Here is another discussion from the same forum, and likely the last one I will participate in, as this thread prompted a forum-wide ban on “controversial” topics. The topic was taken off the board as well, but I saved this while it was still up.

Celtic Mist on 30.11. at 08:42

Could Christianity be a rip off of a plethora of Religions?

The “God” and the “Jesus” that Christians worship today are actually amalgams formed out of ancient pagan gods. The idea of a “virgin birth”, “burial in a rock tomb”, “resurrection after 3 days” and “eating of body and drinking of blood” had nothing to do with Jesus. All of the rituals in Christianity are completely man-made. Christianity is a snow ball that rolled over a dozen pagan religions. As the snowball grew, it freely attached pagan rituals in order to be more palatable to converts. You can find accounts like these in popular literature:

“The vestiges of pagan religion in Christian symbology are undeniable. Egyptian sun disks became the halos of Catholic saints. Pictograms of Isis nursing her miraculously conceived son Horus became the blueprint for our modern images of the Virgin Mary nursing Baby Jesus. And virtually all the elements of the Catholic ritual – the miter, the altar, the doxology, and communion, the act of “God-eating” – were taken directly from earlier pagan mystery religions.”

“Nothing in Christianity is original. The pre-Christian God Mithras – called the Son of God and the Light of the World – was born on December 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected in three days. By the way, December 25 is also the birthday or Osiris, Adonis, and Dionysus. The newborn Krishna was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Even Christianity’s weekly holy day was stolen from the pagans.”

http://altreligion.about.com/library/weekly/aa052902a.htm

linko163 today at 01:39
christianity is one of its own not a rip off what makes it different from every thing else is that Jesus actually came to earth and died for us something no pagan gods or anything else for that matter could do

Angacam today at 01:45
There are countless stories of Martyrs in countless religeons. Just as there are Flood stories dateing back as far as Sumeria and Mesopotamia. The same as almost every major theme of the old testiment can be traced with care back to other more ancient stories from even more ancient religeons and societies. While I have no doubt Jesus was a living man. His claims of divine lineage have been seen and heard in many other places by many other prophits of many other gods and belief systems. What seperated Chistianity from the rest was that age old thing, that one thing that ensures a survivable institution. Money and hence power.

linko163 today at 01:52
that is because every religion wants to have their own Jesus which is not right because there is only one Jesus and the reason they are traced back to many legends is because they had to be told somehow until they were written and put toghether to make the bible

Angacam today at 02:03
Son, these stories predate the bible, christianity, and judaism which was the root of christianity. I spent 15 years studying comparative religeons. The major world religeons all have relativly the same root docturns and belief structures because they all share common oral origins. There is no real differense between them in theory only in practice, which is due to variations of interpritation.

linko163 today at 04:06
but that’s your problem son you don’t know what i have studied either i have spent all my life studing many religions and the difference stories that do predate the bible but let me tell you this the bible is just a book a book with God’s word yes but just a book and Jesus walked the earth and everything the bible was created after he died so no doubt there was stories like that before hand but Christianity is totally different from everything else because God is real Jesus is real and so is satan that is what is so different about everything else all pagan religions and their gods they are not real NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTT RRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL

Angacam today at 04:17
They were as real to there worshipers as Christianity is to you. It is all a mater of view point. To dispell others beliefs as “not real” simply because YOU do not believe in them is the hieght of arrogance and is one of the main problems with Monotheism. Each one wants to lay claims to being the “true” path. This same claim is made by Islamic Imans, Jewish Rabi, and Christian Priests. Each are just as arrogant as the other each are just as blinded as the other. the ones that truely see are the ones who are open minded enough to say that each has it place, that each is correct as it is a mater of the interpritation of gods word as he gave it to each of the founders of the said religeon.

Gamaliel87 today at 08:55
Linko163, you need to learn to use punctuation. After you learn this we’ll address run-on sentences.

I believe Christianity is an original religion that began with the same events that the Bible says took place. However, I agree with the about.com article in that a lot of the Catholic symbolism we know today was added later – e.g. the mother-and-child obsession, the halos, incense, feast days, the altered doctrine of communion, and much more – came from pagan religions and rituals that were popular during the time when government-sponsored “Christianity” was trying to become more popular among the people of that time.

