Outside creative agent ?

Do you mean God or the Bible Manual.

The ETERNAL is found within you. There are lots of differing speculations and Manuals.

Piles of books and paper. Some Scientific Theories. Some Relgious formulae. Some Imaginative guesswork.

Nobody knows which book is True. Just choose your own brand and blindly stick with the programme.

Kevin,

I don't understand your point as Religion was around for thousands of years before creationist theories.

Yet People were still being stabbed when Religion had no competition at all.

So I don't understand it.

I would agree with Darwins theory but for only one thing and that is when did man stop evolving form ape to man because if this did occur why is the process still not happening,i do agree that Man,birds plants in fact all living things do evolve it is the natural course of nature to adapt to a new envienment i.e,africans live in a hot africa,eskimos live in a cold north pole so even man does adapt or evlve to survive but i dont see any drastic movement from species to species,so i can never agree with darwin.
This dateing of the earth is surely all hit and miss a million yrs here and a million yrs there whays the difference..lol.
We have to believe imo that god did creat our planet and that he left us some rules,one of which was to go forth and multiply and fill the earth,nevertheless he never meant for us to ruin it and he states in his book that he will NOT allow us to ruin it completly,he will in some way step in and stop us.
I have left the knife crime untill last because it has taken on a more goring step now,when a young girl rings a young guy and asks him to meet up with her, only reason is to snare him to his death in the most horific and grousome way and payed no attention to his pleas for his mother and mercy,as i read the details in the paper a tear came into my eye and i felt so angry that i could have easily slain the purpetraitors myself if i had been asked to,i do feel that i am a godfearing person so for me to get angry in this way does show the height of emotion i had reached,why did they do this act,well all that this young lads life was worth in there oppinion apperently, was they wanted to film the deed and post it on the internet.No punishment can fit this crime,"vengence is mine"

Nobody knows which book is True..

Ah,aaah James,but i do..

Nostradamus,

Ok, lets for arguments sake both assume you do know which of the books is True.

How does that help anyone..? How does it stop suffering and misery if you know this book is True.?

Has it brought misery and suffering to an end? Or are you just telling people that if we all wait long enough the clouds will one day open and BOOM! BANG! BINGO!

All we need to do is keep waiting for the Boom and the Bang and the Bingo! And while we are waiting we might as well have your favourite book to read.

Hi Ken

When you only have 250 words for an argument sometimes it's hard to cover everything.

Certainly, we've been killing each other since Cain killed Abel. The point you make on this is right.

However, God gave successive generations his commandments and teaching. Eventually, when it dawned on the human race that they couldn't save themselves, God came himself in Jesus to show us the true way to live, and also to pay the penalty for our sins through his death and resurrection.

He taught us how to love each other, to turn the other cheek, to forgive those who sin against us and to seek the way of peace and harmony. He taught us how we too copuld beat death through him.

Teach this to our kids and we stand a chance of reaping more civilised and more kindly behaviour.

Teach them, generation after generation, that they are no more than animals fighting for survival, and we shouildn't be too surprised if they behave more and more like animals.

Hope that helps you understand my point.

On a second point...

When I write about giving time to our creative agent, I'm suggestiing that we're killing each other one by one because we've left this agent, this God, and his teachings out of our lives.

We've filled the void with Jungle law.

Thanks for your thoughts, Ken.

Incidentally, I posted a long essay once on this site dealing with why the Bible is God's true word.
I could send you a copy if you let me have your email, or I could even re-post the article here. Let me know if you would like either.
Kevin.

