*Soul food?*

Hehe, Poirot. More likely those flowers lovingly tended on that grave,
are eaten by some insects, after having sucked up those nutrients.
Along come the birds, eat the insects and poop out those nutrients
over the ocean, which are eaten by the fish. The trawler hauls in the
fish, and this load is going to Mecca, perchance, as the Arabs have
money.

So who knows, Yututsu and Runner could become Muslim food one day.

Now that should sound cheerful :)

@runner: "hard to know whether murdering the baby in the womb is worse than abuse."

Well, since the 'baby in the womb' is normally a bean-sized lump of non-sentient flesh, and an abused child is a living, sentient independent human being, it's not actually very hard, is it? Not unless you reeeeeely reeeeely try to make it look that way.

Do you think it's 'hard to know' whether you should have a cancer cut out or let it grow? After all, God's intentions in creating it were presumably for it to reach the fullness of its potential.

Jesus would say that Politicians and CEO's who manipulate our communities with corrupt pricing for electricity and freeloader immigration schemes that deliver markets, votes and adoration to the rich and infrastructure gridlock, shame and destitution to the middle classes are attacking churches which are the last bastions that can revolt against the ABUSE of all Australian citizens by every level of Government in this land.

The embracing of Globalisation by Australian upper classes is a CRIME against humanity that makes child abuse an insignificance in terms of total suffering.

The whole purpose of globalisation is to make the rich richer and make the middle classes and poor pay for it with abuses, fiscal rape by vacuum up economics and externalisation of RISKS that make child molestation look like a blessing.

That Judas Gillard had to abuse Kevin Rudd with a knife in the back makes her royal commission into child abuse look like "lies and fictions so she can live within her (many) CONTRADICTIONS".

And finally Jesus would say this "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, unto God the things that are God's and unto fresh-blood migrants and unborn mouldable children the power to pass all their RISKS, ABUSE and taxes onto the Australian masses who are too stupid to stand up for their rights"

Yuyutsu deserves credit for acknowledging that Jesus may not have existed:

"Whether Jesus existed or not is not important.

"What is important is what Jesus stands for and how he serves and enhances the spiritual lives of his believers."

Posted by Yuyutsu, Thurs, 15 November, 9:36pm

Added to issues of existence, or not, is whether to apply possible myth-fiction stories to real-life situations, especially when those stories "said nothing about the topic at hand" ....

>> The question "what would Jesus say about X?" is meaningful despite the fact that we already know that the historical Jesus (if indeed he was historical) said nothing about the topic at hand. For the believer, however, the question becomes "how would my highest ideal, as presented by the scriptures that I try to follow, guide me in this particular case".

How can one generate a meaningful "highest ideal" when one is seeking to apply disparate stories, and when the real-life situations involve those who perpetuate the myth-fiction stories and religious-only practices - the priests - while performing real life abominations, yet seeking myth-fiction solutions eg. "absolution" through "sacrament".

Morals and Ethics can be determined without references to stories, and without references to erections.

Look, the Chinese people, principally the males, have just had massive 'elections' and yet there have been no reports of untoward things like masturbation.

The Chinese are obviously morally better than we are and they seem intellectually superior too!

>>Morals and Ethics can be determined without references to stories<<

Stories have played a role in informing our ethics since we started telling stories. I don't see any harm in looking to fictional characters for moral guidance. Jesus is a traditional favourite - a more recent example is Harry Potter. When faced with moral dilemmas I ask: what would Luke Skywalker do?

Cheers,

Tony