As far as the other things Angacam mentioned, I don’t have an exhaustive answer but I’ll offer some thoughts:

1. There’s a difference with Christianity that none of these other religions have in common: the claim that people cannot better themselves or save themselves from their wickedness, and that God-become-man died to take man’s punishment. Every other religion you’ll come across talks about doing the right things in order that one may be saved. Christianity turns this doctrine on its head by talking about being saved in order that one may do the right things. Where does that come from?

2. How do we know that prehistoric evidence of Christianity-like beliefs in other cultures actually predates the Christian/Jewish faith? Experts say so, but as we all know people tend to find things that support their beliefs. Adding that to the unreliability of many dating and archeological methods and the amount of guesswork that comes into play, can we know for sure that what the experts say is correct?

Angacam said: “The ones that truly see are the ones who are open-minded enough to say that each [religion] has its place, that each is correct as it is a matter of the interpretation of god’s word as he gave it to each of the founders of the said religion.”

3. How can religions with mutually exclusive teachings all be correct? I realize that people view this sort of “rightness” in a vague, both-and, what-works-for-you spiritual sense, but what if there is more substance and epistemological realness to these teachings than we think? If we truly believe that one thing is true, how can we believe that an opposing truth is correct is someone else believes it? Are we just missing the logic, or do we not actually take it seriously enough to wonder why it doesn’t add up?

4. If difference in religion is a matter of the interpretation of God’s word, is there more than one God, or did he give conflicting revelations to different people? The most-followed world religions are monotheistic. If we’re actually willing to believe that there are either multiple and diametrically opposed revelations from one almighty God, or that there are many little gods who each successfully claim to be exclusive and all-powerful, do we actually believe in any God at all?

5. One last thing: The claim that no belief holds a monopoly over any other belief is problematic. To say that truth is relative (i.e. whatever someone wants to believe is true for them) is a bit of a paradox, because you are admitting you can’t know for sure whether or not that is true! Is there any chance that people who say there isn’t absolute truth or absolute rules or an absolute God might be wrong? When you think about it that way, it seems like the only way to avoid this paradox would be if there actually is absolute truth in some camp or other. Even nature might give us a clue, if we look in the right places: after all, gravity isn’t subject to interpretation yet.

linko163 today at 15:32 Quote
ok this may not be on subject but it will say that we can’t create anything from nothing. Stick your hand out in front of you and try to make something. What did you make? That’s right nothing so if we can’t make ourselves then who did. God did.

Angacam today at 16:03 Quote
OH for ***** sake.

Angacam today at 16:11 Quote
Linko,
You are trying to use proofs that have no basis in reality.

Because I cant do it it must have been God
Because the bible says so it must be true

This is completely rediculous as a proof of gods existance.

I can’t make a Computer but that does not mean it takes God to do it.
I have read the Hobbit but that does not mean Dragons are real.

Religeon is a matter of faith nothing more nothing less. What you believe is no less valid than what I believe. Your truths are not false simply because i have a different set of writtings that spell it out in a different order and call God by another name.

Your type of narrow minded thinking is exactly the type of thinking that leads to fundementalism and blood shed over religeon and has done so for thousands of years far longer than even christianity has been around.

This world will swiftly pass away
But You remain, You remain
Riches will fade, and names will be forgotten
Oh, Bread of Life
Only You satisfy
I put my hope in You

‘Cause You are all I need
My portion forever
The strength of my heart
And my life
My sufficiency
In You I take refuge
You’re my all when all is gone

Whom have I in heaven or earth?
Only You, Lord, only You
My flesh and heart may fail
But never my Redeemer
The grass withers, the flowers fall
But Your promises are sure

The best of earth could not compare
To You, my Savior
Lord, You are my treasure
This world is not my home
I will trust in You alone
I will trust in You alone

- Matt Papa

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

- Psalm 73:25-28

From a “Tribal Wars” message board.
Celtic Mist on 27.11. at 21:34
According to most religions, hell is where the bad people go when they die. Having been raised as a Christian, I’ve simply accepted this belief without giving it much thought (although the idea has always bothered me). But lately I’ve been mulling over the subject, and I must say that the idea of eternal damnation seems inconsistent with the nature of the God that we are taught to believe in.

