I have noticed that the question of religion get many contributors to this forum hot under the collar. For the record my position is, there is no god. He/she/it has been invented by humans to explain ignorance or to control the ignorant for power and/or gain. I would like to introduce a new god that is more substantial and realistic than all other franchises.

Introducing “Little Wooden God” (Not to be confused with the less portable Big Wooden God)

Little Wooden God’s advantages over all other franchises are:

You can see it without a psychotic condition (Try that with those other gods).
How it looks is only limited by your imagination.
Everyone can have one.
It is small enough that you can take it with you (Customs bio security permitting).
If you are attacked you can use it to defend yourself.
Hollow ones have the ability to make music.
Solid ones can be used as percussion instruments.
Its carbon neutral (In fact it is a mini carbon sink).
If you can’t swim it can be used as buoyancy.
If you’re cold you can burn it to keep warm. (Replacements are not expensive)
Your children would be safe in its company.

The question of worship has to be addressed:

I would suggest Little Wooden Gods should be driven in a row on a lawn. A holy person should symbolically fend off the “Devils Coach Horse” (an insect otherwise known as a Rove Beetle) symbolized by something round and hard. This is tossed with some vigour at the holy person by one who is not so holy. All the followers could sit around and cheer when the holy person is able to fend of the Devils Coach Horse with a Little Wooden God protecting the other Little Wooden Gods driven in the lawn behind. Followers could wear funny hats and could their own develop side rituals and sects. Sounds a bit stupid I know, but stranger things have caught on.

So what do you think?

Lol producer :)
I love your idea.

If I was going to consider believing in a God, I may well consider yours.
At least you can see it, and so portable!

You realise how much trouble you will be in when some of our holy posters comment though, don't you?
I look forward to it...

I too do not believe.
And given the idiots who are up front in some Church,s, the fool who said God acted as a firebug in Vic.
The dangerous half wit who demands his flock abuse familly,s of the war dead in America, we could truly use your wooden God there.
Exclusive breatheran pty ltd.
Tom Cruises dangerous non Church.
No good writing a list, we only have 350 words.
Lets stop the tax breaks, tax the very Devil out of them, for a start.

Producer, I hope your Little Wooden God, is not going to replace the one true god The God of the Dollar Bill. The more you accumulate the more godly you become.
How can you say "there is no god. He/she/it has been invented by humans to explain ignorance or to control the ignorant for power and/or gain." There is your little wooden god, and my dollar god, 2 for starters, I do believe the Hindus, have thousands of gods, take your pick, you can't have the one that looks like an elephant, I have already claimed that one for myself. So there there are plenty of gods.
Unfortunate someone has beat you to the punch. There I was watch my favorite TV program at 3am 'The Home Shopping Show' and loan behold there is 'Dannoz Direct' flogging Little Wooden Gods for the amazing price of only $99.95 plus $19.95 P&H, and not only are they selling their gods for this fantastic price, if I called within the next 15 minutes, I get a second Little Wooden God, absolutely free! wait there is more I also get absolutely free a 'genie bra' mine to keep as a gift from my new friends at Dannoz Direct, naturally I called, don't want to miss out, stocks are limited. If I am not completely satisfied with a Dannoz god, I can return it within 30 day for a full refund of the purchase price less P&H and still keeping my genie bra as a free gift, could you ask for more?. They also warn of cheap imitations.
The beauty of my Dannoz Direct god is it will deliver anything and everything I want. The fellow with the American accent on the add said so, Betty-Sue from Albuquerque New Mexico asked for a red sports can, Betty-Sue was amazed when it arrived 10 minutes later. Poor Betty-Sue had prayed to countless gods for a sports car, none delivered until Dannoz did. See there is a god for all of us.

>>There I was watch my favorite TV program at 3am 'The Home Shopping Show' and loan behold there is 'Dannoz Direct' flogging Little Wooden Gods for the amazing price of only $99.95 plus $19.95 P&H, and not only are they selling their gods for this fantastic price, if I called within the next 15 minutes, I get a second Little Wooden God, absolutely free! wait there is more I also get absolutely free a 'genie bra' mine to keep as a gift from my new friends at Dannoz Direct, naturally I called, don't want to miss out, stocks are limited.<<

$120 for a LWG when they grow on trees? Only somebody who really loved trees - like a tree-hugging hippy - would be willing to pay rather than hurting a plant and snapping a branch off the nearest shrubbery. A chilling insight into the Green-voting mind.

