Forgiving can redeem oneself. The author of the article referred to Christ. Gandhi said something showing greater insight.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Mahatma Gandhi, All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections

Since the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, Christianity has dominated Europe. Since the Age of Imperialism Christianity has dominated the world.

In dominating the world Christian missionaries have accompanied gunboats and have forced their religion on the subject peoples much as the Roman state forced Christianity on its subjects after the adoption of Christianity as its official religion. Yet the author writes: "How is this possible? It’s possible because, with Christ, human beings are offered a new identity. This identity is about belonging to group that has forgiveness, and not exclusion of the enemy, as its constitution. It is full of ‘others’."

Can the author not see that living in peace with other peoples is not pushing your religion on them? Can Christianity forgive itself for missionising?

For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone is impressed by a deity that requires someone to be nailed to a post until they are dead.

Great!

<<… with Christ, human beings are offered a new identity. This identity is about belonging to [a] group that has forgiveness, and not exclusion of the enemy, as its constitution. It is full of ‘others’.>>

Now, when you can provide me with some reliable evidence for the existence of this god, I’ll be right there beside you.

Of course, there are some details that will require some explaining, such as why did this god need to sacrifice himself to himself to create a loophole for rules that he’s in charge of; and how does a bad weekend, in which you get to be God at the end of it, constitute a "sacrifice"? But...

Oh, details! We'll worry about those later.

Never mind that Christians have been self-righteously slaughtering each other, and everyone who gets in the way of their imperialist expansion for over 1700 years.
Never mind too that there are now more Christians on the planet than ever before, both in total numbers and as a percentage of the human population.
Which is to say that there is no historical evidence showing that Christians have ever practiced cooperation, tolerance or peace, so why/how in the scheme of things are they going to practice these virtues now.
Furthermore back-to-the-past right wing Christian "traditionalists" are responsible for much of the troubles now being dramatized all over the planet.

I've recently picked up the book, "Believers: Does Australian
Catholicism Have a future?" by Dr Paul Collins.

In it there's relevant paragraphs to this discussion
that I'd like to quote:

"The most radical aspect of the teaching of Jesus goes
beyond even the commandment of love is His insistence
on forgiveness, even of enemies. In contrast to
Christianity, the other monotheistic religions, Judaism
and Islam, believe in 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth'. There are many non-violent Jews and Muslims who are
committed to peace, but Jesus is the first person in history
to say that the vendetta and the desire for revenge are
totally inappropriate responses for his followers."

"As the Jewish literary critic George Steiner says in his
wonderful intellectual autobiography "Errata" the most
scandalous thing about Christianity is that it believes in
forgiveness, even of its enemy. "Christ's ordinance of
total love, of self-offering to the assailant is, in any
strict sense, an enormity. The victim is to love his
butcher. A monstrous proposition. But one shedding fathomless
light."

How are mortal men and women to fulfill it? Here is the real
core of Jesus' moral teaching. Everything else is secondary.

Dr Collins goes on to say that "Nevertheless forgiveness can
seem like weakness, especially within an extreme terrorist
context where the "lex talionis" is seen as justified and
even exalted by some Muslims as an aspect of "Jihad". This
confronts the Christian with the question of how we should
respond to outrages like the 9/11 terrorist attacks on
New York, and the Bali, Madrid and London bombings.
Should we turn the other cheek? What would that achieve?
Personally, I think it would achieve a lot more than the
so-called 'war on terror'. Only a truly superior statesperson
would have shamed and isolated the terrorists by saying
'I forgive you'. This would have had to have been
accompanied by intelligent and astute diplomatic and
political work to isolate the terrorists and by appealing to
the vast majority of sensible, civilised and peaceful
Muslims. Sadly we are not governed by such intelligent
political leaders."

Dear Foxy,

You wrote, "In contrast to Christianity, the other monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, believe in 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'. There are many non-violent Jews and Muslims who are committed to peace, but Jesus is the first person in history to say that the vendetta and the desire for revenge are totally inappropriate responses for his followers."

The lex talionis (eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) was a great advance and is the basis for law all over the world.

The Bible states: Exodus 21:24 “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,“

However, if one reads on in the Bible it is apparent that it was not a literal eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Bible prescribes penalties appropriate to the offense. This was a great advance over the feud or vendetta. In a vendetta there is no end. An act of revenge follows another act of revenge ad infinitum. With the lex talionis a penalty is paid, and the matter is settled. That is far better than an unending vendetta. The lex talionis ends the vendetta.

