The Grax Domain

15 Dec 2007 Alpha Course: The Conclusion

The Alpha Course is now finished. It's been an interesting 9 weeks, with an extra day-out day of discussion. However at the end of it all I don't feel anymore of a Christian than I did at the beginning of the course. I don't feel converted, I have not developed a desire to go to church or make any attempt to spread the Christian gospel.

But I do feel I have more understanding and respect for Christians. I also believe that there is something to this religion thing, something 'spiritually' special that conventional, scientific means cannot explain.

And I did come to the following conclusions:

• Christians are normal people too. They have normal virtues and vices and they do the things that non-Christians do. This fact is something that often gets overlooked when we think of religious people.
• It's the person that gives religion a bad name, not the other way around. If you meet a Christian who is smug about being a Christian, with his “I'm holier than thou” attitude, it's probably because he is generally a smug person and would feel the same about anything that made him feel better than others.
• Religion does make some people do positive things, like self help, being charitable and so on. However religion does not take away the corruption and politics that can happen behind closed church doors.
• There are lots of similarities between different religions, like Christianity and Buddhism, that makes me think there is something real about spiritual energies, deities and the likes of. Either that or everyone is completely wrong.
• One of the fundamental messages of many religions, if not all religions, seems to be “To love and respect one another”. This to me seems to be a fundamental human lesson and survival instinct.
• It gives people a chance to think outside the conventional box a little. Maybe the world was created in just seven days. Would that be a bad thing?

There was a some value to be gained from the Alpha Course, especially if you are willing to listen. If there was a kind of Alpha Course for all of the major religions, hell for all religions, then I would definitely sign up to learn about them. Either that or dedicate some time to studying religious theology.

Despite all these things that I've learnt, despite how 'simple' it seems to become a Christian and to gain all of the praise and love from God due to Jesus Christ, I feel that Christianity is not right for me. There are many things about it that I disagree with, I don't like the idea of being completely submit to a deity that I feel I have no connection with. I don't feel a sense of benefit if I was to become a Christian. I know that I would not give 100% of myself to the religion.

If I didn't give 100% then surely that would make me a kind of hypocrite, so what is the point?

15 Dec 2007 Alpha Course: Week 9

The final session of the Alpha Course and it is entitled “What about the Church?” If there was one message to be taken away from this week it is that the church is not the stereotypical church building that people know and go to, whether it be through their own will or otherwise.

People have this common misconception that the church is just the building people go to. Or its the dull Sunday service that they are forced to do, or the clergy, or a particular denomination. In actual fact it is the people that make the church. It is the coming together of people, communities, and faith that make the church.

And that is when the blessing of God is at its greatest. So the minister says.
He went on to talk about how having many different people together brings diversity to the church, which is a good thing. Different people with different interest and talents (which of course God has given each of us) that could be put to good use. The minister gave the analogy of the church being a body and everyone was a part of the body. Each person is important and is needed to keep the body alive.

And the other benefit the minister spoke of? Well it gives Christians access to God, like a priest has. So now any person can reach God through any old Christian that happens to be on the street instead of going to a priest in the church. Which, in a way, almost seems to put priest out of work doesn't it?

But it's not necessarily all jollies in the house of the Lord. Whilst it's true that there is much love for God and one another and it all about about having a relationship with God and stuff, it doesn't always come naturally. Like other relationships sometimes you have to make an effort for it to work. It's the idea of respecting one another despite their differences (isn't that true for most religions in one form or another, if not all religions?). The feeling of love and acceptance is one reason why people turn to Christianity. But the amount of effort to put into loving one another can also turn some people away from it.

The minister rounded up his talks and we got into our discussion groups for one last time. It was kinda silent in the group. Maybe it was the last-session blues kicking in. Maybe it was because we couldn't think of anything decent to talk about in regards to the church talk that the minister gave. We exchanged a few words of reflection about the Alpha Course as a whole, some of it was positive, some negative, some stating that people would like to carry on with the course. Indeed the people running the course did offer me the chance to carry on with the discussions as part of their 'Post Alpha Course' groups.

I declined the offer. After all I did the course, I feel I'm slightly more educated in Christianity, and besides I don't really like Christianity enough to drive over a hour and a half every week to talk about it.

... I could always form my own church at my house! Get people to come to me. And I can soak up the collective energies being produced by it!

Grax, you're a genius!

15 Dec 2007 Alpha Course: Week 8

'Does God heal today?' That's the question of this week's session. Whether it's physical, mental or spiritual The Holy Spirit is able to heal whatever ales you. Or maybe there is something else that's going on behind the scenes.

This weeks speaker was not the usual minister, but in fact was a Christian healer, a person who claims that she heals people with the power of prayer (i.e. asking God to make the person better). A Christian healer? This caught my attention. I pondered that maybe it's similar to other kinds of spiritual healing, like reiki.

The majority of the time was spent flicking through many different bible verses to try and show that this kind of healing is real “cos it sez so in da bible” (my words, not theirs). She gave a quick explanation of what she does exactly to heal, which roughly consisted of positioning her hand in the area of aliment and praying to God to make it right. This was not limited to physical aliments. If you had mental illness or are spiritually unwell then potentially these problems she can heal.

