AN UNCERTAIN MAN IN PARIS

Two of these photographs, the dog and the camp as tits man are small bits of very large paintings. Everything I take a shot of impresses me for one reason or another. I prefer the single portraits, more of which to come, as they seem the most real to me.

The painting here of the priest and the monk makes me think of all those burned by the church and otherwise tortured and inhumanely treated. I love old churches and cathedrals and monasteries too but for their architecture and art. The feeling I get in them is one of dread and intense coldness. I can almost hear the cries of those tortured and burned by these 'holy men'. Made all the worse knowing that other 'holy men' are killing and torturing in the name of their God today - in the Middle East - and how in our more 'civilised' societies the systematic rape and abuse of children by 'holy men' and 'holy women' is covered up and thereby sanctioned by other 'holy men' and 'holy women'.

I used to think, in the days when I was almost completely disassociated, that a lot of tosh was spoken about art. I no longer think that way. Oh I still think some speak and write a lot of tosh but I do now know that art is vital and it does speak to us though what each will hear will differ.


I find it astonishing that life in the times of these paintings was brutal and short for most, was lived amongst the filth of our waste, the smell of it, truly awful, yet such beauty was created also.

I was listening to modern day 'holy people' today, speaking of life and how they think we ought to live it. Oblivious to the fact that they make life so much worse for many. They spoke of life as a gift.

A gift for whom? How can it be a gift if one is born to live a life of suffering and then to die in suffering? How can it be a gift for a child born into famine? A child born into brutal civil war? Hacked to death? Or a child who spends years in day by day abuse? A gift? Really?

There will be those so shocked or repulsed by my next words that they will think me severely disturbed or depressed. In fact there will be those who think I am better shut up, forcibly, than even to entertain the idea that I may have a point. It is their fear that speaks to them. Not my words.

I would much rather have not had a life at all. Yes, today, by comparison to the lives of others and the life I used to have, I have a good life. I understand this. Not just intellectually. I do derive enjoyment from it. I know how to make the best of things. I know that it is wiser by far to choose to enjoy what I have than to allow the negative and misery to overcome what I have. I could. So easily. I know that for me and others of such good fortune, it is pretty much down to what I allow to dominate my thoughts. I can choose to enjoy the life I have. I do choose to.

Yet, I fail to see it as a gift. If I were given the choice, I'd rather not have existed at all. Save the last few of my 52 years, life was always far more pain and struggle than joy. I didn't know joy or comfort until recently. Now I do and whereas before I longed for the end of life, now I do not , I do not want it to end.

Now I know that my death will cause pain and suffering to John and his will cause pain and suffering to me. I would prefer he went first to spare him that pain because I think I am better able to handle it as grief is not new to me. Yet the idea of yet again going into that darkness terrifies me.

The world would not stop turning if I had not existed and it will not stop when I don't exist any more.

Enjoying the beauty around me, as I have done in Paris, or when I am just simply being with my dogs, is not a feeling easy to describe. It seems pain and suffering are far easier to find words for! Joy and peace seem inadequate to describe my present when compared to my past.

If life is an accident then it is without any merit. It is pointless. My struggle, your struggle, will all have been for nought. There are those who say it isn't because our struggle makes life better for the coming generations. They neglect to remember that there will, at some point, be no more generations to come. Nothing will be of any use or importance. If the end of physical life is truly the end of consciousness, then why live it? There is no purpose. The propagation of our genes is not a satisfactory answer because science tells us this will all come to end anyway. The Universe will cease to be. Gone. As if it never were.

On the other hand, if consciousness is not extinguished by the death of the physical body, there could conceivably be a point to life. I have no idea what it is and I do not believe anyone else does either. Those who insist they know are the most afraid of uncertainty. They cling to words written down in ancient times regardless of the moral bankruptcy implicit in such clinging. Better to be cruel and immoral but be right! Their sense of righteousness quells their fear. If only for a short time. To stop it rising they must force others into silence or agreement, to shore up their defences.

