Mulryne to become a priest...

[plan b 0]

[quote user="cityangel"]

[quote user="plan b"]...no, seriously, it''s what i have heard.[/quote]

 

Bet some people will believe this [:D]

[/quote]believe it angel, its not a rumour from a friend of a mate of the window cleaner, its the gods honest truth, if you can excuse the pun,  i really hope it is true though because i have already got a t shirt design in mind for it.

[JohnoBono 0]

[quote user="IBA"]An imaginary friend to talk to too..... Sexist boys club that leeches off the poor, weak willed and ignorant Your religion is an accident of birth. Imagine you look into the eyes of your god on your death bed whilst the other gods of the main religions gaze down......as the cloud of eternal night starts to envelop you your god raised a folded piece of card, then slowly opens it to reveal the word ''Bluff'' Ha ha The great religions of the world deserve each other[/quote]

Had to consider whether this was actually worth replying to but felt I had to:

Genuine Christian ministry is about self sacrifice and service to fellow mankind reguardless of race, culture or creed.

As to ''your religion being an accident of birth'', please tell that too, for example, those who convert to Christianity in certain regions of India, who are having there homes burnt, wives raped, and being turned off there land if they do not renounce the Christian faith.

Your religion, your faith is a matter of choice. Of choosing to believe and trust.   

The God I believe in is not the god of bluff either. The God I believe in is a God of Love, truth, justice, and grace. The prince of peace celebrated at Christmas.

There is a spirtual one who call''s people''s bluff I would suggest, but that person is the enemy of God. 

[beachbum 0]

Whether you have any religious /spiritual feelings or not, anyone who believes a Priest or Vicar has an easy life is way off beam.

Apart from all the duties already listed , one of the things that impresses me about our local village vicar is his readiness to help any one who knocks on his door, whether he knows them or not.

This includes taking in some quite difficult people who would be shunned by most of us if they knocked on our doors.

That one aspect alone earns my respect.

 

[methcanary 0]

Football forum??????

[|BA 0]

[quote user="beachbum"]

This includes taking in some quite difficult people who would be shunned by most of us if they knocked on our doors.

 

[/quote]

Which is the obligation of all muslims and to be honest, anybody with decent heart

My opinion is based on visiting over 60 countries over 40 years and having relatives in the Anglican church some of whom preach eternal damnation FFS

The popes recent comments about gays would result in most other people being locked up. At least he''s consistent with his blinkered views.... how about condoms and aids control. What a muppet. He alone condemns tens of thousands to a terrible and premature death every year.

Each to his own. Up the canaries

Happy New Year

Baaaaa....baaaa

[Arthur Whittle 0]

Oh and dont forget all those within the church are paedophiles................jesus!!!

[macdougalls perm 0]

Anyone ever heard the phrase ''turn the other cheek''? 

Or, in more contemporary, secular lingo ''don''t feed the troll''.  

[DDD In The Fine City 1]

[quote user="Arturo Whittlupoli"]Oh and dont forget all those within the church are paedophiles................jesus!!![/quote]

Not all, just some old man. Fact!

[Arthur Whittle 0]

I said it with a rather large dose of sarcasm.

[|BA 0]

bump - pardon the pun

[The Fish Seller 0]

[quote user="IBA"]bump - pardon the pun[/quote]Well since you asked IBA let''s revisit an earlier post of yours.Sexist boys club that leeches off the poor, weak willed and ignorant

Your religion is an accident of birth.

Do you know this description you give probably isn''t 100 miles off how some people would describe a football club. Not many ladies running out for a 3pm kickoff at Carrow road even though we''re in the 21st century now are there? If living such privileged multimillionaire lifestyles on the back of money originating from the working mans pockets isn''t ''leeching'' I dont know what is, the moreso when one fails to make any attempt at providing the paying customers with either effort or entertainment. Weak willed: Well how many people here are sick to death of things at the Club yet go because they know no alternative way to get through a weekend and ignorant? Just how many of the 25,000 do you think are actually as aware of the true situation at the Club or make any effort to read and investigate further than the programme notes, a match review and Canary Call on the way home?Your religion is an accident of birth.

