Alpha Course

[Norfolk And Chance]

This is superb.

Make sure you stick it to them harder and harder, week upon week - they shouldn't be allowed to hold their stupid views unchallenged.

Very much looking forward to the next installment, hopefully you might reduce one of them to tears or something.

[pgrimes15]

Alpha Course Week 6 - 15th November

Very sorry everyone but I did not go this week. I have quite a bad cold and am coughing quite a lot - think I might have bronchitis. Next session as the awayday on Saturday. I will make every effort to go , should be OK by then. The topic is "Who is the Holy Spirit". Any ideas about how to tackle this issue from an atheist perspective would be appreciated.

regards

pgrimes15

[fr0d0]

Get well soon Grimesey

[pgrimes15]

Alpha course away day 19th November

10.00.-.16.00

Feeling a bit better after my bout of bronchitis though still coughing from time to time. I arrived on time at the away day venue which was a village hall about 15 mins drive from the church where the rest of the course is held. Why could this not have been done at the church, saving the expense of hiring the hall ? Well , I think the Alpha course structure requires a change of venue and I have some sympathy with it, a change of scenery, even if it's just a few miles away can have a psychological impact and break out of the weekly routine. My impression before I arrived was that this is the moment where the evangelising goes into full throttle. The amateur psychologist in me observes that the fresh venue plus the experience of seeing the holy spirit in action with speaking in tongues, rolling on the floor overcome by the spirit etc. is designed to deliver a double whammy “coup-de-grace”, and the agnostics or doubters, having been softened up during the preceding weeks finally crumble, accepting Jesus as their saviour. Did this happen with me? Well read on.

The day started off with coffee and biscuits followed by “opening worship” - singing a few “Jesus is great” type songs with guitar strumming. I like a sing-song, having been a chorister many years ago, and would have joined in, but I didn't know any of the tunes. This is one way in which the modern church makes itself exclusive – the songs (hymns) are ones that no outsider has ever heard.

This was followed by a talk about the holy spirit from the vicar – standard stuff surely for any regular church goer. In fact any pretence about the Alpha Courses' tag line “Explore the meaning of life” seems to have been discarded – this is straight forward preaching. This was followed by coffee, then another talk from the vicar “What does the holy spirit do?” - much the same as before – pure preaching, everyone else must have felt it was Sunday.

There was half an hour set aside for discussion, and the groups were different from the usual weekly ones, there were 3 , and I was with the vicar, “female church elder”, 2 of the ladies from my weekly meal group and the Portuguese lady of about 30 years. The discussion started with what the holy spirit feels like, and the 2 meal group ladies spoke about the nice feelings they had about it. I did not think this was an appropriate time to get all heavy and confrontational, so I just contributed a question about why the HS is considered male (because God is male) . Later on I asked whether the other members of the group where able to distinguish which part of the Trinity they felt “You hear people saying I feel the presence of God or Jesus spoke to me – how can you tell which is which?” Well it's all just god isn't it? The Portuguese lady spoke and as before it was almost impossible to work out what she was saying, and, as before, she burst into tears - “female church elder” had to get her some tissues. I still don't know what she cries about, if anything, - maybe the love of HS just gets to her. One thing I noticed was that the when the 2 ladies from meal group spoke, they were like children at Sunday school trying to impress the vicar “My uncle always said the HS is like eating an orange, you can't describe it to anyone they have to try it for themselves” If you could have taken their words and superimposed them on some 6 year old children it would have sounded OK – and these are women in their 60's and 70's. Religion infantilises people.

Lunch followed – it was a buffet with pork pies, sandwiches, crisps etc. and some good cheesecakes and stuff. Not bad. I think it was all bought in from a supermarket, but it was very satisfactory. I had quite a long talk with another lady who gave me her testimony. For those that don't know what this is, every Christian has a story about the incident or occasion when they “came to God” - this is their testimony. She described how she had read a story in the local paper about a sick child, on a spur-of- the-moment decision visited the family as a complete stranger to offer help, and subsequently became involved with the family to the extent that the child died in her arms. She naturally gave God the credit for this. I said “The reason that this story about the child moved you is that YOU are a good person. Don't do yourself a disservice. The goodness is coming from deep within YOU – not some magic man in the sky” or words to that effect. I genuinely think that my words gave her pause for thought.