Even if life is not over as death suggests, it doesn't mean life is a gift.

Could it be a choice?

If life is not a choice, that you and I did not choose to have this life, then our will is anything but free. In order for life to be a choice, then we must have existed before we were conceived. Beyond comprehension. Nuts. Crazy.

Yet we readily accept the idea of Free Will when the idea that we have a will that is free is far more than crazy. It is positively wicked. It causes pain and suffering. It is also used to justify evil.

The religious love to trot out Free Will. That their God gave us Free Will and if we use our Free Will to believe what ever tripe they are pushing, we will go Heaven, be 'saved'. If we do not use our Free Will to so believe, then we are damned. Right there is one reason Free Will is bulldust-no one's will is free when a loaded gun is pointing at them.

The other, most obvious, reason that Free Will, as so far explained to us, is not free is because we are not all knowing. We can only freely make choices if 1. we know all there is to know and 2. can make choices free of fear. It seems likely that 2. would be moot if 1. were the case.

I can see why those who insist they are right, be they atheist or theist, do so: uncertainty is scary, painful, and well, so damn uncertain! Yet uncertainty is the only honest admission. Everything else is bollocks.

It is perfectly possible to live a life that is good and happy and which does not rely on the suffering of others, based upon ideas that we cannot know the truth of. I have yet to come across a religious ideology that does not rely upon exclusion and therefore the suffering of others in order that the religious might be happy and certain.

When I choose to read the words of others, I do so with the knowledge that I am not reading TRUTH but ideas. Ideas that may or may nor resonate with my mind. It is dangerous to read the words of others as TRUTH or with the idea that one might come across TRUTH. It is an abdication of our personal responsibility to lay our life down to the words and ideas of another. No matter how old the words or ideas may be! We must always be thinking for ourselves and living according to our conscience and not the conscience of another.

It is much easier to live according to the rules and conscience of another. This is why doing so is so attractive and indeed does attract so many people to do just that. Oh they may think themselves martyrs. They may think themselves strong and brave.

It is those who can live, and live well, with uncertainty who are the strong and the brave.

Those who proclaim certainty are the weak and cowardly and most in need.

I THINK, THEREFORE…?

What we think is not that simple.  Yet, what we think is of the utmost importance because it affects our lives and the lives of those around us.  What we think can literally decide whether we live or die, whether we live well or not, or whether we are happy or not.

The thoughts that are important are really our beliefs about ourselves and about other people.  The fleeting thoughts that shoot across our mind in moments of anger or pain or fear are not so important if they are important at all.

However, what we believe is of vital importance.

What we believe is not just a matter of choice. Often we believe what we have been taught to believe.  It is not a general habit of humans to question their beliefs.  Yet self-knowledge is also of vital importance.

If we examine ourselves and our beliefs we can be truly astonished to find that we do not believe things for the reasons that we thought we did.  We can also find that we believe things we did not know that we believed.

The most evil thing we can do to a child is to teach them what to think.  Many adults want to do precisely this and they do it.  The most common way to control a child is thinking is through fear and the use of religion.  It is not by accident that so many religious people send their children to faith schools or homeschool.  They do this to ensure that the child grows up to be an adult who thinks the way they have been told to think.

Growing up I was subject to three different forms of fundamentalist Christianity. Much of my religious teaching was received from nuns the Catholic Church.  I was taught that to question was wicked and I was therefore evil to do so.  I was a child split in two.  I questioned and I felt guilty and afraid for doing so. I found it hard to not ask why and I found belief in what I was being taught elusive.  This left me feeling more afraid and more guilt ridden.  (This was compounded by parents who never admitted to being anything other than perfect and who also marked me as wicked for daring to question them.)

This teaching I received and learned well, that adults were infallible and to be obeyed, made it very easy for adults to abuse me.  I was a good boy and I did as I was told even when the adult instructing me was a paedophile.  The way I had been taught by both my parents and my religious teachers made me the perfect victim.  It also kept me quiet about my father’s violence because I knew that I deserved his hatred.

