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All I see is you holding an empty plate and lifting an empty spoon to your mouth and saying "it's so good, it's so good" as if you are desperately trying to convince yourself and others that something is there.

So, I do everything I can to tell you how wonderful the feast is and you accuse me of desparately trying to convince myself that something is there. What would you say about me if I said, "Go away. This food is for me. I don't want you to have any of it." What would you say abou tme if I said, "Suit yourself. I don't care if you burn in hell forever. It's no skin off my nose. Why should I care." Would one of those responses make me a good person?

I tell you there is food on the plate. You can ignore it, pretend not to see it, or even not see it if you like. But I would rather you did not. I would rather that you eat the food. It is good and good for you. It is made for you and you for it. Deride the food, deride me, do whatever you need, but take a bite. For whatever else you may say about me, I care about you and do not wish you to starve.

Shalom.

You don't seem to understand that I was raised Christian and tried my best to believe in it for years. I really tried. But the fact is, belief is not an act of will. Belief is what is produced by your mind's evaluation of evidence. You can want to believe, pretend to believe, try to believe... but if your mind just keeps pointing out the logical absurdities of the situation, there is nothing that you can do about it.

When I was young I used to have horrible nightmares of going to hell because I just didn't believe in any of it. I saw no reason to. And as for your parable, I can't tell if "the banquet" is supposed to represent Christian fellowship, or a psychological state of well-being, or the second coming, or heaven. But I can tell you this: if it represents Christian fellowship I've tried it and found Christians to be no better (or worse) friends than non-Christians. If it represents a psychological state of well-being, I must tell you that a dogma which says "believe in a story that makes no sense to you or be punished" never gave me an iota of peace. Only when I finally realized I was free to walk away and nothing would happen to me did I breathe easy for the first time in my life. And if your parable represents Heaven, then you have NOT been partaking for 10 years because you aren't there yet. If the banquet represents Jesus' return to earth, as I mentioned before, those fliers are 2000 years old and curling up at the corners, yellow with age.

What kind of person would I be if I didn't point out that you are trying to rook people into entering into a dogma that places your own mind as your own worst enemy? That is neurosis of the first order, poison to psychological health, and the first step on the road to madness.