Faith

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Thomas Paine wrote of religion:

"If we suppose a large family of children, who on any particular day, or particular circumstance, made it a custom to present to their parent some token of their affection and gratitude, each of them would make a different offering, and most probably in a different manner. Some would pay their congratulations in themes of verse or prose; some by little devices, as their genius dictated, or according to what they thought would please; and, perhaps the least of all, not able to do any of those things, would ramble into the garden, or the field, and gather what it thought the prettiest flower it could find, though perhaps it might be but a simple weed. The parent would be more gratified by such variety than if the whole of them had acted on a concerted plan, and each had made exactly the same offering. This would have the cold appearance of contrivance, or the harsh one of control. But of all unwelcome things nothing could more afflict the parent than to know that the whole of them had afterwards gotten together by the ears, boys and girls fighting, scratching, reviling, and abusing each other about which was the best or the worst present."

Maybe like a parent, God dropped different hints to different races on this Earth about what would please Him, and we just misinterpreted the message as meaning that our own received hint should be the one taken up by all the other children as well.

Of course, a good parent will still love and not forsake their child even if it proves ungrateful for what it has been given, or refuses to acknowledge the parent's existence.

Martin

[Kingoji]

I see what you're saying, but I'm a little offended by the insinuation that I'm ungrateful or refuse to acknowledge God's existence. I acknowledge the idea of God, but it has not been definitively proven that He exists in the first place. So I live for me.
IF He does exist, and when I die he comes over to me and says "Hey, guess what?", then I would be completely appreciative.
I mean, be grateful to something which has had no bearing in my life thus far for my own knowing to be a good person? Not likely.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

By being ungrateful I'm thinking more in terms of wasting the life one's been given, and not trying to utilise one's potential to the full. A child striving to do one's best with one's life - to do good to others - should please a loving parent - but one would hope they would still love their child if he just sat on his arse, thought of no-one but himself and complained all the time.

When I said perhaps God sent a different hint to different people, I include atheists in that supposition. Maybe He just wants them to concentrate on what's in front of them and not think about Him.

But for me, the whole of life itself and the wonders of the universe _is_ God saying, "Hey, guess what?"

Martin

[dyrl]

I'm overjoyed at all of your responses and will reply piecemiel to portions which are very pertinent, in my view:

What do Haruhists believe in? It's all very well expunging the right to believe in a character as a representation (unknowing or not) of God, but what values does this religion place upon you? Let God win else she'll destroy you?

Haruhi Suzumiya believes that humans are not interesting; and she states:

"I have no interest in meeting human beings. If you are an alien, if you are a time traveler, or if you have ESP - JOIN ME!"

The reason she is not interested in human beings, is because humanity reminds her of her bad experience at a baseball game where she realized she was just one of many people; a drop in a vast ocean of basically similar beings who are not special.

Haruhi said:

"Before thinking about this, I thought I was special, I thought I was unique, I thought the friends I had in primary school were the best in the universe - irreplaceable. I thought my family was amazing. Then I realized we were just like everyone else."

As someone who has traveled a lot in life - I wholly understand this sentiment. It is a very sad feeling to realize - once you move a third and fourth and sixth time - that no matter where on Earth you go, you will meet interesting and cool people.

This however means that the interesting and cool and "irreplacable" people you know can in fact be "replaced" because no matter where you go, people will always be found who are interesting.

This depressed Haruhi Suzumiya so much that she destroyed the world. In her new world she is seeking out beings that are not humans and that instead have fantastical traits.

She meets a human - Kyon - whose value system is, in my view, an excellent one.

Kyon states:

"I never believed in Santa Claus as a child. I thought it was ridiculous that there was a man with a beard who worked only one day a year."

"However, since being little, I thought that aliens, transforming super robots, evil organizations and everything to do with cartoons and comics was really real. When I realized it was not - I was sad."

"And yet - despite maturing and accepting the physical laws of the universe for what they are, I have not given up my belief in these things. This sounds contradictory - but I think holding onto your beliefs while accepting the limits of reality is actually a sign of maturity."

Kyon, therefore, feels the same melancholy as Haruhi Suzumiya - but he is not very bothered by it.

And for this very reason, while Haruhi is unconscious of being God, and unconscious of the fact that her new friends in her new school are an alien, a time traveler and an ESPer - Kyon knows all of this, accepts it, but treats it with light hearted distance and a bit of humerous cynicism. He also is amused by the commotion surrounding Haruhi and the question of her being God.

