The hyphenated Religion-Bernecia

In agreement with Shafin's comment, I think the Hyphenated life candefinitely relate to Douglas Coupland's "Hey Nostradamus," but I wasthinking more in the sense of trying to balance religion and the new cultureof modern Canada. What I mean by the culture of modern Canada is the lessrigid standards of today's society concerning morals. There seems to be tooends of the spectrum and not enough balance concerning religion. Forexample I think the earlier version of Reg is an example of Christianity init's most severe and extreme form. But I also think that there can be apoint where Christianity can be in too much of a wishy-washy love form-forexample, loving the repentant gunman. The fact that he repented does notmean that he should not have to suffer for what he did, or at least havepeople realize that he did kill people before repenting. As the Bible says,In God's love there is severity. I think that this is a fantastic exampleof hyphenation on a large scale. One can be loved and love, but it's notreally unconditional, because if one has committed sin there is aconsequence that one must eventually face. Now in the way of balancingreligion and new culture, I think that life must become hyphenated to belivable. I came across an interesting quote once that says "God only helpsthose who help themselves," and strangely enough this doesn't come from the Bible. Basically it means that if one is driving along the road and gets a flat tire, one should get out and fix it, and not continue driving and say that God will fix it. Basically there is a balance with how far one takesthe principles of the Bible; reverting back to "Hey Nostradamus" Reg demonstrates the extremist version of Christianity in that he gets angry athis son for killing the gunman when it was Jason's actions that saved lives. Just on a side note about "Hey Nostradamus," Dr. Ogden was right about Christianity being a taboo of society, but it seems that it is one of the least respected religions also. For example, one would think twice beforesaying that the Torah or Koran is to be read as a work of fiction, simplyout of respect, but for some reason, some seem to be able to say the sameabout the Bible without thinking that they would be disrespecting the Christian populace.