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Hi Rann and all,

Rann, welcome to BellaOnline and best wishes to you at your site.

As for me "just beating Lestie up because she's an atheist" that is something that I am totally "without knowledge" about. LOL

Ah Rann! You got it wrong! BZZZZZT for the buzzer and not Tingaling for the bell.

I am an old fashioned Protestant, a confirmed and active member of St Thomas Anglican Church in the Linden parish in Johannesburg.

If you go to the Christian Living site under the Family grouping and to their forum, you will see a post of mine made on 21 May to the thread Life Verse. As I have said elsewhere in a different forum altogether, my colours are firmly nailed to the mast there.

I do not however interpret the Bible in the new and modern senses, I use the St James version of the Bible, I am not interested in the approach that reborn Christians take towards the faith, it just does not suit me and I cannot reconcile any of my God-given talents gifts skills and abilities with confining myself to what I understand as narrow confining and debilitating thinking. Leviticus and me? We are not real friends. Perhaps we might have been in his day, but here in mine not. To me those kinds of constraints are like saying we used to saw off legs without anaesthetic and a bit of whiskey, it's in the Bible therefore we have to carry on doing do so now. (That example is not in the Bible I know, I am just using it as a silliness).

Having made those comments about new and different approaches to Christianity that do not suit me, I am sure that my old fashioned approach to my faith would not suit them. There is room for both approaches. Life takes enough energy, I will not rail against something that is really not that important.

My tussles with Sister Jocelyn (who happened to be a Catholic Nun) were refreshing and clarifying and it was she who gave me my faith that runs true and deep (for which I am most thankful). I find the mystery of it all marvellous, illogical, but acceptably marvellous for me. I am good at switching off when I need to. I have a Master's degree in disconnecting.

Again I have said this elsewhere on BellaOnline that when considering the Virgin Birth, if you believe, then no explanation is necessary, and if you don't, then no explanation is possible.

I love Choral works and the old hymns ... give me Love Divine, Abide with me, Rock of Ages etc. any time. Handel's Messiah, Mozart's requiem, the Miserere anytime. Incence and Latin services bowl me over and high Mass and communion is a dead giveaway as to my faith.

I could not and did not and would not ever watch Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ, (I question his reasons for making it so) and as with any belief or philosophy across the ages I continue to question and to read in my 'little' life. Unfortunately I do not say that with the humility I suppose is expected, still I do say it. I will not allow anyone do my thinking for me or tell me what to think. I will read and learn and tussle and tweeny around until I am satisfied and comfortable with my own thoughts.

This declaration may surprise some or maybe not. I know it will change my dialogues I have so enjoyed with Les. I am not a creationist, cannot be. And to really set a cat amongst the pigeons, at age 8 or so when asked who GOD was, I thought about it for a week and came back to Sunday School and said I am God. Of course, looking back I knew what I wanted to say and said as much as an 8 year old could articulate then I am sure, but that statement certainly caused my poor Mom grief when the school sent me home to be re-educated. What I meant then was that God did not and does not do my homework. I do it with the skills He has 'given' me. And to the scoffing of "Oh so you thought you created the Earth etc. !" of course I didn't. But see, that was not the question they asked. They asked who was God, they did not ask who created the Earth and mankind and all and all.
Having said all that above, I also say that I love the language of symbolism so any study that has symbols and metaphors gets my attention as does any 'oppostie' thinking and counter argument.

In all honesty, I wish Sister Jocelyn had been around a lot longer to help me read more. And not only the scriptures and such. It was she who gave me my first Russian, Dostoevky (The Brothes Karamazov) and said "I should read it when I was old enough." When I asked how old that would be she answered annoyingly "You'll know." Have you seen the movie Queen Margot? I would love to know what you think of it if you chance to be able to take it out of the video/DVD shop.

I realise that I have been most self-indulgent in this answer. Heaven forbid! These are the silly chatterings of a half trained mind, though how small the whole is, is debatable as the half has tons of room for so much more thinking.

Hi there Mr Mexico, pleased to meet you. Maybe I must stick to my knitting and go see to my containers, I love it when I am there. All my senses awaken.

Cheers now

I promise Lestie, I won't upset your unupsettable friend. I hope you had a good day off.

Hi Lestie and all,

Lestie declared: "This declaration may surprise some or maybe not. I know it will change my dialogues I have so enjoyed with Les."