A few years ago I was in Lubeck, Germany during the Christmas season. The town was in a festive mood. There were booths on the street with goodies for eye and belly. In Lubeck there are twin towers connected with a passageway on top. They may get pictured on boxes of marzipan. At the bottom of one of the towers is a torture museum. I went in and looked at the exhibit. There were thumb screws, rack, iron maiden and other instruments by which humans inflicted pain and suffering on other humans. While I was looking at the exhibit the strains of Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht (Silent Night, Holy Night) came into the room. How Christian! These instruments of torture along with burning at the stake were the reality of much Christian practice.

Is burning at the stake an appropriate penalty for doubting the Trinity? Christianity might adopt the lex talionis.

continued

continued

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10725 points to my article on the burning at the stake of Servetus in Protestant Basel.

There are other words of Jesus which are appropriate to the consideration of Christianity.

Matthew 7:20 “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Some of the fruits of Christianity have been intolerance of other faiths, enslavement of native and other peoples, the Inquisition, the Wars of the Reformation, forced conversions, martyrdom of those who wish to keep their faith and the Crusades.

This sort of thing exists currently where Christianity has not been tamed by the secular state. In Uganda Christian missionaries have pushed for the death penalty for homosexuals.

In regard to forced conversions Mohammed’s injunction that there should be no compulsion in religion is pertinent. To the best of my knowledge no comparable injunction exists in any other religion. Unfortunately Muslims can ignore the wise words of Mohammed as Christians ignore the wise words of Jesus. Jesus was wise enough never to become a Christian.

Dear David F.,

Much evil has been done in the name of religion that
should not have been done - and bad things still continue
to this day. It is people who
do the bad things - interpreting to suit their
own agendas. I quoted from Dr Collins' book because
I thought it appropriate to this discussion.

Victim?
Some victim.
Die for three days then get to sit beside god forever and help rule the universe.
Wish I got persecuted like that.

Dear Foxy,

American theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg won the Nobel laureate in physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles. He once said, “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”

Dear David F.,

Thank You for the quote about religion.
However, -
I prefer this one:

"Just as a candle cannot burn without fire,
men cannot live without a spiritual life."
(Buddha).

Dear Foxy,

I am 91. The only health problem I have is occasional hay fever. I am not aware that I have a spiritual life. If I do it is hiding somewhere. Belief can lead us astray. If there is evidence we no longer need belief. I don't think we need belief anyway. If I worship anything it is the sanctity of doubt.

"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." The ninth-century sage Lin Chi gave this advice to one of his monks, admonishing him that this Buddha would only be a reflection of his unexamined beliefs and desires.

Most people who have a religion have the religion of their parents. They feel a community with their parents by maintaining their parent's beliefs. Religious believers are usually unwilling to acknowledge that there are people without a religious faith. That is all the Buddha quote means. Because Buddha felt he had a spiritual life therefore he assumed everyone else must have one.

Sellick's article, Are we really secular or pagan?, is an example of that kind of religious arrogance. To Sellick we can't really be neutral and treat all superstition alike. If we don't share his superstition we must have some kind of pagan faith.

Dear David F.,

Thank You for sharing your feelings on the subject.

Some form of religion has existed in every society
that we know of. Religious beliefs and practices
are so ancient that they can be traced into
prehistory. Even the primitive Neanderthal people
of that time, it seems, had some concept of a
supernatural realm that lay beyond everyday reality.

Among the fossilized remains of these cave dwellers,
anthropologists have found evidence of funeral
ceremonies in the form of flowers and artifacts that
were buried with the dead, presumably to accompany
them on their journey to an afterlife.

Sociologist Emile 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. Religious rituals
such as babtisms, bar mitzvah, weddings, Sabbath services,
Christian 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.

Of course there are many people who no longer believe
deeply in traditional religion, but many also have not
found a satisfying substitute. You obviously have and I
respect that.

Dear Foxy,

I am familiar with Durkheim, and I accept his thesis that the origins of religion were social - not supernatural. It is quite possible that there were no societies without some form of religious belief. It is also possible that there were no societies without sceptics of that belief. There is evidence that societies had means of dealing with sceptics.

