Toms View of the World

In a story found today on BBC News - the question is asked - “Does your vicar beleive?”.

What follows in that article is a list of some of the "39 articles" held to be orthodox by the Church Of England (CoE). I know that this is just one denomination of the "Christian Church" - and that there are many many many others, each with their own twist on what the Bible says - and their own interpretation of the "facts" - apparently nearly 25% of CoE clergy do not beleive in the virgin birth as documented in the Gospels, even more, aren’t 100% sure about the ressurection. These are two solid fundamentals of the "modern" Christian church.

Maybe it’s good that some of the people running modern religion are asking questions about a book translated from greek and hebrew a couple of thousand years ago - and regularly re-translated over the intervening years.

Some of the other things in the 39 artcles, include "predestination" - that is that God decided (note this - God decided not knew) which people would be saved, and who would be cast into eternal damnation before the world was formed - this is clearly a topic that the modern church doesn’t mention very often - possibly because it goes against the principles of "pursuading" people to become Christians by various manipulative techniques (sorry “Evangelism”) which range from harrassing them on their own doorsteps, to handing out leaflets in city centres and shouting at them through loud-hailers while they try to go about their business in their local shopping center and politely ignore the nuiscence!

Oh, and don’t take it from granted that your minister even believes in God - An Anglican minister was dismissed in 1994 for saying that God is merely "the sum of all our values and ideals".

As many folks know, I’m had some bad experiences at the hands of the "Christian Church" in various forms, so my views are somewhat biased by my personal experience of God and Church.