http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221444

Yabby, christianity is full of positive morals & ethics.

ALL textbooks on the subject of left wing politics, without exception advocate having NO morals & ethics at ALL for the good of the glorious revolution. Left wing politics is government sponsored child abuse. You canNOT destroy the family without getting children neglected & abused, which is a spreading epidemic thanks to left wing policy ruthlessly introduced despite forward knowledge of the consequences.

"repeat the lie, until it becomes the truth" V I Lenin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Communist read this book, then get back to me.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221448

Poirot, typical half truth & selective quoting of history, even if it is true, you conveniently ignore all the good things christians have & still DO.

Yabby's WRONG, atheism & left wing politics trains their sheeple/robots to be devoid of empathy for the victims of socialism which is given that name to hide it's true ANTIsocial nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Communist read this book, then get back to me.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221462

Saltpetre, i beg to differ, the bible is written with the harder, old testament first, followed by the nicer, NEW testament teachings.

"an eye for an eye" or old testament is countermanded by Jesus "peace & love" teachings.

The koran is done the opposite way, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIHeBJNFS1g watch ALL 5 parts of it, the FEW concilliatry "be nice to christians & jews" quotes are in the historically older parts of the koran, the voluminous "jihad & hatred of the INFIDEL, (that is you & me)" surahs are all afterwards, countermanding ALL of the good stuff.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221465

Pericles, socialist/communazi commandment #1, "repeat the lie, until it becomes the truth" V I Lenin.

ALL left wing politics is based on lies, deception & child abuse.

"there will be NO carbon tax under a government i lead" Juliar Dillhard.

"moving forwards" = moving backwards to Russia circa 1917.

Which of these difficult concepts are you struggling with?

*Yabby, christianity is full of positive morals & ethics.*

Ah Formesnag, I do in fact know all about christianity. I too,
suffered from "christians" trying to brainwash me as a young kiddie.
Perhaps you are just more gullible then me, being a sheeple to
Jesus and believing every word.

I've also had a whole lot of discussions with true believers.
It always lands up with the same. "You just wait till Judgement
Day", is their final line.

Hope and fear drive christianity, Formersnag. Clearly you think that
you have bought your ticket to heaven. Would you like to buy a
bridge in inner Sydney too?

Yabby,.
I hope you don't wait until Judgement Day.

Squeers asks, “Where is the argument from the theist side?”

Squeers - You generally won't easily find the Christian argument on TV, radio, or the daily papers. You have to dig a little deeper. But, as Gov. Charles La Trobe believed, 'Whoever seeks finds'.

As I understand it, Dawkins message is that a proper understanding of science is antithetical to religion; science opposes religion, to the extent that the advent of Darwinian evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

So a proper Christian response from the church should perhaps come from a scientist, more so than from a theologian or philosopher. For it is in the scientific domain that Dawkins is aiming his guns.

Such as response is adequately given by Jonathon Sarfati, PhD., F.M., particularly in his recent book, written specifically in response to Dawkins' book, “Greatest Show on Earth” (one chapter linked below).

Sarfati was one scientist who offered to publicly debate Dawkins when the Global Atheist Convention came to our beautiful, leafy city of Melbourne last year.

Not surprisingly, the organisers of the convention were not interested in such a debate. I wrote an article about that non-debate for OLO last year -

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9980&page=0

Sarfati flew into Melbourne the same week-end as Dawkins, but without any shots being fired in anger. But debate or no debate, you can still see a Christian response to Dawkins, showing why science does not oppose Christian religion. Here's a link to a chapter of Sarfati's book.

http://creation.com/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth-chapter-17

Dan S de Merengue,
There is simply no testable evidence for a God. This is where Dawkins is in the right. If anyone has a scrap of empirical evidence, let's have it? But there is none, correct?
What disappoints me is that no one is even offering any compelling reasoning, or subtle theology that transcends empiricism. Failing that, that no one is describing their epiphany, or when God spoke to them personally etc. I would find that hard to ignore, I mean if God spoke to me personally, even though I would be sceptically aware that it was unverifiable and possibly delusional. How is it that believers of all sorts are unwilling to interrogate their their world view, and all its implications, critically?
For what it's worth, I side with Hegel, who argued that theistic beliefs are projections of human needs onto the heavens, but unlike some notable materialists, that these needs reflect real and legitimate human aspirations.

