Who Are Your Friends?

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2 Corinthians 6:14: "Do not be unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and lawlessness have in common? What fellowship has light with darkness?"

If you go into a dark room where does the darkness go? It disappears it must leave. It can only return when the light is removed or the light switch is turned off. Darkness and light cannot occupy the same space. So is the same in the life of someone who belongs to Jesus.

The million-man march upon Washington some time ago placed Christians and pagan and false religions in the same group. This is not what God means by fellowship. As Christians our goal is to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ not to have communion with other religions. "For to be yoked with unbelievers means nothing less than to have fellowship with unfruitful works of darkness and to hold out a hand to unbelievers to signify fellowship with them.

Jesus was the type of man who marched to his own drumbeat. He had a mission to do and was not detoured from the path. He did not take up every cause and popular political movement in the land. He was on this earth to do his Father's business. Though he ate with the publican and the sinner, he was their example and he never condoned any sinful act. We are not to form any covenant relationships or alliance with unbelievers and to share in their activities that violate the covenant obligations a Christian has with God

A believer in Christ Jesus has been justified by God and have been made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Ephesians chapter 5:7-8 "Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light." We are to hate iniquity and to love righteousness as Jesus exemplified in his life (Hebrew 1:9)

For the believer of the gospel of Jesus Christ to have fellowship with God the Father and his Son Jesus is the greatest joy we can have (1 John 1:4).

Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12), and through the gospel that true light enlightens mankind (John 1:9). Light and fellowship work together. Light and darkness cannot share the same space. Not only is darkness devoid of any light but also of love. 1 John 2:11 "But he that hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes, because that darkness has blinded his eyes."

Christians have nothing in common with the unbeliever. We have been transformed we have a new goal and aim in life, which is to please God. The world does not seek to please God but it desires to please itself. With our new spiritual thinking we are to come out from the world and its old ways. We are to take on a new identity and life in Christ and be separated from the past. All things have become new the bible tells us.

God desire holiness from his people. He expects his children to trust him and obey. If we expect God to be a Father unto us, and to call us sons and daughters we must walk in the light, as Jesus is the light.

In Christ Jesus,

Dale Thompson

― Dale Thompson, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think that Dale's message is best summed up via song.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my life ist changed

― bc, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hakuna matata dale, hakuna matata.

― bc, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Wait why precisely does the Million Man March get called out as the prime example of this condemnable believer-infidel fraternization?)

― Bitsuh, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ooh, I know, I know!

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

question not the prophet dale

― bc, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, I was expecting "I Wanna Fuck You in the Ass", Dan. But this is so much better! The spirit of Aqua will never die!

A guy from Gus Gus is hovering around my desk. It's freaking me out. But he's kinda cute.

― Sweet Savage Gnarlene, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

a million = 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 => therefore it is uber-rubbish (on the march itself there were a difft number despite billing, hence this prob does not apply)

― mark s, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Does he like you, Arthur? Is he your pal?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I was blind and now I can seeeaaaargh!

― Ally C, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ned-He doesn't even know I'm ALIVE!

He's directing some Paul Oakenfield video where I'm working today, I think he was one of the non-musician members of the collective. Seems very nice. But as I said, he doesn't even know I'm ALIVE!

― Arthur, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my friends are Karen*, Maryann, mark s, the guy at the computer place on St Andrew Street (Wayne? Warren? um something beginning with W anyway) and this girl from Perth who I met at the rugby (don't know her name) she's got curly hair and she smiles a lot and she's very loud and happy. She works at this bakery called "Buns 'n' Stuff". I swear I am not making her up, she waved and smiled at me this morning.

*this is a poem that Karen wrote me yesterday:

Rainy is so sweet
she's someone I would like to chew on
have you seen her pretty feet?
they're small and they are good to walk on
she's like an angel in the sky
and quite like a cherry pie
she is sweet in every way!
she's the sunshine in my day!