And yes in this respect you are probably quite correct too.Born in Norwich you''re likely to be a Canary, born in Wolverhampton it''s Wolves, Newcastle it''s NUFC, Portsmouth well likely you''ll be a Pompey fan etc. etc. Like true religion you are free to change at least you dont risk family persecution or being executed yourself.And so I find it strange that you should be so angry in your attitude towards religion being as you are an obviously deeply religious person yourself, you choose simply to follow a different route and should be more tolerant of those who choose otherwise. If push came to shove and the time ever did come where our Gods turn over that card (and I do love the paradox of your little diatribe) I''ve a very strong feeling that you would be the more disappointed out the two of us, and with just our football club to fill the spiritual void the only tablet with a message on it you''re likely to see along the way will say "Valium 400mg".

[SuperWesIrishWizard 0]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

Oh and as to good money...! A Roman priest gets a few grand a year. (but accomodation etc sorted) and no we do not keep the collection.

As a Church of England priest it is marginally better but peanuts compared to what I could have earned with my qualifications in the private sector. 24k with no raise and no raise ever. Yes a nice house to live in- but that is hardly good once you retire and are not on the ladder.

Not moaning though- it is a onderful life and great priviledge. But I suggest you ask those who know and dont just feed of bigoted inaccurate comments remembered from childhood

[/quote]With all due respect, surely having 1k a month left (after bills and rent) equates to plenty enough to buy a house? That''s certainly more than most people would have left, since the national average disposable income is £340 per household after rent/mortgage and bills. Say, for example, you decided to buy a £120k apartment...... it would take you what, 18 months to save £12k for the 10% deposit, and cost you about £560 a month on a 25 year mortgage? This is of course discounting any earnings that your partner / future partner may earn?So if you do retire without owning a home, then one can only assume that you were a little to frivolous with that £1000 a month? I know plenty of people in Norwich that are currently earning about 16k a year before tax with a partner who has been made redundant and they are managing, somehow, to meet rent and mortgage repayments...

[Things are looking up 0]

[quote user="IBA"]An imaginary friend to talk to too..... Sexist boys club that leeches off the poor, weak willed and ignorant Your religion is an accident of birth. Imagine you look into the eyes of your god on your death bed whilst the other gods of the main religions gaze down......as the cloud of eternal night starts to envelop you your god raised a folded piece of card, then slowly opens it to reveal the word ''Bluff'' Ha ha The great religions of the world deserve each other[/quote]

You must be proud........After all not everyone can pass off a joke on Mock The Week as their own thoughts!!!

[Duke of Muck 0]

not slander, libel.

[|BA 0]

[quote user="Narfolk N Gud"]

You must be proud........After all not everyone can pass off a joke on Mock The Week as their own thoughts!!![/quote]

Didn''t pass it off as my own thoughts at all, merely recounted the joke. Actually it was a joke in the Independant Newspaper about 7 years ago following the antil Muslim hysteria.

I love Mock the Week though... sadly not in the UK much so dont get to see it often.

[Things are looking up 0]

Take the joke out then. Are these your words or have you borrowed them too?

[quote user="IBA"]An imaginary friend to talk to too..... Sexist boys club that leeches off the poor, weak willed and ignorant Your religion is an accident of birth.The great religions of the world deserve each other[/quote]

 

When you''ve nothing to say, say exactly that!

 

[|BA 0]

Why take the JOKE out?

Its a JOKE. FFS get a life (cos you only get the one pal)

[Acer 0]

<<

Sexist boys club (that is VERY close to slander )  that leeches off the poor (you what? do you have ANY idea about how much homeless work, charity work is done for free by Christians each year in the UK...put it this way remove the church and your tax would likely double), weak willed and ignorant (so Pope Benedict is weak willed- do back this up with evidence please) (ignorant - most of the finest minds in history have been Christian, including many alive today. C. S. Lewis was an Oxford Don, the chap who mapped the Gnome is Christian...I could go on but dont need to)

Your religion is an accident of birth. (tell that to Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali - who survived death threats for converting from Islam in Pakistan) Imagine you look into the eyes of your god on your death bed whilst the other gods of the main religions gaze down.(stupid argument as it is an invented scenario).....as the cloud of eternal night starts to envelop you your god raised a folded piece of card, then slowly opens it to reveal the word ''Bluff''

