"Kim Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said > "Conversations with God" by Neale Donald Walsch (Hodder and Stoughton > 1995) is "a bloddy good read" as we like to say here in Australia
I think myself that one problem with such books is that they are very Christian oriented. I recently heard a lecture by David Tacey (Latrobe U, Melbourne) which really sounded as if it had a lot of good ideas buried in it and was reasonably broad minded. Probably both his books and those of Walsch are well worth reading by anyone with the time. Then I read details of his stuff on the Web. It was simply Christian, little more. e.g. no Hinduism, which I actually prefer generally to Christianity at this time. I felt 'let down'. And Moslems, Buddhists, extreme agnostics and freethinkers might well feel 'let down' also, just as I did. No blame to Tacey, but Christianity is now a rather minor religion, relatively speaking. That is probably another good reason for Bruno to keep dogmatism out of any serious spiritual work if he contemplates writing it. But one only has to look at the current cartoon riots to see that these matters are important. Many people just do not see it. As for example the fact is that many honestly consider the prophet Mohammed to have been a pedophile That is a fact occurring in very many cartoons but NOT the Danish ones, e.g. the fact is referred to in http://www.homa.org/ , a cartoon-free URL, I think, incidentally. There is elsewhere on the web a picture of the prophet Mohammed with a large erection with a frightened small child who is going to be forced to submit etc. etc., the cartoon is enough to make a Christian to want to murder any Moslem or anyone who could support Islamic ideas and it could well be fair comment. Maybe the Moslems have guilty consciences and that is one reason for their protests. These matters are certainly unsavory but writing a book on theology without dogma is worth considering. Worse could be said about Christians. The gospel according to Mary Magdalene is becoming more popular nowadays, as well as the apparently common buggery by priests and bishops of one another and small boys.That is almost a clerical joke by now! One feels like saying after a service, 'Poor sermon today, weren't you buggered by the Bishop last night?'. All most unseemly, Sodom and Gomorrha definitely come to mind. And indeed so does global warming and the lack of Church efforts in that regard. Instead the fools trifle with frivolities. They want Sodom and Gomorrha, it seems, and that is probably what they will get.