Truth be told I felt the most value of this week was not through the talk, but actually through the discussion group.

Because there was a strong theme to prayer the people in my group spoke of similar stories they mentioned before in prevois discussions, namely they prayed to God to heal them and it worked, if it didn't work then they'd get more people to pray until it did work (an over-simplified example but that was the general idea behind it). As expected there were discussions about whether there was another explanation for this kind of 'unexplained healing', including other forms of alternative healing, the placebo effect and so on. Then we tried something completely different.

We were encouraged to try and do some prayer healing within the group. Two people volunteered themselves to be healed (I considered asking to be healed, but the only thing wrong with me at the time was I had bad gas. Hardly worth bothering the Holy Spirit I thought).

The first person told the story of her friend that was going through a rough patch in his life. He apparantly dabbled in some Satanic stuff and she was worries that he would slip back into it. So she asked us to pray for him. We all gathered round this girl in a circle, placed our hands on her and we all started to pray for her whilst the minister leading the group spoke some words of prayer. I joined in with the standing and touching in the appropriate way. But I didn't pray because it's something I don't believe in, at least not in the Christian way. So I concentrated on my breathing and imagine myself channelling my energies into the girl.

Channelling my energies into the girl?? Sounds like a silly thing for a sceptic person to do. But hey, you gotta try these things out, right?

After the prayer the girl in the middle was happy and you could see on her face she was emotionally moved by the experience.

The second person said that she was having some headaches and asked to be healed. So same again, we all circled her, placed our hands on her and started to pray. Afterwards she said that she felt much better and she also described a warm sensation on her shoulder where a guy placed his hand, possibly right on the source of her pain. Could it be I witnessed a mini miracle healing right in front of my eyes? Did that man channels his energies into healing the woman? Or could it be that she believed it so much that it healed itself through the power of the human mind and body?

Maybe it stopped hurting when she stopped thinking about it.

The evening drew to a close but there was one more thing that I wished to do. I wanted to talk to this Christian Healer. I approached her with a eager smile and starting asking her questions. I got the impression that she acted like a counciler as well as a physical healer. She would be somebody that people can unload their problems onto. And she would know when to say the right things at the right time. So for example she would not tell somebody that she sensed that they have a serious anger problem if they are not willing to listen and saying so would upset them. Interestingly she state that it was all God's doing, she took no credit for her work. It was like she was saying “Right, thank you for telling me your problem but I'm not going to do anything about it. Instead I'm gonna ask God to see if I can palm it off to Him so that He can sort it out.”

Lastly I asked her what she thought about other kinds of non-conventional healing like reflexology, acupuncture, reiki, etc. Her answer was “It was all a load of tosh”. Such a strong claim took me a bit by surprize. I asked her why she made such a bold statement, to which she replied “Because none of the other forms of healing are written in the scriptures” (I presume she meant the bible). It would be interesting to see how much exposure of these other forms of healing she has, if any at all, but it was time for me to go at that point.

So did this week session convince me that God can heal? I think that scientific means of healing do work. I think that the human body is capable of feats far greater than we fully understand, to the point of the body performing miraculous healing. I like to believe that the power of prayer (or positive thinking) is capable of healing the human body, mind and soul. I like to believe in alternative means of healing, partly because of the fantasy appeal and, well, it's rather cool. As for God doing all this, I'm yet to be convinced.

If it was possible for the human body to do such amazing things, why should God have to worry about us? Are we not capable of looking after ourselves?

15 Dec 2007 Alpha Course: Week 7

This week session is entitled “How can I resist evil?”. In a world of evil and corrupting things, Christian faith seems to have a way of helping people defending themselves. But is it easy? How effective is it?

The minister talked about how Christians are in a constant battle against the forces of evil. It's not just a figure of speech, the threats are real. Christians have to resists against:

• Sin – Personal vices that takes us further and further away from God
• The World – Non-Christians and the corrupted trying to stray Christians from the path
• Satan – Oh yes, he is real. It says so several times in the bible, so it must be true.

The ministers shared with us his personal experience in life where one of these three things might have affect the outcome in the situation. He gave an example of a man getting a flat tyre it may have been influenced by one of these three things, the sin of sloth made you lazy enough not to check, the mechanic (aka the world) might have done a bad job on the tyre, the devil would do something that I can't remember what the minister said.

However all is not lost. God is here to help the Christian believer fend off against evil. He give Christians the strength to fend off evil and a Christian is compelled to be righteous and do righteous things, instead of doing unrighteous things.
The minister gave us an analogy of this righteous/unrighteous scenario. He compared the unrighteous path to being like Sainburys (ie supposedly in a negative light) whilst the righteous path was like Tesco (ie supposedly in a positive light). At that point I screamed out “Oh God no! You poor thing”. I could help myself. I felt like it was a poor comparison. It was as if was claiming that God was his huge monopolizing entity that spammed the market with lots of cheap stuff and didn't stock the things you actually wanted but instead force you to buy the mass stuff they have for the masses.

Come to think of it....

No, that joke is far too easy to make.

Let's move on shall we?

The minister spoke of the devil's tactics, ways of destroying the church and corrupting people, including:

• Error – Making people teach the wrong things
• Immorality – Making people do naughty and immoral things
• Persecution – Accusing the church and making them feel bad about themselves.

