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I used to attend an Alpha course, went to three altogether.

The first time I was placed into the group with the head of the church, which was composed of him, me, 3 christians, 2 agnostics (including me) and one atheist, who wanted to learn. Over the time we were there, we had brilliant discussions, often over running by up to an hour. My major problem with this set up was twofold. 1) I was the youngest by 20 years. 2) The head honcho refused several points of mine, for what I viewed as petty reasons.

So the next time I asked if I could go with the youth. I'd be the oldest bar the person running it, but they'd be closer to my age, only 2 or 3 years younger.

In there I really got to know the guy running it much better, and it helped to really open my eyes to the fact that while this was a charismatic church, they weren't all completely brainwashed.

My main problem was always to do with faith healing, due to my Mum. (see here for explanation)
The adult group's explanation was that "If you are sick and you pray, then you might be healed. If you aren't healed, it's not because you didn't pray hard enough, it's because God has a different plan"
I explained this to the youth leader, and he came out with a sentence that stuck with me for the last 2 years - "Bollucks to that, what a load of shite".

Understandably, a bit of a shock.

One day, me and him ended up going to the pub, and spent about 7 hours talking, arguing, discussing and debating through much of christianity. It was brilliant to not just run into a brick wall while discussing, he happily admitted that parts of the bible were outdated, and that things have been taken out of context.

Sorry, have rambled off topic here. To all who can be arsed getting through this essay, if you're interested, have questions, or just want to learn a little, go to an Alpha course, you can have a great argument!

EDIT: Fuck it, i'll post this on it's own.
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Fri 20 Mar 2009, 12:39, Reply)