[5th April, 2001]

I was going to respond to Theo's response to me but it vanished.

So I'll pick up a few points from Barry's...

Barry OGrady <> wrote in message
.
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2001 06:14:34 GMT, "Rowland Croucher"
<> wrote:
>
> >
> >> thought you weren't going to spam n.s.r any more?
> >
> >> Cheers
> >
> >> Theo
> >
> >Now, Theo, one of my few atheist-friends-with-a-sense-of-humor (I'll hold
my
> >breath for Barry to accuse me of being an unlearned American with that
> >spelling :-), I have two questions for you, or three:
>
> I suppose you are an unlearned Australian with no patriotism.

See the other posts on leaner spelling protocols. I dunno why we have to put
extra letters in words when they're unnecessary. We've chopped thousands of
'em out of English words over the centuries. I guess if you want to get
excited about something because of its American connections, that's another
subject (headed Silly Prejudices or something)...

<>

> >2. What evidence do you have that any of them have appeared recently on
> >nz.soc.religion? Ah, you say, I saw it among the newsgroups listed on the
> >original post. But, I reply, it wasn't on nz.soc.religion. Waddaya mean?
You
> >retort. Well, nz.s.r. isn't among Optus' list of newsgroups (don't ask me
> >why).
>
> You lie! I use the Optus news server and it's there, between soc.queer and
soc.test..

It's usually good manners to be a little more circumspect before accusing
someone of lying, to put it very nicely/mildly. My list of nz.soc
newsgroups: nz.soc, nz.soc.green, nz.soc.queer.

An interesting question might be why some Optus lists have nz.soc.religion
and others don't if Barry is right.
>
> >In any case, I have the firm but strange opinion that my Kiwi friends
> >ought to know what's happening to their Christian sisters and brothers in
> >difficult parts of the world. It was  a /an NZ atheist as I recall who
tried
> >to discourage me from posting about Christianity to a Christian
newsgroup.
> >Somepink strange that...

A correction: it's 'religion' not 'Christian' of course. But my point still
stands: my memory, Theo, is that one _atheist_ complained about this
Christian posting articles to a _religious_ newsgroup. Whilst Christians are
sometimes uncomfortable with atheists hijacking, I mean posting responses on
to Christian groups, it's a bit off, I mean odd, that atheists should want
to censor Christians posting to Religious newsgroups... And I stand by my
calling to heighten awareness about issues like poverty, hunger,
persecution, etc.
> >
> >3. How come an atheist gets a name like Theo?

Theo / Leo I think in your post you ask where Rowland comes from. I'm named
after an English preacher called Rowland Hill. My second name - Cameron - is
from the street in Rockdale Sydney, where my parents met when courting. My
surname - Croucher - is derivative from croix chez, French describing
someone who lived near cross-roads. Literally, 'a dweller near the cross'.
To add some more important information for your collection (:-) the hymn I
associate with my conversion to Christianity 55 years ago is 'Jesus keep me
near the cross'.

> Posted via Optus server to arc and ncr.

Barry, AAMOI what's ncr ?

Rowland Croucher.