Biblical matters

[rocky]

In an interview, James Taylor, one of my favourite singers, said that he had no problem at all with people who talked to God; it was the ones who thought that God replied to them he considered to be mad. I concur with that view point.

[Shan]

[BaggyTrousers]

Now you are talking.

Mrs Trousers was brung up a Roman, until she reached the age of reason , about 11 in her case, wild sensible altogether for a wee Derry wan. Anyway, she tells me that when she went to confession, on her sisters advice, she had to make up bullshit to confess. I'd make an educated guess that a few of the ould collared whourebegs hearing confession had considerably less pure souls.

[Brian Dunn 382]

Evening Baggy. I've been busy today and I see you have busy on this topic. I don't think I can get round to responding to every point. I accept your point that atheism is not a belief system. It is actually a non-belief system. Strange to be labelled by what you don't believe in rather than what you do. I still think my point about judging Christianity by quoting nuts is equivalent to judging atheism by the actions of extreme atheists in countries that were officially declared as atheist countries. I fully recognise that most atheists are perfectly good people and I don't judge them by the action of atheist nuts. Christianity has a huge spectrum of belief. I do not subscribe to any of the large organisations as I am one of those strange people who believes it is personal and is a personal relationship with God. I don't think that makes me mad, unbalanced or otherwise needy. I'm fairly normal - UR season ticket, just back from a couple of says at the Open and spentb10 days in France supporting NI. At work I would be regarded as fairly hard nosed. I accept that my beliefs may appear strange to those who do not understand and do not wish to understand. Again to quote the bible - (1 Corinthians ch 1) it is foolishness because it is faith and not by wisdom. Having said that, I think it is intellectually defensible - even if I can't win the argument. It would be good to share a pint of Guiness with you at Kingspan some evening.

[Shan]

Mrs Trousers was brung up a Roman, until she reached the age of reason , about 11 in her case, wild sensible altogether for a wee Derry wan. Anyway, she tells me that when she went to confession, on her sisters advice, she had to make up bullshit to confess. I'd make an educated guess that a few of the ould collared whourebegs hearing confession had considerably less pure souls.

Ha the memories. The box of guilt was a pain for those of us unlucky enough to have been deemed a catholic from birth. Same nonsense each time - "Lied to mother, fought with sister". Utterly redundant shíte which I knew even as a 7 year old. I remember in school as a 12 year old they forced us to do the confession and I swore it would be my last time no matter what. By then I had already figured out that their deity did not exist so I wasn't going to waste any more of my time on it. I like to think though that even if I had remained a believer in the Catholic / Christian supremo I would still have had enough self-respect to reject this w-nkology and later on to reject the org when we found out the type of criminal enterprise it was.

[BaggyTrousers]

Mrs Trousers was brung up a Roman, until she reached the age of reason , about 11 in her case, wild sensible altogether for a wee Derry wan. Anyway, she tells me that when she went to confession, on her sisters advice, she had to make up bullshit to confess. I'd make an educated guess that a few of the ould collared whourebegs hearing confession had considerably less pure souls.

Ha the memories. The box of guilt was a pain for those of us unlucky enough to have been deemed a catholic from birth. Same nonsense each time - "Lied to mother, fought with sister". Utterly redundant shíte which I knew even as a 7 year old. I remember in school as a 12 year old they forced us to do the confession and I swore it would be my last time no matter what. By then I had already figured out that their deity did not exist so I wasn't going to waste any more of my time on it. I like to think though that even if I had remained a believer in the Catholic / Christian supremo I would still have had enough self-respect to reject this w-nkology and later on to reject the org when we found out the type of criminal enterprise it was.

Ah that rings true with everything the blessed Mrs T tells me about it. Her mother & father both died, believers to the end, they'd have bent the knee/doffed the cap to the lads in collars. For many years Mrs T feigned going to mass but went for walks, essentially to protect her parents from the shame of having a heathen in the house.

I last had anything to do with organised religion aged 7 when I packed in Sunday School so when it came to getting married, we went through the whole chapel facade, essentially for the sake of my in-laws who could not have been nicer to me if they'd adopted me, really good people who it was worth going through an admittedly easy piece of nonsense for.

In fact the priest who married us was also sounder than a pound, he knew that I had not the slightest hint of belief & why we were going through a church wedding, he was a gent. In Derry then mixed marriages were the target of some deaths & he explained how he would do the deed to make it as least obvious as possible than I was not a card carrying Roman. Father Anthony Mailey, such a nice man that when my brother, as best man, handed him the traditional envelope he said give it back to Dave & tell him to buy something for Mrs T. Pity they weren't all like him.

[BaggyTrousers]

Evening Baggy. I've been busy today and I see you have busy on this topic. I don't think I can get round to responding to every point. I accept your point that atheism is not a belief system. It is actually a non-belief system. Strange to be labelled by what you don't believe in rather than what you do. I still think my point about judging Christianity by quoting nuts is equivalent to judging atheism by the actions of extreme atheists in countries that were officially declared as atheist countries. I fully recognise that most atheists are perfectly good people and I don't judge them by the action of atheist nuts. Christianity has a huge spectrum of belief. I do not subscribe to any of the large organisations as I am one of those strange people who believes it is personal and is a personal relationship with God. I don't think that makes me mad, unbalanced or otherwise needy. I'm fairly normal - UR season ticket, just back from a couple of says at the Open and spentb10 days in France supporting NI. At work I would be regarded as fairly hard nosed. I accept that my beliefs may appear strange to those who do not understand and do not wish to understand. Again to quote the bible - (1 Corinthians ch 1) it is foolishness because it is faith and not by wisdom. Having said that, I think it is intellectually defensible - even if I can't win the argument. It would be good to share a pint of Guiness with you at Kingspan some evening.

Hi Brian, listen I'm an ould lad with more time on my hands than is good for me, I don't expect either prompt responses, nor indeed any necessarily.

I'm not going to go through your response, I don't think either of us have anything to gain from it. However I'm more than happy to meet you - not to share a pint of course, I'm too greedy for a pint and two straws - but to have a drink with you. It's a routine I've been through with a few here, almost always a pleasure though there are some right odd balls trawling these pages I can tell you.

[Brian Dunn 382]

I agree Baggy. I was going to post something similar. Let's get back to rugby.

[Dave]

https://youtu.be/DsrxbqFo41k

[Dave]

The gospel of doubt

[Shan]

The Gospel of Luke Kelly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoCagUKAhik

[Dave]

Austin 3:16

[big mervyn]

[BaggyTrousers]

Yesterday morning, I was about to post of my sadness at the news that Bishop (he'll always be father to me) Daly had been called to the Lord, drawn his final breath, shaken off his mortal coil and joined the bleedin' choir celestial. At the time,I did wonder could this be devine intervention but damn it God, I will have my say.

Normally I don't get worked up one way or the other at the passing of "known" figures, but unless something comes to light about him that I don't know, he was an extraordinarily good man.

Like many, I expect this is the first occasion when he entered your consciousness, the priest with the bloody hanky.

Fr.Daly.jpg (6.02 KiB) Viewed 412 times

Mrs Trousers knew him long before that, it was he who heard the first of her made up confessions which he severely chastised her for with a penance of a few Hail Mary's. My own only meeting with him was at my mother-in-law's wake, whom he had known well, when as the bishop he called in and spent time taking to Mrs.T's father & sisters individually about Big Mary.

A good & decent man and I sincerely hope his reputation stays that way, I liked him.

[Dave]