Has anyone tried the Alpha course?

[lozzyloz]

Many people have arrived at this conclusion without the aid of religion having to held their hand and point it out.

I'd still like the Aston Martin though.

[Jeremy]

Thanks for the response, Bizzy. To be honest, I would bracket your beliefs along with fundamentalist/extreme/evangelical/creationist Christianity. Your world view is so obviously, vastly different from my own. When we have people in a position of responsibility pushing a literal interpretation of the bible - e.g. teaching creationism in schools - it's really an oppression of science and reason, and therefore the advance of the human race. That's one of the reasons atheists may feel it is so important to speak up against such things, rather than just adopting a "live and let live" approach.

[Bizzy]

Lozzyloz,

Understandably, you have taken it ever so slightly out of context. Having arrived at that conclusion, what you see as being more to life will be different to what I see.

[mockney piers]

The flood literally true.

Oh ... my.

I must say there's an impressive diversity in humankind if we're all descended from one family 4000 odd years ago.

Or did God magic all the peoples of the world into place?

If so why did he not make them all Jewish?

Indeed why put the pesky Babylonians and Egyptians there to conquer and generally enslave his chosen people? Are they all condemned to Hell for being unbelievers, in which case that's a bit unfair to be literaly placed on this Earth to punish a chosen people for a lack of faith and then condemned to eternal suffering for essentially doing God's work.

[Bizzy]

Mockney piers,

Unfortunately, I don't have all the answers ;-)

My guess is people would have traveled, moved about etc which may explain diversity today - I?m not a historian so I don't know for sure. Many of the Babylonians and Egyptians wouldn't have had any part, and may have even joined the chosen people.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Leave him alone you bunch of bullies.

[Brendan]

Dogs have evolved an amazing range of diversity in only 10?20 thousand years. Granted it has mostly involved getting weaker, dumber and uglier but there you go.

Just saying like.

[TillieTrotter]

I think he's holding his own here LE. Good on him too.

[Mark]

Bizzy Wrote:

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> ...If you have... seen the Passion of Christ, you would have seen that Jesus could have done many things..

May I recommend that you don't reference a Mel Gibson Hollywood film as the accurate teachings of your lord, it gives us ammunition with which to undermine your argument. Have you seen Mad Max or Lethal Weapon?

[Brendan]

I wonder if anyone has ever academically explored the phenomenon of apostolic atheism.

[snorky]

LegalEagle-ish Wrote:

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> Leave him alone you bunch of bullies.

He/She has come onto a public forum to give a bit of PR to a regressive , antidelivual practice.

Do you think I would be left alone If I came on and defended bear baiting ?

get stuck in , kick him when hes down, because these vile beliefs - all of them - have no basis in anything except a means of continued control and exploitation.

[TillieTrotter]

Measured response as usual from the Snork;-)

[lozzyloz]

Have you been reading too much Dan Simmons Snorks?

[snorky]

TillieTrotter Wrote:

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> I think he's holding his own here LE. Good on him

> too.

I have removed my rant, as its just what these people want to read.

[snorky]

lozzyloz Wrote:

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> Have you be

en reading too much Dan Simmons Snorks?

No...Just googled him - its looks rubbish

[Narnia]

In reference to Noah's Ark - I take it literally. God, was unhappy, and therefore unleashed his wrath upon the world.

Sorry but don't know how to do the quote bit. However the above annoys me. God was unhappy........with what? If he created us and is all knowing he would have known all about our flaws as humans and that we were likely to mess up.Why would he want to punish that which he created? If he created us just to behave in a manner that pleased him then I'm sorry God but you are on a power trip of some sort. If God is God then you can't imagine what it's like, certainly not with your mind. I once heard that the word sin originated from ancient Latin possibly or even Greek but actually meant 'to miss the mark' as opposed to the current idea that we have done something wrong if we have sinned.

I think that God is to be experienced. He doesn't unlease wrath or sit anywhere unhappy........that's a human emotion. He just is. It could as easily be she or it. It doesn't matter. Finally and not to end on a negative note my experience of that which is called God is an experience of tranquility far beyond what my usual experiece of life is. It's happened once or twice and is something else. Fact is no words can describe it.

[PeckhamRose]

Anyway back to the Alpha curse I mean course and my previous question to the originator - of this forum topic.

If you deal in legal stuff you deal in finding evidence.

So what are you doing going to the Alpha Course?

[SeanMacGabhann]

well to be fair to LE, that is exactly what she is trying to do - she is taking the course and collecting evidence collection

Wether it is considered impartial, neutral evidence is another matter. And frankly there are thousands of different but similar things one would have to sign up for to be sure of sifting through all of the evidence.

If I ever ever tell any of you that I am signing up for a Dianetics course - please try and stage an intervention.

[Narnia]

Sean Og........is my impression of you sitting on a fence regularly down to my lack of understanding of what a fence is?

[SeanMacGabhann]

Declan - come now, you and I of all people know what a fence is...

The truth is often in the middle - people shouldn't be so down on it

[Brendan]

And sometimes there is an adjoining field.

[lozzyloz]

. . . or a VERY big hole

[SeanMacGabhann]

oh - and it's a looong time since I was "?g" :-S

[Keef]

In reference to Noah's Ark - I take it literally.

How can you, when the story has Noah at about 950 years old, when he died a full 350 years after the flood? Even Jesus only got to his 40s!

My guess is people would have travelled, moved about etc which may explain diversity today

Wouldn't that have been more down to the whole Tower of Babel malarkey when God got annoyed with the people for trying to reach him, so he split them all up and gave them different languages so they wouldn't understand each other anymore.

I'm not an atheist (probably agnostic), and I'm certainly not one of the several people on here who can't wait to jump on a Christian and patronise them. However, I don't see how anyone can take the old testament literally. I think it should be looked at more as a collection of stories from which to take moral lessons or not.

New testament has more of a historical feel, but it was stories passed down through generations and changed as they went before finally being written down by deciples of the deciples years after the death of Jesus.

It's also a fine bit of literature.

There has been a programme on 4 about the history of Christianality which is rather interesting, and would probably offer far more reliable historical evidence than this course.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Keef, I'm not sure that the Alpha Course is aimed at being a theological/apologetics course. It's true that any question may be asked and an answer should be given or if the leader is ignorant, an attempt to find out the answer made.

It's more an introduction to the personhood of God - that is, come and meet Him. The whole point of Jesus dying was to enable a personal relationship with God, not to be able to spout a load of stuff or be able to refute complex arguments. It's also completely voluntary, if it doesn't float your boat, let it go.

It will be interesting to see LEFKACWALD's comments at the end.