Believers in pre-literate societies leave artefacts such as burial mounds and figures of fertility goddesses. Doubters in those societies would not leave artefacts, but that does not mean they did not exist. Since they could be seen as a threat to the unity of the group they could have been dealt with harshly, and there is evidence that they were.

The Khazars, a pagan people, were converted to Judaism. Before their conversion the Khazars dealt with young men who had too many questions about the tribal beliefs by killing them.

A few years ago I was in New South Wales and went on a tour guided by an old Aborigine who told us about Aboriginal beliefs and customs. I asked him if there were those who questioned the beliefs. He said that boys who did not accept the beliefs did not survive the initiation ordeals.

Continued

continued

The anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon wrote “Yanomamo, The Fierce People.” The Yanomamo are a South American tribal people. The following passage is from his book.

“...a spirit named Wadawadariwa asks the soul if it has been generous or stingy during its mortal life. If the person has been stingy and niggardly, Wadawadariwa directs the soul along one path leading to a place of fire: Shobari Waka. If the person was generous with his possessions and food, he is directed along the other the other path – to hedu proper, where a tranquil semi-mortal existence continues.
The Yanomamo do not take this seriously, that is, do not fear the possibility of being sent to the place of fire. When I asked why, I got the following kind of answer: “Well, Wadawadariwa is kind of stupid. We’ll just all lie and tell him we are generous, and he’ll send us to hedu!”

Sounds as though the tribe may have many sceptics.

The ancient Greeks were an early literate people who apparently contained both sceptics and believers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras

“Protagoras also was a proponent of agnosticism. Reportedly, in his lost work, On the Gods, he wrote: "Concerning the gods, I have no means of knowing whether they exist or not, nor of what sort they may be, because of the obscurity of the subject, and the brevity of human life." According to Diogenes Laërtius, the outspoken, agnostic position taken by Protagoras aroused anger, causing the Athenians to expel him from the city, and all copies of his book were collected and burned in the marketplace. The deliberate destruction of his works also is mentioned by Cicero.

Continued

Continued

The classicist John Burnet doubts this account, however, as both Diogenes Laërtius and Cicero wrote hundreds of years later and as no such persecution of Protagoras is mentioned by contemporaries who make extensive references to this philosopher. Burnet notes that even if some copies of the Protagoras books were burned, enough of them survived to be known and discussed in the following century. A claim has been made that Protagoras is better classified as an atheist, since he held that if something is not able to be known it does not exist.”

Protagoras may or may not have been persecuted for his skepticism.

According to Plato Socrates was condemned to death for impiety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates

“Socrates defended his role as a gadfly until the end: at his trial, when Socrates was asked to propose his own punishment, he suggested a wage paid by the government and free dinners for the rest of his life instead, to finance the time he spent as Athens' benefactor. He was, nevertheless, found guilty of both corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety ("not believing in the gods of the state"), and subsequently sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock.”

Socrates was probably guilty of impiety, but I don’t think it should be a crime.

Continued

Continued

Open sceptics toward Christianity or Christian doctrines have attracted the attention of the Inquisition, witch hunts and other instruments to preserve the purity of Christian doctrine.

Currently those who don’t believe in Islam may be murdered in Bangladesh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacks_by_Islamic_extremists_in_Bangladesh

“Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh refers to increased attacks since 2013 on a number of secularist and atheist writers, bloggers, and publishers in Bangladesh and foreigners, and religious minorities such as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Shias.[1][2][3] These attacks have been largely blamed by extremist groups such as Ansarullah Bangla Team and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The Bangladeshi government was criticized for its responses to the attacks, which included charging and jailing some of the secularist bloggers for allegedly defaming religious groups – a strategy seen as pandering to hard line elements within Bangladesh's majority Muslim population (about 89% of the population). The government's eventual crackdown in June 2016 was also criticized for its heavy-handedness, as more than 11,000 people were arrested in little more than a week (as of 18 June 2016).

As of 2 July 2016, a total of 48 people, including 20 foreign nationals, were killed in such attacks.”

However, perhaps religious believers and sceptics can play their part in the creation of a viable society. Religious ritual and affirmation of belief are collective acts, and doubt is an individual act. The Latin word, religio, means ‘to bind’, and doubt separates one from those bound together.