Below I have outlined my principle arguments against the concept of hell.

1. Mercy – Our merciful God will send our souls to hell for all of eternity if we’re bad. Even I’m more merciful than that; I couldn’t imagine punishing someone that way. How can I be more merciful than God is?

2. Belief – One has to believe in God to achieve Heaven. Failure to believe will result in eternal damnation. Yet the Bible says that ultimately everybody will believe in God. Yet “unbelieving” souls will be sent to eternal damnation anyway?

3. Faith – I have faith in God, why doesn’t God have faith in us? Our souls will be eternally damned if we don’t get it right during this brief physical existence (one can only call it “brief” since the hereafter lasts for the rest of time)? You mean to tell me that once we die here, we’re beyond hope, that our souls cannot possibly improve afterwards? How is it that I have more faith in the human spirit than God does?

4. Judgement – “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Jesus said this, yet according to the Bible we’ll all be judged anyways–some going to heaven, others going to hell. How can God expect us to do something that He is unwilling/unable to do Himself?

5. Heaven – Sounds nice … until I remember that people who I have cared for, who have shaped me as a person during my life, are suffering and will continue to suffer forever. This is the happiness my soul has been striving for?–to live forever knowing that those who helped me become the person that I am are suffering? Doesn’t sound very heavenly to me.

6. Forgiveness – I am to forgive all who trespass against me. But God isn’t doing that; He’s sending people to hell. Forever. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Apparently, I’m more forgiving than God is.

7. Wisdom – God knew/knows everything that’s to become of us … long before we were even created. Therefore it seems some of us were created to suffer forever. Hell is the only solution to our weaknesses of sin and disbelief? I could think of better ways to cleanse men’s souls of such blights. Why can’t God?

8. Justice – I believe bad deeds should be punished. But eternal suffering? To me, that’s not justice, it’s cruelty.

9. Love – God loves us. Loves us so much that He sacrificed His only son to save us (although His son rose from the dead 3 days later, which God Himself knew beforehand). Yet some people will suffer eternal torment in the afterlife. It doesn’t make much sense to me to send people you “love” to an endless existence of suffering.

Keep in mind these are philosophical arguments. I’m not really interested in responses like, “Well the Bible, Koran, etc. says hell exists so it must be there.” Instead I’m curious as to how people reconcile a loving, merciful, and compassionate God with a concept like hell. I’m also curious to see how many people have even questioned the idea. I haven’t come to a definitive conclusion either way, so I’m looking forward to what others think.

Keep in mind, this isn’t a debate about the existence of God, it is about the existence of hell. So please don’t turn this into yet another debate about whether or not God is real. If you don’t believe in God, good for you. But arguing against His existence grossly misses the point of this discussion.
__________________

Gamaliel87 today at 17:24

Celtic Mist, for the purpose of this debate I’m going to assume that God exists as described in the Bible, since you’re also assuming that, and I believe the Bible can answer these questions about Hell and the nature of God.

1. Mercy – Our merciful God will send our souls to hell for all of eternity if we’re bad. Even I’m more merciful than that; I couldn’t imagine punishing someone that way. How can I be more merciful than God is?

