me.

That is all I have to add.
Thanks for the history and detail, your anger and indignation now makes a lot more sense. In the course of my work over a number of decades, it's interesting that it isn't the agnostic atheists that have the biggest problems with God's Word but those that have either been exposed to the religious attempts at Christianity or have had close friends or relatives that have been peppered with such ideas.

You see the agnostic atheist who hasn't been given the confusing picture of the 'modern' take on Christainity starts with something close to a blank sheet rather than a picture that doesn't make sense at all. So because they have bypassed all the man-made religion and are presented with the Bible itself, I have always found them to be open, reasonable and rarely inflamed on the subject; in many cases they often (as time goes by) ask for more and more information which they are happy to consider and often come back for further dialogue/ correspondance.

Now I'm not saying that they all conclude that God is real or right on all things, but in most cases they attain a deep respect for the Scriptures that they never had before, see that it contains history and science that is timeless and in no need of correction or updates.

In contrast, for most religion infected individuals, someone like me will post the investigations of *Strobel or McDowell, who were both nostril flaring atheists and proud of it, and the skeptics here are too nervous/ preoccupied or apathetic to give them the time of day. But you see such a lack of engagement wouldn't produce a quality newspaper article, or make a respected journalist; I'm sure you get that. Anyway thanks for sharing the detail of your family and that history, that is very much appreciated. The key reason I am sharing mainly what I do, is because I firmly believe we are all eternal beings (housed currently in these crumbling bodies), and we all need to prepare for what will be the vast majority of our existance. You may not want people like Gofer and myself to care for the eternal plight of individuals, but we just do.

* In the above clip Strobel talks about why he wrote the Book "Is God Real?" because his researchers told him that on average 200 times per second, people around the planet are typing that question (or similar) into search engines.