david f,

<<Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. Lucius Annaeus Seneca>>

What has that to do with The Inspector's response to Banjo who stated he was 'a Christian' but believed in 'no god'?

Sounds contradictory to me.

Dear OzSpen,

You will believe what you will. To me your beliefs are superstition.

david f,

You quoted from Diarmaid MacCulloch's, A History of Christianity:

<<I live with the puzzle of wondering how something so apparently crazy [religious liturgy] can be so captivating to millions of other members of my species.” P. 11>>

That is not the statement of an objective historian. MacCulloch has moved into subjective opinion with this kind of statement. I also am an historian.

<<I also find Christianity crazy - virgin birth, God divided in three parts, a person dying for another’s sin, a man god etc. MacCulloch tells of the spread of this craziness.>>

That's because you don't believe who the true God is. He is the One who spoke the universe into existence (Genesis 1:1); the God who brought the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery with miracle after miracle (Exodus 7-12), and the significance of blood sacrifice to atone for sins (Leviticus 1: 17:11).

You will never understand God and his attributes from naturalistic and materialistic presuppositions. Let the reliable Scriptures speak for themselves and not impose your world view on them.

Dear Ozspen,

You wrote: "You will never understand God and his attributes from naturalistic and materialistic presuppositions. Let the reliable Scriptures speak for themselves and not impose your world view on them."

I don't understand how saying that Christianity is nonsense is imposing my view on anybody. Don't I have a right to state my opinion? There are many belief systems. In my view they are all nonsense. In your view the nonsense you believe in is true, and the others are false. You apparently don't believe in all the non-Christian religions. I don't believe in one more belief system than you.

Christians have imposed to their views on others many times with forced conversions, torture, persecution, slavery and other nastiness. I merely state my views, and it becomes imposing my views. What arrogance!

There is no evidence that there is a God. There is no evidence that the scriptures are anything but the work of humans. Many religions have scriptures, and it is arrogance to maintain that yours are true, and the others are false. It is more reasonable to maintain that they all are false.

david f,

How do you explain the miracles at Lourdes?

Dear Is Mise,

There are many tales of miracles. I don't try to explain any. If I were presented with incontrovertible evidence that there was a miracle I would have to accept it. Meanwhile I refer you to the following arguments of Hume on miracles.

http://documents.routledge-interactive.s3.amazonaws.com/9781138793934/A2/Hume/HumeMiracles.pdf

Non-Christian religions also have miracle claims. It is a stock in trade of religion to provide miracles. I have no reason to believe in miracles, God, fairies, gnomes etc. I made the decision that it is not worth my time. Maybe I'm wrong.