Now....

What are the values that the religion teaches?

I would say that they are the following:

Haruhi Suzumiya teaches us that melancholy is the basic nature of human existence. It is akin to what Heidegger called "Angst" in Being and Time - that is to say; human nature is not rational or irrational, in fact - it is not GROUNDED at all. Rather, human existence is constant angst running away from itself.

This anxiety that is fundamental to humans causes them to either retreat into some fictional convention (the "mundane habits of every day life" OR it causes people to become dreamers - poets, artists, missionaries, rock musicians, explorers - people with a burning passion to discover something meaningful about life.

Haruhi Suzumiya is just such a person. She is determined to find meaning in human life; and even though she professes a desire to escape humanity, to go beyond humanity - the fact that she is a HUMAN and that other than the alien, ESPer and Time Traveler (who all fear her power and are subservient to her) - she is friends with another human (Kyon) who does NOT fear her power...means that in general I think that she is trying to push humanity beyond itself under the guise of refusing it.

I would say that whether or not they believe in the literal historical truth of the texts, all followers of the main world faiths do believe that the key religious texts are at least in part divinely inspired and contain real messages from God to people on Earth (perhaps open to interpretation, and perhaps mixed in with bits added by man alone). Do you believe this of your source material?

I would personally be quite disturbed and upset if anyone interpreted any fiction I wrote as divinely inspired, or a message from God, and made a religion out of it. I wonder how the creators of this anime of yours would view the matter?

I believe that every religious and philsoophical text of any substance and meaning is inspired by God, because if we accept an infinite, wise, loving God - then it would be Prideful to claim that our greatest literary or artistic achievements are the soul product of our own minds and efforts and not Divinely inspired.

That said, it would also be prideful for a writer or artist to proclaim that because there is a God, then ipso facto his or her work is the direct word of God and he or she should be revered as a direct intermediary between people and God.

Do you think anyone will look back on this anime series as a religious source material a thousand years from now? Does it matter to you if not?

I generally don't think this is important, because as that one waitress says (ironically) to Sarah Conor in Terminator after a kid drops ice cream into her dress:

"In a hundred years - whose gonna care?"

But do you think that the original Christians or practitioners of any religion could have imagined that in two thousand years their religion would not be a counter culture that was hunted and persecuted, but in fact a majority culture that is often intolerant of others?

As for the actual beliefs you describe, they don't appeal to me because I don't consider God as a person who does one thing and then does another thing and then a bit later does something else. It only seems that He does things in chronological sequence because we are moving in one direction through time. So it seems to us (and the Bible is written from a human viewpoint in this way) that Man does something, God gets annoyed, God smites Man, God relents, God gives Man another chance and waits to see if he'll learn his lesson, and so on. But science now views time as just another dimension, like the three spatial dimensions, and other dimensions that our senses can't see - and all these dimensions are part of the universe that God, if He exists, is the architect of. I won't say "the universe God created", since that involves using the past tense. If the universe is God's work, then He creates all times, not just the 'beginning'. If He is omniscient, when He creates the universe (including time and space) He can see all of time and space. From His perspective, He might have created the bit after the Flood before the bit before the Flood, if you see what I mean! If you make God subject to time, i.e. He is moving along in time experiencing it at the same pace as us, moving in one direction only through time, i.e. forwards, then you are making Him subject to the laws of the universe He is the creator of - which is (a) belittling God, and (b) something of a paradox.

The question is, do you want to choose to believe in a God that is omnipotent and omniscient, creator and master of everything _including time_, who can see and be present at all times and places at once, or do you make him a character more capable of comprehension by humans, who humans can identify with, and who moves through time in one direction with us, having thoughts and doing things in chronological sequence? If the latter, who created the concept of time and the rules of cause and effect by which this god is bound? Some higher god?

I 100% agree with you.

Which is why you must see Haruhi Suzumiya - because it is a story told beyond time.

Huh?

Well let me explain:

The anime is not shown in chronological order, and in fact there is no clear dilenation between episodes. They can be linked, and attempts can be made to organize them into a chronological whole- but that is actually impossible because certain thing need to happen both "first" and "last" at the same time albeit in multiple different ways to make any sense.

Right now, there is a huge controversy amongst the fandom because the second season of the show is being shown and...

the second episode was called Endless Eight.

the third episode was called Endless Eight.

the fourth episode was called Endless Eight.

and... so on... now they're on the eight episode - and it's still Endles Eight.

