Your Local Alpha Course

procax

Alpha is a relaxed, informal and free ten-week practical introduction to the Christian faith. In the Tollington Parish we run the course three times a year in the spring, summer & autumn terms. The course is open to anyone and questions are more than welcome.

Course: Wednesdays, 7-9.30pm, From Wed 29th Sept.

Venue: St Mark's Church, Tollington Park, N4 3LD

Format: Delicious evening meal > Talk > Discussion in small groups

Topics: Jesus - Prayer - Bible - Guidance - Holy Spirit - Healing - Church

If you are interested in attending our course please give us a call for further information: 020 7561 5462

www.alpha.org.uk
www.tollingtonparish.org.uk

Arkady

<http://www.dailyhitchens.com/>;

Billy Bookcase

I'd like to apologise on behalf of the previous post.

val

Jeremy Fisher: I'm puzzled by your message. What are you apologising for??

Billy Bookcase

I cherish the hope that this precious social space will not be dedicated to wind ups and pointless fight picking.

Arkady

So they’re allowed to proselytise and I’m not? You may think it pointless opposition, but I don’t. To the contrary.

Billy Bookcase

@Arkady

If you want to proselytise, the polite way to go would be to start your own classified thread.

As you very well know, allowed doesn't come in to it.

Arkady

I don’t have anything to sell, unlike these guys.

tosscat

It made me feel uncomfortable but I didn't know what to say in response.

miss annie

Firstly, I think it's bad form to apologise for someone else's post. As far as I can see it wasn't rude or offensive - just expressing a different point of view.

I imagine that there are at least as many atheists, agnostics and followers of non christian faiths that are members here as there are Christians. It would have been extraordinary if an opposing view had not been expressed at some point.

If it's fine to have a heated debate about politics on this forum I see no reason why it shouldn't be ok to do the same with religion.

David

Cardinal Kasper was onto something.

Billy Bookcase

@David

"New and aggressive atheism" I suppose so.
Weird too how it has to deny its own aggressive intent.

Before the manichaeism delirium really gets going hereabouts, I should probably say that I am not a believer either.

I am however quite keen on a basic politeness in anonymous internet forums. I think that they work better when people try to exercise self discipline.

Arkady

I actually think that’s a bit sinister. So called ‘new atheists’, it seems to me, are simply people that are unwilling to hide their views, and are willing to challenge the proselytisers and sellers of sugar pills, to debate with them and argue with them, and to point out the damage to individuals and society demonstrably caused by faith-based reasoning. This rise of people doing this – Hitchens and Dawkins are the obvious examples – is a response to the rise of overt and demanding religious claims, and the erosion of secular society from 9/11 to faith schools. The idea that standing up and protesting against the latter is automatically some how ‘aggressive’ or impolite’ is being bandied about more and more – even, it seems, by people who should know better. I will not be told to be quiet about what I regard as the chipping away of our achievements since the Enlightenment. Regardless, had I wanted to be rude to the original poster I am fully capable of doing so. I simply posted a link to a site where the alternative view can be found a its most articulate, mostly in debates with some of the most devout and scholarly protagonists one could hope for – a balanced view in other words. Much more than you’ll get from the Alpha Course. If someone posted a classified add for actual sugar pills, and someone responded to criticise, would you still be upset? These guys are much more dangerous and exploitative.

Billy Bookcase

Who exactly is the "our" in your " . . . the chipping away of our achievements since the Enlightenment."

Arkady

Secular society. Those free from the strictures of superstition, or who at least recognise that faith should remain in the private sphere, plus the masses with no strong affiliation but who benefit from the former two being in the ascendant.

David

Blimey, I was actually referring to the Third World comment regarding Heathrow. I mean, have you ever been to Feltham?

ADGS

The idea of 'aggressive atheism' as somehow a dominant force is absurd. There are still bishops sat in the House of Lords simply by virtue of their position. In a time of cuts, we just wasted millions on a state visit by a paedophile-defending, AIDS-spreading, homophobic 'ex-'Nazi just so that he could repeat the old 'cancelled Christmas' lie - and we already have Richard Littlejohn for that. This country is still way too much in thrall to dangerous Dark Age dogmas, and when they see any small progress made against their idiocy, they cry foul and make out they're somehow the underdog. It'd be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

The one thing I will say for the Alpha course: their 'The meaning of life isGDN_________" posters did provide one Highbury wag with the chance to fill in the blank '42'.

Billy Bookcase

Your annexation of "the masses" is as breathtaking as that fatal "should" in your second line. But setting nit-picking aside in the interest of local harmony, can I say that I look forward to seeing you pursuing this militant campaign at the Cenotaph in November. ;-)

andy

Online discussions about religion never go well. This thread proves that. But I think Arkady should go on the course and write it up for us. It's free after all. Maybe he'll win some hearts and minds. Or convert. Or something.

Arkady

Jeremy, re the ‘masses’ I was simply making a sociological observation. I happen to think that religion should be separate from the state and public life, and I could give you a lot of good arguments for that – I don’t see how having a normative element to my sentence is ‘fatal’. Your failure to address my actual argument, however clearly is.

Arkady

@andy - already have.

andy

@arkady. One mistake you make is considering this a public space. It is a private space. You, interestingly, have no rights at all to assert what should and shouldn't be included in it.

Billy Bookcase

There are no masses nor can there be any consensus here about norms or what you proclaim as your "argument". It seems mostly to be teenage Dawkins-ism.

I was using the term fatal in the spirit of Rousseau's invocation of the duality of progress.

I've addressed froth like yours for 30 years in university classrooms and in my books.

Good luck with your campaign to disestablish the C of E.
I hope you're brave enough to find better targets than the crabs in a barrel option represented by the Alpha course.

miss annie

Gosh! So much for basic politeness in anonymous internet forums.

andy

Online discussions about religion never go well.

Arkady

@andy, if you want to start treating it like one you can always ban me.

andy

i know that, but you shouldn't assert rights you don't have.

Arkady

@ Jeremy As I recall - and it's been a while - Rousseau thought progress could only be achieved through reason alone, through interaction in civil society. So do I. But if you've written a book then you must be right. Sorry to see you, the champion of politeness, reduced to ad hominem attacks. Maybe that works on your students too? A

Arkady

@andy, just so I'm clear old boy, what rights am I asserting that I don't have?

Philistine'sMonster

I have read Jeremy Fisher's book and could find no references to mani-thingy delirium. Or froth. As far as I can tell it's about a stupid amphibian in a coat that gets swallowed by a fish.

Might have been a bit high-brow for me, though.

Jeremy. For Hell's sake. Frogs in clothes? What does it all mean?!

ADGS

Clearly the amphibian is intended to remind us of Jonah, who like the Pope was sent by god to preach to the inhabitants of a heathen land.