Hi James,thanks for your reply,and thanks for giving me credit that i believe one of the books to be a ture,now you will get a completly different rsponse from me than you will do from the recognised church,the reason being is they are still steeped in rituals and imo false beliefs Jesus is not god,but his father is if you accept jesus as the SON of god you will not be taking part in any false religion,but Jesus has been given the power to rule the earth and he will take it back from Satan at some point,he will then judge in his own way and time, not i or you or even Kevins mob,but no James in my thinking it will not be done at first in a boom,boom sort of way,for me the bible does not work that way it will manifest itself over many,many years we wont even notice the changes untill the very end, when at that time a battle will take place and the false religions and wrong does will find out who's who at that time and may we all find the right path,inc me and you James,and if you think that all you need to do is wait for Jesus to return and you will be OK, sorry James but there is a bit more to it than that,but your suggestion of reading the Bible and asking for spiritual guidance whilst you read and study well,of course i would recommend that James.

Kevin

This is an amazing distortion of the truth full of inuendo and misrepresentation.

All attempts to disprove evolution including your grossly inaccurate book are based on such distortion. (I don't have space to itemise all of them,) Kevin you kindly sent me your book as a manuscript and I told you that it was full of serious distortion yet you chose to publish it. Yes I have met Gary Parker and have read his books which depend on sheer misquotation etc.

If anyone is living a lie it is you and the likes of Gary Parker who systematically distort what scientists have in fact said.

I cannot reconcile this with any Christian understanding of honesty.

I suggest you and Gary Parker put your own house in order before trying to expalin horrific behaviour on Mr Darwin

Michael

This is fast becoming an advertisement for some book or other,by the sounds of it,,anyone who wants to believe in the Darwin theory well lat them,and i promise you i would also if you could bring forth eveidence of the missing link,scientist can study and reveal anything they like and debate untill the cows come home ..But what is the answer to the following.

Querie one,,when did evolution of ape to man cease to happen and why?

The honesty of religion?, on that point you have never been more correct imo.

Kevin

You have hit a new low with this one.
Not sufficient that you preach homophobia and misogeny, you now attempt to preach that science is responsible for the ills of society.

Meanwhile, all over the world people kill each other in the name of religion.
Religion is a more more desctructive influence on society than science.

You think science is confusing. Fine. Don' mix it with religion, you will only cause further confusion in your mind which seems unable to understand a basic principle which has been taught in school for over 100 years.
Yes, lets teach everybody that fossils are the animals that couldn;t get onto the ark, as your american colleagues choose to do.
Completely ignores fact, but fits your rather shallow, pathetic and divided views of socieyty.

Every now and again you write something that shows generosity and understanding. This one however is just insulting to anybody that can read.


You fail to mention that youyr supposedly learned doctor is actually, er, a christian fundamentalist. That in absolutely no way at all can be seen as an independent referee and your failure to mention he is a religious crackpot is downright misleading of your audience. Again.

OF COURSE palentologists re-write theories with new evidence. That's part of the basis of science - the more we learn, the more we refine.
Unlike your dogmatic lunacy.

Paying attention to your "agent" has been killing millions for centuries.

The sooner you retire and stop spouting this rubbish the better.

The chimpanzee and the human being have 98.77% idential DNA. This is closer than some breeds of dogs to other breeds of dogs.

He taught us how to love each other, to turn the other cheek, to forgive those who sin against us and to seek the way of peace and harmony

And yet in these pages only a short few weeks ago you were shouting for a return to capital punishment. Your self contradition is hypocricy, nothing less.

Teach them, generation after generation, that they are no more than animals fighting for survival, and we shouildn't be too surprised if they behave more and more like animals.

This is categorically NOT what is taught. Your attempts to mislead and deceive in a most un-christian fashion do not work.

The chimpanzee and the human being have 98.77% idential DNA. This is closer than some breeds of dogs to other breeds of dogs..
--------------------
------------
I dont doubt that we are closely related to this species,but imo not close enough for us to be them or them to be us,there mannerisms also can be viewed as being human like, but for me that is as far as it goes and without the link it is all a pointless arguement.

Hello Michael

You seem to have a problem with anybody who disagrees with you.
Immediately, you judge them to be dishonest.