Many people today wrongly assume that I am an atheist.  I think it is more accurate to say I am agnostic.  It is accurate to believe that I am anti-religion.  I am and I am strongly so.

I have no faith in anybody who tells me how much they love Jesus.  Why?  Because the love cannot be anything but counterfeit.  You cannot love what you are afraid of.  Why would I say such a thing?  Quite simply because to Christians unbelief means damnation, therefore their God’s love is conditional.  Love that is conditional is an oxymoron.  I’m not sure that I have used that word correctly!  Love that is conditional is not love.

Naturally those who follow this belief system will twist and turn themselves inside out in order to deny that their God’s love is conditional or that they are afraid to disbelieve.  Even if all one is required to do is to believe in the interpretation of the Jesus story it is still a condition.

For those who have been brought up in this belief system it is even harder to escape it.  In order for one’s belief system to be examined one has to be prepared to lose friends and family.  In short one has to be prepared to end the world as one knows it, and start over.  This is the most painful thing anybody can do.

I did it I know what I’m talking about.  Before one gets carried away, it needs to be borne in mind that I had a very stark choice: change or die, or worse, become insane.  I came extremely close to both.

I credit two people for saving my life.  They did so by telling me something that I did not know: that I had a choice in what I believe.  This was a revolutionary concept to me.  It was also an extremely terrifying concept. The idea that what I had been taught was wrong and that I could think it wrong and choose to believe something else was not within my view of the world.  To even contemplate the idea had me believing that God would strike me down dead at any moment.  I do not exaggerate.  My recovery was punctuated by long periods of sheer terror because what I was learning was in complete contradiction to all that I had been taught.  The terror resulted in a brief hospitalisation.  Only those who have felt terror for extended periods can know of what I am writing.  Words cannot convey the feeling of terror.

The two people were my therapist and the writer Dr Dorothy Rowe whom my therapist introduced me to via her writing.

Over a period of five tumultuous years, I slowly but surely began to let the light of knowledge heal me.  I began to feel safe in choosing different ways to think.  I began to feel safe in rejecting many of the ideas and teachings that had been foisted upon me.

One of the biggest handicaps to my recovery was my belief that merely to talk about my abuse was sinful.  The commandment that one must honour thy parents was one of the chief reasons for this.  It took some time for me to realise and accept that I was not a bad person for telling the truth.

The change in me was astounding.  I began to enjoy life and all of the negative ways that I had hitherto used in order to survive began to fall away.  I was so taken by my newfound freedoms and the lessening of the pain of day-to-day living that it did not occur to me that it could get even better.  I was still ignorant about the very core of me, my core belief.

Even though I understood that it was wrong of adults to physically assault me and to use me for their sexual gratification my core belief was that they did this to me because there was something wrong with me.

In August of 2007 I met somebody who treated me badly.  I was in their company for two days.  I could have, with some difficulty, chosen not to be but I instead  disassociated. This was not a choice but an automatic reaction and one that many abuse victims use in order to survive.

To cut a long story short, this was the first time in my life that I was aware that I was not at all at fault.  This person treated me the way they did because of something in them and not because of something in me.  It was because they were like this towards me from the very beginning of our meeting that I was able to see that I was blameless.

The next few months I went through more terror and many days of crying non-stop until finally I reached the very core of me and let that poison out.  I knew then that I had been abused not because there was something wrong with me but because there was something wrong with those who abused me.

This gave me an even greater sense of freedom and still does.  I’m radically changed the way that I dress. I started to wear colours.  I started to be myself.  I became more artistic or rather I recognised that I am an artist.  I dropped friendships because I realise that they were not.  Whilst I remain polite to others I no longer have people in my life that I don’t want in my life and who do not have respect for me.

Learning about oneself is an ongoing process.  It never ends.  Its rewards are great.