However the minister claimed that despite all these tricks and tactics the devil uses he needs to get permission from God to be able to do them. God has complete control of the situation. Now understandably this raises some interesting and difficult questions, like “What the fuck?”

One thing did come up that I thought was quite hypocritical. To act upon a sin is obviously a naughty thing to do. And apparently to think and play out the sin in your mind is just as bad. But simply being tempted is not a sin in itself, so that's alright. My problem is when does it stop being just a simple temptation thought and starts being a sinful thought. Does that mean we have to spend our whole lives thinking only sterile thoughts?

The minister concluded that Christians are at a constant battle against evil until the second coming of Jesus Christ. But this provided an interesting conundrum in the discussion groups. How can we resist fighting and be all soldier like, which can be an evil thing, and yet defends ourselves? The two don't seem to go together. But then again it is more like self defence, which is not an aggressive thing.

The other question that arose was why there was actual evil in the world. Why does God allow evil in the world when a world without evil would be great. A couple people in the group even admitted that they would love to live in a world of pure goodness. I think however that evil is needed for a balance, like ying and yang. After all how can you have a measure of good, appreciate the value of good without the bad to compare it to? Besides, human beings are suckers for conflict.

I didn't enjoy this session that much because, unlike last week, I felt it was a bit too biblical and kinda relied on you having a belief in the religion. It didn't really seem like it could be applied to non-Christian ways of thinking, at least the way it was all phrased didn't seem so. Whilst there are some pretty horrific things that occur in the world, like high school killings in America and dictators like Hitler (was he fully evil?), it's probably due to the fact that these people are just not wired up like the rest of society and not due to some external evil.

Then again isn't it said that the greatest trick that the devil has achieved is convincing the world that he does not exist? After all, none of the people in my group have seen him, and most of them are Christians.

16 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: Week 6

This weeks session was entitled "How Does God Guide Us?" Mankind has a great desire in life for guidance because, ultimately, mankind always wants the easiest way in life. Sometimes people can feel like their on the wrong path in life, or perhaps they are no longer on plan A. Can the Holy Spirit provide us with the right path in life?

The usual minister took the center stage and talked on this subject, which covered the following topics:

• Commanding Scripture – Stuff that is written in the Bible
• Compelling Spirit – Urges and impulses that people follow
• Common Sense – Self explanatory
• Counsel of Saints – Talk to other people to get other opinions
• Circumstantial Signs – Things that seem to happen just in the right place at the right time to give us a sign.

I was expecting the minister to go all preachy and holy upon his audience, ranting on about listening to the bible, to listening to any and all external sources to be a sign from God and so on. But to my surprize he was not. He stated that, although these 'spiritual interventions' like coincidences and holy messages do occur, we should not just blindly follow these messages without questioning and making sure that it is indeed the Word of God guiding us. He encouraged us to use our common sense and intuition and to consult others. Which to me was very positive to hear from the minister because it's not a message that is solely for Christians but can be applied to anyone and everyone. The minister stated that the Bible tells us only the 'How' in life, not the 'Where', 'Who', 'Why', and so on. And lastly the minister told us that God is with us always and loves us and, no matter what mistakes we make in life (because we will make mistakes, we're only human after all), He will be there for us to help us through life.

In my discussion group I felt it was quite difficult to come up with anything to discuss, mainly because it was all said already. That and it was requested we don't discuss the age old debate of "Free will vs pre-determined life" because "We would just go round in circles and we will never know the answers". Still we managed to come up with some points, including how making mistakes was a good thing because it develops character, understanding and empathy. Though one should not go around making mistakes just to experience them. I also came up with the argument that everything we do in life we have a choice, even with particularly difficult things including severe mental illnesses like depression and suicidal tendencies. Although I will admit this is purely a naïve claim and I will never fully understand what it feels like to have a severe mental illness.

I also managed to state a theory about reality that I adapted from an article I read in the New Scientist magazine (though I can't remember which article, which is a shame because it would back my theory up a lot). I proposed that every possible possibility in life happens at once, which creates a kind of 'white noise'. Our perception of reality is a series of snapshots through this white noise, like a Zoetrope, which leads down one path of reality. This could accommodate both free will and destiny because everything has been determined and played out, yet we can still choose to see which reality to perceive.

As expected I was met with looks of bemusement and disbelief, with one person swiftly saying "Well I don't believe that". However one person did approach me afterwards and asked me to elaborate on that subject, which I found quite flattering.

This weeks session I felt had a more weaker connection with Christianity compared to the other sessions and had less opportunities for discussion, partly because there was no need for any discussion. Whether this was the desired effect that the runners of the Alpha Course wanted or not I couldn't possibly say.

One more thing; the minister stated a bit of a disclaimer regarding "Hearing the Words of God". He warned us to be careful with making such a claim as "God has spoken to me and he said....", rather than saying something like "I get the feeling that God was talking to me because....". The reason for this is because the first statement is a strong claim and in the ministers words "Who are we to question his claim? It is the Word of God" like it is the end of discussion, whilst the second statement is an open claim that can be discussed. So it almost means that if you say "God has told me that.." then Christians have to believe you because they cannot go against the Word of God.