Even Hitler has had it with Endless Eight:


Each of these episodes has been exactly the same as the last one with truly minor variations that are extremely hard to spot (especially if you don't speak Japanese and particularly because there are like 8 different subs of each of the episodes by people who seem to feel that there are so many different ways to interpret what is being said).

As for the episodes "prior" to that ("prior" because some of them happen "after" and some "before" and some "during") - well - like I said: there is no chronology. It is all a story told outside of Time. Time is in flux and Haruhi Suzumiya is NOT bound by Time in the stories.

So - the anime accounts for what you discuss.

In fact, it does so better than the Bible, which IS chronological, or at least presented chronologically and which seems to suggest that God is not a constant actor in this time, which is linear, independent of the infinity of God, and His being beyond time.

In this sense, Haruhi Suzumiya as a religious story does a much better job of demonstrating the theological notion of God being unbound by Time than the Bible does.

If anything, this anime is probably one of the most accurate representations of the problem of Time and God that has ever been made (or you can just inter-ret this to mean that my horizon is small )

Finally, to get back to the point about the "values" of this religion...

Hm - I still say that probably the most important value that Haruhism has to teach is to awaken ourselves to the distinction between what we consider real and fiction, and to the fact that our lives are often complex fictions that we trap ourselves into while disdaining reality by belittling it as being "impractical" (ergo fictiious).

I guess what I mean to say is that Haruhism awakens us to the notion that the poetic life is more real than "real life." In this sense, it does the same job that high art and theatre do - or a good book - and it does exactly what a Church sermon or Mass should do - it confronts us to radically consider the extent to which we allow our lives to be fictions authored by circumstance and those more powerful or numerous than we, or to allow ourselves to be the authors of our own fiction.

And if the latter - then Haruhi reminds us that we need to gaurd against the temptation to think that because we are the authors of our own fiction, then it stops being fiction.

Finally - salvation in this anime takes the form of Snow White.

All great thoughts from everyone - would really be interested in hearing more. The best way to see whether Haruhi holds up to serious religious introspection is to have some of it

Pete

[Grand Moff Muffin]

The Bible was completed almost 2,000 years ago, to be comprehensible to the people of that time, so it's a bit unfair to call it less sophisticated in its description of God than something written today whose author has the advantage of all the science, philosophy and fiction since that time to build on. Just as it would have baffled the early Jews and Christians to be given a scientifically accurate account of the evolution of the universe and life on Earth, with its billions of years and billions of light-years, it would equally have baffled them if the Bible had spoken of multiverses and time-travel. People today who haven't had a scientific education or watched shows like Star Trek would still struggle with a story expressed in those terms today. The Bible was not written for scientists or learned philosophers.

On to 'Haruhi Suzumiya', the Endless Eight reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episodes 'Cause and Effect', which kept showing the same events over and over again (always ending with the ship exploding) with slight variations, and 'Parallels', which had a character uncontrollably moving between very similar parallel universes. Time-travel and parallel universes (and omnipotent super-beings who can manipulate them at will) have been thoroughly explored in science-fiction series such as Star Trek. I wonder how much earlier science-fiction influenced this anime series?

Haruhi doesn't really sound like God to me, since God is to me by definition the one who has all the answers. If Haruhi is looking for something, she must be part of creation, not master of it - even if she is powerful beyond human comprehension, something gave her those powers (God, presumably). She may be as far above humans as humans are above potatoes, but that doesn't make her God.

Re: angst and anxiety - how would you categorise people like me who love to speculate about these things but actually take pleasure in the lack of ready meaning and answers to life? I am neither blind to nor depressed by the insignificance of man, but actually reassured by it. I think it's just marvellous how many stars there out there which must have as much purpose to their existence as we do, but to whom we are completely irrelevant, and that man only rules the Earth for a tiny fraction of its overall history. I think it's great to know that we are small and not the centre of everything that happens in the universe. And yet we are privileged to be intelligent enough to see how great everything else in the universe is, compared to our own works. The things that frustrate and depress me are that most humans miss out on the wonder of the rest of nature, and stomp all over the bits they do have power over (namely the bits that share this planet with us at this time) in their self-centredness.

Yeah, yeah, I stomp all over it to a certain extent myself, but at least I do it with my eyes open and try to moderate my stomping.

