Has anyone tried the Alpha course?

[MadWorld74]

I'm Agnostic and have already been told by a Jehovahs Witness that I'm going to burn in hell, so the Alpha course means bugger all to me. In fact I did watch a documentary on the Alpha Course and it was a big get-to-gether for the well off to well, make each other more, well off. They all got rat arsed afterwards. No Joke. Religion whether you want to know my opinion or not you're going to get it, is the reason behind all war and suffering. Closely followed by oil and politics.

Good night.

[david_carnell]

Religion and politics are the reasons for war? Really? Tell me more.....

[MadWorld74]

Don't get preppy on me David. I'm off to burn in hell. Nighty night.

[microbite]

The bible is a story written by man, as are most other religious books, over the years these get added to, adapted and changed and bits get left out, etc. to suit the current faith that is trying to adopt it, I find faiths also interpret what they find in these books differently and adapt it to suit their needs or wants at the time. The bible and many faiths are completely against homosexuality and look on it as sin, my friend who is gay and a Deacon is having to hide that fact at the moment, she asked a simple question, so why did God make me gay then if this is such a mortal sin? She knew from a very young age that she was this way and was not coerced into it by anyone, or corrupted neither had she been living a sordid life.

The Koran and Islamic faith fear the power of woman, which is why they cover them up and hide them away, the more fanatical of them rule out education for women so they do not step out of line, and even to this day stone women for "acts of wantoness", erm...a woman gets raped, it must therefore be her fault and not the fault of the rapist as she allowed him to rape her, lets stone her instead, I won't even begin to explain how muslims view women they deem to be promiscuous!

Jehovah's witnesses, the first thing I ask when they knock on the door is, do you have a tv? in the Witness ideology the tv is in fact called a "devil box" and must not be watched at any cost because of corruption, but now with modern advances in technology they have now decided to ignore that part of their preachings and have changed their view to say, well we must watch out for the news to see what is going on with the world and act as proper witnesses. I found some practitioners of this way of life to be quite hypocritical in that they could stand on my door, say that most catholic priests were "shirt lifters and paedophiles who like the little boys in the choir", that pentecostal believers just liked babbling rubbish and being caught when they "enter spirit" and faint by men who like looking up their dresses! that the Church of England and many other religions, (which is most prob true especially in relation to COE), were just religions invented to suit the person's needs, i.e. Henry VIII wanted a way of divorcing... etc. well we all know the story, but the Jehovahs witness movement was founded by a man who was a pastor Charles Russell in 1872, who just woke up one day and decided to create his own religion, so I couldn't take the hypocracy of it all.

[microbite]

Actually this has nothing to do with the Alpha Group and the original post, was going off on a tangent there!

[Sue]

Don't think it's a tangent microbite. I agree with all you say, and it's surely relevant to the OP?

I could rant on for ages about organised religion, but - erm - I won't :))

But yes - the Bible - translated, mistranslated, misheard (blessed are the cheesemakers), words and actions of, say, Jesus misunderstood and misinterpreted, bits discarded (Gospel of Thomas? Gospel of the Essenes? Don't know enough about it so I may be wrong), bits clearly relevant only to the culture of the times taken as gospel (hoho), I should post on this when I haven't had two glasses of wine at some ungodly (:))) hour of the morning.

The mind always tries to explain the mystery which there's no way it can get hold of.

[SeanMacGabhann]

I thought the text after the link in Ted Max's post was one of his homages - it didn't realise it was real!!

Jon Ronson is a hero - his books "The Men who stare at goats" about experiments in the US military and (I think) "The Others" are fab

[LegalEagle-ish]

The whole owning slaves bit and other equally grim stuff in the Old Testament has put me off the Old Testament a lot. I like bits of it though, but I am mostly into the New Testament.

I think growing up as an athiest I'm able to delve into all this stuff without the baggage a few of you seem to have.

It would be like when I started studying electronics thinking it would be really interesting and after a couple of months deciding it wasn't my thing. If I hadn't ever begun studying it, I wouldn't have known it wasn't my thing.

I've been delving into various bits of Christianity for the past 8 years and find some of it inspiring and really interesting. Other bits and other people's spin on bits of it, I find less inspiring and interesting.

I think if you have an open enquiring mind, you can get a lot from looking into what Jesus was about whether you beleive him to be the son of God or not.

Obviuosly I am aware of the contoversies about what is in and what may have been left out, but why should that stop me from delving deeper? That just makes me want to dig out whatever thruth I can even more.