Ha ha

The great religions of the world deserve each other (and the atheists of this world deserve each other)

Honestly does anyone else find such hate filled polemic unreasonable? >>

Hi, i agree wholeheartedly regarding the selfless charity work completed by Christians on an annual basis but i think you are on slippery ground arguing someone should provide ''evidence'' for their comments when the bible does not and will not ever constitute decent evidence.  Christianity is based on admirable moral sentiments but anyone who claims otherwise does not understand the criteria for proper evidence. The OT reads like a tribal account of Jewish eary history and is disturbingly violent at times. I find it very hard to associate the God of the OT with the values Jesus Christ portrays in the NT. It is well known, and accepted by most sensible church authorities, that the NT gospels were written at different times and grew progressively more fanciful as times passes. The council of Nicea did a good job in selecting the texts most suitable for their purposes- at the time there were a large number they could have chosen and many were deemed unsuitable.

There is no ''evidence'' for the accounts in the bible beyond blind faith. Why should anyone accept Christianity above Aboriginal myths, Hinduism or remote tribal gods? Also i would dispute the claim that most of the finest minds in history have been Christian; of course many academics from the distant past were religious but that is because science had revealed little about the world- everyone was still trying to explain things in terms of God. As for the likes of C.S.Lewis, well fair enough he is a clever man but there are many others who had/have incredible minds but do not subscribe to a system that can not be supported by evidence. I will cite Dawkins, Carl Sagan and jumping back further how about Clarence Darrow and Abraham Lincoln.

I rather like Bishop Spong''s ideas, he wrote a very interesting book entitled ''Christianity Must Change or Die''. It is a good system and helps ground many people but to me Jesus is an icon in the same way as Buddha. Of course that means he can be used as a valid role model and as a guide in spiritual reflection, but in a humanist sense not in terms of the divine.

Here is a challenge for you, cite me one time in the OT where God does something that is genuinely good and kind- and i wouldn''t trouble yourself with the example of Abraham and Isaac, as it was God who asked him to tie up his son ready for sacrifice in the first place. Imagine how scared that poor kid must have been! As for Noah, erm he wiped out everyone else by drowning them! why not just snap them out of existence? 

I am with the ancient Marcian, the OT should have been put in the bin and Christians should just use the NT for guidance.

[Jerzy Krukowski 5]

Luke 18:22

When Jesus heard this, He said to him, "One thing you still lack; sell

all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have

treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."How many of you christians have done what Jesus apparently instructed? 

[Jerzy Krukowski 5]

All very quiet from the christians, it''s a simple question try and muster an answer.....[:|]

[Dean Coneys boots 1,398]

I had been silent because past experience teaches me that most people on this board are not actually interested in proper debate because they have closed their minds and simply want to feel smug and ''bash Christianity''. Very often they base opinion on very little real knowledge of living faith. Indeed I have taken so much truck I eventually changed my name that I might talk footy and not just be attacked for my faith. (which was happening most every post I made) 

Do you really want an answer? Or are you trying to expose Christianity as stupid? If you do want an answer it is easy to provide and could be found with even a cursory reading of the text. The rich young ruler came to Christ and he was asked to sell all he had. Not because wealth is bad (consider how Solomon was stupendously rich yet commended for his faith) but because, in this instance, wealth had become ''his god''. Thus if the rich young ruler wanted to forge true relationship with God he needed to sacrifice that which he was putting in the place of God- which IN HIS CASE was money. But that does not mean the same would be true for the next man. It might be sex, drugs. pride or vanity....this passage is about making God our true priority - it is not a passage insisting tha people of faith sell all they have. Which explains why Christianity does not understand poverty as lack of material wealth but as healthy attitude to riches. In the words of Wesley- earn as much as you can, save as much as you can but, most importantly, give away as much as you can. Especially to those less fortunate than yourself.