Martin

[dyrl]

The Bible was completed almost 2,000 years ago, to be comprehensible to the people of that time, so it's a bit unfair to call it less sophisticated in its description of God than something written today whose author has the advantage of all the science, philosophy and fiction since that time to build on.

I'm not sure that analagy can hold up to scrutiny. First, the Bible was indeed completed almost 2000 years ago,yes; but one must keep in mind that literacy was nearly 0% 2000 years ago, and for all intents and purposes the Bible was NOT completed "to be comprehensible to the people of that time," but rather as what can rightly be called a scientific text (keeping in mind that I am here using "scientific" in the broad, classical sense, mindful of the latin root of the word which generally means "body of knowledge").

Secondly, it would be equally possible to argue that the acess of the vast majority of human kind today to something like Haruhi Suzumiya is proportionally just as limited as the access of the majority of humans to the teaching of the bible.

Not everyone lives in Japan, not everyone has access to the internet.

The point? Neither work was concieved to truly be universally accessable.

Finally; it is often said that one should not make light of the truths of the Bible (or other religious texts) solely because they are from a "far off past."

But equally, one ought not argue that we cannot critique or consider the Bible from the vantage point of our time.

Biblical scholars, thinkers and lay persons have done and are doing just that on a daily basis.

The Bible was not written for scientists or learned philosophers.

For all the reasons given above, I contend the Bible was written for scientists and learned philsophers foremost. Its' utility as a popular text or tool for popular teaching is secondary.

I wonder how much earlier science-fiction influenced this anime series?

Probably just as much as ancient Greek and Roman histories, writing styles, religions and other vantage points influenced those who compiled the Bible.

That a text is Divinely inspired does not therefore mean that the words in that text are absolutely in accordance with the concepts they attempt to convey.

On this point - I'd like to draw another parallel regarding "fiction" (Haruhi Suzumiya) vs. "fact" (The Bible):

Notice that in the Bible, Joseph recieves the Word of God in Dreams.

Now... what are Dreams?

If anything, we can surely say dreams are a "figment of our imagination" in some sense.

But isn't an anime story also a figment of imagination?

If Joseph could see the Word of God in his dreams - why can't we see the Word of God in a modern manifestation of dreams, of figments of our imagination - ergo in an anime?

To say "Haruhi Suzumiya is God" is not more fanciful to say that Jesus was God because both are ultimately "characters." That Jesus actually "existed" is quite secondary, since his true existence is revealed to us merely in texts (barring supposed incidents of Divine revelation, appearances of the Virgin Mary etc etc etc - which cannot be rationally discussed because when someone claims to have been witness to a supernatural event such as this, it is IMO futile to use reason to discuss the irrational - we either believe it or not).

Haruhi doesn't really sound like God to me, since God is to me by definition the one who has all the answers. If Haruhi is looking for something, she must be part of creation, not master of it - even if she is powerful beyond human comprehension, something gave her those powers (God, presumably). She may be as far above humans as humans are above potatoes, but that doesn't make her God.

Wasn't Jesus also "looking for something?"

Jesus did not have "all the answers" as witnessed by his last words on the cross: "Oh Father, why have you foresaken me?"

We tend to forget that Jesus was as much a human as he was God - by which I mean that he was as "lost" as the rest of us. This is why Jesus, despite "Being God" also "needed God" and "looked for God" - just like the rest of us.

We tend to forget this aspect of Christ because it does not serve our selfish ends - our personal needs to think of Christ only in terms of his final ressurection and confirmation of His Divinity.

But prior to this event, Christ was "just a man" - and equally "lost" as Haruhi Suzumiya.

The only real difference was that Christ claimed outright to be God while seeking for God. Haruhi Suzumiya does not claim to be God - but in BOTH cases - neither has true knowledge of their Divinity.

This is, after all, exactly why Catholics call it the "Mystery of the Holy Trinity" or the general "mystery of faith."

The mystery is: How can a man (Jesus) at once be a man (ergo imperfect, sinful, having imperfect knowledge, questing for God) and at the same time be God? How can a man like Jesus claim to be God - and yet despair on the Cross that God has foresaken him?

The answer?

Jesus does NOT have "knowledge" in the total, finite sense, of his divinity.

Rathe, I would contend that Jesus' knowledge of his divinity is DIALECTIC - that is - it reveals itself in the process of his life - in the whole story of his life. Moments of certainty of this man (Jesus) are intertwined with moments of despair and their totality can be said to be Knowledge in the purely divine sense.