I find that a tad disturbing.

13 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: The Day Out part 3

After session 1 and session 2 it was time for the final talk of the day; 'How Can I be Filled with the Holy Spirit'.

The minister gave his final talk on the subject of the Holy Spirit. There was much page flicking and praising about how great God and Jesus Christ is, which is what I've come to expect from each of these talks. He answered the question of "How do we know that we are a Christian?", though whether he overheard our discussion or he planned to addressed that question much earlier only he knew. His answer is that everyone reacted differently to the realisation and acceptance of Christhood; some laugh with joy, others shed a tear, some don't feel particularly different.

He also mentioned that Christians received gives from God, one of which is speaking in tongue. The minister didn't want to speak in tongue in front of everyone but mentioned that if anyone was interested then he would happily take people in the corner to discuss it further. I was rather curious about what speaking in tongue sounded like. However I never plucked up the courage to directly ask him.

He concluded the session with the message of God is always wanting to give more and more of the Holy Spirit to help you when it is needed; all you need to do is ask Him.

He then got everyone to stand up and invited them to a silent prayer. The minister prayed out loud, thanking God for a whole manner of things. I decided to close my eyes and do some breathing exercises to relax myself so I didn't really hear what the minister said. Then he got all the staff members to go to each of the people standing up and place their hand on them to pray. Something like a channelling of praying power or something.

Then the minister approached me and, with my eyes closed, he placed his hand on my chest.

He prayed for me.
He thanked me for having a inquisitive mind and for being a seeker.
He wanted to let me know that God loved me.
I could feel the warmth of his hand on my chest. Noticeably warm in fact. I was trying to work out if he still had his hand on my chest or not without opening my eyes.

After the prayer everyone opened their eyes. I felt particularly relaxed.

Now to me there could be either one of two things happening there. One, is that there was a kind of spiritual energy being used (perhaps even The Holy Spirit™ Himself) or two, the minister and staff members we using the power of suggestion to program people to think positively.

After the prayer the day was pretty much finished and it was time to go home. I took this opportunity to do a little networking with some of the other people. It was interesting to listen to their other viewpoints; some were very passionate about Jesus Christ and argued for his case strongly, others were not too sure about Christianity and had more questions than answers, one was a complete Atheist and gave a completely different spin to the whole religion angle.

One person's comment cause my attention the most. I was discussing the idea that there were many similarities between religions. This leads me to believe that there was once a single real thing, whether it be God, a mass spiritual energy, or whatever, that all religions stem from. However over time ideas changed, names got mixed up and lost, and eventually religions ended up the way they roughly look like today. This guy quickly though about what I said and came back with a response that challenged me. He pretty much said to me:

“If all religions have one original stemming point but then split off into their own versions, which one speaks the truth?”

I sat in my car at the end of the day, the only car left in the car park. This was the time for me to reflect upon the day, I felt like I wasn't ready to go home just yet.

I enjoyed the chance to learn more about Christianity and to hear different people's opinions, as well as voicing my own opinions. The thing I thought about the most was the silent prayer.

The silent prayer at the end of the day, with the church staff members approaching people, placing their hands upon them and channelling the energy to them. It was the first time that I've ever come across something that physical in any religious activity before. Obviously this channelling has a positive impact upon Christians as they believe in it. Likewise I can imagine that this touching would have no effect on somebody that does not believe in religion and spiritual things.

But what happens if you apply this energy channelling to a non-Christian but slightly believes in spirituality?

What happens if you use the power of language and the power of suggestion on someone who is suggestible and can be easily influenced?

Can a church staff member spot these believers/influential people in the audience and target them?

...

I have to admit that the experience did leave me feeling a little... unsure of myself.

God I hate thinking sometimes.

11 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: The Day Out part 2

I took up the chance to do a special edition of the Alpha Course session, where we all went to a Christian centre in Stratford upon Avon and discussed the Weekend Talk session. We had done the first session in the morning entitled 'Who is the Holy Spirit'. Now it was time for part 2; 'What Does the Holy Spirit Do'.

We gather round the minister once again after we finished with our drinks. Once again he told a light-hearted story to break the ice and then went straight into the subject. The minister talked about being 'born again' spiritually and he addressed the situation about 'normal' Christians' behaving towards 'born again' Christians, almost as if they look down upon them. The minister made the quite bold claim that one was not a Christian unless he was born again, Jesus Christ stated that you needed to go through this spiritual rebirth. He then continued to speak covering topics of:

• Developing the relationship with God (seriously, this idea crops up every week)
• Unity in the family
• Gifts from God

The minister concluded with the statement of every Christian has the Holy Spirit within them but not every Christian is filled with the spirit. This got me thinking. Considering all the 'evidence' I seen in my life, both Christian and non-Christian, I believe that everyone has some kind of spiritual energy inside them and that some people are more spiritually developed than others. The question is can this energy be used in something other than Christian related, like Wicca related for example. Can it only be The Holy Spirit or could it be something else?

After the talk we broke up into two large groups to discuss the two sessions we had. Unlike the usual weekly spot where we saw our same old group members, people got mixed up into the different groups. So there were some fresh new face with fresh new ideas. It was good because I was able to meet a couple of other people, Christians no doubt, who were not 100% satisfied with the answers that were presented to them.