In summary: Christianity properly understood is a deep and beautiful thing. It has survived 200 years because no philosophy has trumped it. Indeed all the loe, forgiveness and tolerance enjoyed by the West today is the product of a Christian society. But alas our current generation, in pursuing self + greed, have become spiritually  very ignorant. It is very fashionable in our current secular West to ''Christian bash'' but in 99 per cent of cases those bashing do not really understand what they bash. I challenge anyone to actually join my congregation for six months and then scorn what we are about. Else watch BBC2''s ''the monastary'' in which several average blokes entered a monastic community for a few weeks. It profoundly moved every one of them and made them examine who they were. The thing that choked and challenged them was the love, peace and wisdom shown by the monks. It led to MAJOR rethinking and change of life on their part. One even joined the priesthood. Why? Because they actually ''experienced God in prayer'' rather than just rubbishing Christianity based on Sunday School memories and borrowed quotes from atheists. Sorry it the post sounds defensive- but I have taken more ''bashing'' on this board for my faith than anywhere else. But I am happy to provide your answer.

[canary cherub 1]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

Do you really want an answer? Or are you trying to expose Christianity as stupid? If you do want an answer it is easy to provide and could be found with even a cursory reading of the text. The rich young ruler came to Christ and he was asked to sell all he had. Not because wealth is bad (consider how Solomon was stupendously rich yet commended for his faith) but because, in this instance, wealth had become ''his god''. Thus if the rich young ruler wanted to forge true relationship with God he needed to sacrifice that which he was putting in the place of God- which IN HIS CASE was money. 

But that does not mean the same would be true for the next man. It might be sex, drugs. pride or vanity....this passage is about making God our true priority - it is not a passage insisting tha people of faith sell all they have. Which explains why Christianity does not understand poverty as lack of material wealth but as healthy attitude to riches. In the words of Wesley- earn as much as you can, save as much as you can but, most importantly, give away as much as you can. Especially to those less fortunate than yourself.

[/quote]

Well said VIYAG.  [Y]

 

[Budapest Canary 152]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

In summary: Christianity properly understood is a deep and beautiful thing. It has survived 200 years because no philosophy has trumped it. Indeed all the loe, forgiveness and tolerance enjoyed by the West today is the product of a Christian society.

[/quote]

Gosh, I thought Christianity was older than that. [:)] Great post though.

[Camuldonum 0]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

I had been silent because past experience teaches me that most people on this board are not actually interested in proper debate because they have closed their minds and simply want to feel smug and ''bash Christianity''. Very often they base opinion on very little real knowledge of living faith. Indeed I have taken so much truck I eventually changed my name that I might talk footy and not just be attacked for my faith. (which was happening most every post I made) 

Do you really want an answer? Or are you trying to expose Christianity as stupid? If you do want an answer it is easy to provide and could be found with even a cursory reading of the text. The rich young ruler came to Christ and he was asked to sell all he had. Not because wealth is bad (consider how Solomon was stupendously rich yet commended for his faith) but because, in this instance, wealth had become ''his god''. Thus if the rich young ruler wanted to forge true relationship with God he needed to sacrifice that which he was putting in the place of God- which IN HIS CASE was money. But that does not mean the same would be true for the next man. It might be sex, drugs. pride or vanity....this passage is about making God our true priority - it is not a passage insisting tha people of faith sell all they have. Which explains why Christianity does not understand poverty as lack of material wealth but as healthy attitude to riches. In the words of Wesley- earn as much as you can, save as much as you can but, most importantly, give away as much as you can. Especially to those less fortunate than yourself.

In summary: Christianity properly understood is a deep and beautiful thing. It has survived 200 years because no philosophy has trumped it. Indeed all the loe, forgiveness and tolerance enjoyed by the West today is the product of a Christian society. But alas our current generation, in pursuing self + greed, have become spiritually  very ignorant. It is very fashionable in our current secular West to ''Christian bash'' but in 99 per cent of cases those bashing do not really understand what they bash. I challenge anyone to actually join my congregation for six months and then scorn what we are about. Else watch BBC2''s ''the monastary'' in which several average blokes entered a monastic community for a few weeks. It profoundly moved every one of them and made them examine who they were. The thing that choked and challenged them was the love, peace and wisdom shown by the monks. It led to MAJOR rethinking and change of life on their part. One even joined the priesthood. Why? Because they actually ''experienced God in prayer'' rather than just rubbishing Christianity based on Sunday School memories and borrowed quotes from atheists. Sorry it the post sounds defensive- but I have taken more ''bashing'' on this board for my faith than anywhere else. But I am happy to provide your answer.

