I am so behind on this thread.
Firstly: KayHarker - clearly you and I choose different ways of sharing our faith; I prefer not to tell everyone I encounter but instead to let my 'being' (whatever that may be!) do the talking. I also find that when I do things that way any conversations I have with non-believers are more meaningful than they would be otherwise, because our relationships are deeper, and the conversation is based on mutual trust, respect and knowledge of each other.
Secondly, Tiggy R: (when you asked whether every decent person is acceptable to God): what a huge question. The parts of that answer that I'm sure about are that God's heart and vision are far, far greater and more loving than that of any human being. And so I believe that people who 'standard' Christians, for example, would think unacceptable (such as Jehovah's Witnesses) are acceptable to God - in the Bible it says that humans rely on external appearance but God judges by the heart. So actually it's sort of pointless us trying to point out who is and isn't acceptable to God, since our minds work so differently from his/hers.
The Bible also says that Jesus is the only way to God, but it doesn't say you have to 'become a Christian'. I am not trying to sound wiffly and wafty here, I am trying to show instead that the barriers that we humans set up are not necessarily endorsed by God. So for people of any religious background (i.e. believing or not) who reject Jesus, that's the choice they have made so I wouldn't expect God to nullify their freedom of choice and 'force them in'. You don't have to follow a religion to be acceptable to God, and I think that's sort of what I'm experimenting with at the moment - breaking away from 'Churchianity' and finding an authentic way to make myself more like Jesus, because I think he's extraordinary.
Another point here is that I don't believe in the club mentality. Someone once described it better as an image where some people are moving towards, and others moving away from God. You can include Christians in either group. Some of my old Christian acquaintances would perceive me as being in the latter group because I don't believe that Genesis tells the literal story of how the world came about (sorry chaps, but it clearly is an allegorical tale - analyse the writing style and it's as plain as day); because I describe God as both male and female; and because I'm trying to unravel lots of the stuff I've been taught about my faith over the past 34 years. Oh well - if they think that, more fool them!
Finally, it's not about scoring points to get you into the God Squad. It's meant to be a level playing field, where God has said that s/he loves the socks off us no matter what and that s/he wants us to enjoy his/her company, and s/he ours. So all s/he asks is for us to say 'yes'. I wish I could explain how God calculates these things for someone who commits atrocities and then renounces it all on their deathbed - here I am limited and I suspect it's one of those things that will always remain outside human understanding. And it's one of those instances which blares out just how differently God's mind works from humans'.
One more thing, actually - someone earlier mentioned evolution vs creation. I am currently reading up about this very thing - I was inspired by an Attenborough prog last week to find out about evolution again (have forgotten so much since uni days) and work out what this means for our place in the world and whether a god might have a place amongst it all. It's a fascinating journey.
One disappointment that I had with the programme was that Attenborough, like many environmentalists, completely misinterpreted the old biblical translation saying that humans should 'have dominion over the earth'. Dominion and domination are not the same thing, yet in this context many anti-religious people have made this erroneous assumption. We, as parents, have dominion over our children - that means we have a responsibility to look after them and work our socks off to enable them to flourish. As believers in a world created by an amazing God (still working out how I believe evolution and creation harmonise around each other - ask me again in a few years' time when I've finished reading up on it!) it is clearly our responsibility to look after the earth in the same way.
Right, now I need to catch up on the rest of this thread!