E. O. Lawrence wrote in “The Social Conquest of Earth”

“If individual selection were to dominate, societies would dissolve. If group selection were to dominate, human groups would come to resemble ant colonies.”

Religion promotes stability within the community, and doubt promotes innovation. However, the stability that religion provides is often accompanied by an increase in tribalism which promotes war and conflict with other communities. In my opinion it is better that stability be provided by a more equitable distribution of income, wealth and resources.

We need both freedom of religion and the freedom to doubt any and all religions.

Dear David F.,

Thank You for your very eloquent posts.

I fully agree with you that we do need freedom of
religion and of course the right to doubt religion.

For many years it was widely felt that as science
progressively provided rational explanations for
the mysteries 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 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 Foxy,

It is difficult to get statistics on the number of citizens of modern societies who would utterly deny the possibility of some higher power in the universe,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism is a discussion of the number of atheists. In it is:

“In Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and East Asia, and particularly in China, atheists and the non-religious are the majority.”

Atheist Marxism guides China. It may be that the parts of the population which believe in a supernatural higher power in that country are hesitant about revealing their belief.

However, belief in a higher power should not be equated with a belief in religion. Not all religions are theistic and involve the belief in a higher power. Most of the different branches of Buddhism deny both a higher power and a soul. Yet Buddhism is a genuine religion with a belief system, theology, ritual, moral code, a founding narrative and the other trappings of religion. A person can be a committed Buddhist and also be an atheist. One can be an atheist and a religious person.

To me it is significant that the atheists in Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Germany are in the majority. Those countries generally are at or near the top in statistical measures of human well-being. It indicates to me that religion is something that those who feel themselves ill-used by society and suffering cling to. Possibly, many of the religious people in those countries may feel losing their religion would be abandoning their religions ancestors. I felt that way.

There is a negative correlation between morality and religion. In general those countries whose populations have greater religious faith also have greater corruption. That does not necessarily mean that religious people are more corrupt. It may mean that desperate people in their desperation are more likely to cut corners and to seek solace in mumbojumbo.

However, if Durkheim is right and religion originates as a social rather than a supernatural need, other ways of bonding eliminate the need for religion.

Scientists are probably the most irreligious group in society. Science serves as a binding force.

Dear David F.,

The following link I think explains things rather
well (at least for me):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-evan-moffic/can-we-believe-in-god-and_b_4734731.html

Dear Foxy,

The title of the article puts me off.

Can we believe in God and science?

The title contains a false equivalence. Science is not something one believes in. Science is based on evidence and reason. If the evidence does not support a scientific hypothesis one abandons the hypothesis. I do not nor does any scientifically literate person believe in science. Either evidence supports a scientific hypothesis or it doesn’t. It’s that simple. There is no need for belief.

However, one does believe in religion. If one has evidence one does not need belief. Religion is based on unproven and unprovable hypotheses. A scientific hypothesis may be negated by evidence. In that case it is discarded. There are no such tests for religious belief. Newton’s Laws of Motion were accepted for a long time. They worked to describe the action of moving bodies. However, at velocities approaching the speed of light they were found to be no longer valid. Relativity took over. The Christian religion has its present dominance through an accident of history. A Roman Emperor declared it the official religion of the Empire and enforced its adoption by the might of the Empire. Henry the Eight wanted a divorce so he broke away from Rome and founded the Anglican Church. That is not the way science is done. No one can force the adoption of a scientific hypothesis if it does not rest on evidence. There have attempts to do so, but, although these attempts may cause great suffering, they will eventually lose. Stalin’s Lysenkoism and Hitler’s racial theories are two examples of trying to make science a matter of belief like religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

The rabbi has committed the fallacy of false equivalence.

Dear David F.,

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. The great variety of religious behaviour
and belief makes it very difficult to say exactly what
'religion' is. Many definitions have been offered in the
past, but most of the ones we are familiar with have been
biased by ethnocentric Judeo-Christian ideas about
religion.

These ideas are based on a number of central beliefs; that
there exists one supreme being or God; that God created the
universe and all life and takes a continuing interest in the
creation; that there is a life hereafter; and that our moral
behaviour in this life influences our fate in the next.