[/quote]

 

Eloquently put, Vicar, and spot on.  I think it is rather sad that you found it necessary to change your login but hardly surprising. 

[Jerzy Krukowski 5]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

I had been silent because past experience teaches me that most people on this board are not actually interested in proper debate because they have closed their minds and simply want to feel smug and ''bash Christianity''. Very often they base opinion on very little real knowledge of living faith. Indeed I have taken so much truck I eventually changed my name that I might talk footy and not just be attacked for my faith. (which was happening most every post I made) 

Do you really want an answer? Or are you trying to expose Christianity as stupid? If you do want an answer it is easy to provide and could be found with even a cursory reading of the text. The rich young ruler came to Christ and he was asked to sell all he had. Not because wealth is bad (consider how Solomon was stupendously rich yet commended for his faith) but because, in this instance, wealth had become ''his god''. Thus if the rich young ruler wanted to forge true relationship with God he needed to sacrifice that which he was putting in the place of God- which IN HIS CASE was money. But that does not mean the same would be true for the next man. It might be sex, drugs. pride or vanity....this passage is about making God our true priority - it is not a passage insisting tha people of faith sell all they have. Which explains why Christianity does not understand poverty as lack of material wealth but as healthy attitude to riches. In the words of Wesley- earn as much as you can, save as much as you can but, most importantly, give away as much as you can. Especially to those less fortunate than yourself.

In summary: Christianity properly understood is a deep and beautiful thing. It has survived 200 years because no philosophy has trumped it. Indeed all the loe, forgiveness and tolerance enjoyed by the West today is the product of a Christian society. But alas our current generation, in pursuing self + greed, have become spiritually  very ignorant. It is very fashionable in our current secular West to ''Christian bash'' but in 99 per cent of cases those bashing do not really understand what they bash. I challenge anyone to actually join my congregation for six months and then scorn what we are about. Else watch BBC2''s ''the monastary'' in which several average blokes entered a monastic community for a few weeks. It profoundly moved every one of them and made them examine who they were. The thing that choked and challenged them was the love, peace and wisdom shown by the monks. It led to MAJOR rethinking and change of life on their part. One even joined the priesthood. Why? Because they actually ''experienced God in prayer'' rather than just rubbishing Christianity based on Sunday School memories and borrowed quotes from atheists. Sorry it the post sounds defensive- but I have taken more ''bashing'' on this board for my faith than anywhere else. But I am happy to provide your answer.

[/quote]

Perhaps a football forum isn''t the place for debate on religious belief, but we are here so there it goes. I''m sorry that you feel that you have been a victim of "bashing" , it''s an emotive subject though as you''ll realise. To make it clear, I believe that religious belief is dangerous superstition. As born and brought up in the UK I am a cultural christian though. That is not to say that all people that have religious faith are either idiots or morally questionable, though islam, christianity and judaism both allow and support both stupidity and moral bankrupcy. I see religious belief as something to be challanged as much as any belief based upon irrationality that impacts negatively upon other people.

Your anecdotal evidence is lovely, and completely irrelevant. Not only that but classically offensive to suggest that non-christians owe our "good" moral behaviour to christianity. We are inherently moral beings, pre-christians (or modern day non-christians be they athiests or holding other faiths) didn''t get up to any worse behaviour than christians. For every example of pagan evil anyone can point to evil done in the name of some god or other. Good people do good things, bad people do bad things, to make good people do bad things takes religion. Are you really suggesting that without christianity you and your congregation would be out raping and murdering? I don''t feel the need to do any such things.

Good answer to my point about Jesus saying people should give up their worldly possessions, sounds a bit like choosing to intepret his words however you like. Is that also why you might also eat shellfish without incurring the wrath of god or do any number of other things outlawed in the bible because you just don''t wish to?

It would be all lovely and no-one would mind what belief others held if religious people didn''t try to foist their ideas onto everyone else. The fact is that tolerant, moderate religious people give cover and tacit support (even if unintentional) to the extremists that threaten the freedoms and lives of other people. Would 9/11 have happened without religion? Religious people often state (like you) that you''re happy to debate, but the relity is that religious people attempt to stifle and censor debate (the Turkish government''s blocking of Richard Dawkin''s website being a classic example). Religious people seek to impose their bronze-age views on homosexuality and birth control, abortion and woman''s rights throughout the world regardless of the negative effects on individual health, freedoms and the long-term health of the world. Religious people often claim to want people to make up their own minds but then promote church schools with a curriculum defined by faith not rationality, all part of the process of brainwashing children before they can realistically make up their own minds from the evidence.   