I've come to understand this unscientific mannerism of yours as a ploy. It seems to be your first and main line of defence, thinking that if you shout loud enough, and write long enough, against the supposed immorality of those who disagree with you, you will win the argument.

You might find this a useful shortcut, but it is tiring for those who have endure it time and again.

I know you feel you've been arguing your evolutionary corner for years and now believe everybody should accept the ideas of Mr. Darwin and yourself without question, but life isn't really like that, is it Michael?

There will always be people who think differently from you, and who have a scientific argument that is contrary to yours.

The true scientific response is to put forward counter arguments, not to accuse everybody who disagrees with you of being dishonest.

This is an unchristian insult to thousands of scientists around the world and an increasing number in this country,who have genuine questions about a 150-year thesis that is beginning to show its age.

Is it really honest of you, Michael, to claim that everybody who disagrees with your take on evolution is dishonest?

Nostradamous wrote:
The chimpanzee and the human being have 98.77% idential DNA. This is closer than some breeds of dogs to other breeds of dogs..--------------
------------------I dont doubt that we are closely related to this species,but imo not close enough for us to be them or them to be us,there mannerisms also can be viewed as being human like, but for me that is as far as it goes and without the link it is all a pointless arguement.

ta-dahhhh

Sequence divergence between humans and apes The complete mapping of the common chimpanzee genome in the summer 2005 showed the genetic difference with humans to be 1.23% (i.e., 98.77% similarity). Nature, in September 2005, published a seminal paper on comparison studies by 67 prominent scientists. Almost half of that 1.23% change belongs to the human at 0.53%, whose genetic variance is slower than a chimp, and just over half to the chimp at 0.7%. If we also take into account that random "genetic drift" takes up the bulk of the 0.54% difference, then that percentage difference where genes have a potential positive impact on human abilities, is between 0.01% and 0.02%. The bonobo is a sibling species of common chimpanzee and is genetically about as different from humans as are common chimps

http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Human_evolu
tionary_genetics

ps it would be a huge mistake to judge the behaviour of chimps as human like! Ask a primateologist! (eg bearing of teeth for humans is a smile, for chimps it's agression)

Kevin

In your book you grossly misrepresent science and that is not only evolution and geology.

Further very few scientists accept a 6 day Creation and those who do like Parker or McIntosh simply continue in misrepresentation.

(BTW I simply dont say whether evolution is right or wrong but that Creationism is utterly utterly false.)

Considewr what you wrote "Fossils are fragments of guesswork and many new finds mean palaeontologists have to rewrite rickety theories." That is both nonsense and misrepresentation of how palaeontologists have worked for over 250 years i.e. long before Darwin wrote.

It does seem that you are unwilling to correct the howlers in yoru book, despite me warning you about them. If you persist in making such false statements then perhaps you could well be lying, though I am hestitant to accuse a fellow vicar of that.

I suggest that in retirement you try to learn a little science !

Michael

thinking that if you shout loud enough, and write long enough, against the supposed immorality of those who disagree with you, you will win the argument.
You might find this a useful shortcut, but it is tiring for those who have endure it time and again.

This is pretty much my opinion of your blogs, where your inaccuracies and falsehoods have been repeatedly pointed out to you - you still regurgitate the same old stuff.

There will always be people who think differently from you, and who have a scientific argument that is contrary to yours.

Yes there will always be people who have a differing scientific argument to Michael. You are not one of them. You have a religious argument with absolutely zero basis in science (your mad-professor noah's ark scientist, whose supposed "argument" has been repeatedly shown to be absolute tosh by the wider scientific community does clearly not count as good evidence)

The true scientific response is to put forward counter arguments, not to accuse everybody who disagrees with you of being dishonest

Quite correct. And yet the headline of your comment is that "darwinism is a lie " HELLOOOOO! pot calling kettle, black speaking.....