I will always fight against fear-based teaching and I will always insist upon the right to think and believe as I wish.  Not just for me but for everybody.  I will always challenge those whose desire it is to force others to accept their ideas.  I will always do what I can to share the light of knowledge that was shared with me with others.

There is always a choice in what you believe.  To question is not evil.  To teach unquestioning obedience is.

NO CAUSE WITHOUT EFFECT

It is clear to me that human beings are mostly ignorant of the fact that all we believe has an effect. What we do also does but it starts with what we believe. It also seems that many of us really believe that what we believe and do is of no consequence either to ourselves or others.

This may seem, on the surface, to be a fatuous example – until one examines it.

I am speaking of the advertisements aimed at women for hair or make up products with the by line ’because you’re worth it’. These adverts are based on lies, and the participants know this. The actresses who are part of this con KNOW that they do not look like that in real life! They KNOW that any woman who buys the product will not look like they do at all. They have no chance to because only computers make a person look like these actresses do.

They make money out of lying to the public. They make money out of helping to make women feel badly about themselves. They make money out of presenting a false image as real.

Clearly they do not see the immorality of what they are doing nor do they see the harm they are doing. They do not see that they are contributing to the atmosphere that encourages women to hate themselves. Self hate leads to terrible pain for the self hater and for others they affect.

Truly nothing we do or believe is without effect.

If we are think of people who are different from us as being wroth less from us, it has an effect and this effect is for ill, not for good. The Holocaust is a glaring example of the effects belief can have. The reason we hate Hitler is because we cannot accept that people like you and I actually did the evil work. Hitler just spoke. Ordinary people did the killing.

If you are one who considers yourself not racist but still would prefer your neighbourhood to be all white, you are responsible when a person of colour is beaten up or killed but because YOUR belief helped to create the atmosphere that allows such evil.

It is not a moral defence to hide behind ‘religious belief’ to justify the condemnation of gay people. Thos who hold such a belief are as responsible for the death of gay people as if they did the act themselves. By holding such beliefs YOU create the atmosphere that allowed Matthew Shepherd to be murdered. YOU created the atmosphere that allowed an effete 10 year old boy to be bullied to the point he hanged himself. Hiding behind Christ does NOT absolve you. Lying to yourself does not make it so. And there is no escaping the consequences of YOUR belief and action.

Life is, to a very large extent, the result of what WE believe. We act according to what we believe. Much of what we believe we are not even aware of!

The exhortation to KNOW THYSELF is of the utmost importance. Without self knowledge we cause untold suffering to ourselves and to others.

Juts think of the power within YOU! The world can change and will change if only you believe it so. I am NOT talking about Magical Thinking here, the ludicrous belief that we can alter the world by wishing or imagining! No I am talking about the fundamental beliefs we hold inside us that hold us back and cause harm to ourselves and to others.

No amount of belief will prevent people getting sick and dying. It will not prevent tsumanis, earthquakes, flood, famine or plague. Belief WILL alter how we experience LIFE. It will mean  the difference between an enjoyable experience and a terrible one.

The only reason my life went from darkness to light was because I  changed my belief system. It wasn't easy. It was extremely painful and I nearly lost my life and mind in the process but I DID come out the other side in to light.

My major work was undoing the damage done to me by religion and it’s crippling belief system. This combined with abuse gave me a belief system that could only result in evil. There was no chance it could result in anything else. Undoing the damage of religion is probably the most painful and difficult and frightening thing to embark upon for at the very root of such thinking is that to question your religious teaching is evil in and of itself! Oh what a clever, manipulative and evil thing to do. This is WHY religionists cling to the right to indoctrinate children because they KNOW that most of us will never take the journey I did to break their evil hold upon my spirit and mind and body.

Are YOU prepared to be responsible for you beliefs?

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

It irks me that because I am clearly anti Fundamentalism, that people assume I am an atheist. Surely if people can be bothered to come here and read, they would choose to read what I write and not what they decide I have written.

