Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

From wikipedia:

Nietzsche then analyzes the history of Christianity, finding it to be a progressively grosser distortion of the teachings of Jesus. He criticizes the early Christians for turning Jesus into a martyr and Jesus' life into a story of the redemption of mankind in order to gain power over the masses, finding them to be cowardly, vulgar, and resentful. He argues that Christianity had become more and more corrupted, as successive generations further misunderstood the life of Jesus. By the 19th century, Nietzsche concludes, Christianity had become so worldly as to be a parody of itself--a total inversion of a worldview which was, in the beginning, nihilistic.

Let me state again, I fully believe in Jesus as saviour (Nietzsche clearly did not) but I do not believe that The Church is accurately reflecting His teachings -- and so many Christians I have met are cowardly, vulgar and resentful. They are no more so than the rest of us, of humanity, but I expect the ratio to be a lot less than the rest of humanity (otherwise the Christian way of life is - well - no different from the non-Christian way of life). But I do not see that the ratio is less at all.

This is a real an active struggle in my response to modern Christianity -- I met a Greek Grandmaster on the chess server last week (you meet these people when they want something - ie. your rating points :-). We messaged and it transpired that we were both Christians. Later during the conversation I told him that some chess programmers had thought that he (the greek grandmaster) has used a chess computer (breaking the rules). His response was that he would spit on them and they should go to hell. Then I reminded him that it's not up to him who goes to hell but God, and he said "that is unfair and a shame".

Note: Analyzing his games it would appear that he did use a computer, but just to avoid blunders. He was a minor sub 2600 GM, but playing like a 2800.

I see this all the time on the 'net. He said "I am a Christian too". Really. One can be a Christian and act in such a way?

This might be a UK thing, but another real concern. My daughter had a friend for a sleepover last night, they were up til all hours - the little tykes - they eventually went to sleep around midnight. Her friend left this morning, picked up by her parents at 10am for Church. I heard the two girls talking at breakfast whilst I was washing up ..

My daughter "What do you like best about going to Church?"
Her friend "Drinking the wine"
My daughter "What's that like"
Her friend "It makes you feel all warm inside, not cold. That's the best bit, I wouldn't miss it".

At this point I chimed in:

"Surely they don't use real wine, it's just ribena juice or something right?"

Her friend "No it is real wine, but just a very small amount".

I'm not sure what my point is, but something is not right. Anyway, I will have to read some of the original works of Neitzsche, rather than taking Wikipedia's word for it.

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Contemplation of an infinite onion that is.

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I am listening to a song that says the average age of the combat soldier in WWII was 26 and it Vietnam it was 19.

One thing that you have maintained throughout and that I wholeheartedly agree with is this: we need external help to get out of this mess, we cannot do it on our own.