This is an unchristian insult to thousands of scientists

so now you are saying that people who disagree with you and correctly point out that you have used inaccuracies and untruths are "insulting" ??
Well then, add me to your list of insulters because there have been countless examples of where you have used your column here to regurgitate untruths and inaccuracies, where you have only used evidence of "christian fundamentalist" science to support your cause...... I could go on.

Teaching six generations of kids that they are merely evolved hairless apes is criminal
MR Children are not taught this.

Maybe even murder! A bit OTT?

Who’s guiltier: the one who teaches that only the strongest most violent survive to evolve,
MR This is a false statement

or the one who puts that teaching into practice with a gun or knife?

A third article I read was a remarkable interview with biology professor Dr Gary Parker who discovered that “the scientific data actually argues against evolution”.

Our kids are killing each other on the basis of an increasingly unscientific lie.
MR who is talking of liars now?

Dr P pursued his doctoral studies in biology and geology,
MR Parker did a Doctor of Education which did not involve research in geology or biology

eventually concluding that Noah’s biblical flood explained the present state of Planet Earth better than his college text books.

Age-of-earth dating methods were so shot through with confusion
MR This is gross misrepresentation to the point of dishonesty. Scientists have been working out geological time through many methods for 350 years and the methods are sound and results consistent

that a fellow professor told Dr, “If creationists ever get hold of this they’d have a field day.” Fossils are fragments of guesswork and many new finds mean palaeontologists have to rewrite rickety theories.

MR more dishonesty

Gary also noted the impossibility of time and chance producing our beautiful and complex planet.

MR a parody of how scientists consider time and chance.

Just as phosphorus, glass and copper work together to make a television only if arranged by human engineers, so DNA and protein will work in productive harmony only if properly ordered by an outside creative agent.

Ignoring this Agent and his loving ways is killing us one by one.

MR Then why do you ignore his 9th commandment then?

I am sorry that you have chosen to misuse your opportunity to write in this paper where you simply make the Gospel a laughing stock

Michael

Hi Joe, i bow to your far superior argument in this debate,i cant agree or disagree with your statements so i cannot accuse you of dishonesty or inaccuraces,BUT i would still ask these very simple questions.

1) Were is the in between guy,you know the not quite man but not quite chimp?

2)when,where and why did this metomorphis cease?

3) so we all started life as an Ameba, but who created the Ameba?

maybe i can secound guess your answer to ? 3,i do have an open mind on the subject but GOOD answers to these simple questions would certainly help me to understand, that all the scientific jargon to be of any point at all.

Quick point: Attendance in churches in the USA has steadily increased ovr the last 25 years. Crime in America has increased over the last 25 years. Therefore, religion is the source of crime. This is exactly the same logic that the ranting rev uses to put down evolution. In both cases the argument is wrong.

Second quick point: Evolution is categorically not "survival of the fittest and jungle law" as the rev so deprocatingly points out. It is adaption to environment.

1) Were is the in between guy,you know the not quite man but not quite chimp?

Usually found on a saturday afternoon at turf moor!
Seriously though, the in-between links between different species are always turning up and causing surprise, debate and argument between scientists. Life has been arouund for billions of years and evolutionary science only for a blink of an eye so it's no surprise that there are still gaps in our knowledge. Who says there is only one missing link? Chimp and human DNA is thought to start to diverge about 10,000,000 years ago. There could be thousands of strains of species in between. We might never find them. Anthropologists suggest the following as candidates (a few examples, there are dozens)
Ardipithecus kedabba (5.5 mya)
Ardipithecus ramidus (4.45 Mya)
Australopithecus anamensis (4.2 Mya)
Australopithecus afarensis (3.8 Mya)
Australopithecus bahrelghazali (3.5 Mya)
Kenyanthropus platyops (3.3 mya)
Australopithecus africanus (3.0 Mya)
Australopithecus garhi (2.5 Mya)
Paranthropus aethiopicus (2.5 Mya)
Paranthropus boisei (1.6 Mya)
Paranthropus robustus (1.6 Mya)
Homo rudolfensis (2.0 Mya)
Homo habilis (1.8 Mya)
Homo ergaster (1.8 Mya)
Homo antecessor (0.8 Mya)

2)when,where and why did this metomorphis cease?