Let me make this clear: I am anti religion.  Xtian, Jew, Muslim, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of them. At best it’s all completely bonkers, at worst it is the cause of extreme grief and suffering to billions of people now and in the past.

I have no truck with atheists either. I have much sympathy with their anti religious thinking but not with their equally strident and fundamentalist beliefs.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH. Did you see that? NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH. Or put another way, NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH. In any language one can think of: NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

Oohh, isn’t that scary? How can we live without certainty? We have to be certain, and kill many with our certainty, because without certainty we cannot live ourselves. The fact that our certainty ensures that others either die or live miserably…well…that can’t be helped can it? We are CERTAIN it isn’t our fault.

It is very tempting to suggest that if one believes that the World was made in 6 days, that we all descend from ONE woman and her TWO SONS (one dead one) and Co Habitee, that you are a MORON. I wouldn’t suggest such a think. I would suggest that your ability to to think has been damaged by fear and training.

Now the Big Bangers love to point out that to suggest there is a God only presents us with another problem: how did God get there? They say it is childish and stupid to suggest an outside source. Okay. I can see the logic in that.

There is one teeny tiny, almost too small to mention, problem with THEIR theory though: if there was nothing, and then there was the BIG BANG, what the f*ck was it that banged? What CAUSED nothing to bang? never mind the question of how nothing can bang in the first place. How exactly does nothing bang? If there wasn’t nothing, but something, than how did that something come to be there? And if that something was there, then who the f*ck put it there? Or what? HOW?

It seems to me that both ideas present the same problem.In fact, I just don’t see the difference. Apart form the obvious one: one is not threatened with being banged by the Big Bangers for not believing them.

NO ONE KNOWS THE TRUTH.

I wish I did. Wanting the answers to life, the universe and everything is a royal pain. Oh I long to be thick as a door knocking w*anker and just have something to hang on to and walk around with a stoned smile on my face. Only in my weakest moments do I wish for this. Mostly, I thank who the f*ck are you? for the fact I don’t.

If it were not for the fact I know we do not die when we die, only appear to, I would have given up long ago to think about this. I have discovered that people think that just because one believes life continues after death, one must believe there is a God? WHY? Why must that be so? Cannot no one envisage that the survival of consciousness after death is just a part of LIFE, this amazingly weird thing we are experiencing?

Now knowing that we do, to the very best of my experience and trying to think otherwise, colours everything. It follows that what I know of science is that it is based upon the impossibility of the survival of consciousness after death. Scientists say this is impossible. You know that leaves me with a problem don’t you? Yes, that's right, for me Science is deeply flawed and the acceptance of the fact that we survive death, will turn their world upside down. Thus they don’t accept and ridicule instead.

The religious think only their kind survive death. WRONG.

So here I am. Now what? Carry on searching of course but not in fear now I have shed the yoke of religion and the wicked ideas.

Now you know,I am as weird as you expected. And you Fundies (religious and atheist) can take comfort in that because it gives you a really cool and simple reason to dismiss my rantings. Just bear this in mind:

I AM HAPPY TODAY. (Before when trapped in your ideas, I was worse than miserable.)

I can live very well with not knowing.

CAN YOU?

MAKING CHOICES

This is the photograph taken by Carol Ann Johnson at Three Counties Championship Show where Whitney won the Bitch CC, Best of Breed and went on to Utility Group 4.

One thing I notice is how Whitney looks; her shape and stance. This is what I cannot see myself. I am very pleased with how she looks and the view others are getting of her. She is such an excellent example of her breed and a true delight to live with.

I am also surprised by myself. Looking at the man in the picture, I would never have believed you if you had shown me this even just 10 years ago. That couldn't possibly be me! I would never dress like that. I would probably not even be at the show.

I am happy with the man in the photograph. It wasn't always thus. I hated him and wanted him dead. I could not look at him in the mirror and for many years only had a mirror big enough for me to see my face when I shaved, and even then I averted my eyes from his.

