The Dream Factory

Today's Poll from the Religion Forum

What has been most instrumental and formative in your religious views?
	Family/culture
	Reading/study
	Religious training
	Defining moment
	Search for truth
	Conversion experience
	Catostrophic event

To participate in this poll, visit the Religion Forum or go directly to the POLL and DISCUSSION.

Tomb of Jesus Discussion

I just opened a discussion of the Tomb of Jesus in the Religion Forum. This will link you directly to the discussion. To post, quickly join AOL, Netscape, or CompuServe.

Also, Chris  Rosenbladt sent me a comment and I am going to pass on this link again to his very thorough article he has written.

Poll Results for Peace on Earth

Here are the tentaive results of the Religion Forum poll I set up a while back. I am bit disappointed by the percentage of those who just gve up.

Peace on Earth - Is it possible?
Impossible - I don't bother	9 Votes (16%)
We can only hope.	5 Votes (9%)
I work for it.	1 Votes (2%)
I pray for it.	10 Votes (18%)
I work and pray for it.	2 Votes (4%)
I vote for it.	0 Votes (0%)
I work for it and vote for it.	4 Votes (7%)
I work, pray, and vote for it.	2 Votes (4%)
It starts with me. I live it.	10 Votes (18%)
I work, pray, vote, and live for it.	12 Votes (22%)

You can still discuss the question:

DISCUSS  or you can vote on the Front Page of the forum.

Others will prefer the Christian Fellowship Forum and its friendlier stance toward Christianity. I am the manager of both, but Religion Forum is a neutral ground  and meeting place for people of all faiths of no faith. There are slightly different rules for each, but respect is the order of the day in both.

One of my fine staff members, Brenda posted this poll in Fellowship some weeks ago: How Often Do You Pray?

Some might be interested in our What's Hot messages there:

What's Hot

Shouters
	Shouters, Pouters, Doubters - What's your  personal worship style?
One Liners
	Add your favorite Christian one-liners.

Don't forget to check out the blog updates a few entries down.

I sort of enjoyed writing my rules for meetings a while back.

Two Polls

I have been conducting two polls - one in the Religion Forum and one in the Christian Fellowship Forum on giving, tithing, and philanthropy. They are not my most successful polls, but I am really curious about the results and how they may vary between the two forums where they are worded differently to suit the demographics of the membership.

The polls from Christian Fellowship is very simple and straightforward and is built on the concept of "tithing," and followed by an interesting discussion of whether or not it is a New Testament ideal. The poll is Religion is browader based and weighted toward motivations from giving. They are found on their respected home pages, linked above. You are welcome to participate.

The Book of Daniel

My friend, Richard Waterfield, posted the following about the cancelation of NBC's, "The Book of Daniel" in a Christian Fellowship discussion today. (Click to read the entire discussion or participate.)

"All,

"Without so much as a peep from me, the TV show 'Book of Daniel' has parted company with it's Friday night NBC time. Maybe it will run at 3 AM, or on some special interest cable program, or maybe not at all. Devotees are calling for an early DVD release and blaming the fanatical right wingers for the show's demise. The real cause might have been ratings. I donno.

Richard W."

I responded:

"Richard,

">>The real cause might have been ratings. I donno.<<"

"Ya think ? <G>"

"I've never known the networks to be motivated by anything else <g>."

"I was curious and didn't feel right about speaking out against something on the word of others, so I watched most of the first episode and clicked in on some of the others. They were straining very hard to include as many schocking scenarios as they could in an hour."

"It's like the guy who had the bumper sticker that said, "Nuke a gay whale for Jesus."  - designed to offend everyone, but not worth the buck to buy it or the trouble to put it on the bumper. I enjoy being offended as much as the next guy, but the show just didn't have any edge to it, just a lot of dull axes to grind."

"Now - cancelling West Wing is another matter. I was looking forward to either way the wind blew - a  Jimmy Smit presidency or an Alan Alda presidency. I enjoy being offended by a good, thoughtful script <s>."

"And don't get  me started on Seventh Heaven <S> (which has pretty much run out of scripts to be written). Nevertheless, I've been loyal to the family and to Eric Camden, Super Pastor."

"I guess I'll just watch Law and Order or better still, read a book."

"Thus endeth Tom's Media Commentary for the week <g>."

"- Tom"

Networks will forgive almost anything except bad ratings. Viewers will forgive anything except bad stories and scripts. It may be that the boycotters are patting themselves on the back, but if anything, they got a lot of us to check it out. Come to think of it, as an indirect result, they may have precipitated its demise.

Let me quickly add, that I never recomended the show and never would have. I am just very skeptical about and resistant to boycotts. If someone tells me what not to read or watch it sends a little prickly thing crawling up my back.

Any family can be dysfunctional - even ministers' families, but this was a bit much - to be so dysfunctional and yet, functional at the same time!

One thing I never really figured out was what Daniel stood for. He wasn't a bad guy; it's just that, given his lack of any conviction whatsoever, why bother?  I guess we'll never know.

And then, there was the protrayal of Jesus. Some called it blasphemous. I don't know about that - but it certainly didn't look like the Jesus I converse with regularly.

And while we are at it, didn't anyone complain that he was rather ...... WHITE?

And bland ... ?

And exactly what was his message?

Read more at Religion Today.

Fodder from Fora

My on-line mentor, Georgia Griffith, died in September. For so many years, our e-mail conversations were a daily part of my life and her way with words influenced my thinking. Even this week, I have used some of her unique language to describe forum events. Georgia insisted that the plural form of forum was "fora."

Some of the most interesting discussions I read on a daily basis come from the Religion and Christian Fellowship Fora on CompuServe/Netscape and I want to do my best to highlight some of them here in my Blog.

Christian Fellowship Forum is an affirming and cozy place for believers where everyone is welcome. Since it is diverse, there is occasional controversy and heat, but we try to keep it friendly. There is a special folder for prayer requests and a real sense of community.

The Religion Forum is an interfaith community and many of our members have no faith. The key word is respect and. I am especially sensitive to my fellow believers showing respect for people who do not see eye to eye with them about their faith. There is much controversy and heat, but some pretty definite rules.

You will need to get a free screen name from AOL, Netscape, or CompuServe before being allowed to post, but anyone can read the fora.

An interesting discussion in the Religion Forum is called, "Are You Practicing the Right Religion?" It has a link to a test on Belief net.com that produces some interesting, though limited results.

Have you ever wondered what happened to Larry Norman from the Jesus Movement, famous for "I Wish We'd All Been Ready?" One of our members did a little research on the subject and reported back to us. It seems that Larry has had some health issues and needs our prayers and support.

Christian apologist, Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. was our Author of the Month in the Religion Forum a while back. He generated a number of interesting discussions including: Hebrew Text and LXX  and  What Is Evidence.  His books are worth a read. Energion Publications publishes Elgin's book, Consider Christianity, Volume 1: Evidence for the Bible and is in the process of publishing his second book, Consider Christianity, Volume 2: Evidence for the Christian Faith (still on pre-publication).  There have been a couple of questions here about ordering.  To get more information on orders, see Henry's message in the "Our Sponsors" folder, Apologetics Resources.

Our family saw "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" on Christmas Day. I loved it! Having read the whole Narnia series (some of it read to me by Andrea), I found it faithful and compelling.  We are discussing it in the Fellowship Forum as Narnia. I invite your comments here or there.

Maybe I'll add more tomorrow or the next day.

Blessings,

- Tom