Is God so insecure and petulant He needs to create his own friends to provide ongoing reassurance of His own importance?

The mythology is as false and contrived as the historically non-existent "escape from Egypt".

It's odd that minds that cannot fully comprehend the concept of eternity or imagine anything beyond three dimensions can claim they don't only know what God is but what He wants and even what He looks like, based on nothing more than Iron-age observations and assumptions about the universe itself.

No one knows for sure whether or not there is a God; they can hardly make personality judgements.

"The gods had no real stake in being identified one from the other and were arranged by believers in order to suit various religious needs."

Excellent, assuming this was in fact the case (which we may historically doubt), then it was religion at its best!

Firstly, gods should not be identified as separate: they all just represent different aspects of the one and only God.

Secondly, isn't it wonderful if indeed the people at the time arranged their gods to suit their various RELIGIOUS needs unlike the "bright and shiny gods of modernity" which the author mentions, that are arranged to suit material needs?!

Now at one stage or another in life, many of us do require harsh discipline and loyalty to our path. At times it becomes a religious need for us to follow our spiritual practices through obstacles and crisis, so the depiction of God as the jealous YHWH (Lit. "will-be/is/was"), who keeps us on the straight and narrow, is useful and has its rightful and respectful place among the other gods.

Different people, in different circumstances, with different temperaments and at different stages in life, have different spiritual needs. While we all head towards God, we must each start our journey from where we are rather than from where some other person has been thousands of years ago.

People who follow the Judeo-Christian path should realise that while that path suits them, other paths suit others. Anyone who respects God should respect all the different paths that lead to Him.

Simple questions.

1) Which one of the hundreds of religions is representing the real god?

2) If all religions have the real god and he or she is compassionate and caring why is there so many problems and absolutely evil people in the world?

3) If someone comes up with a new scam or con, whether it is to control people or rob people guaranteed others will follow and try it.

From one con originating possible thousands of years ago we have the current situation.

Dear Philip,

I assume these questions were addressed to me. My time is short today, so I will answer you in very brief:

1. The purpose of religions is not to represent God, but rather to help people come closer to Him. If representation (as in saying "Thus spake the Lord, ...") happens to do part of the job, then well and good.

2. It is nonsensical to speak of God as compassionate and caring. We do so anyway, and so we should, because it helps us draw nearer to Him. To understand the problem of evil, you may want to look at one of my recent posts: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18201#324192

3. Scammers can rob people of their money but no scam can possibly rob anyone of God. A scam will still be a scam, but one who has God in their heart will never go astray.

The questions were just directed to anyone, they are what I sometimes say when people talk about religion.