One such discussion point was “How do I know that I am filled with the Holy Spirit?” There were various answers to this questions including:

• You feel it inside you, like a gut instinct.
• There are two main ways of becoming a Christian. There's the 'Hallelujah' moment, where one significant thing happens to you that makes you believe, or there's the gradual moment, where over a period of time you grow and develop your belief, like a spreading infection (not the most pleasing comparison I know but it does paint a powerful picture)
• People have good and bad day, which influence how we feel about God and The Holy Spirit.

But still these answers were not good enough for one person in the group. In the end that person came up with a weak answer of “Well I guess my moment of knowing will come soon”, like he had given up trying to convince the people in the group to his way of thinking. It's a feeling that I can sympathise with.

This session highlighted one of the main desires of human beings, the desire for there to be more than life. There was lots of talks about how God promises so much goodness for Christians but they have to wait for it. A common way of controlling the masses through the promise of rewards beyond rewards.

People long for a sense of freedom in life and Christianity promises that freedom once you accept Jesus Christ into you life. However what people fail to realise is that the only real reason why they are constricted in life is because of the barriers that are put up around them by:

1. Society's rules
2. Their own rules

If people tried and pushed their boundaries a bit more I think they would be surprized as to how much they can get away with. They are free in life and they can do whatever they want. It's just a case of dealing with the consequences of their actions, whether great or small.

To be concluded.

10 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: The Day Out part 1

As part of the Alpha Course there is an opportunity for people to go out for the day for a special session. The main purpose of this is to cover the three Weekend Talk session covered in the course; 'Who is the Holy Spirit', 'What Does the Holy Spirit Do' and 'How Can I be Filled with the Holy Spirit'. In this case it meant a day trip to a Christian community centre in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Not wanting to do this course half-arsed and with a desire to complete the course in its entirety I agreed to attend the day trip.

Once everyone had arrived and had a cuppa tea we were all seated and the first session entitled 'Who is the Holy Spirit' began. The usual minister speaker told light-hearted jokes and stories to break the ice and gave his talk on the subject, with the sound of a dozen people flicking through bible pages echoing throughout the hall. The talk featured:

• God passed his message to prophets in chunks, not the whole thing. He spoke these chunks to different prophets that lived in different areas, even in different times. Therefore the complete message is written in the bible but must be discovered and pieced together.
• God intended to inject His spirit and His law inside the heart of humanity for them to 'instinctively' follow.
• The ministers read out a quote with said something along the lines of "If you thought of God as a influence then you wanted more of it. However if you thought of God as a person then you would want a relationship with Him".
• The Holy Spirit came upon particular people at particular times to do particular tasks. One person that was mentioned was Bezalel.
• There was a gap of around 400 years between the end of the Old Testament and the start of the New Testament where there was no activity written in the bible.

Wait a minute. There was a gap of around 400 years missing in the bible? 400 years unaccounted for. I didn't know about this. What happened during that time?

After the talk I approached the minster and asked him about what happened historically during that time (presumably between 400BC and 0AD). He told me about how the prophets were no longer getting messages from God for some unknown reason; in fact there were no prophets. People began to form their own groups. However that is not to say that nothing was written down. There are a series of literatures called Apocryphas that documented all the events happening during this quiet period. But despite being written down they are not included in most bibles. Because these Apocryphas were not written by prophets they were shunned as they were not The Words of God. Another minister at the session added that during the bible's formation there was a Jewish council and a Christian council that got to decide what should go into the bible. Presumably they didn't think it was important enough to include the Apocryphas in the bible.

I know the bible is big enough as it is, but withholding information from the masses almost seems like they were trying to hide stuff that they don't want the people to know. Something... sinister and un-Christian like. Then again these Apocryphas are easily available to people who seek them.

Also during that 400 year period Israel was invaded by the Greeks and then later by the Romans. When the Romans invaded they created a stable and 'content' society. Which got me to thinking; if there was a content society were everyone thought they were happy then perhaps there was no need for religion. After all, why hope for something better in the future when everything is OK right now?

Perhaps that's one reason why today's society is spiritually and religiously numb.

More to follow.

9 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: Week 5

Halfway through the Alpha Course and this week's session is entitled "Why and How Should I Read the Bible?" Apparently it's not just a simple case of picking it up and flicking through the pages, although I feel there will always be plenty of page flicking.

According to the statistics presented by the minister speaking in this session the Bible is the most popular, top selling book ever. With around 1.52 million bibles sold in the UK each year and around 6.8 bibles in each US house (.8 of a bible? Destroying a bit of the bible? Blasphemers!!) it seems that the bible is indeed number 1. But why is this?

Whilst it is true that the bible is full of stories its serves a greater purpose. It is claimed that the bible is The Word of God (that is to say that God is speaking through the prophets that write out the passages), and that the point of the bible is for Christians to develop a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. These words are written by various people in the past, from Roman Catholics to Greeks and so forth, and most of all the bible is perfect and it contains no errors.

The bible is perfect and contains no errors.... That is quite a strong claim to have.