Who says it has ceased? It is going so slow that we cannot physically witness it. Primateologists see completely different patterns of behaviour between (for example) different breeds chimps in different parts of the world. Some breeds are more prone to walking upright than others and have "evolved" differing bone structures over time to adapt to their environments accordingly. Studies of similar breeds of animals in differing environments which would have been identical environments thousands or millions of years ago also demonstrate evolutionary change.

so we all started life as an Ameba, but who created the Ameba?

Oh, that old chestnut! "I can;t explain it so it must be god" - as used by civilisations since the dawn of civilisation to explain what they did not understand.
Just because we can't (yet) explain it, doesn't mean we have to fall back on deity as the answer. - Why not strive to learn instead of blindly accepting doctine designed to enrich those who spout the doctrine?
People used to pray to the sun to rise everymorning before we worked out the basics.
Who created the creator? Who created the cretor that created the creator? Science is on the verge of "abiogenises".......
but even if creation of life is only a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,00
0 event then since the dawn of time in the vastness of the universe it's a certainty.
Maybe if science suceeds, that will be one more religious nonsense thrown in the bin. Along with plenty of other bible teachings proven to be rubbish.

Age-of-earth dating methods were so shot through with confusion

No, they are not. This is a falsehood. The science is proven to a level greater than would apply in a criminal court of law.

Joe i will have to agree to disagree on this one,and not because of my belief in god either,but simply that i dont think your reply stands up,yes i agree evolutionary science is a comparitively new understanding,i would think if evolving was still going on it as you may suggest it would be very apparent in some form of being or animal, even though it maybe a terribly slow process there would still be beings/animals at a very advanced stage of this process if it were to be occuring.
So like you are with the bible, so i will be with all these theories and stats and i will like you folow my instincts.

Really great debate though, many thanks.

Hi Nosty,

The division between Evolutionists and Religionists is a simple one. Both arguments are retrospective. They both have their foundations in the past.

Please allow me to bring both arguments into the light of the present day. Nobody is here to correct History. What is done is done. The past cannot be corrected.

Man is not measured by his mistakes. None of his mistakes will count on the last day. Only the Purity of his Heart will assessed.

It is worth noting that when a man is born into this world his Heart is Pure. It is un-alloyed with the dirt of the world.

Though it is immersed in the dirt of the body it is not yet stained by the dirty reasoning of the world.

The Innocence of an Atheist baby is a Beauty to behold. All babies are Atheists. Until some nut comes along and stamps 'evolution' or 'religion' on them.

Who trained the baby to be a monkey-sinner in the first place is a valid question. I think you will find it is ALWAYS THE ADULTS.

I don't blame them cuz they obviously don't know any better. Someone must have confused them too!

So what is the missing link ? It is not the link between chimps and babies. If there is a link, it has already been established. If there isn't any established link then why should we voluntarily demean ourselves when we don't have to.

There is a link however, between the Mortal Man and the Immortal Being.

I suppose that is why we call ourselves A HUMAN/BEING.

All we need to do is find the Link between the part that is Human and the part that is Being.

There certainly must be some link.

The Mortal and the Immortal are the only two things that can exist in the same place at the same Time.

Now, here, in this world is that very Time.

This is Your Time to find the Link between Your mortal self and Your Immortal self.

Jesus was mortal and Immortal at the same time. The only difference is that he is more Immortal Being than Mortal Body. He evolved from mortal to immortal.

That is what he really showed us.

Jesus was a man, but he had the courage of an Evolutionary!

The same courage is within every man.

