>Just don't go too far. I know someone who was driven so far away from the
>catholic religion that he started challenging their faith. To me that
>behaviour makes him no better than the bible bashers you are describing.

Do you mean *challenging* or do you mean *mocking*? Different things.

Everyone's beliefs, whatever they are, should be challenged from time to time.
Challenged in conversation. Challenged by new discoveries. By internal
reflection.

If our ideas are not challenged on occasion, they run the risk of becoming so
concretized that we no longer *think* about what we actually *believe*. And we
are not able to therefore justify them or explain them. At the end of that
challenge you may wind up right where you started, but at least you will now be
stronger and more able to describe what you believe in, and why.

(There's a great story by Mark Twain you should read for more on this: "The Man
Who Corrupted Hadleyburg." It says a lot of what happens to faiths when they
are not challenged from time to time.)

Mocking, of course, is something else again.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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