Of course the Old Testament talks about all sorts of things being sinful we can’t see any harm in, but perhaps that’s because they were referring to a cultural code, which the ancient Jews employed to keep themselves separate from the people around them. At least some of the dietary laws may have been about staying healthy in a hot climate and so based on common sense.

There are some people who call themselves Christians who like to concentrate on the Old Testament and their understanding of God’s judgement there.

However, the original meaning of Christian is follower of Christ, so I would argue that a genuine Christian looks to Jesus first and foremost for guidance on how to live.

It is widely known that God’s peace is a translation of the word Shalom, which means wholeness & completeness, health, prosperity and complete well-being in mind & body etc. Even some Evangelical Christians acknowledge that.

I’m reading a very interesting book at present, Noel Moules’ Fingerprints of Fire, Footprints of Peace, in which he claims that God’s judgement is about restoration and reconciliation, the purification of evil, not the eternal destruction of people who have done evil things.

Much theological understanding today is resting on the shoulders of older theologies, in which the original intentions of God have been distorted either through poor understanding or through deliberate attempts to control and even exploit ordinary people. I expect this happened to some extent quite early on when different groups wanted to adopt Christianity but make it fit their way of thinking a bit more and this would have been the case especially when people with no understanding of Jewish thinking became Christians.

I’m sure Noel Moules has his own way of looking at things, but his book does seem to be based on serious scholarship, so I would think it is factually correct, even if you disagree with the conclusions he draws.

Several years ago when I felt I could not continue going to church, one of the books, which gave me a portrait of Jesus I could recognise far more than many of those painted by some Christians was Thich Nhat Hanh’s living Buddha, Living Christ.

I’m heartened to see that some well-known Evangelicals are moving away from much that I did not like about Evangelicalism. In my opinion, anyone who really questions those ideas and reads books other than those written by approved Evangelical authors cannot fail to do so.

God may expect a lot from us, but there is always a good reason, based on his desire for our well-being as individuals and as a wider society, as is always the case with a truly loving parent. As such she will not sentence any of her children to an eternity of torment and separation.

Jewish story-telling often was more focused on the truths it wanted to illustrate than the “facts of the case.” We westerners, with our DNA testing and our carbon-14 dating get lost in the facts and miss the entire point of the story. And, if the facts don’t satisfy our standard of proof, many render the entire account a “lie” and therefore totally worthless. Which is quite sad.

(I actually wrote about her not long ago. She has been making men uncomfortable for a very long time.)

It is very hard to adopt the 1st & 2nd century way of thinking with which they were written and even harder to determine which bits might be fact, which bits could be true but in a metaphorical or other non-factual sense and which bits reflect the beliefs of the communities in which the ideas in these documents originated.

The texts themselves are worth serious study as are all ancient texts; even a shopping list can throw some light on how people lived and history can inform the present.

The ideas we have today, based on our false understanding of these texts, do need to be challenged, however.

Christianity has developed over a long period of time and there has always been more than one way of understanding the Bible, although often only one way has been deemed to be the official ‘right’ way.

Today the ‘right’ way isn’t always based on the most accurate translation of the Bible or the most up to date research. As far as I can, I like to find out more about the way the Bible is translated and what light modern studies, whether textual, archaeological or any other relevant studies, can throw on our understanding of the Bible, such as the people who wrote it, the customs they observed and the way they viewed the world etc.

I consider people to be misguided if they follow teaching that has no real foundation, such as the concept of hell, which is not really mentioned in the Bible. Whether everything in the Bible is fact or not is another matter, but those who believe in hell will probably tell you their belief is based on what the Bible says, which shows just how little they know their Bible. Some older translations do use the word ‘hell’, but this is not now seen as an accurate translation. Sheol and Hades were deemed to be places people went to when they died whatever they did right or wrong by Jews and Greeks respectively . Only Satan and his angels are to be thrown into the ‘pit’ in Revelations and that book of the Bible was not written to be taken literally.

I consider people who hold different views from me to be people who hold different views from me, perhaps because they see things differently, perhaps because they have had different experiences or for a number of other reasons. Sometimes they are right, sometimes I am wrong, sometimes there is more than one correct way to see something, or we are both partly right and/or partly wrong.

I don’t think the Christianity I believe in is ‘sweet’. It is quite demanding and I sometimes wonder if I’m up to the challenge. I’m pretty sure God isn’t ‘sweet’. I think it’s best not to define God too precisely because she is bound to surprise us and it might not be in a good way. My idea of Christianity is far more about the here and now than about the after life and it doesn’t put too high a value on just going to church on Sunday and singing hymns, especially if the hymns are bland and meaningless. Jesus seemed much more concerned with how people live now, in treating people justly, in bringing about God’s kingdom where compassion for others is the guiding principle.

I don’t dismiss all other forms of Christianity. Time has enabled me to see that some, perhaps all, forms of Christianity have something to offer, but they are all human constructs and as such flawed, just as my own ideas must be.

I have much more confidence in what I believe these days and that does help me be less angry and more respectful of those with other beliefs, whether Christian or non-Christian, but that’s not the same as being a very confident person.

Living in a place with few Muslims I do not fear them nor would I be afraid to speak out against things some Muslims do that are basically crimes, but I believe strongly that it is important to respect others’ beliefs if there is to be any chance of a more peaceful world.

You seem to be using ‘respect’ in the sense of a feeling of appreciative, often deferential regard or esteem.

My use of ‘respect’ is in the sense of to treat courteously or considerately and not violate a person’s sense of honour or self-respect, in other words to value other people as individuals. This is not to say that I don’t sometimes struggle to feel respect towards some people.

It’s amazing how two people can seem to be speaking the same language, yet be saying very different things.

You don’t understand my son’s and the religion thing but that is OK.

But I understand that you have your own flavor of Christianity and think that people that don’t have your view are “misguided”. You have a very nice, sweet Christian where God is love and would not send people to Hell. You have your own view of how to view the Bible that allows you to do that and probably equally feel that those that don’t have your view are “misguided”.

You are very “confident in yourself” and thus can dismiss all the other forms of Christianity, of course without any disrespect.

You may continue being respectful to Muslims who believe in killing infidels because you are afraid of what they may do to you. We’ll just have to leave it to others to speak out against such thing so you can continue to live in your safe world.