Comments

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=80 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" bgproperties="fixed" background="03f00500dvldtc.gif"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Arial" ><B>The Reverend James</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Reverend James"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Quotes"><U>Quotes</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U>Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Skinny Archive"><U>Skinny Archive</U></A>   |   <B>Comments</B>   |   <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mail Archive"><U>Mail Archive</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U>Contact Me</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="040d2c00dvldtc.gif"> <div> <IMG SRC="13fb8e10.gif" border=0 width="184" height="225" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> What do you have to say? <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#FF3399" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=400 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> Comments</div> <div> My Dear James,</div> <div>  I have been a fan of your site for quite some time now, and because of the appalling lack of response from anyone else recently, I feel the need to send you a bit of something. First, I must warn you about playing with your balls while viewing the news - you are most likely going to rub them raw - you could get a horrible infection - and they could swell to 4 times their normal size (something to brag about until they become so unfuckingcomfortable you wish you could lop them off with a weed wacker). So beware. I rarely disagree with you or your skinny comments. This month''s skinny is no exception. The state of the world in general is going to hell in the proverbial handbasket. And I believe the moral fiber of the ENTIRE world is being destroyed by organized religion. If it weren''t for THAT bastard, there would be no: WAR; FAMINE; CLASS SEPARATION; MISOGYNY; or just plain general INTOLERANCE. When you think about it - everything in the world now that sucks, came about because of some religious need to dominate. Things really started to go in the shitter when christianity was born - that seems to be about the time rampant destruction of entire civilizations began. I am not quite in the mood for a rant of my own right now - I just wanted to let you know that you are being heard, and agreed with. Keep up with your mind candy, not enough people your age give enough of a shit about anything to learn anymore. Careful with the unchecked hatred, it does eventually erode whatever you have that props you up every day. You are an intelligent enough young man to have figured that out on your own, however, so I will quit with the advice giving. Keep stirring up shit man - the world needs more shit-stirrers! </div> <div> - B</div> <bR> <div> Well it's nice to know at least one person still reads my little mind droppings!  Also, congratulations since you are the first person to use my new comments section, which I put up <U>over</U> <U>a</U> <U>month</U> <U>ago</U>.  I wish I had a prize to give you, but I hope my thanks will suffice.  Anyway, it's nice to finally get some feedback and some feedback I agree with, no less.  I hope this will encourage other people to write in their comments, so I can add them to my new comments page I just created, since you popped the cherry on my comment box.  When you do get in a rant mood make sure you direct it my way so I can post it up.  That also goes for anyone else who has the mind or the spine for it.</div> <div> Stirring my shit with a big spoon...</div> <div> The Rev.</div> <bR> <div> Be sure your sins will find you out</div> <div> - No name given</div> <bR> <div> I thought Jesus died for my sins; are you saying he died in vain?  Blasphemer!</div> <bR> <div> C''mon, James. I can only read the same skinny for so long without wanting to stab my eyeballs out with a sharp pencil. Gimme something new to look at, eh? </div> <div> - B</div> <bR> <div> I'm in a transition period; I think I might be planning a new web page....stay</div> <div> tuned.</div> <bR> <div>  <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0099FF" FACE="Arial" >Can''t wait till we get to hell so i can pound yer dumb ass.. </FONT></div> <div> - Furry Hater</div> <bR> <div> I can't wait either, especially to meet someone who spells "your" as "yer".</div> <div> Fuck any of your relatives lately, cracker?  Oh, and why do you hate furry so much? Did your cat stop returning your calls after you had your way with it?   I always thought furry things were nice.  Can't wait to meet you in hell!</div> <bR> <div> Hey there, </div> <div> I'm not writing with all sorts of arguements or accusations or irritating remarks, I just wanted to write because I randomly came across your site and after reading wanted to tell you a few things that crossed my heart and mind. </div> <div> I first and foremost want to say that if I could choose one thing to say to you, it would be that I love you. No, wait, wait -- not some sort of crazy "love" that's truly a mislabel of something along the lines of lust or like or sympathy or infatuation or any other thing you could think of to lamely fill in the blank. I love you because I know that you have a seriously valuable spirit! </div> <div> The person you are, the talents and strengths that you have, the brilliant things that make you tick -- the passions that you have -- they're all part of an amazing, one-of-a-kind being. James, seriously, no one has ever or will ever exist who is identical to you. This is your life, you are you -- two awesome gifts if you ask me! </div> <div> Now, you might already have written me off as a crazy person for somewhere who just decided to write a random email of half-baked nice-sounding ramblings - but, it's only fair of me to tell you a little bit about who I am. </div> <div> I'm a never-normal and always unique 19 almost 20 year old college student. I live in Oregon. At first glance, I'm similar to countless other people in my same position. I'm in school full time, studying to complete my major, I've got friends and relatives, I work part time, I live, eat, breathe, exist here and now in this very real world. You've got all this down by now... </div> <div> Anyway, the thing is, I want to live a genuine life. </div> <div> This world is full of so many fakes and rip offs. It's full of so much disillusion and misunderstanding. It's full of horrors and atrocities. It's full of vile things. But you know what? The reason that there's such a