Lestie, your are so right! I do have a major problem with your declaration. In the future would you please refer to me as Senor Mexico rather than Mr. Mexico because even though I am a full-fledged U.S. Passport carrying citizen of Los Estados Unidos, the younger denizens here refer to me as senor (well, truth be told, more often than not "hey gringo, hey, gringo.")

What I had always maintained here in the forum and in the articles that I wrote is as true now as ever. I do not care what belief system a person has but rather what is important to me is the process(es) that were taken in arriving at it.

My wife Maria was raised as a Catholic but she evolved through a freethinking process to become what I describe as being a cosmic believer (you know, energy and all that matter...) However, like many Mexicans that were raised Catholic her knowledge (please see the results previously posted about the Religious Knowledge Survey) of other established religions is minimal at best (I am being way too kind!). A few years back, Maria a U.S.university graduate and I passed by an Episcopalian Church in San Jose, Ca and she asked me what are Episcopalians. When I started to explain that they were a denomination of the Protestant Church she then asked "what are they protesting."

Lestie, are you protesting anything? (other than poachers)

Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist and a outspoken advocate of atheism.

Below are his TEN COMMANDMENTS:

(1) Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

(2) In all things, strive to cause no harm.

(3) Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

(4) Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

(5) Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

(6) Always seek to be learning something new.

(7) Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

(8) Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.

(9) Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

(10) Question everything.

No matter what your belief system is, is there anything that you would add, modify, or delete?

I would add:

- Be true to your own beliefs but never proselytize them.

I would add:

Only God leads people to religion. It is between one's soul and its creator and no one else.

Regarding Richard Dawkins Ten Commandments ...AWESOME !!!!!!
I've never seen this before. Thank-you for posting.

Senor Mehico! Hi and to all and all too, had a great day off and did nothing but contemplate the middle distance and all things mysterious!

What am I protesting - all sorts of things like ... to ... and more but in terms of my post above you will remember the history of the break away from the Catholic Church? It was when Henry V111 wanted to divorce Katherine of Aragon and the Pope would not allow it. Henry then just did it, was excommunicated, declared himself the new Head of the Church of England, married Anne Boleyn (Lizzie 1's mom) ... and others as you know. And it would seem that since then, ne'er the twain shall meet. To this day the Royal family in England cannot marry out of the 'faith' and most certainly not a Catholic. So the fact that I chose to be an Anglican essentially I am a protestant as opposed to an orthodox Catholic, and but for a chance meeting might easily have been Catholic anyway. Regardless, 'nuff said by me.

For Richard Dawkins, I like his use of that double negative in his first commandment, makes you stop and think.

But a general comment on the content is yes of course, it's good sentiments but wordy and really open to interpretation because of the wordiness. I have to assume they come from the man as when you imagine that pure intelligence in that 'handicapped' body, two things spring to mind for me. One thing "Why me?" and the other being his life's work starting with a Brief History of Time (I was not able to understand it though I tried reading it several times). Just don't have that mathematical and scientific brain that can out think and think out and theorise and'invent' and think original thoughts as he does. He is a super intelligent being and a gift to mankind. It would be intresting to read a biography, his published works are likely to be all that we will get.

For some other good life commandments I really like Polonius' advice to his son Laertes in Hamlet ... Act 1 scene 111

There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.(65)
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.

Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous, chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

************************************************
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
************************************************

I love this advice and at one time in my life could quote it all by memory - not so any more.

P.S. The stars are mine! And have I always listened to Polonius -nay, no, not. I tell people what I think all the time for one. Hmmm.

Adios amigos and Hasta la vista - see I speak Mexican tra la.

Thanks Linda for adding a commandment that is integral to your belief system.

Thanks cream pie for your feedback about Dawkins' commandments. I was also really impressed with them, the phraseology that he used, and really feel that they are "universal."

Lestie, great stuff with the Anglican history lesson and the quote from Hamlet. Loved it! "To thine ownself be true"- if only more people lived by that "commandment," this world would be a better place.

Just one point of correction (without any buzzers, bells, whistles, or gongs going off and no banishment to incorrecto land!).

The Ten Commandments that were posted were the work of Richard Dawkins not Stephen Hawking. Both have "awkin" in their names. Both are brilliant. Both are scientists. Both are English. One, Dawkins is definitely a self-described atheist while the other, Hawking has been labeled by some as being an atheist but I believe that he does not consider himself to be one.