James i have just read your reply to my comments and tbh it is beautifull to read,you know you do make a lot of sense and you speak with loads of wisdom,i do like were you are at at this moment in time,good on you mate.

Thank You. It very does mean a lot.

Hi Ken

You wrote:
It is worth
noting that
when a man is
born into this
world his Heart
is Pure.
It is un-alloyed
with the dirt
of the world.

I have two delightful children (now in their 30s) and three grandchildren and none of them had to be taught to be selfish.
Lovely though they all are, they treated us like servants from day one. We were expected to fetch and carry; to be a milk machine; to provide dry nappies at the raise of a voice and wipe their backsides, or face terribly noisy consequences.

And we loved them to bits.

They had to learn to love us, most notably at the age of two or three.

The terrible twos are all about one tiny human being demanding to be in charge; totally selfish; uncaring of others; regardless of loss of sleep or whatever.

And still we loved them.
It's entertaining these days seeing our children having to cope with their delightful handfuls, one of whom illustrates original sin as though she invented it.

I'm afraid, Ken, that all observations run contrary to your belief that our kids come into this world with pure hearts.

They have to learn what a pure heart looks like and then, with the rest of the human race, they have to battle on trying their best - hopefully with supernatural help from the one who made them.

We get our original sin from the past - that which you want to write off.
Write off history, Ken, and all you end up doing is living in an unrealistic present vacuum.
Hope this helps.

I actually agree with you Kevin!!!!

But you still need to get your facts right.

I do and i dont agree,biblicly yes we were all born with the sin of Adam around our necks,but didnt Jesus come to free us from this sin, as long as we accepted him as the son of god and try to live our lives by gods laws.
But how on earth can a new born child have any bad thoughts,it is mankind who put any thoughts or education into there tiny minds and no one else,how does a Chinese child learn to speak Chinese and on the other hand how does an English child learn to speak English? obviously adults teach them.
There are natural instincts in Humans to survive and WE ARE born with these, one of these can be read has selfishness, but in truth it is just grabbing to survive and yes we adults do try to get this natural instinct out of our children, why?,because we see it as bad behaviour.

Maybe this is what you call, learning them to have a pure heart Kevin,,maybe we just have to cull all our natural instincts to have a pure heart,i am quickly starting to realise this you know,and you know what we call this?,well its called civalisation.

Kevin,

You say this about your Children.???

'They had to learn to Love us.'

How do you teach someone to Love. Either you Love or you don't. Any formula or coercion or contracts or conditioning is not Love.

Love has to be Free to be Love, it cannot be taught or construed or be supplied by demand. If it is, it is not Love. Love will never be taught. It cannot be taught.

Love is selfish. Love can be a Tyrant. Love can be inappropriate and it does not consider the social mores or values of any institution or civilisation.

People will fall in Love. That is part of Love. The Church has got very good about judging who should Love who, where and when and what God is the right God we should Love. That is why Religion is so corrupt, because it tries to supercede the Dictate of the Heart.

A little Baby can excite more Love in an ADULT in one fifth of a second than an Adult could learn from any Doctrine. Even if he spent his entire lifetime reading the book of Inventions and praying to himself.

A Baby knows more about selfless Love than any Religion will ever understand. A BABY can Show a GROWN -UP how to ACTUALLY FEEL the LOVE.

Religions will just throw a mountain of words at that baby until it is as confused about the nature of Love as the rest of the congrgation.

Kev,

What People need is simply to 'experience' The Love.

Either it is 'experienced' or it isn't. Either it is felt or it isn't. Love is still a FEELING isn't it ? ......even in Accrington!

Children come into this world in a state of Pure Being. They have a simple and greater connection, a stronger and more concentrated and more 'PURE' connection with their own Being than they do with their 'taught' culturaly imposed identity.

Perhaps I have confused you by using the word Heart. I am referring to the 'Heart of your Being.'