Especially when you consider:

• The bible has been translated into different languages over time, including Hebrew and Greek. Could it be possible that there could be some misunderstanding and mistranslations over time?
• The words of the bible were not originally written down. They were passed through word of mouth. Could it be possible that someone forgot some bits of important information? Or worse, lied for their own personal gain?
• The bible can be quite difficult for the average person to understand its meaning. How does it relates to their modern day to day lives. Mind you there are external 'bible guides' available for people to use to help them understand the message of the bible. But does that mean all these guides will say the same thing or will they be different depending on which guide you pick?
• The difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old describes a brutal world, whilst the New paints an image of mercy.

I believe that the purpose of the bible, for those who choose to read and accept it, is for it to be a guide. A guide to show people how to be a good human being, to co-exist with his fellow man and to create a world of peace. But these are core values and ideas that all of humanity should have. Do we need to stick a religion label on it just to get people doing it?

And if we are trying to become better people can we get the same effect as the guiding bible from various self-help books from you local book shop?

2 Nov 2007 Alpha Course: Week 4

This week's session was all about the hows and the whys of prayer. One of the main tools for Christianity, or indeed any other religion, would it be enough for me to communicate to God?

The minister was not there this week but there was a speaker to take up the challenge. He talked for around 15-20 minutes but the main points that I picked up were:

• 2/3 of people in the UK pray at least once a week and around 95% of people have admitted to praying at least once in their life.
• People tend to dismiss events happening after a successful prayer as coincidence
• The main purpose of prayer is to develop one's relationship with God and they only can access God via Jesus Christ.
• One reason why prayers are not answered is that people have sins which are not forgiven, and it is this sin that blocks us from God (which seems odd because surely all our sins are forgiven and removed by Jesus Christ's death, therefore there should be nothing blocking the way)
• Got is willing to answer your prayers and will happily give you what you need, all you need to do is ask.

I sat in the group listening to the speaker trying to absorb as much information as possible. However I got more value from the group discussion that came next.

Each member in my group sat in the usual circle and we all started to share our experiences with prayer. One woman shared her experience of a child that was born prematurely and her health was deteriorating. The mother prayed her hardest but nothing was happening. She got her friends and family to pray for the child but still nothing. Feeling she needed all the help she could get she asked many people from churches and eventual she had around 400 people praying for this child's good health. As soon as that happen the child made a miraculous recovery. With such a story surely there is a strong case of prayer being a real thing and that God does indeed answer prayers.

What if there was another explanation? And I'm not talking about coincidences because they don't exist.

What if it was all about attitude and looking things positively? The power of affirmation. I've touched upon this subject in the past and there are several more detailed websites in the Internet about this subject. The idea is that you think positively and eventually it appears that everything around you starts to go your way. Likewise if you constantly think negatively everything around you appears to be going badly. That is the power of the human mind and human attitude.

Why I've even had a prayer experience myself.

One time I went to a Christian Bible Study session with a Christian friend I had at the time. They discussed everyday life things but at the beginning and end they said a prayer out loud. It was kind of a improvised thing; one person would pray for a bit and then another person would pick up from where the last person left off. They were really getting into it. As I sat there with my eyes closed I could feel a kind of energy, a kind of excitement building up in the room. Eventually I felt really so good and excited that I felt compelled to join in. I rambled incoherently some sort of thanks to some sort of 'holy spirit'. Me, a non-believer doing a prayer. I shared my story to the other group members asking them if they had felt this before. One of them replied "Yes, that is the Holy Spirit".

Was it really the Holy Spirit flowing into me? Or was it something else? Could it been a case of mob mentality?

The best way to explain this would be with an idea. Imagine a music concert with hundred of people listening to the best musician, with everyone singing and dancing away. Or a riot breaking out for some reason and it absorbs more and more people into the destructive mass. There is that same kind of strong emotion, strong energy swirling around as there would be in a mass prayer. A person can easily get swept away and do all sorts. And it makes the person feel good too so they are more likely to repeat the activity. So the next time you get into a group activity and you start doing the same as everyone else, ask yourself is it because you're choosing to do it or is it because you got caught up in the moment?

This has been the most positive session I've had on the Alpha Course so far. The idea of prayer and getting results from them appears to be something that is documented outside of Christianity, whether it be religious or non-religious in origin, and it seems to produce results. Whatever the label is I am more convinced that there is something there. Some sort of energy to be used.

The question is what is the most efficient way of tapping into it?

19 Oct 2007 Alpha Course: Week 3

This week session was entitled “How I Can Be Sure of My Faith?” Because in today's society, and presumably back in the day, how could anyone be sure of their faith when there are so many things putting doubt in your mind?

The minister said that the new testament was written in a way to make sure that there was no doubt in a person's mind that they're were either a full Christian or not. So that a Christian would be sure in their faith.

He also mentioned about the facts of God being truth. He also promised great things and bliss and crap like that, but only if you believe in Him. And there (I think) lies the problem. What good is the promise if you do not believe?

He also got two volunteers from the crowd to illustrate a point. He stood in between them and they all face forward. The guy in from was the facts [of God] and the guy behind was feelings and he was in the middle. He illustrated the point of if you focused your faith upon the 'constant' truth of God then your faith is stable. However if you focused your faith upon ones feeling then your faith waxes and wanes as your feeling do. It is at this point where most people's faith can fail.

