MWT.. wow..that was a bit convoluted...

Sounds a bit "Hindu" ish to me ? or are you in to some spiritualist group or something ? Please fill me in.

ARJAY we can know, in this life, but it does begin with belief and faith, in Christ. Not the Christ of 'some organized religions' who put ArchBishops palaces, in as you put it, but the Biblical one, the one who humbly washed his disciples feet.

Paul put it best in this place (have a peek at the ref mate, its very good logic and reasoning.)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015%20;&version=31;

Our faith is based on concrete, historical events of the highest importance.

Azlan pointed out to me that one of the foremost atheist thinkers of our century (Dr Anthony Flew) is now a Deist. http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/09/210618.php
Please don't see this as "my scholar can beat your scholar", no, this guy is not a Christian, but his ideas have changed purely in the light of the compelling evidence itself.

I'm not qualified to debate at that level, but I offer it to you as support regarding "Belief in God, in Christ is not so silly afterall"
For me, the conversion of Paul is more striking than Flew's change of heart. Paul was on the way to exterminate more of those he had already wiped out. I mean..this guy was a killer, a genocidal fanatic ! It was not a small thing to change his mind and heart.

Boaz, when I get to his age, I don't expect to be thinking very clearly either.

Dr Flew: "I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins. It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."

Hmmmmmm.

Dr Flew is 81.

Up scope....
yep..I know that.
I just threw it in for some discussion. He seems quite bright still.
down scope...

Cosmic Saddam Husseins? These are his idea of deities? And you're cool with that?

Awww, c'mon!

Pericles
its your turn to outline your alternative to my dualistic view of morality.
By the way, if u look at the article "There is no room for moral judgements in Australia" by a Professer Meldel I made a few rather 'rabid' comments on his view :)
P.S. r u in Melbourne ?

I found what Mark wrote originally very thought provoking, but his second post seems to leap to a few conclusions about suicide which sounded wrong to me (especially as a woman who once made a typically feeble attempt, but whose sister eventually succeeded in hanging herself).

I googled quickly and found this:-

http://www.a1b2c3.com/suilodge/facovr1a.htm

There are some facts here for anyone who is interested, plus some amusing stories, like the one about the woman who took an overdose and timed it to co-incide with her partner's return from work, with a note pinned to herself saying "If you love me, wake me up" and her partner went down the pub for the night without waking her, and she died.

Otherwise, most of the debate on this forum is completely over my head, but I do have a story about "God" which happened to me, which I share here for anyone who might be interested.

Just as background, I myself have absolutely no position on GOD either before this happened to me or after. If pushed to give an answer/opinion, I would say I was confused, but not unpleasantly so.

About 5 years ago, out of nowhere I suddenly found myself staying up nights wondering what life was for, having never given it a moment's thought before. (I was a middle aged successful CEO). Eventually that thinking distilled itself into a question that seemed ungrammatical to me, but that didn't stop me asking it of my husband, who happened to be around; "What is truth?" He asked what I meant. I said I didn't know, but I still had to know the answer to this question.

Whereapon, my 10 year old daughter (a very typical TV viewing, junk food eating public school girl - most decidely a product of contemporary secular life) , who had overheard me asking, sighed heavily,came up to me and said:

"Mum, I'll tell you what truth is"

She grabbed my left hand, stroking each of the fingers in turn, from the thumb through to the little finger, saying "That's Honesty", "That's Trust" "That's Happiness" "That's Love" "That's Reality". Then she stroked my palm, "That's Forgiveness" and, then, folding my hand over, "That's Faith". That is the Truth Hand. We are born into the Truth Hand, and we grow into the Greed Hand"

"Who the fuck told you that?" asked my husband.

"God" she said " God tells us all, but we forget"

After that experience, I'm kinda with mwr above, I think!