The afternoon was another 15 min talk from the vicar “How can I be filled with the Spirit?” followed by 75 mins for “invitation to prayer”. Several prayer groups where set up in private rooms, and the rest of us were told not to chat but to quietly reflect and come to one of the groups if we wanted. This is obviously where the agnostics/doubters were supposed to give it some thought, then capitulate and go to be prayed for, accepting Jesus as their Lord amidst much tears and rejoicing. Did that happen to me? Well read on.

Following this session there was scheduled some closing worship (singing) and that was it. I decided that there was not much left for me here, so I decided that I might as well leave. (yes – you've guessed I did not accept Jesus as my saviour – sorry about the teasing earlier on). I did not want to just sneak off so I went to one of the private rooms to say that I was going to leave. Plenty of eyes on me as I did that !!. I met with “father” and his wife – and with my agreement they prayed with me (they were praying – I wasn't – but where's the harm !), and left.

That was the end of the away day. I felt that they were not really fulfilling the “wow” factor that the course was designed to impart at this stage – but it was quite an enjoyable morning. I am beginning to like a lot of the people on the course and I feel they are warming to me too – my worry is that this will constrain me when I need to be most strident in my condemnation of some of the ridiculous aspects of religion. We shall see.

Next session Monday - “How can I resist evil?”

regards

pgrimes15

[Kree]

I love getting into meaningful conversations with believers and challenging them to question their beliefs, though it's often an exercise in futility as you know.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread, so thanks and please keep it going.

[pgrimes15]

Alpha Course week 7 - 21st November

How can I resist evil?

The meal this week was pasta (fusilli – the corkscrew one) with tuna in a creamy tomato sauce. The pasta was overcooked so a bit sloppy. There was also garlic bread and some salad. Pudding was some custard with jelly and something biscuity sprinkled on top. This was not the best week for food. As I sat there in my usual end listening to my group of ladies talking about their grandchildren for the umpteenth time I suddenly felt a weariness come over me and thought “What am I doing here? With these people who I don't really have anything in common with.”. No doubt this feeling was enhanced by the fact that we had the weekend away day only last Saturday. It would be nice to have an ally here, or at least to hear occasionally “That's a good point”. Still, enough of feeling sorry for myself.

Numbers – 20 people – 6 men

The Talk

The talk was on the subject “How can I resist evil ?” given by the “senior lay-person” who had spoken in week 3. He started by warning that Satan exists and by way of evidence pointing out all the bad stuff that happens in the world. It immediately occurred to me that bad stuff happening could also be evidence that God does not exist. There followed warnings about the tactics of the Devil – putting bad thoughts in peoples' minds, making them doubt etc. This was quite apocalyptic stuff, a bit more juicy and old school compared to previous weeks. He quoted the atheist director of the film “The Exorcist” as saying “I don't believe in God, but the Devil is another thing” and also mentioned atheism playing havoc with peoples lives. Clearly this was the old slur that atheists are devil worshippers. Next he talked about the battle between good and evil, and introduced the D-day analogy – the crucifixion of Jesus was like D-day, a turning point in the war but not the end of it. The defeat of Satan in the end days will be like VE-day, and the time in between is the “mopping up” operation. I'm sure this analogy fails in many ways, but can't be bothered to analyse it. Then , how can we defend themselves against Satan? Well Christians have an armoury of defences, “shield of righteousness, helmet of salvation . .etc” this all sounds a bit silly to me. Finally bible verses are supposedly effective. It occurred to me that the Devil must have a free hand in countries like Japan where there are not many Christians – I will bring it up in the discussion.


The Group Session.