Are you certain that's the right way round, Dan S de Merengue?

>>As I understand it, Dawkins message is that a proper understanding of science is antithetical to religion<<

It surely should read, "religion is antithetical to the proper understanding of science".

As demonstrated by the fact that religious folk - especially young-earth creationists - choose to ignore all evidence that does not support their conviction that God exists.

Atheists, on the other hand, have no such problem ignoring evidence that God exists. For the simple reason, there is none.

Your sweeping generalizations undermine your position quite badly.

>>...science opposes religion, to the extent that the advent of Darwinian evolution made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist<<

Evolution existed long before Darwin gave it common expression. It didn't just spring into being like Athena, fully formed from Zeus' brow.

In much the same way, atheists also existed before Darwin. They did not need a theory of evolution to convince them. After all, there is nothing in Darwin's theory itself that denies the existence of a deity. He simply described a process. It may have given the odd atheist here and there a warm glow, but it was not exactly a game-changer for them.

And thanks for the reference to Sarfati, by the way. Once I had waded through the irrelevance of his Dawkins-bashing, there were some real gems to be found.

"There are certain essential features that make science possible, and they simply did not exist in non-Christian cultures"

The eight points that follow all - every single one - presuppose the existence of a Christian deity. Not one, however, can be described as an "essential features that make science possible". Consequently, the fact that they "did not exist in non-Christian cultures" is simultaneously irrelevant and true, thanks to the fact that by definition they presuppose a Christian deity.

One of the more perfectly circular arguments I have encountered.

Quite beautiful, in its own specious fashion.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221539

Yabby, the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance is often described as a "broad church", multiple factions with doctrinal differences over principles, policy, but ALL broadly delusionally believing in the communazi/socialist religion.

Christianity has multiple churches, some of which have their own jesuit/opus dei factions.

I believe in god, but that does not automatically mean i believe in life after death, creation or that i dont believe in the the Buddhist tradition of reincarnation.

As for a "road to Damascus" moment, i have not personally seen god or one of HIS angels perform miracles, i have however, personally witnessed disciples of the devil working ANTImiracles right here in the land of OZ http://www.heineraffair.info/ real devil worshippers doing evil. One of the cabinet ministers responsible http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/home-of-broken-trust/story-e6frg6z6-1111119114790 resigned & became a preacher.

As for buying bridges? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EastLink_(Melbourne) you did buy shares in this financial mess, went broke recently & was flogged off for 50 cents on the $, OR LESS. http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2011/02/25/3149595.htm?site=brisbane the Clem7 tunnel is now also in the process of going broke as well. Here is the really good bit, Eastlink & other similar " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macquarie_Group bank model" infrastructure projects were already going broke down south when Goanna B Liar started the Clem7 tunnel project & others, Knowing in advance that it was a "plan for failure".

Hopeless fear drives the communazi sheeple "moving forwards", SOME negative christians have used "fear of god", NOT all, in fact jesus teachings are the opposite.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221565
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#221604

Squeers & Pericles, still waiting patiently, politely for plain simple answers to plain simple questions.

Are you familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonzie was cool because he had "faith in himself", faith in the existence of god is the same, i dont need to see a "burning bush" that does not get burned, in order to have faith.

As http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obi-Wan_Kenobi would say you either turn towards the dark side or the light. Everyone involved in loony left wing politics has turned towards the dark side. While there is SOME corruption in christianity MOST christians however, are turned towards the light.