Warwick Marsh wrote: “The preamble to the Australian Constitution contains the words, "Humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God."

Yes, and pointing that out to a lecture theatre full of law students is always guaranteed to get a good chuckle nowadays, along with quite a bit of visible head shaking around the room. The lecturers love it.

Until the existence of any gods can be demonstrated, the reference needs to be removed. All this part of our constitution proves is that people were, understandably, more superstitious in those relatively-ignorant times.

“WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty Poseidon, have agreed to unite …”

Now you know how it looks to an atheist.

Equating Christianity and western values / civilisation is interesting. One thing often forgotten in this discussion is that Christianity started as an 'Eastern' religion. The middle east, precisely. Started in exactly the same region as Islam, 500 years later.
So does the writer mean 'eastern' christianity, as JC taught it in the beginning? Does he mean the christianity that Emperor Constantine tried to force upon Rome (the west) some 300 years later. That christianity was a very different beast to what we know of what JC taught. It gave rise to a long line of popes, many power hungry and greedy accumulators of other people's wealth, not to mention protectors of child abusers. Don't forget that the first christianity that moved into the west (still somewhat of an eastern religion) was attacked and persecuted by the west (Rome) for a long time.
So called western values of the modern variety came to the fore most strongly during the rennaisance, when Greek philosophy and learning was being rediscovered—not christian at all. And how was Greek learning being rediscovered? Through the sources that Middle eastern arabs (Islamic people) had preserved through the time of the west's dark ages.
So, it is all very mixed and complicated. There is no single body we can call 'western values' and it is not particularly equated with the eastern religion of christianity

So could someone explain to me - was Jesus a Jew
or a Christian? And how does that work in Christianity?

Died a criminal's death? What rubbish! Just because Jesus was crucified between two criminals does not make him a criminal.

And, your grandmother was as silly old, ignorant woman. Few Australians are descended from convicts simply because the convicts didn't breed very much. Convicts were far outnumbered by free settlers. Stupid Australians have bull s....ed about such things in the past, and silly foreigners, from the arrogant old Pom, Winston Church down, have seized on the myths to vent their nasty sense of humour. A pox on the lot of them. My own state, SA, was populated by free settlers only.

ttbn,

" Few Australians are descended from convicts simply because the convicts didn't breed very much......"

"Based on the records, demographics, birth rates, census data and migration and emigration patterns, the sites estimated 22 per cent of living Australians had a convict ancestor while there was a one in 30 chance for Britons."

22% is getting close to a quarter so that's hardly a 'few'.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-07-25/online-records-highlight-australias-convict-past/2512534

Dear Foxy,

Divine or not, Jesus would have been a Jew - by both blood and faith (though one couldn’t really call it ‘faith’ in the case of the divine Jesus, as he would have had knowledge of his own divinity).

According to Christian theology, this simply means that, in effect, Christians are Jews (by faith alone, in most cases) who accept their Messiah for who he was/is, and that those who still refer to their faith as “Jewish” are the Jews who reject their Messiah and are foolishly still awaiting his arrival.

They’re so silly!

Seriously, though, this had helped to feed the antisemitism that was so pervasive throughout Christianity before WWII, which (with the help of photography) showed us just how ugly antisemitism can get.

It's funny. Photography managed, in a few years, what Christianity couldn’t manage in a few hundred. But, hey, at least it somehow managed to still provide us with all the good that we enjoy.

--

ttbn,

Settle down there, ol’ boy. Any innocent person who is executed dies a “criminal’s death”. That mean doesn’t they were a criminal, though.

The author is a Christian, I hardly think he’s going to try to paint Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus the Christ, as a criminal. No need to get so defensive.

Say, your former nom de plume wasn’t ‘Leigh’ by any chance, was it? He was from South Australia too, and used to get all defensive when someone exaggerated the extent to which we descended from convicts. He’d proudly point out that South Australia had no convict past. Or perhaps that’s just a South Australian thing?

Nah, he may not have been a believer either, but he never had such a hard-on for Christianity. Never mind. I’ll get it one day…