― rainy, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have some other very close friends, but I haven't seen them in so long that I am beginning to fear they were fragments of my imagination. So my imaginary friends are:

Sideshow
Katrin Mary A
Berkin McPerkin
Kara von Mara
Amelia Bedelia

― rainy, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I actually don't understand what this thread is about, excuse me please.

― rainy, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

this board has hit twee bottom.

― ethan, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

haha

― rainy, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think that Jesus realizes that we find light at our own pace , that some find comfort in a dark room,that a window at dawn is as good as a light switch, that pushing yourself into someones house and turning all their lights on,then leaving will only cause anger and to turn the lights off, that some people do not need a manual , and that endless qouting a manual out of context often causes more damage then reading the thing.

Christ did not walk to to his own drumbeat" he was helped by a community of supporters, he worked towards the liberation of his people and he required the help of 1000s to do so(ie The Miracle of Teh Fish and Loaves)

Christans live in the world of cesar and need to remember not to isolate everyone, they are of the people ,like Christ was of the people. By Pushing yourself into a forum and not seeing hte patterns you have caused alot of people to reject christ , LEAVE ALONE ! ase

― anthony, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Dale has been in the studio this month and has recorded his fifth unprecedented solo accomplishment. This CD contains 12 songs. It is being described as guitar driven acoustic rock with a flare for the theatrics."

― bc, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

*sob* *sob* *sob*

― Graham, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[And as Rebecca was too polite to call me a mentalist, and Alix is aposed to marriage, I was wondering whether Dan fancied bigamy with me? I haf been listeninGG to +++ on repeat for the last half hour at least. I plan not to stop]

― Graham, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I Love Everything must attract religio-fascist nuts because it is, from the title on down, a pluralistic and polytheistic site. Animism -- the 'old religion' -- saw a god in everything.

One reason I like being here in Japan is that they never had that horrible crunch point reached in other cultures when the old, benign gods (like the gods of the Greeks and the Romans, or the tree and rock spirits of north Africa) were banished by some big authoritarian centralised uber-God who demanded your conversion and capitulation, and then demanded the damnation of everyone who didn't do the same. The chain letter mentality. The 'either with us or against us' mentality. The antithesis of pluralism and peace.

'Christians have nothing in common with the unbeliever'. Fuck off back to your own planet, then!

― Momus, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i liked rainy's idea of this thread better. my close friends are beth, liz, anton, jenny, hamish, steve. i have numerous other friends that are too numerous to name. jesus isn't one of them. you can't be friends with a dead guy.

― di, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't. *blub*

[Two and a half hours later, I'm not drunk anymore, I'm still listening MEOWTH! STARPIE! GOLEM! PIKACHU!]

― Graham, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh, no! Graham, my post was meant to be a joke about how much of a loser I am, please don't cry.

― rainy, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't worry Rainy, I just got your email.

― Graham, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i spoke too soon.

― ethan, Thursday, 11 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The main problem with all this is that it assumes this black and white, hard and fast division betwixt the believer and the unbeliever which I find it impossible to accept. I find it somewhat incredible that it took until the nineteenth century, after centuries and centuries of academic and philosophical effort, before anyone (in the English language at least) coined a term for someone who is unsure whether they believe or not, i.e. when T.H. Huxley gave us "agnostic". I can't remember who it was who said "everyone is agnostic if they're honest" but it makes a lot of sense. Who among us is 100% convinced that God exists or not? I'm always highly sceptical of people who say that they are certain one way or the other, when this is something about which we obv. have no proof and will never have any proof. Anyway, it seems ludicrous to me that somebody should be condemned to eternal damnation purely because they made a decision at age thirteen to eschew Sunday school in favour of Sunday League football.

― MarkH, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

this is all about the turner prize, you know the one with the lights going on and off, isn't it?

