I finally got myself a new flatmate today - she moved in this afternoon. Thank God! I was starting to get frantic, as Penny's rent payment was about to run out on the 15th, so I only had a few days grace left. I had an advertisement in Saturday's paper again, and I was astounded that NO-ONE RANG! I couldn't believe it... But the person who's moved in (her name is Michelle) saw the ad in last week's paper. She's really nice, and also works at the nearby pet store. She also has a cat of her own, so it looks like Eve is going to have a playmate again.

I went to Swee's baptism on Saturday night (an Easter service of some kind) and had a nice time getting in people's way as I stood in front of them taking photos, hassling the head honcho (Father someone-or-other) about the names he gave people (every guy was George and every woman was Suzy), standing there without bothering to even pretend to sing the songs and disguising my yawns, and looking around at all the people praying to the floor (if God is in Heaven above us, why do they all pray to the floor? Doesn't Satan live below us?). At least I got some good photos for Swee of her baptism, so she was happy. And while I was surprised they didn't kick me out, at least I got the head honcho to express his disgust that I wasn't wearing a cross on the chain around my neck.

:ph34r:

Seriously though, it was a nice evening. There's some nice people in church, and some lonely people too. There was a girl there who had been there since 4pm that day (the service didn't start until 7pm), apparently because she had gotten the time wrong. However, by the end of the evening, and after seeing how lonely she was through her interactions with others (and pretending to receive phone calls on her new cellphone when it never rang - and then pretending to be surprised as to why they hung up), it was obvious that she just needed company and to be noticed. I'm sure the church and her religion gave her some of what she craved.

The biggest interest for me was the rituals they had throughout the service, and trying to work out how those rituals originated, and for what real purpose. Bizarre.

And then there was a reading (one of a few) about Moses parting the Red Sea. I didn't know that Moses and the Israelites were running from the Egyptians. The sea parted, the Isrealites ran through the canyon of water, and when the Egyptians saw them escaping, they set off through the canyon of water themselves, in a bid to catch the Israelites. And then when Moses and his band of fellow escapees safely ran up the beach on the other side, God let the sea wash back in on itself, and killed the entire army of Egyptians.

And the wording and pacing of the story made it obvious how evil and dastardly the Egyptians were, and how the destruction of their entire army of many hundreds of thousands of people was miniscule in the destruction that SHOULD have been heaped upon the Egyptians. I was left with the feeling that Christians would love to see all of the Egyptians exterminated as a race, and that the Israelites were the only true and proper people on the earth. Genocide is a good thing, especially if God makes it so.

I can see why the Egyptians tried to destroy Israel in 1967.

How would you feel growing up as an Egyptian, and knowing that the Bible, the official 'word of God', promotes your death as a race as being a good thing?

I wouldn't feel very positive towards Christianity and their stories about my people, that's for sure.

But hey, that's just me and my opinion as an outsider looking in. Everyone else within the church probably just saw how good it was that Moses and his bunch of loyal hippies were saved by God. I saw the death and destruction caused by them instead. Does that make me evil?

*shrug*

Things are moving along nicely with Swee - we're having a good time enjoying each other's company, which is great.