[luxinterior]

Originally Posted by Hip Priest

As someone religious, yet who isn't (I hope) a 'fucking cunt', and whose religious friends are also not (in my opinion) 'fucking cunts', I would just like to say that the word 'evangelical' has been hijacked and damaged just as much as 'liberal' has.

'Evangelical' really refers to the more-or-less essential attempts by a Christian to share the gospel with non-Christians. Many have abused the word, but they have, more fundamentally, abused the word 'Christian'. We are warned of these people in the Bible (the epistle of Jude, verse 4, springs to mind: For certain men whose condemnation was written about[b] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.).

It's easy to try to silence people and tell them they should not speak, or just to bully and abuse, but fortunately most of us still live in countries where that sort of nasty dictatorial nonsense isn't yet practiced.

In Manchester recently, the local Muslims had put up a tent in the city centre. They shared beliefs, food and discussion with anyone who cared to join in, and it was a really good effort. I'm often handed stuff by jewish, Muslim and Buddhist groups, and I have to say that in most cases there is a genuine attempt between all parties to be tolerant and interested in each other's faith. The need to tear up each other's holy books, call each other 'fucking cunts' or issue command such as 'go to hell' and 'fuck off' are thankfully felt to be unnecessary. It's a good job that most people, religious or atheist, are more tolerant than some would like.

I do hope that I didn't offend you with any of my posts, because I value your opinion on topics such as this one. You always approach these things in a very level-headed way, which will lend a nice balance to a thread like this wherein I am basically generalizing left and right because of a number of things that have occurred in the past few months relating to religion and it kind of sent me over the edge after the $20 bill thing. Money is tight, I really am broke, and I can't even begin to understand how a Christian person could think that it is okay to deceive someone like that and actually expect it to go over well with the person who ends up finding it.