As soon as he said that my mind began to ponder what he said. If we focus our faith on the facts [of God] and forego our emotions, that would surely make us all into emotionless automatons. What a frightening and dull world that would be. Still sense did come to me as I realised that the minister did not say “solely” upon the facts, meaning that there's always gonna be some emotions involved.

The minister went on to discuss the difference between religion and Christianity. Religion is defined by 'Do and Don't', in other words “If you do this and that and don't do this, etc, then God will accept you”. However Christianity is about what has been Done. Jesus had died on the cross so that everyone's sin would be forgiven. All we have to is believe in Him and be thankful for His sacrifice. That is the basics for being a Christian.

That seems a little bit too easy to me. Does that mean that we are all born as Christians as default? I guess not because we don't know who Jesus Christ is when we are born.

Oh yeah, I think the minister also mentioned something about Jesus asking for obedience as well, but he didn't go into too much detail about that.

After the minister rant we broke up into our usual groups to take in what was said and to discuss. During one stream of conversation we somehow gotten on to the subject of the bible. As you do. One of the people in the group talked about how she has this 'bible verse per day' notepad thingy. The idea is that each day has a verse that relates to the day your having. Sometimes it doesn't mean anything, but sometimes it's eerily relevant to your day.

The following conversation went something like this:

“Ah, so it's like Horoscopes then?” I stated.
“No, it's nothing like Horoscopes” she defended.”It's nothing like horoscopes. The bible is the absolute truth whilst horoscopes are something that somebody makes up”
“But it is like horoscopes” I said.
“No it isn't”
“Yes it is. It's a random verse and the person reading it is trying to twist it so that it applies to them for that day. By chance no less!”
“No” she replied, “No its not like that”
“It's still a random verse per day chosen by some guy. Tell me, who determines which bible verse goes in which day?”
We both went quiet at that point as we'd reached a stalemate. We had to agree to disagree.

One of the guy's answer to everything was “It's about having a relationship with God”. It's starting to become a bit of a one-liner joke. It's starting to get a little bit old...

There was also a little bit of history about the bible, namely how preachers of old were pretty much the only people who can read (as nearly everyone was illiterate back in the day) and so they told everyone what the bible said. It was a rather interesting bit of information, a nice chance of pace.

I left this weeks Alpha Course feeling like I was still no closer to becoming a Christian. The answer presented to me didn't convince me that I needed to be a Christian. Truth be told it's more fun being the troublemaker in the discussion groups and creating heated discussions. I'm may not be sure of my faith, but I'm quite sure I'm no Christian.

Here's a question that keeps playing on my mind and I'm sure I've been given an answer but I forgot it. If all our sins are forgiven because of Jesus Christ does that mean we don't sin again? That is to say, any new sin does not get stored up but gets instantly forgiven?

12 Oct 2007 Alpha Course: Week 2

This week I was in a better mood than last, got me some dinner and dessert. So maybe this week I'd be more receptive to the Christian message.

Session 2 was entitled “Why Did Jesus Die?”. Despite my initial thoughts it wasn't just because he was a trouble-maker for the Romans. The point was that he would take on all of mankind's sin and to be sacrificed to God so that everyone would be forgiven. Just like the sacrificial livestock people used to do.

The speaker of the night spoke to us after the meal. He covered various ideas including:

• Everybody has sinful, negative thoughts (like lust, greed, depression, etc)
• People can be addicted to negative and sinful thoughts and action (which I agree with, sometimes it feels good to be bad).
• God is love
• He told the story of a man who was a self-destructive alcoholic. One day he looked in the mirror and said “I hate myself, don't want to be like this anymore”. So he went to the church, accepted Jesus Christ into his life and became a new man.
• People feel good when they confess to God about their sins.
• God offers eternal life. However there are people who don't necessarily want that gift. I know one Christian who finds that idea quite intimidating.

The speaker talked about how people have been brought to their knee screaming to the ceiling, confessing to God and asking for forgiveness. This act would bring them great joy afterwards, even to the sceptics. One answer I can come with about this is because it simply feels good to confess. It removes a great weight off their shoulders. Everyone also has a strong urge and desire to feel forgiven, wanted and loved. My argument in this case is people can get this sensation by confessing to anyone, anything, or even to themselves and still get that feel good feeling. They don't need to confess to God.

One of my other criticism was the story of the guy that used religion. I saw it like he was using it as a crutch when in actual fact he shouldn't need to. It's a sign of weakness. I ranted about this in the discussion group, but towards the end I realised that there's no negative reason to use something for motivation whether it be from a person, a pet, an object, or even a religion. So that was a bad argument on my end. I think that having belief is good. It gives people strength and motivation.

I mentioned the idea of 'Cut and Paste' religion, where people can take parts of various religions that they liked and paste it into one religion that they follow. I got funny looks from the rest of the group members. I also mentioned a theory that a friend of mine had. Jesus Christ might not have been the Son of God but in fact an ordinary man that knew Reiki, hence his abilities to heal. I got funny looks from the rest of the group members.