Cheers,

Tony

I am a firm believer that our present is linked
with our past. The Lithuanian poet, Al Zolynas
puts it so well:

"I come from a tribe of nature worshippers,
pantheists, believers in faeries, forest sprites,
and wood nymphs, who heard devils in their windmills,
met them in the woods, cloven-hooved and dapper
gentlemen of the night, who named the god of thunder,
who praised and glorified bread, dark rye waving
waist-high out of the earth, and held it sacred,
wasting not a crumb, who spent afternoons
mushrooming in forests of pine, fir, and birch, who
transferred Jesus from his wooden cross, transformed him
into a wood-carved, worrying peasant, raised him on a
wooden pole above the crossroads where he sat with
infinite patience in rain and snow, wooden legs apart,
wooden elbows on wooden knees, wooden chin in wooden
hand, worrying and sorrowing for the world ..."

"These people who named their sons and daughters after
amber, rue, fir tree, dawn, storm, are the only people
I know who have a diminutive form for God Himself ---
Dievulis, "God-my-little-buddy."

"Any wonder I catch myself speaking to trees, flowers, bushes---
these eucalyptus so far from Northern Europe--- or that I
bend down to the earth, gather pebbles, acorns, leaves,
boles, bring them home, enshrine them on mantelpieces or
above porcelain fixtures in corners, any wonder I grow
nervous in rooms and must step outside and touch a tree,
or sink my toes in the dirt, or watch the birds fly by."

I feel a strong kinship with Al Zolynas. We're kindred
spirits, as I'm from the same tribe!

"A chilling insight into the Green-voting mind."
Tony, I didn't think I would fool anybody into believing that story, but it seems I fooled you. Sorry old chum about that, its not true, I made it up, yep the whole lot, a fake story. If you can't poke fun at yourself sometimes, well it a sad old world.
There are posters on here, about hal a dozen regulars, who think their posts are relevant, meaningful even important, are you one of them? Sorry again to shatter the delusion, nope nothing here will change the world, it wont even change the thinking of the bloke next door. I take this forum very lighthearted, do you? A bit of fun no less.

They already make them...http://www.suryahandicrafts.net/hindu-god-statues.html

They don't work. I asked mine for a Ferrari and instead it got termites.Any God that succumbs to blind insects ain't for me.

But this isn't a new idea. The ancients Israelites used to wander around with carved images of Baal before Moses and/or Yahweh used one of the commandments to put a stop to it.

So your 'sophisticated' idea is to go back to believing what prehistoric nomads believed :)

the usual ignorance and stupidity of those who shut their eyes to their Creator on display. Pride does keep one walking around with eyes shut in order to see reality.

Runner is perfect he will tell you the rest of us are not.
On just about any thread.
Yet it leads me to ask who is his God.
Not surely the Christian one?
Christ was no bigot, but runner gets close.

Runner, whether your eyes are open or shut, you still can't see any of the gods.

The LWG is there, right in front of you.
What's not to love?

'Runner is perfect '

Belly you really do twist things and deliberately misrepresent. Did the unions teach you that? God alone is perfect.

OP: <there is no god. He/she/it has been invented by humans to explain ignorance or to control the ignorant for power and/or gain>

Hold it right there. There is a third category, the barking mad Green extremists and their Gaia religion. As in Bob Brown winning the tumultuous applause of his 'fellow Earthians' at the Greens convention.

From The Spectator,
Earth to Bob: your intergalactic phone is ringing
How should we respond to the Green leader’s cosmological preoccupations?
http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/7781503/earth-to-bob-your-intergalactic-phone-is-ringing/

Unlike the boring Christians, the Australian Greens can take a satisfying dump and have their whole Gaia religion in their hands. Recycled too. Who needs a cross, eh Greens? Just find the nearest scat, link arms fellow Earthians and sing Kumbaya while waiting for Bob Brown's little green men to jet in from Mars.

>>Runner is perfect he will tell you the rest of us are not.<<

>>Belly you really do twist things and deliberately misrepresent.<<

Runner doesn't think he's perfect. That would be conceited and arrogant.

He just thinks he is far superior to everyone.

Cheers,

Tony

Peter Costello is a former Federal Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader.
onthebeach, I see your article was written by that conservative fool Coastello. The bloke who took his bat and ball and peed off home, because Little Johnny wouldn't give him the top job. Lets all be thankful to god about that one. On second thoughts he should have stayed on, then we would have had the Abbott and Costello comedians wanting to run the show.
Why do conservative believe in god? It fits in well with their mumbo jumbo philosophy. You think The Greens are crazy, what do you think of people who believe that the ridiculous fairy tales in the bible are true, are you anther runner?. Lucky for us Goldilocks and the three bears wasn't in there, otherwise you would be telling us that it is all a true story, along with Jack and the beanstalk and Old Mother Hubbard.
Some believers, particularly in the catholic church, get on their hands and knees in front of some old pedophile priest and pray to their non existent god, how ridicules is that? Were you ever an alter boy? Glad I wasn't, although Fr.Fukemup wanted me to join once, fortunately I resisted the temptation

That is a tad unfair, Tony Lavis...