In cross-cultural terms, however, this particular combination
of beliefs is unusual. As you've pointed out there are many
religions that do not recognize a supreme being, and a number
do not believe in gods at all. Several religions ignore
questions about the origins of the universe and life, leaving
these problems to be dealt with instead by non-religious
myth. Many religions assume that the gods take little interest
in human affairs. Some have almost nothing to say about life
after death, and many, perhaps most, do not link our earthly
morality with our fate beyond the grave. Obviously, religion
cannot be defined in terms of the Western religious tradition
alone.

We can say, then, that religion is a system of communally shared
beliefs and rituals that are oriented toward some sacred,
supernatural realm. The phenomenon is of such universal
social importance that it has long been, and remains, a major
focus of sociological interest.

Emile Durkheim argued that shared religious beliefs and the
rituals that go with them are so important that every society
needs a religion, or at least some belief system that serves
the same functions. The cause of much of the social disorder
in modern societies he contended, is that "the old gods are
growing old or are already dead, and others are not yet born."

Dear Foxy,

It may be a fact that religion exists in every society. However, it is an assumption that every society needs religion. There is no reason to see it as a valid assumption.

It may be a fact that perverts, demagogues and psychopaths exist in every society. However, it is an assumption that every society needs perverts, demagogues and psychopaths. There is no reason to see it as a valid assumption.

There is a gene that causes pernicious anaemia. It stays in humanity’s gene bank because in combination with an allele of the same gene that doesn’t cause pernicious anaemia it promotes resistance to malaria. In areas that do not contain the malarial parasite the gene disappears. Religion serves various needs of both society and the rulers. If those needs disappear so will religion. I do not think that all the needs that religion serves will disappear, but I think many will disappear. Therefore I think that the percentage of religious believers will decrease but not disappear.

Religion serves to provide an explanation for phenomena which are beyond human understanding. Faced with a incomprehensible world religion promotes security and well-being. However, as we comprehend more and more of the world the need for religion becomes less urgent. Birth and death are two phenomena that are difficult to deal with. The death of a loved one is especially difficult. Religion can enhance the joy of birth and soften the grief of a dear one’s death. However, as we know more about the physical process of life and death we can more easily deal with the fact of life and death. Biologists deal with birth and death as natural phenomena.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com.au/2007/06/evolutionary-biologists-flunk-religion.html

“Taken together, the advocacy of any degree of theism is the lowest percentage measured in any poll of biologists' beliefs so far (4.7 percent).”

Whether or not biologists need religion an overwhelming majority reject it.

Much of the disorder in modern society is caused by believers in one type of religious nonsense in conflict with believers in another type.

Dear David F.,

It is true that some communities or even societies that
are hostile to one another often use religion as an
ideological weapon, emphasizing differences in faith
in order to justify conflict.

A nation at war invariably assumes that its gods are on
its side - even when, as in the case of the two world wars
of this century, several of the warring nations worshipped
the same deity. Wars fought on ostensibly religious
grounds are often marked by extreme bloodiness and
fanaticism, but religious differences are not necessarily
the causes of the wars, even though the participants
themselves may think they are. The medieval Crusades, for
example, appear at first sight to have been a purely religious
conflict in which European Christians were trying to recover
the Holy Land from Muslims. A closer analysis suggests an
additional reason., however, the European nobility launched
the Crusades partly to gain control of the trade routes to the
East and partly to divert widespread unrest among their
peasantry.

Similarly, contemporary conflict between Jews and Muslims
in the Middle East may seem to arise from religious differences,
but the tension is really over competing claims by two different
ethnic groups, the Israelis and the Palestinians, for the same
homeland. In much the same way, the conflict in Northern Ireland
on the surface seemed to be one between Catholics and Protestants,
but its roots lie much deeper in ethnic and class divisions between
Irish of native descent and those descended from British settlers.

Sometimes a group may actually be inspired by religion to
challenge the existing order. The challenges tend to come from
religious movements near the fringes of society, or from dissident
groups within the dominant religion. In many of the highly
unequal and impoverished societies of Central and South America,
for example, the Catholic Church has long been associated with
the military, social and economic elite. Yet in recent years a
minority of priests and nuns have embraced "liberation theology,"
which blends Christian compassion for the poor with an explicit
commitment to political change through class struggle.

Dear Foxy,

I agree that wars and conflicts exacerbated by religion are not necessarily caused by religion, but many conflicts are due to religious differences.

