Loud mouth wrote: “Can you cite any religion that does that ? Which 'condones the most barbaric actions in the name of their made-up god' AND 'exhorts us to love one another even if we are not believers or from the same ethnic group' ?”

Mark 12:31 (KJV) You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Jesus was repeating the words of the Jewish Bible. He was a Jew and not a Christian.

From Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Leviticus makes it plain a little later on that this applies not just to one’s neighbour but to one who is a stranger.

Leviticus 19:33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Later on the Book of Joshua God advocates genocide.

Joshua 6:20 So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. 6:21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

The bloody record of Christianity, not just killing pagans, heretics and Jews, but their fellow Christians in the Wars of the Reformation, the Albigensian Crusade and other exercises in killing is part of history.

In a previous post I mentioned the slaughter of Christians by Christians in the fifth century.

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Recent events have featured Muslim atrocities, but Islam also talks about love.

http://www.al-islam.org/perspectives-concept-love-islam-mahnaz-heydarpoor/human-love#human-love-fellow-humans is a Muslim site which contains:

“On the necessity of love for people, we see that the Qur'an praises those members of the Household of the Prophet who fasted three days and gave everyday the only little food that they had at home successively to a poor, an orphan, and a captive: "And they give food out of love for Him to the poor and the orphan and the captive. [They tell them:]we only feed you for God's sake: we desire from you neither reward nor thanks."(76:8 & 9)

There is a well known hadith narrated in different sources that the Prophet said: "People are all God's family, so the dearest people to Him are those who benefit His family the most." 19

According to a hadith and similar to what is mentioned in the New Testament (Matt. 25:31 46), on the Day of Judgement God will ask some people why they would not have visited Him when He was sick, why they would not have fed Him when He was hungry and why they would not have given water to Him when He was thirsty. Those people will ask: How could these have happened, while you are the Lord of all the world? Then God will. reply: So and so was sick and you did not visit him, so and so was hungry and you did not feed him and so and so was thirsty and you did not give water to him. Did not you know that if you did so you would find Me with him?”

John Ferguson wrote “War and Peace in the World's Religions.” He examined 15 religions. They all talked about love, but they all also sometimes practiced hate.

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Dear Peter,

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You wrote :

« C S Lewis said … Harry Walton … believes that he has seen through everything and lives at rock bottom »

to which you add the somewhat acerbic personal comment :

« Faith is accounted as immaturity. Welcome to a world of bottom dwellers »
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I think you are referring to religious faith, which I consider to be blind faith, i.e., belief in something of which there is no material evidence, no circumstantial evidence and no credible eye witness (the general term, "faith", being defined as belief in something of which there is no material evidence, only circumstantial evidence or a credible eye witness, or both).

I don’t think religious (blind) faith is accounted as immaturity as you indicate, but rather as a simple proposition that everyone is free to adopt or reject according to one's personal disposition.

Both options are perfectly respectable.

Some people feel the need for such belief, others don’t.

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Once again we see how the bar is lowered for commentators here who espouse the Christian cause. And once again Peter tells us all at length and in detail what 'we' feel and 'we' do, without feeling the necessity for providing any kind of evidential support.

I can only conclude that Peter must have a mouse in his pocket, because most of 'us' -- meaning twenty-first century humanity -- are quite happy, healthy and fully functional without the constraints of this particular superstition. It's an old religious tactic to identify an imaginary malaise in order to spruik an imaginary solution. No wonder Peter is upset at how poorly it works these days.

YOur faith is amazing Loudmouth, just don't call it science. Thats exactly why we have so many fooled into believing the gw rubbish.

calwest, agreed, our anti-social, anti-community universities are the worst in world history & are in desperate need of reform.

Rhosty, sorry but Jesus teaching was about the application of punishment on sinners, not whether you must agree with them.

Loudmouth, sounds nice in theory when you say it fast but socialism has a well documented, scientifically proven track record over half a century of being antisocial. It is in fact pure devil worship & NO Australian child will be safe until every communist is deported, jailed or dead.

runner, correct again, cut funding to government schools, colleges & universities ASAP, hand them over to our Christian Churches to run.

david f, wrong again & blinded by atheistic, left wing religion as usual.

Daffy Duck, the brain washed, loyal member of the radical, extreme, left wing religious cult displays his wilful ignorance yet again, with his day is night & night is day dogma. I do pity you darling, your willing foolishness is breathtaking.