"PARACHUTE '04"

Fuck. I really wanted to go see Wash, Fourth Member, Soda, Detour, the Lads and all those other bands that sound EXACTLY THE SAME.

I read through that parachute 03 thread the other day. Absolutely hilarious I wonder if onlyoneway will be back to attempt to convert all you satan lovers. This is gonna be great!!!!!!!!

I guess a band can't help but sound monotonous when all they're permitted to sing about is Jesus.

'God is awesome! God is great! Hooray for God! Etc, etc, ad infinitum...'

Still, you have to admire their dedication.

dude, why were yov even trying to get ini? i don't want to hear about you encouraging this kind of behaviour again!

//fuck satan and shit

woah maybe i had you crazy christians all wrong, thats some heavy stuff right there man,

would be interesting to hear a "fuck satan" song though... all this god bashing gets boring sometimes.

so what makes a christian a christian? mister and vorpal? if its going to church and youth groups then im stumpped! because what makes the fact of someone attending church and youth groups ect a christian? I thought christianity was a belief not what you attend.... If its a belief then i guess im christian if its weather or not u attend places then im what? I believe in god does that make me christian? I dont go to church coz i drink and smoke and lots of other shit dat i dont have time to talk bout. and because i do all these things i dont attend church or youth groups in fact i only use to go to youth group coz there were hott fellas there lol. and when you talk about hipocracy your right people will see it as hipocracy i definately see it as hipocracy. no matter what excuse a christian gives me. they say god will always forgive you no matter what well then i think that is rediculous coz then we all know we can go do what we want to and know he will always forgive us. to me that seems like we can just abuse his honour. if you can honestly tell me that you dont want to drink then you can say your not a hipocrit but if you actually plan ur weekend full of alcohol then your not efen trying to obide by his rules your purposely going out to drink and abusing the fact that you know hes sweet with it. "oh its ok i can get off ma face 2 nite bro gods got ma bak he'll forgive me" lol den i really dont get christians if this is the case. It sounds like man has re-defined the bible to suit himself lol no offence christians but the hole meaning thru history of christian is just confusing and doubtfull

//*so what makes a christian a christian? mister and vorpal?*//

That's the million dollar question isn't it? If I recall correctly, Jesus allegedly said something along the lines of, "Whomsoever shall believeth in me, will get a pat on the head and a toffee apple in Heaven." So, I guess all you're really required to do is 'have faith', although I imagine making some vague attempt to be a decent human being isn't going to hurt your chances either. If God really is as he's portrayed in the New Testament, then I doubt he's really going to place a great deal of importance on whether or not you habitually give great wads of cash to the Church. Besides, these days, according to Brian Tamaki anyway, it's all about having 'a personal relationship with your Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ', which of course gives any self-respecting Christian a little room to maneuvre, depending upon their subjective interpretation.

At the end of the day, if you think you're a pretty decent Christian, and your co-workers and neighbours don't absolutely despise you, chances are you probably right. Just don't get cocky.

A combination of the two. My mother was and remains a Jehovah's Witness. I was dragged along to the 'Kingdom Hall' three times a week from birth until I was old enough to make my disapproval of this arrangement glaringly apparent. My girlfriend's parents made it abundantly clear to me that I was a 'bad influence' and that my presence was no longer required. My girlfriend, being a wholesome Christian soul, refused to dishonour her parents by fraternising with a filthy heathen against their wishes.

I responded to this turn of events by becoming a goth and writing screeds of appalling poetry. I'm over it now.

If you're going to set yourself up as some sort of moral yardstick, as Jesus did, instructing your followers that they're to strive to the best of their abilities to be just like you, knowing at the same time that they're pretty much doomed to failure by virtue of their own sinful nature, then that's not only cruel, it's kind of dumb. And when a Christian, bound by the Word of God, scampers about the place swearing, drinking, taking drugs and indulging in promiscuous sex, whilst claiming it's okay because they're 'saved' and Jesus will forgive them anyway, then that's inflammatory AND hypocritical -- more so when they're given to making disparaging remarks about we poor unsaved heathens and the eternity of hellfire that allegedly awaits us.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not simply 'bashing the Christians'. I'm merely stating that if you're going to 'talk the talk', you better make damn sure you can 'walk the walk', because at the slightest hint of 'do as I say not as I do', you're going to be hauled across the coals for being a sanctimonious arse, and deservedly so.

Agreed. I know some perfectly decent Christians, and some I want to bludgeon to death with a tyre iron. Mass generalisations don't help anyone.

I heard hell has some pretty cool parties

// I heard hell has some pretty cool parties //

you've gotta have a bit of dirty to enjoy the clean :P

thanks Ngati_Stylaa, you just made my eyes bleed.

And this is why I'm an agnostic. Thinking about this stuff, let alone attempting to have an intelligent conversation about it, is enough to give you an aneurysm.

It's both cliched and horrendously politically incorrect, but I'm going to say it anyway -- "Arguing about religion is like competing in the special olympics; even if you win, you're still retarded."

Heh. That works too.

I think I enjoy the Big Day Out more..but that's just my opinion :)

You shut up ya downz one!

The big day out is way too over hyped. I need time to chill out between each band. It takes far too much time to get from one stage to another because there are too many people. There are always so many things that go wrong. I've been saying it for years.. I'm just sounding bitter now. But they've gotten too big for themselves and it's not that great anymore! I thought maybe I grew out of it, but then I had a great time at parachute and it has nothing to do with christianity.

I think it would be wrong of me to say it had nothing to do with christianity. First of all, they know how to put on great events. Second of all, you wouldn't get the same vibe as parachute at any other music festival and vibe at parachute was cool! And last of all, there's a lot of music that was played that I'm not in to but the same goes for big day out. There's this one stage at parachute where all the local bands play. That is one of the coolest stages.

The trick is not to alienate them because they're christian. They're all people just like you and me who deal with the same things as we do, and they write songs about the same things as we do. A lot of christians listen to non christian bands so they are infleunced by no christian bands. So when they write about the same stuff, and they're infleunced by the same sorta stuff then what's the difference between a christian band and a non christian band?

Finally, part of the worst thing about the big day out is that there are so many bands you want to see and they're all on at the same time. You spend the whole day running between stages trying to see every one of them. It's awful waiting to go up any of the stairs going from the main stage.. you wait for ages.

It's great to be able to go to a music festival without having to be somewhere at a certain time all day every day.

// what's the difference between a christian band and a non christian band?

The difference is - a christian will always put god before music. The result can never be good.

// just look what happened to Bono. What a loser.
Nice guy... crap music.