You’re not more merciful than God. What makes God different from us is that He is completely holy. God is without sin. He has never, can never, and will never do anything that is not in perfect accordance with His character. As a result, God cannot tolerate even the smallest amount of sin or disobedience. This is not the least bit unfair or judgmental on God’s part – he created us, and he has the right to tell us how to behave.
So this sounds like everyone automatically goes to hell. If (a) God exists, and (b) God is holy, and (c) God cannot tolerate sin, and (d) people have sinned, then (e) there must be a place without God where sinners have to end up. We may assume this is hell. Where does the mercy come in?
Here’s what makes God more merciful than you or any of us. According to the Bible, God’s plan to save people from His own punishment was accomplished by Jesus Christ. He is God’s Son, one of the three persons of the Godhead (which would take an awfully long time to explain here, so bear with me). Basically, Jesus is God, having become Man, in order that He could take God’s punishment for everyone’s sin and give us a way to reconcile with God and go to Heaven.
There are a lot of things that would take extra time to explain here, but this is the gist: God is more merciful than you, or me, or any of us – because despite God’s hatred for sin and his inability to tolerate even the slightest deviation from what he requires, he had Jesus – his Son – take the unimaginable punishment for that sin so that he could be friends with us again, here on earth, and welcome us to Heaven after we die. He loves us on Jesus’ behalf, if we believe that his sacrifice is enough to save us and that we can’t do it ourselves.
We can be “merciful” and tolerate sin for a different reason – we sin too, so why judge? This is exactly right – just realize that God can’t overlook it that way. The only way God can overlook sin is by the horrifying arrangement he made with his Son – that he would punish Him for it, and the Son would take it on behalf of humanity. God doesn’t forgive people who think they are good enough. You have to realize that the sacrifice of Jesus is the only thing that’s enough to save you. If there wasn’t a hell, there wouldn’t need to be a sacrifice.

2. Belief – One has to believe in God to achieve Heaven. Failure to believe will result in eternal damnation. Yet the Bible says that ultimately everybody will believe in God. Yet “unbelieving” souls will be sent to eternal damnation anyway?

I believe in God. So do you. So do most of the people on this board. So do demons (if you believe they exist; I do), and so did many of the most horrible people who ever lived. Most people believe there’s a God. The difference is whether you believe what he says.
God says you need to trust in the sacrifice of Jesus for your sin. Those who believe they can’t save themselves but His death saves them will be forgiven. People who do not believe this on earth will believe it in hell!! In hell, people KNOW how they should have lived and what they should have done. But there are no second chances there.

3. Faith – I have faith in God, why doesn’t God have faith in us? Our souls will be eternally damned if we don’t get it right during this brief physical existence (one can only call it “brief” since the hereafter lasts for the rest of time)? You mean to tell me that once we die here, we’re beyond hope, that our souls cannot possibly improve afterwards? How is it that I have more faith in the human spirit than God does?

The reason why God does not have as much “faith” in the human spirit is because God knows us better than we do. God made us from scratch and designed everything about us, and it is His plan for this earth to be the place that destines whether people spend eternity with him, or not. I believe that in heaven, we will be growing and learning and improving as people. There will be a lot of stuff going on, and we will always be developing and discovering new things. God is infinitely creative, and I’m confident that believers will always be discovering new aspects of his creativity in heaven.
The deal with hell is, once again, it’s separation from God. You want to say that people will change and develop anywhere, but the fact is that God created change and development. Those are good things that He made for us. In hell, we won’t have any of the good things He made. People talk about hell being a companionable place – but fellowship is a good thing that God made, and there won’t be any in hell. It would be worth stepping back for a minute and thinking about your assumptions of hell, and what you think we’ll be able to do there. If you believe that God created everything that is good, then not only does it mean that all of those good things will be in heaven, but also that they won’t be in hell.

4. Judgement – “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” Jesus said this, yet according to the Bible we’ll all be judged anyways–some going to heaven, others going to hell. How can God expect us to do something that He is unwilling/unable to do Himself?

The entire verse you quoted goes like this: “Judge not, [so] that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
What Jesus is saying here is that we have no business judging people who sin just like we do. He is reminding us that we are every bit as subject to judgment as the people we judge, and that we are treading on thin ice when we try to be self-righteous at another person’s expense because we are every bit as flawed and unholy as they are.
The reason why God does not want us to judge each other is because it is HIS place to judge, not ours. God is not held to the same standard that we are. He is without sin and he has never sinned. It is the business of God, the Creator, to judge people. When we judge people, we are stealing and misplacing authority that belongs only to God.
God doesn’t have a double standard here. You can’t say that He is sinning by doing something that He tells us not to do. The reason is, this is a sin that involves humans doing what only God is supposed to do. God also tells us not to call ourselves God. This is because only HE is God! It is completely right for God to call himself God, but it would be a sin for us to do that. Judging other people is the same way. When we place ourselves above another person because of their bad actions, we are doing something that only God has a right to do.