I'm an obsessive person anyway - I was just as evangelical about excercise when I was totaly into excercise, martial arts and nutrition. Then I got really into law and politics. Then I was evangelical about Green issues. It's my nature to dig and discover as much as I can about subjects that inspire me.

Far more interesting than Eastenders in my opinion!

[Cassius]

I like my mother's idea of religion: go somewhere very beautiful, look around you, say 'Thank you God', enjoy!

[snorky]

LegalEagle-ish Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I became a Christian about 2001 and have done

> various bible study courses and stuff since then.

>

> I decided to give the 10 week Alpha course a go

> last night at All Saints church and my first

> session was last night.

>

> It was brilliant.

>

> It wasn't soppy or about trusting fairh, it gave

> loads historical evidence to back up the existance

> of Jesus and was really interesting.

>

> I am quite a sceptical, cynical even, type of

> person and all the questions I had plus way more

> were explored and satisfactory answers given.

>

> I challange any athiest or agnostic to complete

> the Alpha course and not change their thinking.

>

> Here is a link to the National Alpha website.

>

> edited for spelling

You should have edited the whole thing to remove links to the Alpha course

IMHO of course

[microbite]

Roman Emperor Justinian was the first to ever change the bible in 589 ad, as far as I am aware (may be wrong I'm sure I will be told if I am), by removing all references to reincarnation in the bible, and ever since then it has been basically pulled apart and added to by nearly every successive ruler:-

"In the Sixth Century, all of the major passages in the Bible that espoused a belief in reincarnation were ordered by Roman Emperor Justinian to be removed. This was followed by a period of censorship and persecution of those who didn't adhere to the laws of the church. There are still hints of reincarnation that have remained in the Bible but any open preaching of reincarnation was condemned by the government, starting under the reign of Emperor Justinian".

I quote my first reference:

"The first gospels must have contained teachings which the early Christians were prepared to preserve with their lives. Unfortunately they appear to have died in vain. Our orthodox versions of the Old and New Testaments date no further back than the 6th Century, when the Emperor Justinian summoned the Fifth Ecumenical Congress of Constantinople in 533 A.D. to expunge the Platonically inspired writings of Origen, an early Church Father, who had upheld reincarnation until his death three hundred years before".

From: How The Early Church Suppressed Paganism & Astrology While Supporting Reincarnation.

I quote my second reference:

"Reincarnation was a part of early Christianity. Most all Eastern religions believe in reincarnation, and Judaism is an Eastern religion. Christianity, coming from Judaism, also accepted reincarnation as a basic tenet. Until May 5th, 533 AD. The Emperor Justinian I, guided by his wife, called a council of bishops from the Eastern Empire. They gathered in Constantinople along with representatives from Pope Vigilius back in the Western Empire. At the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Emperor announced he no longer wished to advocate the belief in reincarnation. This may have something to do with the idea that man can be "immortal" through multiple lives. Although this Council was well documented, the reason behind the Emperor's decision was never noted. After a show of hands, the bishops agreed with the Emperor. They found three chapters in the Bible mentioning reincarnation and decided to remove those chapters. The Pope agreed with the Council but did so only because he did not want the Eastern Empire to appear "advanced" to the Western Empire. Bibles were collected throughout the two Christian Empires, they were burned and completely rewritten removing the offending three chapters. As an outsider, I find it interesting that whims of one man can cause the word of God to be completely rewritten".

[LegalEagle-ish]

Reincarnation was never a part of the Jewish religion and as Jesus was a Jew who studied and taught the Torah it is very unlikely that he would have added reincarnation as the Eastern religions understand it because it would have been totally out of sync with the rest of his teachings.

[microbite]

Just an example of how many versions of the bible there are out there and how they have been changed to suit the tastes and needs of whoever happened to be currently in power at the time, as I am sure with investigation it will be found to be true of most religious books and texts, whatver denomination.

[LegalEagle-ish]

Pretty much the same with all of ancient and not so ancient history.

[Jah Lush]

MadWorld74 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

I'm off to burn in

> hell.

Have you chosen to be cremated when you finally fall off this mortal coil? There seems little difference to me.

There are no Gods only religion.

[microbite]

Now there is no reference to reincarnation in the Torah, (as is the case with the Bible), who is to say that it wasn't there before? The simple answer is no-one knows, not that I believe in reincarnation to be honest, but it was just used as one example (as this has been recorded) of how holy books were adapted and tampered with to suit needs.