Frankly, the history of the judao-christian-islamic belief system is anything but the gentle,indivdual journey to enlightenment you portray, it is a history of intollerance. The sooner it disappears the better.

[Golbio79"Youll never out-fox the Fox..Ruel Fox" 0]

Roeder is already in Ga Ga land thinking he is God! So why the hell not???

[dugh 0]

Loving the debate. I''ve lurked around here for ages and now the discussion turns to subjects other than ''Roeder out!'' or ''Shoot the board!, I find I''m spurred into action. Maybe some of the supposed footy-related discussion has left me cold recently.Anyway, nice one SPat! The idea that those ''religious souls'' around us have some kind of exclusive rights to exemplary morals because of their doctrine makes me seethe. I give to charity, exercise tolerance and respect and strive towards ''goodness'' at all times. Last time I went through a toll gate, I paid for the car behind. Why? Because it is a random act of kindness and a good thing to do. The sanctimonious bleating of some christians about the heritage of moral excellence denies the fact that people got along just fine before ''organised'' religions came along.As to the interpretation of scripture, I won''t go there. It only ends up in an endless spiral of (usually semantic) fruitless bickering. It''s generally an interpretation that best suits the indoctrinatory line of fire that best suits.I have been an atheist as long as I can remember. The earliest exposure to organised religion that I can recall was a baffling (to a 4 year old) experience of an Easter service. I remember asking my grandmother in the car afterwards how Jesus had died and then come back alive. She replied that I should never ask questions about things that I would never understand. I have dedicated my life since to doing the opposite.

[Dean Coneys boots 1,398]

If you actually look at my point I was not stating ''that only Christians do nice things''....I was stating that our very concept of ''nice things'' was forged over hundreds of years- specifically in the West as influenced by Christian thinking. Paying the toll for the person behind you is seen as kind- precisely because our moral code stems from Christian doctrine - which emphasises ''treat your neighbour like yourself''. Furthermore the whole justice system stems from Christian origins...hence prisoners have ''cells'' (which are monastic).

Now you can no more divorce yourself from your own history than you can divorce your parents! So yes- you may well be an atheist. And yes you may well loath religion. But you cannot deny that our very understanding of right and wrong was developed from a body of thought that is Christian in orgin.

Thus if England had been under the rule of a religion with more focus on vengeance and justice than on love and forgivness (as Iran is) it would have led to a very different nation today - than the one we have which is hewn from a Judeo-Christian rock.

That is all I was saying. And to take the analogy even further you might consider the problem missionaries faced in one African tribe. As they heard the Easter story they all cheered Judas and adored him. The reason being that they had a culture in which cheating someone to the point of death was considered mighty clever and desirable....do you start to see what I am driving at here. Modern atheism is all well and good...some atheists may be wonderful people....but even they owe much of what they love in secular 21st Century Britain to their Christian heritage. To deny this is frankly bizarre.

[plan b 0]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

I had been silent because past experience teaches me that most people on this board are not actually interested in proper debate because they have closed their minds and simply want to feel smug and ''bash Christianity''. Very often they base opinion on very little real knowledge of living faith. Indeed I have taken so much truck I eventually changed my name that I might talk footy and not just be attacked for my faith. (which was happening most every post I made) 

Do you really want an answer? Or are you trying to expose Christianity as stupid? If you do want an answer it is easy to provide and could be found with even a cursory reading of the text. The rich young ruler came to Christ and he was asked to sell all he had. Not because wealth is bad (consider how Solomon was stupendously rich yet commended for his faith) but because, in this instance, wealth had become ''his god''. Thus if the rich young ruler wanted to forge true relationship with God he needed to sacrifice that which he was putting in the place of God- which IN HIS CASE was money. But that does not mean the same would be true for the next man. It might be sex, drugs. pride or vanity....this passage is about making God our true priority - it is not a passage insisting tha people of faith sell all they have. Which explains why Christianity does not understand poverty as lack of material wealth but as healthy attitude to riches. In the words of Wesley- earn as much as you can, save as much as you can but, most importantly, give away as much as you can. Especially to those less fortunate than yourself.

