Martin suffers from a severe case of arrested moral development when he comes out with this classic Freudian displacement. Brilliant and absolutely absolute. LOL i.e. You're either with us or against us stuff. Phew! This is the hallmark of any really true reactionary position where if you don’t believe in teddy (god), you must believe instead in the opposite of teddy which would be some construct of very bad indeed. It naturally follows that because atheists don't believe they'll get slapped around by a teddy if they misbehave, they will, of course, do nothing but misbehave. How wrong.

But what can one say in defence of non-theists? There is much that can be said that is positive, progressive and enduring. One can say, with a fair degree of accuracy, an athiest never took another life based on his or her atheism. I can't imagine that nineteen atheists would hijack planes and take thousands of innocent lives because of their atheism. Prison surveys have shown that less than 1% of convicted murderers in the U.S. of A. are atheists. Data correlations show that in almost all regards the highly secular democracies consistently enjoy low rates of societal dysfunction, while pro-religious and anti-evolution America performs poorly. In all secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows. Increasing adolescent abortion rates show positive correlation with increasing belief and worship of a creator, and negative correlation with increasing non-theism and acceptance of evolution.

Much has been expressed about an inclusive determinism and an exclusive indeterminism. The reality is that each person and each society contains elements of both in varying degrees but no matter what, there is always perpetual conflict with these two ways of viewing the world. Where determinism encourages us to seek answers and knowledge, indeterminism says there are none and maintains ignorance and selfishness.

Tennyson: Jesus was so into political correctness. He also didn't explain why his Dad didn't write about dinosaurs in His story.

And another thing the way you Judeo-Christians treat the Palestenians suggests that you have read the Bible to suit your own hatreds. Hitler murdered six million Jews and still you have gathered not a jolt of empathy for others. Most religious folk who have experienced such pain would seek solace in the lesson learned which is that we must all be as politically correct as possible because Hitler's disregard for political incorrectness gradually escalated to genocide.

To just foul mouth every one under the guise of not wanting to be silenced by political correctness is not something Jesus would be a part of. It has nothing to do with love, the ultimate form of political correctness, which according to the Bible is not rude, not self-seeking and keeps no record of wrongs. Isn't Christian love supposed be patient, kind, does not envy, not boastful, not proud, delights in truth rather than evil, protects, trusts, hopes and preserves? Corin. 13

You can tell the truth for truth sake and that is the only example that Jesus gave of political correctness that involves intimidation. Most of the people who go on about their right to be politically correct display all the negatives that Christians supposedly must NOT do.

Indeed, often their political incorrectness unfairly betrays the truth about the peoples or people that they attack.

This attack on the Education mob is misleading and is just clearly a biased opinion. So don't start boasting about how Holier you are than people who think schools should remain secular. Your posts suggests that you are just a another hypocrite using the Bible to further your own OPINION . (Trains)

rancitas,
I note you describe Public Schools as secular, which they are in regard to teaching secular education. However you equate secular as being Atheistic which they were never intended to be. They were never meant to teach atheism as a world view as has been hijacked by the PC Atheist brigade. The right of clergy and qualified laity were given priviledge to teach spiritual truths to their children in Public Schools. Religious schools also teach secular subjects when it comes to meeting State set cirriculum. However I remember in 1952 my sixth class Public School teacher reading the moral stories from the Gospels.

Great stories are told to amplify heroism and inspire children. The human weakness of the character is often overlooked for the quality that is the moral of the story, unless overcoming the weakness is the moral of the story, the frailty of an opponent of the hero demonstrates human weakness.

Write a story about one of our great Olympians and you will not mention they were a bed wetter, unless their overcoming was the trigger of determination to their greatness. Pub stories are told as put down of others character to create laughter or gossip, and it is then the storyteller becomes the central character, eg Keiran, with his "teddy god" impersonations. The storyteller is the central figure as he attempts to entertain and the moral point of the story is lost.

Educational stories should inspire character that overcomes opposition or weakness so that children are encouraged to persevere to greater achievement. Stories of failed human beings can only be given as warning not as posessing a moral greatness. Drug addicts who overdose and take their lives by the habbit are not stories of greatness but of weakness. However a drug addict who kicks the habbit and makes somthing of their life is inspirational. We have several such examples in our Church at this time. Overcoming weakness is inspirational.

Dear O dear, rancitas!
So many personal accusations. Perhaps you could do with a good story:

'Once upon a time there was a very cross and huffy rancitas. Most of all he was angry with those who claimed to be friends of Jesus. So rancitas decided to give some of them a real good verbal spray, with a few historical examples thrown into the mix, to teach them that they were a bunch of hypocrytes. But while rancitas was still an angry enemy, God, the Father of Jesus' friends, did something for rancitas, behind his back.

Yes, while he was still in his bad mood, this God, this Father - in his mercy and kindness - he took old rancitas, and - in a very strange way - he reconciled dear rancitas to himself, and to all people, through the life and deeds of his own dear Son. And on a cross he did this. And his son was a Jew.

But alas, this made rancitas even angrier... He was indignant: 'How dare he do this!' he exclaimed. 'I've got my opinion, and I'm sticking to it... come hell or highwater'. Now, as we can see, not everyone lived happily ever after.

But even that was not the end of the story, for rancitas. Because while he had breath, many new mercies and good things of creation, came his way. But still he was cross about those dinasour bones, and them Crusaders, and them holier-than-thou types.. (A good synonym for anger, that word, "cross")

To be continued...

Keiran,

Wasn't Stalin an atheist. As well as Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot etc etc. Didn't Hitler wander off in that direction. Strewth, some real nice characters have come from your side of the fence.

Kieran suffers from an inability to take what he dishes out. A post of complete hyperbole IS annoying.

Ok justification of your beliefs, now we’re getting somewhere.

But you’ve started poorly. Soviet Communism executed priests en masse and destroyed Churches by the thousand. For what other reason besides their adoption of Mad Marx as an authority did they do that? Religion was the opium of the masses and God a crutch for the feeble minded. It must be extirpated!

And Nietzsche’s ubermenschen would only be weighed down with this religion nonsense. When Hitler’s power was complete he started planning the destruction of the Church in Europe. It was a rival and he was not going to share power. Dachau alone executed 1100 priests and had a special ‘priest block’. Over 6000 priests were executed in the Spanish civil war by Communists – you know the kind, they show their contempt for Christians by calling belief in God - belief in a ‘teddy’. And that’s how the persecution began – very small.

No wonder the people and societies that struggle admit to a belief in God, they clearly need Him the most.
“"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:7
We don’t know how many Christians have been true disciples of Jesus, who haven’t fled from the struggle but are free from hatred. However many there were or are they are the salt of the earth and Western civilization would be a desert without them.

Correlations are interesting things, here’s one for you. Religious people have lower rates of mental disease and are happier than non-believers. It seems to help people cope with life-just what we’d expect from the good God.

Premarital sex, something all religious traditions prohibit, leads to unwanted babies and therefore tempts us to kill our offspring. Secularism teaches ‘explore your sexuality!’ Those without faith kill their growing babies at a ghoulish rate. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GH02Aa01.html