5. Heaven – Sounds nice … until I remember that people who I have cared for, who have shaped me as a person during my life, are suffering and will continue to suffer forever. This is the happiness my soul has been striving for?–to live forever knowing that those who helped me become the person that I am are suffering? Doesn’t sound very heavenly to me.

I don’t have a very good answer for this question. I wish I knew more about it. But I know that for someone to go to hell is even more heartbreaking for God than it is for us. God brutally punished his Son so that we could be brought back to Him, and for someone not to accept and believe in that sacrifice is unspeakably tragic. God punished Jesus so that we would not need to suffer hell. He didn’t have to do that to save us. He would have been perfectly just in sending us all there. But because of his incredible love and mercy, He chose to make a way for us to be saved – the only way. When a loved one does not accept that way, the God who created them and planned that Way is even more grieved than we are. This should underscore the urgency of making sure people understand this God and the salvation He offers.

6. Forgiveness – I am to forgive all who trespass against me. But God isn’t doing that; He’s sending people to hell. Forever. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Apparently, I’m more forgiving than God is.

Are you more forgiving than God is? Really?
I’m not going to run through question number 1 again, but you guys can probably figure this out. For us to forgive another person, we need to overlook the sin of one person against another sinner. People wrong each other all the time (and yet we as humans are surprisingly unforgiving sometimes). But for God to forgive someone – His own creation who is in direct affront to everything He is, and whom He cannot accept with even the smallest amount of sin, something much more serious needs to happen.
As we’ve already discussed, God can’t overlook sin. He is holy and perfect. Sin cannot exist in His presence. In order to forgive sinful people, He had to punish Jesus for EVERY SIN that we committed. This is a big freaking deal and hopefully it may make a little more sense why God can’t just shrug off offenses the way we can or should.
But, incredibly, since God DID punish Jesus for our sin, He can forgive us! It has to be on His terms though – He’s not going to take the sacrifice lightly. We have to know that the sacrifice is why we’re forgiven. We have to know that we didn’t earn it ourselves.
God is way more forgiving than we will ever be! Have you ever endured unimaginable torment for the sake of a wrong that someone else did to you? Multiply that by all the wrongs ever done? God is not the guilty party. He is the offended party. We’ve wronged Him, and yet HE is the one who initiated the process of forgiveness.

7. Wisdom – God knew/knows everything that’s to become of us … long before we were even created. Therefore it seems some of us were created to suffer forever. Hell is the only solution to our weaknesses of sin and disbelief? I could think of better ways to cleanse men’s souls of such blights. Why can’t God?

God did think of a better way. He planned our salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice. But, again, it all comes down to the fact that we have to accept it on His terms. It’s not easy, because we like to think we can save ourselves. Once we know that we can’t, God will show us that the punishment of Jesus is enough to save us.

8. Justice – I believe bad deeds should be punished. But eternal suffering? To me, that’s not justice, it’s cruelty.

It’s easy for any of us to think that, but we need to remember that we have no idea of the extent to which God is offended by our sin. Because we all sin, and we all live among people who sin, it seems like something that can be overlooked. But God can’t overlook a single thing. He is being merciful to us now by sustaining our lives, giving us air to breathe, and giving us a chance to know Him. We don’t deserve that. As a sinful people, we deserve to be apart from God, and yet God is giving us many of his blessings in this life – love, friendship, beauty, choices, sustainability, capacity to learn, and so much more. This is because he wants people to have a chance to know Him and be saved! If we do not take that chance, then after we die here we’ll be separated from Him. Keep in mind that all good things are made by God. Hell is separation from Him. If we sin, we don’t get to be with God anymore, and to not be with God means to be separated from everything good that he has made. That’s what hell is.

9. Love – God loves us. Loves us so much that He sacrificed His only son to save us (although His son rose from the dead 3 days later, which God Himself knew beforehand). Yet some people will suffer eternal torment in the afterlife. It doesn’t make much sense to me to send people you “love” to an endless existence of suffering.

God cannot tolerate sin. And yet – His love was so great that He poured out His wrath for sin on Jesus Christ to give us a chance to be forgiven. All He asks is that we accept this sacrifice on His terms. If God forgave sin without a sacrifice, He would not be God. He is merciful, but He is also perfectly just. The sacrifice of Jesus is the only way that God’s justice can be satisfied and He can show people mercy. No one can be forgiven except by the work of Jesus.