In summary: Christianity properly understood is a deep and beautiful thing. It has survived 200 years because no philosophy has trumped it. Indeed all the loe, forgiveness and tolerance enjoyed by the West today is the product of a Christian society. But alas our current generation, in pursuing self + greed, have become spiritually  very ignorant. It is very fashionable in our current secular West to ''Christian bash'' but in 99 per cent of cases those bashing do not really understand what they bash. I challenge anyone to actually join my congregation for six months and then scorn what we are about. Else watch BBC2''s ''the monastary'' in which several average blokes entered a monastic community for a few weeks. It profoundly moved every one of them and made them examine who they were. The thing that choked and challenged them was the love, peace and wisdom shown by the monks. It led to MAJOR rethinking and change of life on their part. One even joined the priesthood. Why? Because they actually ''experienced God in prayer'' rather than just rubbishing Christianity based on Sunday School memories and borrowed quotes from atheists. Sorry it the post sounds defensive- but I have taken more ''bashing'' on this board for my faith than anywhere else. But I am happy to provide your answer.

[/quote]...sorry for starting all this, had no idea that mentioning mulryne would bring up this sort of debate.been having a look at this occasionally and felt i had to put my oar in at this point when i read this post. I am sorry VIYAG  but your comment that all the loe, forgiveness and tolerance enjoyed by the West today is the product of a Christian society, is utter tosh and under-sells humanity by a long shot by reckoning that the only reason that we display these attributes is because of some ancient teachings, might i suggest to you that christianity is the product of many other religions which existed thousands of years before it, in fact the majority of the bible, new and old testaments, are plagiarized accounts of a mixture of other ''stories'' taken from other beliefs. for example, the time in which you celebrate christmas was a festival long before christianity came along, taking in all aspects of others beliefs and traditions, like the feasts of the romans and the babylonians, saturnalia (or the birthday of the unconquered sun) and son of isis respectively, are celebrated at that time and bear many similarities in story and Pagans thousands of years even before them held a winter solstice, and excuse me for cutting and pasting some of this now but there is too much for me write.. The Egyptians celebrated this day as the birth day of their great

saviour Horus, the Egyptian god of light and son of a virgin mother,

the queen of the heaven, Isis. Osiris, god of the dead and the

underworld in Egypt, another son of a holy virgin, was born on the

25 December. Adonis, revered as a dying and rising god among the

Phrygians then the Greeks, was born on the 25 December. His worshippers

held him a yearly festival representing his death and resurrection. in fact there is loads more here. http://www.askwhy.co.uk/christianity/0300Christmas.php have a look for yourselves.now, i am all for religious tolerance, and that means every religion, including ones some naive people think of as evil etc, and i respect every one of you who follow them as it must take some doing, blindly following a belief, but what i cannot tolerate is when i am told that the only reason that i dont murder, steal, rape and that i am compassionate to my fellow man is because of some ancient teachings, it is not, it is because of humanity and our inbuilt moral system that keeps the majority of us from doing such things. if it were from some ancient teachings, it isn''t from the ones you follow, it is from the ones christianity stole from. so please, VIYAG, feel free to air your views, they are yours and you have every right to them, but dont involve me or others like me in your religion by insinuating that i am what i am because of it.as for those chaps who were deeply moved by their experience at the monastary, i think you will find it would be the same story at any type of monastary, whatever the religion, its called indoctrination.

[Jerzy Krukowski 5]

[quote user="the artist formerly known as VIYAG"]

That is all I was saying. And to take the analogy even further you might consider the problem missionaries faced in one African tribe. As they heard the Easter story they all cheered Judas and adored him. The reason being that they had a culture in which cheating someone to the point of death was considered mighty clever and desirable....do you start to see what I am driving at here. Modern atheism is all well and good...some atheists may be wonderful people....but even they owe much of what they love in secular 21st Century Britain to their Christian heritage. To deny this is frankly bizarre.

[/quote]

While you are no doubt trying to reply to the specific points I raised, you might like to provide a reference to that anecdotal and suspicious story of the tribe the missonaries were kindly trying to convert (whether they wanted it or not)