[Hottentot]

The category: Post of the Year
The name of the nominee: BigWalleye

The contents:

Originally Posted by BigWalleye

Thank you, Steve, for your civil and thoughtful response. If I may, I'll try to respond.

Yes, Steve, it is belief. If we could prove it, there would be no need for belief. If Christ came down to Central Park, cured the sick, and raised the dead live on CNN, there would be no need for belief. And no more free will to believe or not.

I have no way of knowing what you formerly believed, but I suspect it was different from the belief that has changed my life. Or maybe my life was more in need of changing.

Of course there are, although I think "a great many" is a stretch. I can only speak from personal knowledge of the transforming power of Christ. Formerly, I followed the teachings of the Buddha, which is a powerful moral philosophy with much in common with the teachings of Jesus. But I never found a God in Buddhism.

First, Jesus never had a problem with people having a good time. His first public miracle was done to keep a party going! (How cool is that?) It is rather the pursuit of good times, to the exclusion of caring for others, that gets us off the track. Second, and more important, if people don't see the impact of Christ in my actions (and too often, I'm sure they don't), my words won't carry much weight. St Francis said: "Preach Christ crucified. Use words when required." My OP was to share the joy I was feeling, not to preach.

A link to the post: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...9&postcount=23

Reasoning: As I said in the thread too, he started a thread that seemed like a total train wreck and got ridiculed by most of the posters up until second page (including yours truly). Most people would have buggered off and forgotten about it after such reaction, but instead he came back with this post to Steve. From there on he turned it into a civil discussion and in the end pretty much everyone was just wishing happy Easter to each other and the thread had a good feeling in it.

A post like this shows what you can do by being reasonable and gaining respect or at least acceptance here no matter what your opinions are. As Steve has so many times put it, it's not what you say but how you say it and this post (especially when compared to his posts on the thread's first page) is a perfect case in point of that and something that many here could learn from.