A 'Net friend wrote in message .

> Sean McHugh wrote:

<> > Why are

> you here bashing Christians/Christianity anyway? At least I don't feel a

need to > hang around with, and befriend, ppl I supposedly disdain, and seek

sympathy from > those who I consider to be stupid and irrelevant.

>

> > Don't get me wrong; my opinion of you is such that I

> > would like you to maintain your stance.

>

> My opinion of you is going downhill day by day.

>

> > Sean McHugh

>

> ok.. two can play that childish game;

>

>

> Pete.

Now that's a good question. Why do Sean, Chris, and Barry (and some others)

frequent this newsgroup?

I think our task with questions like this is not to weep or laugh or rage but to understand. Reading between the lines, I've never seen/read Sean so fired up (sorry about the pun) as he was in the Prayer/Bushfires thread. It's obvious why, I think: his home was in danger, and I hope we're all sensitive to that... Barry is pedantic about ppl and U.S. spellings and is generally negative: but over the last year or so his _positive_ contributions to discussions have increased. Chris has been quiet lately (fathering? holidaying :-)?

My hunch is that from what I've read of the stories of these three highly intelligent people in particular, there's a history there... And I dare to hope that those of us who follow Jesus (note I'm _not_ using the word 'Christians': not all 'Christians' follow Jesus, and as the article on my website says, I don't think Jesus was a 'Christian' in terms of the major modern understandings of that term)...Anyway... where was I? Oh, yes... I hope Jesus-followers will show some restraint/patience in responding to the offerings of atheists.

I believe they add spice to this group - more so, IMO, than the tiresome offerings of various fundamentalist spammers from North America...

But more importantly, I think there's a challenge for us wowsers, I mean Jesus-followers, in the old saying 'Those who are searching for God have already been found by God'. Now there's a piece of classical wisdom that fundamentalists might like to ponder :-)

Happy New Year to everyone!

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