"He just thinks he is far superior to everyone."

Not 'far'.

'
Runner doesn't think he's perfect. That would be conceited and arrogant.

He just thinks he is far superior to everyone.'

and Tony is arrogant enough to sprout what he believes others think.

And, runner is always sprouting what he feels
other should believe.

'And, runner is always sprouting what he feels
other should believe. '

and your defenses of your beloved PM Lexi and your abbottphonia is also sprouted on this forum. Don't you realise that on line opinion is actually opinion including your own.

Dear runner,

I'm not the one who's always carping and bent on
showing other posters that I've got the truth, and
they don't.

cont'd ...

I am fully aware that this is an opinion
forum however I don't stoop to labelling people
or accusing them of all sorts of phobias as you do.
So before you continue making wrong assumptions and
sweeping generalisations about
people you don't know,kindly allow them the same privilege of their
opinion which you seem to think is your right, and you might also want to try improving your own
so called phobias first before you continue with your infantile
finger-pointing.

Paul1405, "You think The Greens are crazy...?"

The Greens are led by a flakey intellectual elite like Bob Brown, the Chief Earthian and self appointed President of The New World Order.

The Greens worship Gaia. If beliefs are to be criticised why rule them out or any of the myriad of others? Just saying to you and others, go your damnest but you show your prejudice where you focus on one religion and one race. Hey, aren't you supposed to be opposed to racial slurs too?

Oh, that's right, the Greens and Left only trash talk "white man Christianity" and everything else is OK.

Meanwhile the Chief Earthian takes his enlightenment from comets and the the chosen people his fellow Earthians look to little green men from Mars as their makers.

There is that joke about Roman Catholics believing they were the only ones in heaven. St Peter had to build a high brick wall around their heavenly 'burb so as not to upset them with the truth. A similar joke could be told about the Greens' Earthians

Lexi

'I am fully aware that this is an opinion
forum however I don't stoop to labelling people ' So noble! Maybe next time your beloved leader labels Abbott you might object!

onthebeach, Say what you like about The Greens, but anything my party could do would pale into insignificance when it comes to bigotry, intolerance and criminality, compared to Christianity, particularly the Catholic Church. Despite trying to present an image of nicety the Catholic Church has the run on the board, past and present, so to speak, when it come to crimes against humanity.
What is the difference between the likes of The Ku Klux Klan, Hitlers National Socialism and the Catholic Church, the answer The Catholic Church is bigger and more powerful. where did you get the idea Christianity is white?
The Muslim religion like Christianity is not without sin. Its time the world become enlightened and dispensed with all the religious mumbo jumbo.

Dear runner,

Did you ever object when your beloved leader
does not tell the "gospel truth" and when his
entire campaign was a lie based on a lie?
Or do you simply brush those who dare to criticise aside - as
suffering from - "Abbottphobia," whilst finding terms like
"Ju-liar," quite ok - with no objections raised.

Right - we get it!

I thought the "God - No God" bit had been resolved by David Hume 250 years ago.

You guys are either a bit slow on the uptake or should start doing a bit more reading.

A consideration tried some years ago... too many splinters.

I now prefer Crocs to little wooden clogs.

"what do you think of people who believe that the ridiculous fairy tales in the bible are true, are you anther runner?. "

I don't know if runner is one of those people but if he is then he'd be in good company...Obama, Clinton, Rudd, Blair, Mandela, Beazley. And that's just among the living. Let's not even talk about Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Constantine.

All believers in ridiculous fairy tales. Wow.

Lexi

'Did you ever object when your beloved leader
does not tell the "gospel truth" '

You really are selective. I am the first the criticize Abbott when he pretends to embrace man made gw 9. His first assesment (ie it is crp) was his deep belief and he is simply playing politics with it now. I also see no value in labouring Julia Gillard, Juliar. I find it distasteful. That does not however change the fact that her along with the sisterhood and others have absolutely stuffed this country with failed policies based on ideology rather than substance. Mr Rudd needs to share that blame. The vast majority of Australians agree with that assesment it seems. Thankfully Roxon is gone and may the other enemies of free speach follow her lead. There has only ever been One person who never lied and it certainly wasn't Abbott or you or me.