Jesus' ignorance is therefore a positive ignorance (I am God, but I'm still scared and need God/something) while Haruhi Suzumiy'as is a negative ignorance (I'm not God and don't ever even think about religion, but I'm still scared and need God/something).

These cases seem diametrically opposite - but if taken dialectically, they are actually just "two sides of the same coin" so to speak.

Re: angst and anxiety - how would you categorise people like me who love to speculate about these things but actually take pleasure in the lack of ready meaning and answers to life? I am neither blind to nor depressed by the insignificance of man, but actually reassured by it. I think it's just marvellous how many stars there out there which must have as much purpose to their existence as we do, but to whom we are completely irrelevant, and that man only rules the Earth for a tiny fraction of its overall history. I think it's great to know that we are small and not the centre of everything that happens in the universe. And yet we are privileged to be intelligent enough to see how great everything else in the universe is, compared to our own works. The things that frustrate and depress me are that most humans miss out on the wonder of the rest of nature, and stomp all over the bits they do have power over (namely the bits that share this planet with us at this time) in their self-centredness.

You answer your own question.

On the one hand, man is small and insignificant in a beautiful tapestry of Creation; on the other hand what "frustrates and depresses" you is that most humans do not realize how wonderful this is.

Well then - this is exactly what I was talking about when bringing up angst. Haruhi Suzumiya is not displeased with the universe, nor with the world as such, but with HUMANS who are mundane, boring and uninterested in being happy with the amazing universe they are a part of.

Pete

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Aug 9, 2009 8:46:53 GMT dyrl said:

I'm not sure that analagy can hold up to scrutiny. First, the Bible was indeed completed almost 2000 years ago,yes; but one must keep in mind that literacy was nearly 0% 2000 years ago, and for all intents and purposes the Bible was NOT completed "to be comprehensible to the people of that time," but rather as what can rightly be called a scientific text (keeping in mind that I am here using "scientific" in the broad, classical sense, mindful of the latin root of the word which generally means "body of knowledge").

But... the most important parts of the Bible, including the Gospels, are simply written accounts of the spoken words of prophets and Jesus - to lay people. The Sermon on the Mount was delivered to five thousand illiterate normal people. It was written down to be passed on to those who weren't there, and surely to be read out to those unable to read - with no intellectual qualifications required beyond those to whom it was originally delivered.

But equally, one ought not argue that we cannot critique or consider the Bible from the vantage point of our time.

I agree, I'm just saying that allowances must be made for the time it was written. I don't just mean the passages we now know to be literally untrue (such as the seven-day Creation) - most early Christians never believed they were literally true, it was only with the rise of evangelical sects in Twentieth Century America that Creationism really became popular. I'm talking also about the laws laid down and the codes of morality prescribed and attributed to God in the Old Testament - many of which Jesus himself overturned. Neither defenders nor attackers of the Bible are fair to assume they were intended to still hold true in society today.

Notice that in the Bible, Joseph recieves the Word of God in Dreams.

Now... what are Dreams?

If anything, we can surely say dreams are a "figment of our imagination" in some sense.

But isn't an anime story also a figment of imagination?

If Joseph could see the Word of God in his dreams - why can't we see the Word of God in a modern manifestation of dreams, of figments of our imagination - ergo in an anime?

The key difference is that Joseph believed God was speaking to him, and that it wasn't his imagination - unlike the writers of your anime. That difference may or may not matter to you. It would to me - if I was being serious about adopting this as a religion.

Jesus did not have "all the answers" as witnessed by his last words on the cross: "Oh Father, why have you foresaken me?"

He knew (intellectually) that God hadn't forsaken him. But pain can override the rational mind.

We tend to forget that Jesus was as much a human as he was God - by which I mean that he was as "lost" as the rest of us. This is why Jesus, despite "Being God" also "needed God" and "looked for God" - just like the rest of us.

It is stated categorically that Jesus was without sin. In that crucial sense he was apparently not lost like the rest of us.

You answer your own question.

On the one hand, man is small and insignificant in a beautiful tapestry of Creation; on the other hand what "frustrates and depresses" you is that most humans do not realize how wonderful this is.

Well then - this is exactly what I was talking about when bringing up angst. Haruhi Suzumiya is not displeased with the universe, nor with the world as such, but with HUMANS who are mundane, boring and uninterested in being happy with the amazing universe they are a part of.

