Hi Mel,

You sure have a lot of regrets.

"mel" wrote in message m...
Thank you for your viewpoint H. I've enjoyed the speculations and have
actually considered their validity. I hope you've enjoyed mine.

Indeed I have. Your posts have compelled me to reread the passion
texts, and that alone was worth it. And except my feeling that you
have not accorded what I write the respect of a fair reading, I have
the sense that you are a decent guy, so I'm not unhappy with our
exchange.

I regret
that we never got around to discussing the craftmanship of the table per my
OP.

Well, that was not all you had in the OP, and I was not too interested
in it. Is that a problem?

As far as my second post, I regret we were never able to discuss the
artistic ability of a well known actor/now director and the subtleties
within the story he told....accurate or not.

Since your second post was a response to my concerns about the movie's
non-adherence to the text and anti-semitism, it is not odd , surely,
that we didn't discuss the merits of the film. There's nothing
stopping you from starting a new thread on some NG about this, if
that's what you're after (I did, BTW, grant cudos to the sublimity of
Satan in Gibson's film. She was stunning, for the most part.)

I regret that criticism is not
only viewed as a valid stance in any discussion, but in fact considered
necessary.

Your abundant critical opinions, even your judgement written just now
on the ubiquity of criticism, belies your statement--are you trying to
be paradoxical? I get the impression you think criticism is a bad
thing. It is not--it is inescapable, in fact. The only thing that
matters is if your criticism and critical approaches are sound or not.
That includes your approach to religion. It all has to go through your
brain, even faith, so you might as well put what god gave you to work
to good ends.

What I regret most is after this point of the thread, how in the eyes of
bystanders, we proceeded to behave in a manner that did little to teach the
good news of salvation.

Wow, it's no wonder you're full of regrets. "To every thing there is a
season, and a time to every purpose". Evangelizing on rec.woodworking
is not one of them, nor is playing the penitent.

It makes me happy to engage in debate and learn new things, even if
from mistakes. I hope the cultivation of your faith eventually makes
you happier, or that you'll find a faith that does.

Xairein,
H.