All I saw was the unlovable, disgusting degenerate I had been told I was. I didn't see the frightened boy in agonizing pain. I saw what I had been taught to see.

Today, I see me. I see light in my eyes. I no longer hate myself. I am sometimes angry at myself for having believed such tripe and for having punished myself so severely. I am sometimes ashamed of the me I use dot be. Mostly, I think back and I feel compassion for that boy who really did deserve to be loved and ought to have been, realising that all he did and thought was due to the corruption of his soul by the lies of others.

I am mostly free of the pain and the shame today. I am not free of my past. I don't want to be. I am who I am today because of it so how could I want to be rid of it? I realised recently that had my life not gone exactly a sit did, I would not have John in my life and I would not be me. I would not want to be without either John or me.

I did not suffer just because of what was done to me, but mainly because of what I was taught to think and what I thought about what was done to me. The one thought that ruined my life, that caused all the suffering, the one thing I was TAUGHT to think that was at the root of all that anguish was this: there was something wrong me and that is why I was unloved and abused. Despite knowing that physical and sexual abuse was wrong, I was till at fault because if I had not been me, they would not have done it, and if I had not been be I would have been loved.

The truth set me free. The truth being that the problem was THEM. They would have treated me the same way even if I had been the someone else I longed to be. No matter what I did, it would have changed nothing because|I could not change them and it was them who needed to change.

Further to this realisation, I have come to realise that we all treat others in the way we do not because of who they are but because of who we are. Mostly we believe the opposite and we can see the result of that thought in the world we live in.

Truly, what we choose to believe is everything for it is our beliefs that dictate how we live our lives. Yet we are taught that it is others who have that power over us, that we are merely puppets who react to others, not realising that the way we react is our responsibility and is not caused by the other but by ourselves.

Even the Gods we choose are just bigger, badder, more powerful versions of ourselves. We have such Gods, like the Xtian God and Muslim God, who are vengeful and jealous and angry and demanding, because we cannot envision unconditional love and most of all we cannot forgive. Unconditional love means precisely what it says. No matter what, we are loved. No matter what we will never be abandoned nor destroyed. This does not mean we will not suffer. It does mean that PEACE will always be available to us, no matter what.

People fail to understand that for one to have peace, all must have peace. For how can one be at peace knowing that your brother or sister is suffering?

Put another way, how can YOU be at peace in Heaven knowing that others are in HELL? Your self righteousness may convince you that you can but the reality will be very different.

What we seek for ourselves we must also seek for others. Whilst we hold judgement and anger and condemnation toward another, we will never have peace. We will banish ourselves from Heaven until such times as we accept unconditional love.

Accepting love is so much harder than we think!

BUTTON PUSHER

On one of my lists, I blocked a person's email address because I found they pushed my buttons too often. I recently unblocked them thinking I was being childish and intolerant. I then had to block them again. I have since had many emails from others who all find that this person pushes the same buttons in them. They all used exactly the same words to describe them. So it isn't just me after all.

The puppies are really a joy at this age. they all like to lick me and they wag their tails furiously. They are developing their own personalities. Bridget is going to be sweet and wild. Carly is sweet but more dignified, Peter is a typical Apso snob and James is soppy. Phoebe is a right little madam, sure of herself and Dexy is going to be a mummy's boy hence he is the one I chose for the Cambridge University woman. Daniel is going to be a rough and tumble type of boy, independent of spirit but who will not be ignored.

The temperature has gone from 0c on Saturday to 10c yesterday and it looks as if today will be the same. Dry which is good.

It is amazing how many people I see when I go to the pool who believe that they are not vulnerable when they use a mobile phone and drive at the same time. Some of them are even driving a juggernaut one handed whilst they chat. Trouble is their belief in the invulnerability is likely to be shattered but by them killing others, not themselves. Our beliefs really do direct our lives.

