Andy-
Blimey, even I have known some good people who hardly ever do anything particularly bad. So how can I possibly judge from the distance of 2000 years whether Jesus did or did not? I dont know – and nor do you and nor does anyone.

Hi Andy-
I think you make some good points. Spoiled by the fact that you hypothesise on no basis about my own views of Jesus. Any NT student’s views will be some distance from the views of a typical churchgoer.

Unless you think that Jesus was someone who actually made mistakes, did evil things, and was occassionally stupid and incorrect about things (and I’m thinking I’m on fairly safe ground with the assumption that you don’t), then what I said was a completely accurate statement of your belief.

By the way, haven’t you just basically admitted that your entire argument against JS:TO is completely wrong?

There is, of course, a conceptual link between selfishness (wanting to be in charge of everything ourselves) and criticism of authority.

errr….. no.

I criticise my local councillers over several things. But I don’t think I should run the refuse collection service, or set my council tax rate. I criticise Tony Blair for supporting faith schools, but I don’t think I should be running the education system myself.

Criticism of authority is an essential part of any free society. If we aren’t allowed to do it, we live under a dictatorship, not a democracy.

In the past (and the present day in some parts of the world) people have been killed for disagreeing with authority. A Christian should be well aware of that……

I sometimes feel we should be more self-critical about our societal tendency to criticise anyone in authority.
There is, of course, a conceptual link between selfishness (wanting to be in charge of everything ourselves) and criticism of authority. TW3 etc marked a sea-change here from around 1963 on – and since then we have witnessed a lot of the sort of adolescent behaviour that might be expected of ppl who refuse to be told what to do, and always think that they know best. I should say that a fixation with criticising authority is liable to be a sign of an adolescent society, since all will agree that that is the precise age-group for which the shortcomings of authority are a big issue.
Plenty of authority figures (not all) work very hard for us. They got put there because (in many cases) they were public-spirited and outstanding. How about us?
Of course, all authority figures should be accountable. And we dont want to become the sort of state where criticism of authority leads to arrest. But one can go too far. Remember that many of those (e.g. journalists) who want public figures to be accountable would never agree to be accountable themselves. Just as many of those who expect high standards of Christians would never think of living up to those standards themselves.

And, to be frank, as these religious figures believe that clearly fictional stories are fact, they deserve to have the piss taken out of them.

The Word: The complaints I recall involved: (a) ministers etc being invited on and being shown pornography; (b) a Mother Superior being asked to comment on the assets of various naked men in the studio. However, I have an idea that the latter was broadcast on April 1st, and she may not have been a MS at all. None of which takes away from the fact that this particular feature was chosen for broadcast rather than any other. Why? Because there is an urge to juxtapose supposedly holy ppl with debauched/depraved material, as proven by the perennial success of The News of the World etc.. As I mentioned, I can hypothesise (can’t we all?) about the reasons for this urge.

As, Joe pointed out in comment #1, both islam and hinduism have had the mickey taken out of them on telly before, thus giving the lie to the retardverend’s statement

Anyway, JSTO is not like the word because the word was a zoo-format tv entertainment show, and jsto is a musical, and a damn fine one at that