No, I think humans are at least as interesting as anything else in the universe, and not at all boring. They don't bore me. I just feel sorry for those who limit their own horizons - whether through being uninterested in nature, in science, in literature, or in all the varied religions of the world - all of which fascinate me.

Going back to 'Haruhi Suzumiya', really I have no objections to you believing that its lead character really exists and is the God of our universe (as Christians do with Christ) if you want to - provided you think she's worthy of being the guiding focus of the rest of your life. If you do, then by all means treat her with as much significance for you as Christians treat Christ, Muslims Mohammed, or Hindus Brahma, Vishnu and Sheeva.

But if it's just your current favourite story, and is likely to be replaced in your affections by another different series that's produced next year, think twice.

Taking up a religion is a serious business, like getting married. In both cases you _can_ change your mind years down the line and pick a new one, but the more often you switch, the less credible will be your declaration of commitment to the next one.

Martin

[dyrl]

I will write a longer post to address your points in more detail as soon as I muster the logic of the arguments; but I've had a lot of work related things taking up too much of my brain power recently -

However, I will say this much on this subject:

I have always approached religion in a manner somewhat analagous to the weather. That is to say; my religious beliefs depend on the weather. Some days, it's cold, murky and dark and I find it hard to believe in God and the weather makes me feel very materialistic and wordly, albeit in a cynical and gloomy sort of way. This is not to say that I believe in God only when the sun shines, because in fact each type of weather can be enjoyable or displeasing depending on a variety of factors... but rather to say that it really changes on a daily basis and has as much to do with the weather as with anything else.

I don't think faith is something that can be (or should be) set in stone, and if someone has authentic doubts about their beliefs, they should follow them through without fear. If this means changing religions, and then changing back again - fine. As long as the conversions are not made out of some calculation having nothing to do with an authentic state of the mind/spirit/soul/what-have-you...

But... more on this tomorrow.

Right now, I'm watching Transformers Victory instead of Haruhi Suzumiya, and this has put my enthusiasm on hold -although rationally I still find all the the above arguments compelling.

But for now, I find myself also extremely intrigued by the mystic powers of Hellbat!

And I can't help but paraphrase:

"Eenie! Meenie! Minee! Moe! HELLBAT!!" :-)

Pete

[Hero]

I got to stand up in church last Sunday to give a testomony about my retreat last week. I spoke about taking on Fear by bringing in its arch-enemy Faith and the congregation liked it.

===KEN

[Shockprowl]

Well done, Hero!

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Now watchable on the Channel 4 website, a very intelligent TV programme about the creation story, presented by an atheist.

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

'The Bible: A History' is a six-episode series. The first episode (mentioned above) was very good. I haven't watched episodes 2 and 4 (a war correspondent's view of Abraham and a historian's view of female characters in the Bible). Episode 3, Ann Widdecombe on the Ten Commandments, was absolutely terrible. A devout Catholic, she does Richard Dawkins' job for him by making Christianity look quite ridiculous.

BUT

Episode 5, this week, was fascinating - Gerry Adams on the message of Jesus.

He doesn't avoid any of the tough questions. He identifies as the core of Jesus' teaching correctly as forgiveness, loving one's enemy, etc. and admits that in his political activism he has not always followed it.

The last 15 minutes, in which he meets an IRA victim's family member who is managing to forgive, and who Gerry Adams hails as an example to others, including himself, and then meets the victim of a family of a Unionist murder who doesn't have forgiveness in her heart, is powerful television.

He doesn't attempt to justify his actions in support of the armed struggle by his religion, but rather in spite of it. That's what I find refreshing.

Anyway, if anyone's curious you will be able to watch it shortly here:

www.channel4.com/programmes/the-bible-a-history/4od

Martin

[Hero]

I 100% agree with this poem and its impacted me positively. 13,000,000 hits and still climbing.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I can't say I 100% agree with it, Ken. I think I know what he's _trying_ to say - that church isn't essential, and going to church doesn't mean you're really a Christian - but the problem is that _without_ religion, knowledge of Jesus would not have become widespread or survived to the present day. Most of the stuff that he says, which I agree with, I tend to only hear coming from the mouths of religious preachers. I think this guy is a religious preacher, and that's not a bad thing - though he might think it is. He sounds like one of those people who has refreshed/updated/overhauled/restored religion at various points down the centuries because in its current form it didn't speak to his generation, rather than someone really out to destroy it.

Hope that makes some sense.

Martin