[microbite]

Philosophers have been looking for the same answers for thousands of years, I would love to be around the day they finally find them, I would really love to be able to read the orginal first version of the bible, I think it would be cause for quite a lot of surprise, but alas this will never happen.

[LegalEagle-ish]

There were thousands of copies of the new testament made from the original from ad 130, and some of those copies still exist today. There are more early copies of the books of the bible than materiel used for other accepted ancient history. Modern translators of the bible use the earliest copies of the original greek scrolls for their translations, so the twisting and turnings of various church leaders (who incidently banned the use of the bible in many instances) have less effect than you think.

[microbite]

It is very confusing and misleading though for the average person who is seeking a faith to follow when each religion's holy book/bible purports to be the original "word of God"

[LegalEagle-ish]

I know, that's why I'm keeping my mind open and digging a bit deeper.

I still think the same can be said for most books written about any historical event or figure. The tone or content of it will reflect the bias of the writer. As thinking human beings we need to try to seperate what is their slant from what actually happened - but then we also have to figure in our own bias!

Truth finding is a very subjective thing, it seems!

[SeanMacGabhann]

Stepping back from the "which version of events is the most accurate" and let's accept for the sake of argument that there is this almighty being who created us etc etc . There may or not be a day of reckoning yadda yadda but whatever. It's a BIg Thing

does it not, even if true, really bother you?? Some omnipotent being is messing with our heads in this way?

[microbite]

Well good luck with your mission and I hope you find the enlightenment you seek! It would be interesting to see what you discover. I have been looking for a church for ages, have participated and dabbled in quite a few, and I have yet to find what I'm looking for, but in the meantime I try to live my life as best I can, you know, just in case ;-)

[LegalEagle-ish]

Haha, yeh, i totally understand.

I've been in east Dulwich for 2 years now and have only just managed to find a church I like.

I was used to a more personal sort of introduction to the bible before, so can't really do the going through the motions sort of church. The one I go to is All Saints in Peckham and I find them really inspiring all round. They do a lot of different stuff including community outreach and 0% interest business start ups for local Peckhma peeps. The church is really big which was not my cup of tea at first, but there are a lot of small groups which is what I prefer.

I'll let you know if the Alpha course turns out to be nuts or not tho!! Quite promising so far.

[Bizzy]

Not to put any Atheist?s off but -

# - It is hard to understand the Bible when you haven?t accepted Jesus as your savior. Before becoming a Christian and truly understanding what it meant to be a Christian, I could debate all day about different meanings you could glean from the Bible. In my youth, my main aim for joining the Christian student union was to meet the student nurses that ran the weekly sessions. That was my first mistake as I wasn't sincere about finding out the truth and I was constantly looking for counter arguments and *trying* to pull. During my time at college, I was amazed at how peaceful and controlled some of the people at the union were, even with some really nasty experiences they were going through in their lives. I saw this and thought, I want whatever they?re having?

# - Hillsong - Yes, they seem well off and it seems like a big aerobics event but they are spreading the word to a younger generation and seem to be saving a lot of people by doing something different. Like most denominations, you can't fault their main intentions.

[PeckhamRose]

Sighhhhh - why do people still feel the need to "pray" to ThirdPartyGodSendMoney?

Why not do some volunteering, or make a cake and offer it to new neighbours, or host a monthly Networking GirlsNightIn with some new friends and work colleagues to get people meeting who would otherwise not have met. The feeling of having done good is equal to that felt - so I understand from having talked to loads of religious church-going folk - when leaving church.

I write a diary every day. Maybe some day thousands of years in the future people will find them and then see me as a God. Except some people will take out all the dirty bits to suit their cause. I am a God. Pray to me. You're forgiven. There, better now? Good. Now go out and do it again.

Along with air food water and clothes we humans need recreation. So because science, and EastEnders, had not been invented yet, we made God up to explain thunderstorms and rainbows, and clever enigmatic folk who were natural storytellers made up fabulous stories to back it up. When Jesus came along (and there is little doubt he did) he did the same thing, but with the help of some magic mushrooms. What else was there to do? The Wii was several years away. Now science has explained natural phenomena, we realise the stupidity of the earlier explanations while marvelling at the story telling. Our mistake is to confuse it with "truth". But along the way the religionBosses have realised what fun it is to have so much power over people. They're not giving that up in a hurry. So they indoctrinate guilt and fear into us. A mind virus. And yer got it.

But that's my opinions! Edited to add - I pray to the god microbite for all the very good information and thanks!