There would be no struggle in Northern Ireland or in Israel if it weren’t for religion. Northern Irish Catholics and Northern Irish Protestants are ethnically alike. You can look at a bunch of Northern Irish Protestants and a group of Northern Irish Catholics. You can’t tell one from the other by looks. The differences in their cultures are strictly due to religion. Each group has a history of conflict with the other group.

Jews came to Israel as a refuge from years of Christian persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Israel was chosen by the Jews because of the Biblical myth that God had assigned the land. Muslims claimed the land because it came into Muslim domination during the conquests of early Islam. If it were not for religious differences the land could be shared in peace. If it were not for Christian and Muslim persecution Jews would not be in Israel in large numbers. The fight for the same piece of land is justified by the different religious mythologies of the conflicting parties. The conflict seems to arise from religion because it does arise from religion.

The Crusades were carried on partially for other than religious reasons. However, without the religious leader, Pope Urban II, in 1096 calling for a Crusade there would have been no Crusades.

Sometimes religion may back a social movement that will make things better for the oppressed. In Australia the Catholic Church backed the formation of the Labor Party because most Catholics were working class at the time. However, Santamaria organized the Democratic Labor Party which broke off from the Labor Party. Catholic Santamaria supported the clerical fascism of Franco. That to him and other Catholics was more important than the rights of Labor. Pope John Pope II had no sympathy for “liberation theology” and did what he could to crush it. The preservation of the religious institution generally takes precedence over sympathy for the poor.

Jesus a ' Palestinian Jew'. Really Mr Jensen. Which modern day revisionist bible college thought that one up. I have heard the aboriginals say that Jesus visited the outback in person. Jesus being a ' Palestinian Jew' is just as made up as the ' Palestinian state'. Next thing you will be telling us that Jesus was transgender. Please if you are going to preach Christ do it accurately.

Dear David F.,

Saint Vincent de Paul Society - "Vinnies" is a Catholic
lay organisation that was introduced into Australia in 1854.
In Victoria alone Vinnies offers a wide range of assistance
including aged care and disability services, home visitation,
financial and food assistance, migrant and refugee support,
homeless accommodation, soup vans that support hundreds of homeless
people every night, centres for youth and overseas projects.
As well as homeless services the Society also provided cheap
clothing, furniture and other necessities through 619 centres or
shop fronts across Australia, which are also used to raise money
to support the Society's work. The total number of people
annually assisted by Vinnies is an extraordinary 1.8 million and
counting.

While the Society is primarily geared to service at the
coalface, Vinnies' leadership has been increasingly willing to
confront the structural issues that lead to poverty and
deprivation in the first place. Nowadays the Society's
leadership is willing to speak out. The Salvation Army provides
similar services. Both these organisations represent religion
at its best.

It is so easy to caricature Catholicism (for example) as a
self-interested monolith divorced from the wider community and
out of touch with the experiences of people. Many outsiders think
the church is one entity controlled from Rome with the pope
at its apex, the bishops as local managers and all its activities
hierarchically controlled. This is where Vinnies provides just
one contrasting perspective. It is a genuinely lay-run
organisation where clerical influence is almost non-existent.

It is almost forgotten that Catholicism is not a centralised
corporation, but a complex interlocking constellation of
different semi-independent entities, lay organisations, religious
orders, dioceses, parishes, schools, hospitals, and other
ministries, all with their own legal status, independent finances
and administration.

Saint Vincent de Paul is the largest Catholic charity. There are
many others. I won't list them all here. Suffice to mention
Father Chris Riley who began his work for youth in Sydney.
He founded and developed "Youth Off The Streets". A member of the
Salesians of Don Bosco an Italian-founded religious order
devoted to the care of youth.

cont'd ...

Dear David F.,

Thank You for this interesting discussion however
for me it's well and truly run its course.
Frankly I am tired and I see no point in continuing.
I understand that you don't believe in religion or
God. I respect that.
Lets leave it there.

Michael Jensen, thank you so much for the wakeup call. I think the message of Christ is truly about forgiveness and it is even a shame now that most Christian had really forgotten about the message of Jesus and until every one of us live our lives according to Jesus Christ i don't the unity can be establish

I strongly believe in God and in the teaching of Christ because aren't seen a great teacher like Jesus yet on earth.

You're wasting your time, rollyczar. You forgot to put the link to your website in your signature. Your posts won't generate any hits until you do.