The groups are now the same as they were at the weekend. Perhaps I am getting paranoid, but it seems that I have now been separated from the younger people who may remember and ponder my arguments. I feel manoeuvred into a group where I might be less “dangerous” to peoples faith. The group I am in now consists of the vicar, “female church elder” (a lady of about 80), the two meal group ladies in their 60's and 70's – long standing church members, and the hard to understand Portuguese lady. I started the discussion by stating in a very firm manner “Atheists do NOT believe in or worship the Devil !!” - felt I needed to be very clear on this. The “talking-book” system had gone away which I was very glad of so I launched into my first question “What do people actually mean by evil ? Is a little child stealing a biscuit evil in the same way as the Dunblane massacre (where a gunman shot dead school children), but is simply at the other end ot the scale of severity, or is evil something different entirely?. This went back to a question I had asked in week 2 about what is the difference between sin, crime, wrong etc. There was a little bit of discussion, but I made a mistake in mentioning a little child stealing biscuits because that was the cue for one of the meal group ladies to launch into a long winded tale about her grandchild who wanted a biscuit. This went on so long and in such a meandering fashion that even the vicar was trying to chivvy her along. As usual my original point “If you are talking about the battle between good and evil, you should at least have a working definition of evil” was lost.

Onto my next question “Presumably the people in a country like Japan where there are not many Christians are virtually unprotected from the Devils' schemes. They have their own local deities, but since they are false God's they might as well asked for Mickey mouse to protect them - Satan must have a free hand. Yet from what I know about Japan it is a fairly orderly place – people aren't running around in the streets killing themselves, how do you explain that ?”
The Portuguese lady spoke about it, but as before it was almost impossible to understand what she was saying. I am getting the feeling that it is not just her accent, but the content of what she is saying that is undecipherable – and as before she almost, but not quite, started to cry, I could see her eyes filling up. The “female church elder” contributed that maybe Japan is in a state of chaos but we just don't hear about it – I responded that my son has been to Japan and I know some Japanese people and my impression is that it is not a place you would fear for your life when visiting, particularly compared to an overtly Christian country like USA. As before my question goes virtually unaddressed – this seems to be the pattern, either “we haven't got all the answers” (Christians spin this into a virtue – the fewer answers you have the more “faith” you've got) or wait till I've stopped speaking and move onto something else.

Still press on regardless - “Why doesn't God just kill the Devil?”
This question, to my surprise, was greeted with a stunned silence !! Surely people must have considered this before !! I pressed on “Presumably he could do this if he wanted, what's stopping him ? You could still have your “got to believe in Jesus” qualification, but all of those nasty things would stop and everyone would feel better wouldn't they?” Nobody had an answer except that it says in Revelation that God will defeat Satan at the end. “Surely God doesn't have to stick to a schedule ?” Nothing of any substance came back – good question !! but wasted on this lot – some of the people on the other groups should hear it !!

“Why did God let the Devil into the garden of Eden, couldn't he have put a fence up?” “Female church elder” came back that he wanted to see if they would obey him. “Well if you were a grandparent and let your grand children play in the garden with a tree with poisonous fruit and a dangerous snake you would be acting very irresponsibly wouldn't you?” The vicar conceded that this was hard to explain, even volunteering the information that God knew what would happen. I said “So you put some childlike people in a garden with a poisonous tree and a dangerous snake both of which you made and allowed to be there, KNOWING IN ADVANCE that they would eat the poison fruit – it was a set-up wasn't it ?” The vicar lamely stated that it wasn't a set-up. This is all good stuff but I might as well be talking to myself. Bring back the good old days of jousting with “father”!!

Again I had made the mistake of mentioning grandparents and grandchildren because meal group lady launched into another interminable story about her grandson – thankfully not involving snakes and trees, and that took us to the end of the session.

Feel that they have learned how to deal with me – put me in a group with people who are either deeply entrenched in the church hierarchy or will not understand my arguments and will just wait till I've stopped speaking, and then talk about their grandchildren again. Above all keep me away from anyone under 30.

Helped put chairs away then said goodbye.

Next week “Why and How should I tell others?”

regards

pgrimes15

[downbeatplumb]

I find these posts fascinating.
You sir, have much more patience than I.

[Heather]

Awesome thread. I love reading this. Thank you for sharing! And ditto on the patience... it takes a lot to sit through all of those discussions.

[Norfolk And Chance]

I'd have swore prolifically, endlessly attempted to belittle the theists and stormed out of the meetings 84 times already.

[pgrimes15]

Thanks for the replies. I always try to be patient because if you become too combative it gives the believers an "out" - an excuse not to address themselves to the questions you have posed.

regards

grimesy