>>Let's not even talk about Einstein<<

Good idea - he certainly didn't believe the ridiculous fairy tales in the Bible were true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein%27s_religious_views

Cheers,

Tony

Paul1405, "What is the difference between the likes of The Ku Klux Klan, Hitlers National Socialism and the Catholic Church"

Irrelevant but does it matter? It is totalitarianism and warping of freedom of speech that must constantly be resisted.

The Greens are Marxist in their philosophy, with the same totalitarian tendencies of all previous forms of Marxism as a political movement.

The lunar Gaian beliefs of Bob Brown and others of the chardonnay quaffing urban intellectual elite of the Greens allows for no compromise. Their way or up against the wall come the revolution!

It is amusing that you consider the Greens principled when you have the numerous examples of treachery of Bob Brown and now Christine Milne against Julia Gillard and Labor. Selective memory?

I believe in religious tolerance and the laws of this democracy require it. However if you are going to exercise the right of free speech it is only right to point the finger when you are selective and display bigotry in criticising Christians exclusively.

So again, what about the Greens' Gaia religion and the vast array of other beliefs not mentioned by you and your protest party, the Greens?

"Good idea - he [Einstein] certainly didn't believe the ridiculous fairy tales in the Bible were true."

I meant Alfred not Albert...I always throw that one in to see if anyone is paying attention.

Guess you don't want to talk about the others?

Thank God I'm an Athiest - grin :)

I want to thank producer for the thread, it has been good.
And to say just maybe runner is the little wooden God we talk about.
Doubt he ever cared much about anything.

onthebeach your diatribe of rubbish against The Greens, nothing I can say will ever sway you in your distorted belief.
"I believe in religious tolerance and the laws of this democracy require it."
You could never find a more insidious bunch of hypocrites than Christians, no more an intolerant bunch could you find in society than these people, wanting to constantly interfere with the lives of others. I say to hell with all religions for the good of mankind.

Dear Paul,

Many people see religion as nothing more than
a primitive relic that eventually will disappear
in the more sophisticated modern world.

However, Emile Durkheim, one of the earliest
sociologists was impressed by the fact that religion
is universal in human society, and he wondered why
this was so. The answer that he came up with was
that religion has a vital function in maintaining
the social system as a whole.

Durkheim believed that the origins of religion were
social, not supernatural. He pointed out that, whatever
their source, the rituals enacted in any religion enhance
the solidarity of the community as well as its faith.

Consider such religious rituals as baptism, bar mitzvah,
weddings, Sabbath services, Christmas mass, and funerals.
Rituals like these serve to bring people together, to
remind them of their common group membership, to reaffirm
their traditional values, to maintain prohibitions and
taboos; to offer comfort in times of crisis, and in
general, to help transmit the cultural heritage from one
generation to the next.

Although religion is a universal social institution, it
takes a multitude of forms. Believers may worship gods,
ancestors, or totems; they may practice solitary
meditation, frenzied rituals, or solemn prayer. Many religions
do not recognize a supreme being, and a number do not
believe in gods at all. Also, obviously religion cannot be
defined in terms of the Western religious tradition alone.

For many years it was widely felt that as science
progressively provided rational explanations for the
mysterieis of the universe, religion would have less and less
of a role to play and would eventually disappear, unmasked
as nothing more than superstition. But there are still gaps in
our understanding that science can never fill. On the
ultimate important questions - of the meaning and purpose
of life and the nature of morality.

Few citizens of modern societies would utterly deny the
possibility of some higher power in the universe, some
supernatural transcendental realm that lies beyond the
boundaries of ordinary experience, and in this fundamental
sense religion is probably here to stay.

Dear Lexi,

<<Durkheim believed that the origins of religion were social>>

If I must choose between those who come to this forum to mock faith and this Durkheim, I prefer the former.

The former are fools who find the idea of God threatening their ability and legitimacy of enjoying the pleasures of their senses.

The later attempts to corrupt religion, to mislead by passing that which has nothing to do with religion (social/group goals) for religion.

The later's misrepresentation also entrenches the idea of a supposed connection between religion and systems of social prohibitions/taboos, thus alienating the former ignorants against God.

Once the former had their fair share of pleasure (and pain), they will turn back to God, but if instead, once ready to seek God, they become lost in Durkheim's social wilderness, God only can help them out of it.

'And to say just maybe runner is the little wooden God we talk about.
Doubt he ever cared much about anything. '

thanks Belly. The judge of character you have shown yoiurself to be leaves me reassured.