A baby does not know it's sex, it does not know it's name, it does not know it's nationality, whether it is rich or poor or black or white or if it will be a good person or a bad person. A believer or a non-believer. It knows of no God and it knows of no Religion. It does not even know whether the People it is with are it's Parents or not.

It is THE MOST vulnerable of Human kind and all it ever wants is to be Content. It's Contentment means EVERYTHING.

As it grows it will be taught about everything else, it will be reminded of everything else.

And that simple need, that simple 'thirst', that simple 'longing' that little Baby has 'to be Content' will be eroded and ignored.

It will be taught 'to fear' the wrath of some Invented God and will lose touch with that innate sense of Joy and wonder that resides within the Heart of every Being. Young or old, That Feeling is still within all of us.

So I am afraid you are wrong Kev.

We do not need to be 'taught' and we do not need to be 'trained' how to fall in Love with that Beautiful experience of Love.

Though from Time to Time it may be necessary to be reminded that this is the exact reason we are ALL here.

To Bathe in the River of that Beautiful experience that we all carry around with us.

if it was not for that Feeling. We would ALL just be living in a Black and White world.

We can ALL be so, so Thankful for that Beautiful and Perfect Feeling of Contentment.

Hi Nosty,

Whatever you have been told, taught or trained to think. Please, Please, Please remember that there is much more to you than you think!

The Heart of your Being is as Pure as Adam. It will always be PURE!

It has never been anything else but Perfect. Never! Ever!

The worst thing we can do is mis-place or lose the connection with that Part of ourselves. We can get dis-connected.

That which was did-connected can be re-connected. No Problem!

I mean that which was dis-connected can be re-connected.

It is what Jesus did.

Hi Ken

I suggested we had to teach our kids to love us because they started life concerned only for No. One - at least as far as weeing, bum cleaning and weaning and milking was concerned.

You suggested that you can't teach love. It just happens. And maybe you're right in some respects.

For instance, I didn't need one single lesson before falling in love with my wife. It happened one evening when I wasn't really expecting it.

On the other hand, I needed quite a few lessons before I came to treat my two brothers with love. I'm the middle one and sometimes I played on the other two without mercy.

My mother was a good teacher, if rather violent by today's questionable standards. She used the boiler stick, a coat hanger, or the back of her hand to educate me in that sweet-and-sour thing called brotherly love. By the time she had finished, I loved my two brothers, or else!

Actuslly, it worked fine. A Lifetime later we, all three, now get on with great affection. We ahve indeed learned how to love one another.

Now, consider love of parents.

They loved us.
Mother hammered civilisation into her three heartbreaking rebel sons while Dad nagged us into submission. He was a pacifist and didn't believe in hitting us with his fists. Rather, he hit us repeatedly with wounding words and long-drawnout criticisms of our 'orrrible behaviour. He invented verbal Chinese torture, going on and on and on... until we submitted (or blew up in his face in later life).

Yet, the end product was love - I owe them so much.
Both are dead, and much missed.
They taught me what family love was all about. They cared enough not to spare the rod and they ended up making me care.

C.S. Lewis of Narnia fame wrote that there were four loves

1. Affection in the family,
2. Friendship beyond the family,
3. Eros - for the wife, and finally
4. A new kind of loving.

This last one used to be called Charity. The Bible word for it is Agape (pronouced Ag-a-pay, sorry if you know this).

It's a supernatural kind of loving that loves even though the person is unlovely, unloveable and does not love you. This kind of loving is more to do with the will than the feelings.

This love says, "I'm will love this person even though it kills me."

This is the love that God in Jesus had for us when he died on the cross of Calvary to take our punishment.

Is love taught or caught, Ken?

One of the four loves - eros - comes naturally. I would suggest that the remaining three have to be taught.

Sorry to be so long-winded.
Will try to do better next time.
Kevin.