Yes, God loves us. He sent Jesus to die for us. This is the most powerful expression of love ever shown. God was the offended party, and yet He bore the pain of punishment so that we could be reconciled.

But we have to accept Him on His terms.

With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

- Micah 6:6-8

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

- Psalm 51:16-17

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”

then he adds,

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”

Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

- Hebrews 10:11-18

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”

A look is such a simple thing, yet the object of our gaze is of crucial moment in the direction and delight of our souls. Our fragile eyes see only what God hath placed before them to see, and so our souls may only gaze on such beauty as He reveals to us. But, believer, what things hath he revealed! — “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit!” The Spirit yearns for us to see; places fresh visions within our gaze daily; quickens our hearts to better love Christ; speaks, yea, cries out to us from the pages of Scripture, ever making known to us the mysteries of salvation. We have only to look; to turn our heads from the mad questions and madder answers offered by this world and to cast a glance upon the wonders Jesus affords. Dear believer, what will he not afford! As he did for Christian when he fixed his eyes upon the light instead of the miry Despond, as he did for the great persecutor Saul when his eyes were at last opened to the light of Christ, will he not do so and more for you? “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” Art thou weary, beloved? Look to Jesus, and find there rest. Dost love him too little? Look upon Him more, and so find thy love increased. Art thou weary of life, and doubting His promise? Cast thy gaze upon Him, and find there hope. Art thou guilty? look unto Him, and find there absolution. If, after all this, dost thou still sin? Look, beloved, look, look unto Him, and look again, for “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Look unto Jesus, I say, for his promise is surety enough, and his love will never fail.

School has started.

Week One went well enough: classes began, syllabi were distributed, freshmen intimidated, and OB events attended. On Saturday I got to go down to Pittsburgh with Dan and Kyle and Josh Skipper, to work on Dan’s parents’ property. We spent the day clearing foliage, burning brush, sawing wood, and chopping down trees. It was an agreeable, though exhausting, sort of work.  I’m still feeling the effects of an unusual amount of exercise today. I wish I could do that kind of work more often so that I don’t always feel miserable for several days afterward.

Today has been Labor Day, so classes won’t resume again until tomorrow.

In brass methods class I have been issued a brand-new trumpet which is mine for the next several weeks.

In the orchestra I got drafted to play the string bass, so I am trying to learn how to do that.

I’ve been playing the cymbals in marching band.

My voice lessons and percussion lessons are on Thursdays, before and after choral conducting class.

Right now I have to go to Shakespeare rehearsal (I’m in As You Like It), and then the inaugural rehearsal for the GCC Men’s Glee Club.

More later?

And as they walked Piglet said nothing, because he couldn’t think of anything, and Pooh said nothing, because he was thinking of a poem. And when he had thought of it he began:

What shall we do about poor little Tigger?
If he never eats nothing he’ll never get bigger.
He doesn’t like honey and haycorns and thistles
Because of the taste and because of the bristles.
And all the good things which an animal likes
Have the wrong sort of swallow or too many spikes.

“He’s quite big enough anyhow,” said Piglet.
“He isn’t really very big.”
“Well he seems so.”
Pooh was thoughtful when he heard this, and then he murmured to himself:

But whatever his weight in pounds, shillings,
and ounces,
He always seems bigger because of his bounces.

“And that’s the whole poem,” he said. “Do you like it, Piglet?”
“All except the shillings,” said Piglet. “I don’t think they ought to be there.”
“They wanted to come in after the pounds,” explained Pooh, ” so I let them. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” said Piglet.

“After all,” said Rabbit to himself, “Christopher Robin depends on Me.  He’s fond of Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore, and so am I,  but they haven’t any Brain.  Not to notice.  And he respects Owl, because you can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything.  There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.”

        “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at
last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”

        “What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What  do  you  say,
Piglet?”

        “I  say,  I  wonder  what’s  going  to  happen exciting
to-day?” said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully.

        “It’s the same thing,” he said.

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

excellent

good work

good work