We are

I keep getting email from Christianity.org.il telling me this page is an "honorable" Christian site, and would I like to purchase their site to continue the building of Christian ideals? They obviously didn't look closely at this site. However, the letter can be read here.

Historic News:

It now seems our temporary channel, "#jesus?," is becoming more of apermanent solution. It's not bad, really. The Jews wandered through thedesert for 40 years. Just think of "#jesus?" as the desert.

A warning for the wise:

This channel might be one of the most deceptively named channels on IRC's EFNet. It is a full discussion channel, not a fellowship channel, and many non-Christians are frequently found here. If you are offended by such things, please do not come to the channel. If you only want to convert people, be aware that many regulars are not open to conversion, and will gleefully challenge your own beliefs.

You might be wondering "What do people discuss on such a channel?" Well, pretty much anything and everything. Religion, philosophy, music, art, movies, television, pornography, drugs, politics, science, history, Real Dolls, computers, sex, and the lack of sex have been topics in the past, and most assuredly will be again in the future.

Perhaps the one and only thing that is always true of the channel is that nothing is sacred. It is difficult, if not impossible to present a theory, belief, opinion, or idea without it being questioned in some way. There are always many different kinds of people on #jesus, enough to guarantee that there will be someone around to disagree with you.

This is perhaps summed up best by #jesus veteran plusplusC in the following quote:

"You need a critical mass of people who find friendship in clever, off-the-wall, and abrasive argumentation that is worthwhile because it comes from interesting people who are very different from one another."

TheGuru, another #jesus regular, once suggested that #jesus should be thought of as "a cross between Cheers and Crossfire."

The bottom line is that there is no coddling on #jesus and there is no such thing as Most Favored Religion status. One of the most common accusations we face is that we are a channel of only atheists and heathens. While there are a lot of that type on the channel, we are not a safehouse for heathens. We realize (almost hourly) that there are as many idiotic, lamer atheists as there are Christians. If you doubt this, join the channel with the nick SATAN or GODisDED.

Some things to keep in mind:

It really doesn't make sense to say that #jesus has 'rules'; different behavior is tolerated by different regulars. There are, however, a few general guidelines that most chan.ops follow. Here they are in no particular order:

• No flooding, no channel hacking, etc.
• No all caps. Don't shout. We can see what you type, and using all caps just hurts our eyes and makes you look bad. Do it once and you may be warned, may be kicked. Keep doing it, and you may get banned.
• No spouting. #jesus is a discussion channel, not a channel to advertise your favorite quotes (that's #bible). If you just want to shout out praise, then go to #jesus!. Some ops will kick for random verse spouting if it's not relevant to the conversation. This includes irrelevant quotes from other sources, of course (especially NIN lyrics).
• Don't be a lamer. That's loosely interpreted.
• Don't ask us why we are hanging out on #jesus if we are not talking about Jesus. People on #hottub don't talk about hottubs, and people on #sex don't get any. Literalism and IRC channel names do not mix.
• Many people here have studied up on the subjects. We may know what we are talking about. Then again, we may have no clue.
• Don't anger us. If you join the channel, try to get a feel for where the conversation is going. Look before you speak, and think before you speak. When you join the channel, you have the opportunity to prove that you deserve to stay (unless you've chan.hacked or flooded before, and someone recognizes you); don't waste that. First impressions are as important on IRC as in real life, and don't think that anyone will lose sleep over kicking you.
• And if you do get kicked, please don't moan about how we are infringing your 1st Amendment right to free speech. Go read the Constitution again (assuming you've read it in the first place). We have no obligation to give you a soapbox from which you can tell everyone how great Marilyn Manson is; go create your own channel, or your own server, for all we care.
• Please refrain from using colors. Not everyone is able to view them, and they're really ugly and distracting if you can't. Besides, if you need colored text to make what you say interesting, you probably don't belong on #jesus in the first place.

What's the difference between '#jesus' and '#jesus!'?

More often than not, we are confused with '#jesus!' by newbies, and sometimes by not-so newbies. #jesus! is not a debate channel. In fact, debate is pretty much forbidden there. So don't go there to debate. If they aren't bothered, they tend to leave us alone.

However, if you're looking for a fellowship channel, that's probably the place to go. It's unlikely you'll be bothered for being a Christian, something that's not at all guaranteed on #jesus.

Other fellowship channels to keep note of are #2hisglory, #teens4christ, #christ, #christians, and #heislord. #bible is a channel for discussion of the Bible within a Christian context; "is the Bible really the word of God?" type debate is not allowed. They enforce this strictly. For religiously non-biased Bible debate, go to #bible-debate or #biblical-debate. (Non-biased is a stretch; lots of non-believers there.) Also, there may be a few channels on the Undernet of interest, and maybe even DalNet (hehehehehahahahahahohoho... *sigh*, yeah right).

People we've had trouble with before:

• #limbaugh. We like to think on occasion.
• #aynrand. Same thing. Found sulking on the Undernet.
• hopa. Not a male. Not a female. Borg might fit best. Once found on #christ.
• Apparently, the country of Brazil, and most of Scandinavia, as shown by the large number of take-over attempts from those areas of the world.
• Nobleman, and parts of #christian, who took over the channel once upon a time. (There are as many versions of how it happened as there were spectators, but it shouldn't have happened.)
• Relatedly, #christians, led by one of the twits who participated in NobleSchiz's channel 'fixing,' ForChrist. They join and spout, whine when they get kicked, send in more cronies, ad infinitum.
• Virtually every 16 year-old, asocial, mIRC-using, dateless punk on EFNet. We are very often the target of some adolescent's boredom, teenage angst, or sexual frustration. Go figure.
• Forgiven and His Merry Troupe of Christian Bots. As someone (perhaps Forgiven, perhaps not) explains on one of #harvestnet's webpages, channel takeovers are horrible, nasty, evil things, unless of course you're the one who does it and you can justify it religiously, in which case you're actually doing a Really Good Thing.

Originally written by Mr. Alcourt, alcourt@execpc.com.
Edited, amended, and maintained for a long while by Mathew bopo Calvert.
If you have any comments, suggestions, or corrections re: this page, tough.

Last modified on May 9, 2000. <JOKE>We have fooled people into thinking this was a Christian fellowship page since September 7, 1997.</JOKE>
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