Philo, “Because of the pride of human beings, there will never be a period in human history when conflict will not occur.” That is about all we can expect from the religious, nothing positive unless it is religious. If you look through history, you will find many societies that have been non religious and have existed without constant war, some for thousands of years.

David Boaz, “So, I maintain that it is not the 'religion' which is the problem, it all comes back in this case to the greed and power of a sovereign Charles the II who USED religion for his own purposes, and now we have the inherited baggage”.

Religion is the problem and always has been, it will continue to be the major problem for the progress of this planet as long as it is allowed to soil our world. Islam is very radical, but so is christianity as can be seen throughout history.

All sovereign leaders have religious backgrounds and use religion for their own means, with the support of those religions. The 1st and 2nd world wars shows you that. Hitler had immense support from the churches who stood by and watched the slaughter. Just look at Bush, Blair, Howard, very religious as well as being war criminals. Not much different from the past to the present.

Inherited baggage, give us a break, you only have baggage if you follow the same pattern, approach and application that created the baggage in the first place. So the religious of today are just a repeat of a bad repeat.

I don't see any relevant practical love coming from any religion. From the christian point of view, it is about economic power and control whilst with the muslims, it it is about physical power and control, not much difference there. They both still attempt to use emotional and physical violence to maintain their fallacies.

It is really not that difficult to discredit the Islam religion, because it is a fraud in the first place... the problem is not many dared to openly challenge the religion and those who tried, are going around in circles. You need to see thing from a different angle, then all will be clear.

May the truth set us free.

First would someone like to start a new religion?

It is not as difficult as you may think. Consider these:-

o It is wise to spin off another established religion. You are more likely to succeed and it is more credible that way. And better, you can claim that your new religion is a 'revised', hence improved version of the other one. You know, like buying computer software, always go for the later version with less bugs.

o Make sure to start preaching to the poor and simple-minded. There are a lot more people like that and they are far less questioning. Provide teachings which discourage both materialism and open-mindedness. This will help to keep the poor simple-minded and be compliant. Such people are easy to manipulate and they are valuable grassroot of the faith.

o To ensure success, make sure your theology is sweetened and bias in favour of man. Top up with nicety such as allowing man to marry multiple wives.

o You will get sympathetic hearing by saying nice thing about children. So preach that children are gifts of god. This will encourage more children to be borned in families of believers. That way your followers will increase in number faster than you'd think.

o Let man be the master in a marriage and decree that the primary duty of women is to breed. This will enhance sexual pleasure of man, instill a sense of duty in sexual relationship and directly propel the number of followers upwards.

o Provide a semblance of theology that are easy to appreciate and benefitual to follow, by man especially. Such as preaching peace on one hand, then teaching that to achieve peace, an eye for an eye is quite okay.

To discredit the attitudes of terrorists they must change their belief that nation / religious purity as a State is not the highest goal; that the value of every life is the most important value, and we must do everything to enhance that position. We have those who believe that only life that contributes to our society, our philosophy / religion, our personal lifestyle, our wealth, our taxation pool is worthy of support and existence. For instance we have over 100,000 perfectly healthy foetuses aborted every year in Australia because some believe they interfere with our personal pleasure or economics, we have those who would euthanasia the elderly, or sick.

The distinct value of all life was emphasised by Jesus, who spoke to the social outcasts, the poor, to the Roman opponents of Judaism he healed a son of a soldier, the demented the leprous and healed them. He gave us the value that all life is worthy of God. That a healed leper could enter the Temple outraged the Priests, that a wounded man could be passed by Puritan Priests but cared for by the second class Samaritan was Jesus view of his neighbour. Christ Jesus holds all men are equal and worthy of the love of God. Though Muslims recognise Jesus they ignore the values he taught.

Alchemist,

it seems you have an anti religous chip on your shoulder the size of Ayers rock.... I don't think you noticed Philo's posting about the various 'atheist' leaders (Russian/Mao) who perpretrated incalculable atrocities.

You claim there were 'non religious' civilizations which existed for '1000s' of years without war etc ?.. my goodness, not only do you have a chip but ur blind or willfully ignorant also...
I feel this is an impossible and absurd claim because prior to modern society ALL societies had a religous element and were also constantly at war with their neighbours....
Please let us in on these civilizations, and where we can read all about them.

You want love ? see my post in the 'Death of Politics' this morning.

I'm guessing Alchemist that you have had some kind of faith crisis where God turned out to have different plans from you, or you have some loved one who has been scarred by some bad religious experience.. and you decided to just hate Him ? Its just a guess, but all the symptoms are there.

This topic is about free speech.. and legislation... maybe we should focus on that :) I suppose you are a classic example of why we DO need free speech... otherwise your own opinions would be supressed... right ?

I don't think I've come across anyone quite as vilifying (towards us)as yourself, even Garra just descends into incoherant mumbling, Kenny is so predictable as to be more boring than threatening, Xena makes herself look a bit silly with out of context quotes, but you make full frontal attacks, kinda remind me of "Saul" before his Damascus road experience :) so.. watch out Alchemist, God might place a loving hand on your life in ways you don't expect, and next thing you will be 'preaching the faith you once tried to destroy" :

The discussion in these posts and the fairly rapid devolvement into racial or religious vilifation would definitely have Hitler celebrating in hell. You have just beautifully demonstrated the real danger of stronger "anti-terrorism" laws. Those who support the way to fascism very quckly generalise about a religion. Islam, by the way, is the only monotheistic religion that advocates tolerance of everyone's belief. In fact it is a far less voilent religion than Christianity which forced its progress through the sword and murder of non-believers. Have a look at the history of terrorism (which by the way has existed as long as man began to exercise power over his fellow man) and you will find many Christian terrorists. One of them lives in the White House today.

The Fish,

You neither know the teachings of Jesus nor have studied his discourses. When you make statements like this: "Islam, by the way, is the only monotheistic religion that advocates tolerance of everyone's belief. In fact it is a far less violent religion than Christianity which forced its progress through the sword and murder of non-believers."

Absolute bigoted nonsense! Individual Christian are being murdered every day at the hands of Muslim extremists.

Terrorism is the act of aggression against civilian populations, terrorists do not engage against armed soldiers they are cowards. Terrorists inflict pain upon the innocent unsuspecting Population. What George Bush has declared is war on terrorists, it has not been his intent to create terror on innocent civilians. From your attitude we can deduce you are a supporter of Osama and 9/11.

I suggest you ask the Afghani refugees seeking asylum in Western countries if they believe Osama is a terrorist. Or Iraqi's who have fled to Australia - if Saddam was a sadistic terrorist.

From your attitude toward George Bush, if you live in Australia maybe you need to be checked out by the CIA to see if you have links with known terrorists cells.