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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (34464)	4/11/1999 10:51:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 108807

Yeah, I know. I used to go to Protestant churches once in a while, my Dad's second wife was Methodist, and I always felt like a dummy in Sunday school. Protestants seem to know the Bible backwards and forwards, chapter and verse. They get prizes for memorizing Bible verses. You can say a chapter and verse number, and some Protestant will recite the verse to you. Worse if you are Irish, I have heard, Irish church didn't want the laity to read the Bible at all. Anyway, I read the Gospels, as I have posted before, the Lattimore translation from the Greek, and most people are always surprised, even agitated, when I mention things Christ said (yes, I know, I know, but I made a decision a long time ago that if Christ said it, I believe it, and everything else is subject to scrutiny).

To: nihil who wrote (34464)	4/12/1999 2:26:00 AM
From: jbe	Respond to of 108807

Godot, The Good Thief, & the Inconsistencies of the Gospels nihil, you at least might appreciate this. VLADIMIR: There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet. ( He takes off his hat again, peers inside it, feels about inside it, knocks on the crown, blows into it, puts it on again.) This is getting alarming. (Silence. Vladimir deep in thought, Estragon pulling on his toes.) One of the thieves was saved. (Pause.) It's a reasonable percentage. (Pause.) Gogo. ESTRAGON: What? VLADIMIR: Suppose we repented. ESTRAGON: Repented what? VLADIMIR: Oh...(He reflects.) We wouldn't have to go into the details. ESTRAGON: Our being here? (Vladimir breaks into a hearty laugh which he immediately stifles, his hand pressed to his pubis, his face contorted. VLADIMIR: One daren't even laugh any more. ESTRAGON: Dreadful privation. VLADIMIR: Merely smile. (He smiles suddenly from ear to ear, keeps smiling, ceases as suddenly.) It's not the same thing. Nothing to be done. (Pause.) Gogo. ESTRAGON: (irritably) What is it? VLADIMIR: Did you ever read the Bible? ESTRAGON: The Bible...(He reflects.) I must have taken a look at it. VLADIMIR: Do you remember the Gospels? ESTRAGON: I remember the maps of the Holy Land. Coloured they were. Very pretty. The Dead Sea was pale blue. The very look of it made me thirsty. That's where we'll go, I used to say, that's where we'll go for our honeymoon. We'll swim. We'll be happy. VLADIMIR: You should have been a poet. ESTRAGON: I was. (Gesture towards his rags.) Isn't that obvious? (Silence.) VLADIMIR: Where was I....How's your foot? ESTRAGON: Swelling visibly. VLADIMIR: Ah, yes, the two thieves. Do you remember the story? ESTRAGON: No. VLADIMIR: Shall I tell it to you? ESTRAGON: No. VLADIMIR: It'll pass the time. (Pause.) Two thieves, crucified at the same time as Our Saviour. One-- ESTRAGON: Our what? VLADIMIR: Our Saviour. Two thieves. One is supposed to have been saved and the other...(he searches for the contrary of saved)...damned. ESTRAGON: Saved from what? VLADIMIR: Hell. ESTRAGON: I'm going. (He does not move.) VLADIMIR: And yet...(pause)...how is it---this is not boring you I hope---how is it that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being saved. The four of them were there--or thereabouts--and only one speaks of a thief being saved. (Pause.) Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can't you, once in a way? ESTRAGON: (with exaggerated enthusiasm) I find this really most extraordinarily interesting. VLADIMIR: One out of four. Of the other three two don't mention any thieves at all and the third says both of them abused him. ESTRAGON: Who? VLADIMIR: What? ESTRAGON: What's all this about? Abused who? VLADIMIR: The Saviour. ESTRAGON: Why? VLADIMIR: Because he wouldn't save them. ESTRAGON: From hell? VLADIMIR: Imbecile! From death. ESTRAGON: I thought you said hell. VLADIMIR: From death, from death. ESTRAGON: Well what of it? VLADIMIR: Then the two of them must have been damned. ESTRAGON: And why not? VLADIMIR: But one of the four says one of the two was saved. ESTRAGON: Well? They don't agree and that's all there is to it. VLADIMIR: But all four were there. And only one speaks of a thief being saved. Why believe him rather than the others? ESTRAGON: Who believes him? VLADIMIR: Everybody. It's the only version they know. ESTRAGON: People are bloody ignorant apes.