I've said this before, and will likely say it again. Religions are not the same as eachother. The faults of one religion should be recognized as faults of that religion instead of universally applied to other religions as if all religions are the same. The same can be said of the successes and the strengths of any belief system should be counted as their own instead of counted as a universal success for all religions.

Faith is not belief without evidence. Sometimes that's how it is but that should just be the beginning of it, if that is where a person's journey starts from. Other times faith is built on a continuation of trust. Some people's faith has been sparked by God actively getting in their life in a way that can't be ignored. Making some people's journey in faith spark from the hard reality of God being real and showing them that He is. (Others have a simular experience later on in their journey of faith. Which can strengthen their faith or correct them in their life. There is however too much evidance in the world that God exists for faith to be something without evidance.

Dear "runner",
You say Mohammed had black slaves.
Read Luke13:47( top of page858 of Revised Standard Version of the Bible) where "the Lord"i.e. Jesus is reported to have said :- "And that servant who knew the master's will, but did not make ready to act according to his will , shall receive a severe beating".

If you can beat a servant surely he is a slave and anyway the Greek word from which the English version "servant" is translated is usually translated as "slave".

?Slavery is not contrary to the teachings of Jesus. It is contrary to humanity's inherent reason. Wilberforce may haver thought he was guided by Christianity. I fact he was driven in his inherent humanity.

Old man

'?Slavery is not contrary to the teachings of Jesus. It is contrary to humanity's inherent reason. Wilberforce may haver thought he was guided by Christianity. I fact he was driven in his inherent humanity.'

No doubt Jesus recognised that man in his fallen state will always subjugate others. How you treat others under your authority will be determined by your worldview. There is no doubt Jesus treated women, slaves and others much better than the godless regimes around Him.

Mohammed had black slaves and treated them badly. Jesus had no slaves and in fact served humanity. If you can't see that their is little hope for you as truth and rationale means little to you.

ttbn writes: "Their laws are based on Islam, ours on Christianity"

Your claim for christianity's primacy in our civil law is based primarily on acts of plagiarism over the centuries.

ttbn also writes: “Some people believe that positive morality and ethical conduct flow entirely from religion”. The people who believe that are correct - in the case of Christianity,...."

The same applies for morals and ethics.

Denying history in order to make false claims for religions is common among arrogant christians.

Since humankind began living in groups and created the concept of group responsibility in primitive societies, individual behaviour was subject to majority approval in order that the group prospered harmoniously. Especially in the allocation of labour it was recognised by individuals and group leaders that a harmonious group prospered over those that had no such recognition.

Groups who merged into settlements and practising agricultural occupations found it necessary to keep records of harvests, weather and seasons. Records of dispute settlement decisions became essential. Writing on wet clay tablets developed and so did concepts of fairness, justice, guilt, innocence and enterprise relationships between groups, land boundaries, primitive commerce and property held in common.

Codes of Morality and ethics arose, populations, life expectancy and civic duties expanded dramatically as these basic processes and activities became more involved and complex.

There can be no doubt that people were behaving according to precepts that conformed with and promoted peaceful social progress. The metaphysical concepts that were morality and ethics came to be recognised.

That recognition occurred millennia before christianity. That this progress was the gift of gods demeans humankind, creates a parasite that grew fat on human superstition and by claiming knowledge it didn't have, stultifies human intellectual progress.

It is unarguable that European law had as its genesis ancient Roman and ancient Greek legal systems although that does not deny contributions possible from other ancient societies.

Ian,

<<Throughout society there are people with strongly-held views who will argue cogently for many of their stances, but the fact is that this can only amount to advice, not compulsion. The choice to accept or reject that advice rests solely with each individual, not at the whim of external mob pressures.>>

In Australia, is it only advice that ...

+ You shall not steal;
+ You shall not murder;
+ You shall not lie;
+ You shall not bear false witness at the Banking Royal Commission;
+ You shall abide by the speed limit on M1 freeway near my place;
+ You shall not rape;
+ You shall not sexually abuse children;
+ You shall not physically abuse anyone?

Are these commands only advice or are they absolute values in Australian society?

Runner writes: "In Australia their is a good chance that some godless secularist would of murdered Aasia Bibi in the womb."

Your well-attested religious bigotry is being compounded by a dyslexic scholarship in the English language. Old Man, to his credit, accosted you and demonstrated the difference between "their" and "there". Doubtless, the correction has been lost on you. Might I add though, that your error-prone narrative offends primary school English otherwise?

The term "would of" copies the USAian ignorance by showing an appalling ignorance of the way English demonstrates tense in a verb. "would HAVE" is the correct way of expressing your meaning.

Your groveling to theistic tripe takes precedence over a modest pride in your country and its secular heritage. Such a contemptible contrivance condemns you as a gormless bigot. You reduce the sum of humankind's worth simply by your rxistence.