thing as "fools gold" is because the very real thing actually exists! Want to know why we call certain pieces of paper and coinage "confederate money"? It's because it's a fake copy of a very REAL thing. </div> <div> Religions are tossed around and tossed altogether as readily as salads. (Pardon my lame bit of humor. Couldn't quite resist.) But why on earth would there be so many copies and attempts unless there was a REAL thing? </div> <div> I've seen, I've witnessed, and I've believed lies -- but now I am pursuing the truth. </div> <div> Please, I'm asking you, please consider that the truth is there to be found and lived. Please consider that the truth exposes the lies and gives understanding. Please understand that in centuries and centuries of misconceptions and missing the boat, believers have fallen and have sinned in just as many ways and manners as those who couldn't give a penny about God. But why should that surprise you? Yes, people who've experienced changed hearts should be acting changed, but I've never come across a super human who's suddenly changed into a perfect, sinless creature capable of doing only good. That's unrealistic, and that's NOT THE POINT. Christianity isn't about perfect people, Christianity is about grace (among other things). </div> <div> Christianity -- though twisted and turned by some into a literal farce, though sucked completely dry of all true meaning and reality by those that live behind facades, hypocrisy, and lies -- is the true gold that only discerning seekers will find. You can't complain when you only search far enough to find fools gold and then discover that it isn't worth a cent! You can't condemn fakes for being anything more than what they are. You can't settle for nothing. PLEASE -- search for the truth. Search for the real thing. </div> <div> My guess is that by now you've finished laughing in my face and you're just cycling through the myriad retorts that you think will put me in my place and shut me up. But really, like I said, I didn't write to argue or anything like that. I just wanted to offer a little more hope than your twisted experience with Catholicism left you with. I wanted to be a genuine person (even though email puts total distance between us) and reach out to you - whoever you are deep down inside. </div> <div> If you ever want to write, I'm here. If not, no worries. Just please think about what I said? </div> <div> I saw your long list of quotes on your site, so I thought I'd send a few to you as well... </div> <div> Take care? </div> <div> Bethany </div> <bR> <div> "Jesus replied, 'If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water...the water I give...takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within...giving...eternal life." ~ John 4:10,13 </div> <bR> <div> "This is the message he has given us to announce to you: God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying is we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in truth. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin. If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from every wrong...." ~ 1 John 1:5-9 </div> <bR> <div> "It is not our intention to build up merely a bigger and better god, who may be just as artificially as any of the unattractive galaxy we have discarded. What we are going to try to do is to open the windows of the mind and spirit - to put it crudely, to enlarge the aperture through which the light of the true God may shine. If a man lives in a light-proof room the sun may shine in dazzling splendour and the man himself will know nothing of it. He may light himself a candle or he may bore a hole in his prison. In the first case, he can never have more than an artificial glimmer, and in the second he will get only a tiny glimps of real daylight. Some of the gods we have considered are nothing more than artificial; some of then are inadequate pin-hole glimpses of the true Light. What we are going to try to do, then, is not to light fresh candles but to take down the shutters. There is no reason why we should be content with the candle or the pin-hole if a little determined thinking and a little sincere action will remove the shutters." </div> <div> ~ J.B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small </div> <bR> <div> "...This pathetic idea of being 'something special' is clung to with desperation, so that we find worshippers of the negative god who know in their secret hearts that their lives cannot really exhibit any superior qualities to those of their 'worldly' or 'worldly Christian' friends, clinging tightly to their rules of 'seperateness' - so that they may at least feel that they are marked out as the especial favourites of their god! </div> <div> "All this is very unattractive and unpleasant, but is is quite common among religious people. The question for them is: dare they defy and break away from this imaginary god with the perpetual frown and find the One who is the great Positive, who gives life, courage and joy, and wants His sons and daughters to stand on their own feet?" </div> <div> ~ J. B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small</div> <bR> <div> Well, well, well</div> <div> It's about time I got a really good heartfelt letter from someone.  I might disagree with you but I respect your point of view.  I think you misjudge me,  Bethany, I wouldn't dream of putting you in your place or shutting you up.  In fact I would love for you to write back to my page anytime.  I also think you my readers would enjoy the attempt at converting the Rev.  However I think you simplify my beliefs with your letter.  You make me sound empty or shallow or unhappy  just because I refuse to <U>believe</U> in Christianity. I assure I am not any of those, as anyone who knows me can attest to. I enjoy Christianity, I'm a really big fan of Jesus, he is one of my favorite philosophers.  However I can't ignore 2000 years of human evolution just because the bible says so.  I also enjoy many other religions especially the eastern ones.  So here is my challenge to you Bethany why not give another religion a try.  Who's to say Christianity isn't the "fools gold".  Maybe Taoism is the real thing your looking for, or Islam for that matter, they love Jesus too.  As far as the "truth" is concerned, I think you have it confused with hope, because there is no "truth" in the bible only stories.  Not one book is based on <U>fact</U>, and in order for something to be true it must be able to be proven and the bible can't.</div> <div> Thanks for your letter write back anytime</div> <div> The Rev.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>