AlGoreisRich, you said to Johnny Rotten: <You funny boy....you STATE the 'doctrine'.."No Deities" then you deny that you have one....now you should sit back and toss that around in your fertile mind a bit mate. May the Lord of Glory open your mind and heart.>
If you maintain that fairies, gods and the Sydney Harbour Monster exist, the onus is 100% on you to prove that they do. There is no onus on deniers to prove that they don’t. In fact, it is logically impossible to find evidence that something does not exist because something that does not exist generates no evidence of its non-existence.
You are not professing any doctrine when you deny that fairies, gods and Sydney Harbour Monsters don’t exist; you are merely noting that those making the implausible claim that they exist haven’t yet produced evidence to support their claim. That’s not being doctrinaire; it’s simply being logical.
If you want others to believe that there is a “Lord of Glory”, you’d better have convincing evidence ready. And good luck because the best efforts of Christian theologians for two millennia have not found it.
One of the reasons why increasing numbers are finding carols evenings confronting is that religionists are taking them over and locating the carol singing in an overtly religious context. This makes their texts into declarations of a faith that non-believers cannot make. Previously, carols were simply good fun songs that everyone could enjoy singing together because everybody felt free to attach only as much credibility to the words as they wished. But when the religionists take over, the carols lose their innocence and it becomes impossible to sing them without appearing to endorse their underlying dogma. I’ve been part of the backing choir at the local carols evening for several years but I won’t be in future. And neither will several other choir members not prepared to be paraded as evidence for the prosecution by the churches turning the carols evening into a case for god.

There is no dominant religion in the world today and by definition, only one religion can possibly be true.

Therefore, the majority of religious people in the world earnestly believe in and will argue about something that is completely false.

The origins of a pagan festival stretching back over millennia and pre-dating at least one such religion is no exception, especially when it incorporates such things as the "heathen" celebration of Yule.

@wobbles

'only one religion can possibly be true',well, believers might hold that opinion,however,it's more likely that no religion is, or can be, 'true'

In my community one of the local churches
is organising the annual 'Carols by Candlelight',
but it won't be any kind of recruitment drive
for Jesus. Instead, it will be a family
evening of traditional and contemporary carols,
combined with a sausage sizzle, open to all
comers.

As a curmudgeonly old atheist near-vegetarian,
I won't be attending, but I certainly don't
begrudge the church or the attendees for observing
their religious festival in such a fun and
informal way. Let's face it, whatever its origins
Christmas is a major festival in the Christian
religious calendar. If you don't want to be
exposed to excesses of Christian 'happy clapping',
don't go to Carols by Candlelight. That's why I don't.

Simple, really.

Quote: Even assuming Jesus Christ was an actual person

While Christ's divinity, healings and other "miracles" and resurrection can be and are disputed, who, apart from the author, would seriously question that Christ did exist in a human form? You may as well question whether Pontius Pilate or King Herod was "an actual person".

L.B.Loveday (Saturday, 18 Dec 10:15:16 AM)

There is no evidence for Jesus of the Bible outside the Bible narrative -

Virtually all references in contemporary historians (Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Tacticus, Suetonius) were

(i) to "Chrestus", "Christus", "Christos" (or other such names meaning at the time 'anointed one', or 'useful' as was often applied to servants or slaves)*, or

(ii) to his followers - often called "Christianos" (Tacticus).

A lot of Josephus's references to Christ are considered later additions, and Origen later wrote Josephus did not believe Jesus was *the* Christ.

Considering Jesus is supposed to have lived amongst 500 people for 40 days after his resurrection, it is very surprising nothing of that was recorded by the contemporary historians then or in ensuing decades.

Jesus was a common name at the time, and self-appointed messiahs were too. It is likely there has been a condensation of more than one messianic character into the one that was eventually portrayed in the Bible.

----

* There have been difficulties with translation and transcription -

xpnotoc/s (Latin transliteration chrestus) means useful.

xpiotoc/s (christus) means anointed.