Today's swim was less painful. I had taken my time release Tramadol and had slept better. I also took 1gm of Paracetamol (Tylenol) when I got up. However, it wasn't enough. I took 50mg of Tramadol (normal not time release) when i got out of the pool. So I know what i shall tomorrow morning, take the 50mg Tramadol before I swim.

The Pope - WTF?

I saw a very long time ago that the Emperor Has No Clothes (substitute Pope for Emperor).When I was a child in fact. I still see the same thing only now I find it so hard to believe that millions have fallen for this codswallop. Are they blinded by the pomp and riches. They don't see a fallible man, but 'God's representative Here on Earth'! How tragic! How blasphemous! What crap! What evil this causes! And of course this is precisely why the RC Church indoctrinates it's children so. They know it produces befuddled adults who cannot believe other than what they were taught through fear of the consequences.

So why the Pope today? Well because this arrogant nincompoop has 'apologised' to Australian youth who were sexually abused by the RC priests. (No mention of the mental and spiritual abuse. Oh, sorry, that is what they are meant to do!) Now, the RC Church KNEW about this abuse for years and years and years and chose to protect it's priests and not it's children. Now, it is forced to apologise. Not because it saw the error of it's way but because it's wounded children made such a fuss, they had to. Had the victims not caused caused such a fuss, the RC Church would still be silent and still be protecting it's priests and never mind the children.

"Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country. Indeed, I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that as their pastor I too share in their suffering."

How dare he? He has no idea what the suffering of a sexual abuse victim is ! How patronizing! How ignorant! He clearly has no idea at all of the suffering involved

Also HE HAS NO RIGHT AT ALL to apologise on behalf of the those priests who abused. NO! He ought to , and HAS NOT, apologise for the disgusting way the Church tried to hide these facts and protect it's priests at the immense cost of it's victims. For that he OUGHT to feel shame and for that he ought to apologise.

Funnily enough, fundy Xtians hate the RC Church and they consider the Pope to be an anti christ. Not for the harm the RC has done but because they have the temerity to have a different view point to them. If they disliked the RC church for it's obvious failings and it's unbiblical stance, they might be considered to have some integrity. But they don't have either integrity nor brain cells really.

After all, they believe that everything alive today descends from those that were saved in Noah's Ark! Now that was some boat! F***ing HUGE! Oh and of course they support incest. Must do as they also believe we all descend from Adam and Eve. Oh, and God chucked a wobbly and killed everybody, babies and children too, for they were of course evil, in a flood that covered the whole earth. Shit, he has such temper!

Strangely, we are told to be tolerant, to love our neighbour, to show mercy and compassion. To lessen our rpide, to be humble. All the qualities that indeed god DOES NOT HAVE!!!!! DO AS I SAY NOT AS I DO! God of course can hate, can be angry and vengeful and jealous. We can't though because that makes us evil and deserving of everlasting hell fire. Doesn't God remind you of a rampant active alcoholic? Or a particularity trying two year old?

But of course, how silly, our going to Heaven has nothing at all to do with the sort of person we are,in our hearts, but what we believe. We can be as self centrered and wicked as we like as long as believe that jesus already paid for our sins. Yes, that is it folks, just believe that and you are saved. hallelujah! Go and sin more but believe and you are safe. No consequences will come your way. No sirree. You are safe. Remember folks, that is all that is required, the magic key. Belief. Nothing else.

It is so strange that those who preach that this is so, still pound on and on about sin and wickedness and spell out the ways in which they think we are sinful. Surely they are arguing against themselves? Surely they are missing the point? Should not all their energy be being put into getting people to believe that all their debts have already been paid for by Jesus and therefore we have nothing to worry about. Is not that their message? As shown in that blog link on Ali The Artist blog?
It matters not what we do, just what we believe. There is no qualification in that. It isn't dependent on behaviour and attitude and thought but purely on belief.
Or is it that they want it both ways? Yes, you ahave to believe but you also have to behave as they think you should? IE you also have to be perfect, sinless? Which is it? belief or sinlessness? Both? Oh what an intricate web they weave when first they decided to deceive!