Thanks answersNOW. That should keep me busy for a while!

He's referring to me as the schoolmaster, which I am. But I am sure that my pupils would share your sentiment!

Is it a "set of a-theist diatribes"? Reading it now, a while after I wrote it, it seems to contain an innocuous observation about crime and punishment.

If I don't understand then how can you expect me to provide something substantial? If you have a comment about what I wrote that helps to clarify my understanding then fire away.

I posted this comment quite a long time ago but I expect I called them threats because Mr Comfort wrote "no doubt all children were made aware of this law’s terrifying threat".

This made me think that he was talking about threats.

Boyle was anti-Semitic? I shall never use matches again. Thanks for the information.

Does being stoned to death count as "swift capital punishment"?

There seem to be two systems described. One that threatens a horrific death for relatively mild infractions and another that offers salvation from a ridiculously overblown punishment, no matter how serious the crimes committed.

I am not sure that threats work as effective teaching tools.

I stand corrected - the archaic meaning of pitiful is "filled with pity or compassion". I was being all modern - silly me!

I don't think you mean to say that Jesus is 'very pitiful'. This would suggest that he is worthy of pity and I suspect that you mean he is full of pity.

Is it possible not to have 'inward misery and poverty' and therefore not require the Holy Spirit's assistance? If you allowed yourself to feel the joy that obedience to Christ offers, would you then be self-righteous and no longer a target for Divine Mercy?

The advice you seem to be offering is pretty bleak if I have read it correctly; only by remaining in a wretched and depressed state can you have any hope of deliverence. As a sales pitch it is not terribly agreeable.

No it doesn't. The Earth is not a closed system.

I'd rescue my mother.

It would be what my father would do even at the expense of his own life. The money is unimportant. My poor mother would probably get no say in the matter and I would have to live with the consequences of my actions. I suppose that is one of the prices we pay for being adults. It's a little patriarchal I know but we are an old-fashioned sort of family. My mother would cope in the absence of my father but I am not sure that the reverse would be true.