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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (66021)	12/1/2004 6:07:08 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

CB, have you thought of starting at first principles to see why you think particular things? <I can't really comprehend not believing in God, although I certainly can comprehend not understanding God, because I don't understand God at all. The concept seems quite absurd, and yet, no more absurd than the fact that I exist at all. I firmly believe in God. But the various organized versions of Christianity seem quite contrary to anything Christ was talking about in the Bible, while the Old Testament is, by and large, silly, what with giants, and begatings, and smitings, and concubines, and all the rules and regulations about what you can eat and what you can wear and so forth. I like Thomas Jefferson's Bible, where he went through and excerpted all the things that Christ said, and put them together, and left out most of the rest. > You have accepted that the interpreting [usually male - there's a hint] authorities have got things wrong. Yet you blithely accept another male's interpretation [Jefferson's] of what some other males [King James] interpreted from somewhere or other, while dismissing a whole bunch of males' rantings [the Olde Testamente]. How come women don't have antennae capable of direct connections to the Big Fella and they always need a bloke to tell them what to think? Maybe women don't have brains that work properly. Do you think that? You seem to base your whole stack of superstitions around some blokes who told somebody who told somebody who told somebody that their buddy Jesus, was really a supernatural chief who gave them the word to transcribe [presumably JC couldn't write himself - which seems odd for somebody who could cure bubonic plague and blindness with a wave of his hand; hey, maybe he was an early dyxlexic]. Why not test the foundations of your beliefs and see why you think the writing you accept as being The Word is actually the Real McCoy and not some stuff made up by some blokes 2000 years ago with an axe to grind [so to speak]? I am actually the way the truth and the dinkum oil and have all the answers, not those other male answer syndrome interlopers. Please send money [US$ acceptable] and I will give you the One True Word [actually lots of words] and you too can be an acolyte. As with jfred, I am offering you my usual double your money back guarantee of eternal life and as many virgins as you like [a much more generous offer than my competition is offering]. Mqurice PS I don't think I offered jfred the virgins [the thought was too hideous].

To: Ilaine who wrote (66021)	12/1/2004 6:16:08 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Different answers at different times, I think, Cobe. I would say that at first I thought I had lost everything-- any sort of faith. Threw out baby, bathwater, bathtub, towels and the toilet for good measure. (Well, actually at FIRST, I went through this weird period of not believing and then asking forgiveness for not believing. The habits of a strict Catholic upbringing die hard.) It was like taking off training wheels. I was very wobbly pedalling along without it. I was embarrassed too. Most of my friends are believers. I was singing in a church choir, I was directing the summer Bible school production, my children were named Christian and Adam. It took me a long time-- in fact, I think it was really here at SI when I was exposed in the early days to Mq and Freddy and X that I started separating the trappings from the little nugget at the core of it all. Now something in me accepts the possibility of an enormous force, or principle, something so huge and incomprehensible, as Carranza said, its existence might be too easily discounted given our paltry minds and senses. But I don't think I could say I believe in God. I can't follow the exchange of Freddy and Mq- never could- but I did get the bit about semantics. With no definition or understanding, what do you believe IN?