During the group conversation my mind began to wonder about God's love. God has parental love for all His children, like a parent has love for their children. One could argue that He has a biological drive to love His children, whether if He actually wanted to or not.

I left that night feeling like there has no boundaries when being a Christian, not rules or guidelines. To me that would mean that everyone could be mean and cause chaos and anarchy and still go up to Heaven so long as they believe in Jesus Christ and what he did for all of us. The only thing that would be stopping us from chaos is our own conscious.

Some of us don't even have a conscious. And yet they can get Heavenly goodness at the end.

Where's the justice in that?

5 Oct 2007 Alpha Course: Week 1

Not a great start to the course. Having a stressed out day at work, bad traffic on the roads, turning up half an hour late, being in a crappy mood. Arguably I wasn't in the right frame of mind to listen to a bunch of Christian stuff. But I still persevered and was pleasantly surprised that I was just in time for dessert. After the food we all gathered round the minister, given our course booklet and began to listen to him speak.

This week's session is who Jesus Christ was. This got me excited. We were going to get the historical and actual facts about Jesus Christ. We were going to be presented with artefacts. We were going to be given a Discovery Channel style presentation. Or so I had hoped.

What we were actually given was one scarcely fill A5 side of paper with a few sentences about there being historical Roman and Jewish documents and a table stating the 6 different versions of the bible (the earliest existing copy being around 900 AD, there's no copy of the first ever edition of the bible). Hardly compelling evidence.

The rest of the talk was about what was written in the bible (like Mark 10:21) and all the various things that Jesus Christ had said about himself (again, more bible verses). There was also a couple of quotes from C.S. Lewis saying that there were four possibilities about Jesus Christ:

1. He was a con man, which Lewis believes is not possible because no con man would die for something that he would get nothing out of it (I'm sure there are lots of conspiracy theories on Jesus' death but this entry is already too long for me to go into)
2. He was insane, which Lewis believed is not possible (I can't remember why)
3. He was evil, which Lewis believed as not evil mainly because of the goodness he spread
4. He was in fact God made flesh, which Lewis believed was the only logical possibility.

I was not convinced. None of what the minister had said convinced me that Christianity was the right way. He only repeated a lot of things that would only be worth any value if you were a Christian already. That and Jesus Christ made a lot of claims that made him sound very arrogant (simply put, a whole bunch of "I am" this and "I am" that).

After the chat we were all broken up into small groups to discuss the things that were said as well as Christianity as a whole. Firstly we were given a small ice breaking exercise so that we got to know a bit more about the group members, then the floor was open for anyone to talk about anything that was said today.

I took this chance to voice my opinion.

One of the things the minister said that one of the difference between Christianity and other religions was that in other religions there are a set of rules that one must follow to essentially be a part of that religion and to be a good person. However with Christianity there are no rules. All that Jesus said was to "Follow Me" (Mark 1:17). Thereby Christianity is different.

Hold on a minute. Follow me? That's very open ended. Jesus asked us to follow him. What does that mean? Follow his footsteps literally? Copy what he does, thereby following in his footstep? Now to me that seems like a set of rules to follow. How exactly is this different from other religions?

I told this contradictory opinion to the group. One person mentioned the 10 commandments in the old testament, a set of rules. Another person states that there are in fact two guidelines to Christianity; Love Jesus and Love Thy Neighbour. Another person stated that you don't need to follow these guidelines. Yet I have seen other 'religious' people that don't follow their guidelines to the letter. To me the statement the minister said seemed a bit crap. There seemed to be a common theme with Christianity is this whole 'having a relationship with him', which is something I've heard being repeated several times by many Christians.

Our time had run out but I left feeling a little unsatisfied, like the answers I was given were not what I wanted to hear. Like they lacked any real backing to them. I left the church with a sense that Christianity was not quite right. I certainly was not getting closer to the light as it were.

Next week session is titled "Why did Jesus die?"

4 Oct 2007 Alpha Course: Introduction

My girlfriend has convinced me to go on a ten week course called The Alpha Course. As far as I can tell it is designed to either convert people into Christians or gives existing Christians a brush up on how they can be better Christians. Or something like that. Plus It's a social thing, meet different people, yadda yadda yadda.

Now I am not a Christian and I don't intend on becoming one. I find the whole religion to be... I dunno, too commercial. Plus the whole thing doesn't seem believable, or more like it feels like it can be explained in other ways (either through science or with some other 'far-fetched' theory). That's not to say I am an atheist. I do have a kind of spiritual side. I do believe that there is a possibility of there being 'more to life' than what we can sense and what science cannot explain. I mean all religions seem to share a common theme and a common set of elements, they can't all be wrong, can they?

The reason I trying out this Alpha Course is because I want to hear what they have to say about Christianity. That and a part of me wants to try and prove it's all wrong. I don't know if I can prove it wrong. I know that I won't be able to prove it wrong to all the other Christians (although it would be kinda cool in a blasphemous, sinful way). I just want to be satisfied to make my decision based upon what they present to me. Plus it is completely free of charge so there's no real reason not to do with.

So I thought I'd write about how each session goes to give people an insight to what happens on the course and how I felt it went. It's a shame that there is not an Alpha Course for all the religions. That way people are given all the facts before they made a decision on their beliefs.