― Queen G, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am - Jesus and I go drinking together

― anthony, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One reason I like being here in Japan is that they never had that horrible crunch point reached in other cultures when the old, benign gods (like the gods of the Greeks and the Romans,[...])

This was the point where I tuned out of your post, Momus, because the cognitive dissonace between our understanding of the Greek and Roman gods was so large that I thought my head might burst.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I first saw this thread I thought that Daley Thompson of Lucozade and ZX Spectrum fame had written it.

― Sarah Superchrist, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the cognitive dissonace between our understanding of the Greek and Roman gods was so large that I thought my head might burst.

Explain yourself, Mr Perry! They're by and large the same gods with different names. Hermes becomes Mercury, Athene becomes Minerva, Zeus becomes Jove, Momos becomes Momus, etc...

― Momus, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think Dan is saying that the child-swallowing, bride-stealing brutes of the Mediterranean pantheons can't really be classed as 'benign'.

― Tom, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No, you misunderstand me; it was the idea of those gods being called "benign" that was making me woozy.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Thankee, Tom.)

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

child-swallowing, bride-stealing brutes

And we all know how Momus feels about the Brutish...

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Momus is dead right though in his implications that the Greeks and Romans had a very different - and from my point of view more adult - relationship with their gods than most monotheistic believers seem to today. They also seem to have had fairly sophisticated notions about the factual basis for their 'beliefs': the concept of fundamentalism would have been alien to the ancient mind.

― Tom, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, as I said, I thought about the concept of "benign Greek gods" and felt my cerebrum attempt to push its way past my eyes, so I stopped reading.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

oh for goodness sake just because they went around raping nymphs and swans

polytheism after the establishment and overthrow of monotheism is surely a different thing to polytheism beforehand?

also i'm not sure that eg the aztec or indeed the egyptian pantheons were particularly "pluralistic"

however conceptually i always liked, same as i like pokemon now: lists of names and attributes = uberkewll

― mark s, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But surely this means, Mark S, that you are the world's biggest D&D fanatic, then.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(My dream eschatology has alien anthropologists misreading Pokemon as a religious sect.)

― Bitsuh, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think that what's benign about the Greek and Roman gods is that they're basically projections of a whole range of human behaviours, just as you find in works of fiction or art.. We can recognise ourselves in Oedipus, and see some of our basic impulses in Eros and Thanatos. There is no judgement built into this. It's descriptive, not prescriptive. Which may be one reason Freud, for one, turned to the Classical pantheon rather than the Christian mythology to illustrate basic human behaviours.

― Momus, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

You know, that does work. Zeus and Hera engaged in connubial bliss whilst the Trojan War rages down the hill = emblematic of any number of behaviors.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Okay, on that level I do agree with the concept of Greek and Roman gods being "benign", although I still quiver at that particular word (but that's my problem, of course). Now my only qualm is that you've decided that Oedipus was a Greek god. (hee hee)

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

he was a god to his mom and that's what counts, dan

― mark s, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(My dream eschatology has alien anthropologists misreading Pokemon as a religious sect.)

(Misreading?)

― bnw, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I also seem to remember, you know, from my days in Crete ca 300BC, that there was a take-it-or-leave it aspect to belief. You could believe in some a little bit and others a lot, or believe in none of it, or believe in new, faddish gods that had just hit the market. Aren't there stories where Socrates and somebody are talking about what to do after a party, and one of them's like "yeah, everybody's going to sacrifice to some new river god" and they both roll their eyes (before sitting down to some cheese and wine and inventing ethics or whatnot)

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to be on a BBS called Thanatos.

I also don't have friends. I have like three or four friends, everyone else kind of annoys me. Except for Momus, who is much nicer than I thought he'd be. I am not friends with Jesus, but I did see a bumper sticker that said "JESUS EL SENOR!" which I thought was fantastic. I want a t-shirt that says that on my tits.

