Numbat regarding your response to Aziliz.
Now, there's a case of the pot calling the kettle black, if ever there was one!
There is no real evidence for your beliefs. The Bible and the Koran are books with some wise sayings in them, some ridiculous statements in them, supernatural stories and myths, and both are riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies.
The sooner mankind grows up and stops believing in the tooth fairy, the wicked witch, Santa Claus, Jesus, Mohamed et al... the better.
However, if you can't think rationally for yourself, and need a comforter, go right ahead. Just stop trying to impose this rubbish on others.

its not easy being - calming neurochemicals are released when a person prays - fantastic! You wouldn't want it to be painful. Mother and child's brain chemistry is altered during breast feeding - fantastic we'd want pleasure to be part of that experience!

But what about the content? Is the child at the breast interchangeable? Does praying to a God of love who answers the same as pretending to pray?

You can't reduce the experience to chemicals, thats called explaining away. i can do the same to your beliefs "you just believe atheism because it produces a pleasurable brain state"

Does the pleasure a sadist receives from inflicting pain a tick for or against sadism?

We'd expect a being created by God to worship Him who is all good and all majesty to find it desirable.

I don't understand why non Christians revert to name calling when the truth is so much more interesting.

Look guys don't you realise Christianity is your heritage, our ancestors bequeathed all this good stuff for us. You're not outside, you're inside you own it. Its for all of us.

God loves us, don't listen to the lies whispered to you about God. We believe there is an evil spirit actively trying to prevent people from being close to God. And that evil spirit is much smarter than all of us.

Belief only springs from doubt, doubt is healthy but what I'm reading isn't doubt but bloody mindedness.

Don't be afraid.

The only thing I'm afraid of, Martin, is fundamentalist religionists who seem bent on reducing the planet to a charred ruin, in the hope of imposing their beliefs on another part of mankind.
It's all about power and control over the people.
Believe what you like, but just stop trying to impose it on others.
After all, if the ideas are all that attractive, people will come over to your way of thinking with no effort at all.
Also, forget trying "the devil will get you" bogeyman and "eternal damnation" threats. They don't wash with me.

Numbat & Martin,

Its amazing how hostile you are to Islam, who as a religion, honours Jesus as a prophet, his miracle birth and second coming.
Yet you associate yourselves with a faith that totally rejects you and their yet to come messiah is your anti-christ.
I will never understand your mob.

fellow_human: As I said previously islam is clawing at things Christian. Islamics see Jesus as a prophet when Christians see Jesus as the Son of God, that God being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, returning to judge the earth thus all its inhabitants be they Christian, nominal Christian or pagan heathens.
No I do not think He will throw all into hell-fire. This is the God/man who, when on earth, said we are to forgive 70X7 so how merciful will He be.
I have no hatred for any moslem but for the stupid death-loving pagan religion YES! numbat

Hi numie
I agree totally. Anyone who has sex whith a child is a pedophile. Just like Joseph. After all Mary was probably 12 or 13 when she married Joseph [that was the usual age for marriage for Jews of that period] & Joseph would have been about 16 or so [the usual age for males]. Sounds like pedophilia to me!

Now wait a minute you say. That's rediculous. People accepted the idea that people could get married at a younger age back then. Exactly so.

In actual fact MOST people from the middle east during the 1st to 6th centuries held that the proper age for marriage for females was after her first period. That was when her childhood was at an end as far as manny middle eastern societies were concerned. So Joseph wasn't a pedophile. But then by that argument neither was muhammed.

As far as Muhammed being brutal how about this quote from the Psalms "blessed is he who snatches the babe from his mother's arms & dashes it's head out upon the stones" Was Muhammed as brutal as that?