Hi Kevin i do realise that you are answering James here,but can i just say before i give my reply in this debate,along with many other reasons that i have realised your church is unchristian,another reason is highlighted in this column,yes you are not inclusive my friend and i found that kind of thing went on on in all your church congretatons there were church goers who were allways on the fringe of the congregation, you are completly talking past people Kevin,James is inclusive,Joe as been inclusive but you for some reason only feel you need to include James,any reason why i ask?

I think we all confuse Love with respect and there is a big difference,if you get beat into submission then imo,it can be read in two ways,you may be the brunt of a persons anger because you are found to be in the way,unwanted child for instance, or you may have a parent who is going through a bad financial or emotional period,not all discipline is to show how much you love someone.
Then you get the hell fire type of parent who says that this is the way you must lead your life our way and no other way will do,that in there way is showing love,but can have devastating results on the children.
You can respect your Brothers,father and sister but i think we all love our mother from birth and yes you dont have to learn to love her, you can learn to respect her though,when you love someone there is no apparent reason for the loving it just is there,i was once talking to a secretary at work,a girl who liked the highlife and if the boy friend didnt have a big car or a boat on the lakes and spent money for fun she would not touch him,she then met this bricklayer and her life completly changed he took her down his local pub on a sat night and things were completly different,when i asked why the change she said that she had never felt ths way ever before and she would go anywhere,dress in anything just as long as she was with him,they are now on there 28th year of marraige,now that is love imo.you do not learn that kind of love.

In some ways we can say that we love god,but maybe we respect god it is a fine line between them both,i think when a time comes that you have to be tested,you will stand up and die for what you love ,with respect you will not,that would be the ultimate test.

Hi Kev,

I understand what you are saying, though I would say that you were taught and learnt, why not to hate.

In the case of your brothers your Parents showed, or tried to show you how to get along with each other. They educated you all into understanding that anger, animosity and dis-respecting each other was not the appropriate option. So that when you all understood that these were destructive traits existing in your relationships, you would not add any energy to nourish them and allow these traits to grow into insurmountable barriers between you.

Nobody is Perfect. But wisdom is often about seeing the uglyness within ourselves and not feeding it. It takes courage to look at the uglyness sometimes. there is a place for uglyness and sometimes we have to be cruel with that uglyness in order to recognise it and destroy it.

People around us are only emblematic of the uglyness within us that obscures the Beautiful Flowering of our Being. we are ALL here to BLOOM! Sometimes we take it out on the People, the emblems of our stains. Wisdom is recognising that what we do not appreciate in others has a direct connection with our striving for Perfection.

Our worst enemy is actually our best friend because our worst enemies are highlighting the un-conscious thorns that have been allowed to grow in the garden of our Hear-felt Perfection.

The wise remove the thorns within themselves. They cannot enter the Perfect Garden with their thorns.

This would also, no doubt lead to a more peaceful household for Mums and Dads.

My argument is that all we can really do is remove the 'obstacles' to Love. That would be the work, the task, the responsibility that you and your wife set about with your own children. Simply Removing the barriers, the obstacles, the thorns to love and affection rather than trying to create love and affection.

A Breath is Agape, if I understand the word correctly, because it comes and brings Life to both the goodies and the badies. The Best and the Worst have all been dependent on the same Gift of Life. Whatever the deeds. Without any conditions. Unconditional.

A Breath say's I will support and not abandon this Person even though this Person ignores me and disregards me and does terrible deeds. A Breath says "I will never abandon you no matter what!

A Breath says "I will fill the sinners and the saints with the same Gift of Life. Without any Judgement."

I did not know that word agape, so thanks Kev for increasing my vocabulary!

In my opinion, Love is to be 'Refined' that is the work of a Lover, to refine and refine and refine and refine and refine the Love. To remove the weeds and the thorns and the dirt and the ambiguity and the fear and the doubt and the guilt and the confusion.

Not to define Love, but to Refine it.

email - mountainseven@yahoo.
co.uk - I would be happy to read your article byt the way.