― Ally, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Err bnw I think I meant "misreading" in the Pokemon-as-"text" sense. (Plus I meant archaeologists, not anthropologists, as clearly we're all dead at this point.) So, like, alien doctoral candidates at Gorzak University are writing dissertations on countless post- apocalyptic "finds" of Pokemon "fetish objects" in human Earth dwellings. (This is obviously untenable as it assumes the alien anthropologists know very little about Earth and yet still have equivalent archaelogical concepts. And higher-education systems.)

― Nitsuh, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

... I still don't see how the alien archeologists would be incorrect. Pokemon are fetish objects.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ooh, thank you Ally. I send you a blush and a (masked) wink across the 8,000 miles that separate us, courtesy of Hermes.

Dan, I realised I was being silly implying that Oedipus was a god as soon as I posted it, but I suppose I had moved on to an argument that even human bit players in the classical myths tell us something about human nature. I suppose it could then be argued that Bible stories like Cain and Abel tell us just as much (Freud could have used them as the classic case of sibling rivalry.

I guess the difference is in what Tracer points out: that the Greek deities (like the many shinto spirits here in Japan) form part of an open-ended, pluralistic spectrum of characters which we can pick and choose from. I guess in the end it comes down to the fundamentalism apparent in Dale's original post. Animism etc don't really lend themselves to that, because they have no history of evangelism and imperialism, as Christianity and Islam have. There are no sword-point conversions possible when discussing the Titans, no Spanish Inquisition ready to jump out of the closet to make sure you don't deviate from Hesiod's 'Theogonia'. It's all much more willing to admit its closeness to imaginative fiction.

Whereas Christians are people with imaginary friends they'd die for.

― Momus, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

N(b)itsuh: I am merely implying the research of your Gorzak PhD candidates may not be so far off base.

― bnw, Friday, 12 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Out of interest, how did religion in Japan work when it was an Imperialist power? It's necessary to point out that monotheistic religion in general provides the excuse for imperialism, it doesn't cause it (Exception: the first Islamic Empire).

― Tom, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom, I haven't researched the question of religion in imperial Japan, but I would imagine that as most of the countries occupied were also Buddhist, it didn't really apply. Of course, Japan is a mix of Buddhism and Shinto, and there's the claim, for instance, that the emperor is descended from the sun god. I don't know whether any Chinese were tortured until they capitulated on this point. They were tortured all right, but probably not over the finer points of shinto theology.

― Momus, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Unlike western imperialism and colonialism, religion did not play a major role in the constitution of civility (and savagery) in Japanese colonial discourse,' writes Leo Ching in an essay entitled 'Race, Religion and Globalization -- the case of Japanese Colonialism'.

'Shintoism initially served the religious and ceremonial needs of overseas Japanese and generally had little impact on the indigenous population,' Ching continues, noting that in the 1930s there was an attempt to turn Japan's colonial races into 'imperial subjects' with self-devoted loyalty to the emperor. Hence 'shintoism became part of the larger colonial endeavour that aimed at the complete regimentation and Japanization of Japan's colonial peoples centred on inculcation of a sense of obligation to the Japanese emperor'.

― Momus, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Occasionally I get very irritated at having, at a very young age,decide whether I gave my heart to the baby Jesus or not, and then agonising over why I was a doubter (classic Christian thought control), when I could have been thinking about more important things. The Greeks truly believed in their Gods, I think, but at some stage they began to question why they meddeled in people's lives so much, and began to think in terms of personal responsibilty for actions - but at least they tried to figure stuff out from the evidence, rather than following some creed which only allows certain thoughts patterns. I blame baby jesus for a lot.

― Linda, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Friend of mine likes to talk disparagingly of the 'fairy Jesus.' She's one of the calmer pagans I know, to be sure.

As I seem to be on something of a Bierce roll, some definitions:

CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Heathen, n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something he can see and feel.

Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Saint, n. A dead sinner, revised and edited.

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ally also has loyal hordes ready to worship her senor tits.

― Queen G, Saturday, 13 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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