Your own personal sofa

The phone rang earlier this evening. My ever entertaining flatmate picked it up, and started to say "Salut" but only got half-way through before changing her mind and saying "Allo" instead. This was an error, because she thus greeted her poor friend Christophe with "Salaud".

I expect that kind of thing happens all the time.

Meanwhile, I had a bath today, and in doing so made the mistake of reading Christian propaganda that Mutti had "accidentally" left lying around. Last time she did this, it was a book arguing the case for the Easter story, which was so well constructed and argued that I had to go to the rather extreme measure of reading a 300-page book entitled "Et l'homme créa les dieux" before returning to normal. This time, it was a small booklet bearing the legend, "Christianity: Boring, Untrue and Irrelevant?"

I assume the title was intended to be rhetorical. Suffice to say that I was expecting a rather better argument than:

"Christianity is far from boring, it is not untrue and it is not irrelevant. On the contrary, it is exciting, true, and relevant."

You may think that I'm taking a quote out of context to make it look silly. I guess you'll either have to read it yourself, or just believe me when I say I'm Really Really Not. Anyway, that's not the main point. We continue:

"Men and women were created to live in a relationship with God. Without that relationship there will always be a hunger, an emptiness, a feeling that something is missing."

So, let's see how he backs this up.

The author goes on to quote various people (Prince Charles, Bernard Levin, Tolstoy) explaining how, despite having fulfilled many material and earthly desires, there still is some kind of feeling of lack. It finishes with Freddy Mercury's quote "success has ... prevented me from having the one thing we all need - a loving, ongoing relationship." Our intrepid author continues:

"He was right to speak of an 'ongoing relationship' as the one thing we all need. Yet no human relationship will satisfy entirely, nor can it be completely ongoing. There will always be something missing. That is because we were created to live in a relationship with God."

Woah! Wild assumptions and sweeping generalisations have never been so on target.

(Tragically for the author, statements do not become more convincing each time you repeat them.)

Let me propose an illustration. Imagine that one day I sit down in a tired and collapsing manner, but have neglected to ensure that there is a sofa below my arse, which could easily happen as I'm pretty stupid like that. In this case, my arse desperately needed an ongoing relationship with a solid surface at an appropriate height. Unfortunately, such a relationship did not come to fruition, and the arse subsequently develops an acute sense that a solid surface was missing. That is because the arse was created to live in a relationship with the Sofa. But that doesn't mean the Sofa exists. The Sofa was never there, and the fact you can feel its absence does not imply its existence. Yes.

Sodomy in Refomation Germany and Switzerland 1400-1600 by Helmut Puff: still far and away the greatest single Christian bookstore item in all history

One final argument. Get a cuppa and take your time reading it. The author is comparing the "intellectual acceptance of the Truth" to the "knowledge that Jesus Christ... IS the Truth".

"Suppose that before I met my wife Pippa I had read a book about her. Then, after reading the book, I thought, 'This sounds like a wonderful woman. This is the person I want to marry.' There would be a big difference in my state of mind then - intellectually convinced that she was a wonderful person - and my state of mind now after the experience of many years of marriage from which I can say, 'I know she is a wonderful person.' "

Quite apart from resenting the rather smug implication, "I am a person capable of maintaining a functional relationship" (no, your esteemed blogger hasn't figured how to do that quite yet) I have some other issues with this. The idea seems to be that a Christian has intellectually accepted Jesus as the Truth, as well as experiencing the knowledge that Jesus is the Truth, in the same way that a dude intellectually accepts his wife is the One, as well as experiencing the knowledge that she is the One. Again this seems a totally alien concept to me, but let's leave me out of this for a bit and assume some dudes feel like that about their Wummun. Let us venture that it would be completely ludicrous to suggest all dudes should feel like this about the same Wummun. After all, everyone knows that there are 50% dudes and 50% Wimmin in this world and so everyone has one perfect soulmate!!!!! Dudes are all different and a Wummun who could become the One for Gerald or Juan might be a complete turn-off for Peter and Frederick. In the same way, I feel it is completely ludicrous to suggest that the same Jesus is right for everyone. And, going out on a controversial limb here, I don't even think that all Christians believe in the same Jesus. Look at, er, Northern Ireland frog sample.

Mmm I can feel some Depeche Mode coming on.

In an interesting development, "Tim-meh!" now signs in as "I am not acting like a freeeeak!!!". Well, that remains open to debate my dear, but the First Degree Bintery charges have been dropped. Enjoy your exams, and that goes to anyone else reading this who is currently doing finals.