Now now Philo, you are going way out of your depth here!

Xtianity seems to have developed a habit of trying to claim
credit for anything positive that happened, whilst a few
of its disciples were part of the community. Fact is most
the relgiious were too busy praying to achieve anything useful.

Yup, China and Chinese culture thrived without Xtianity, face it!

Technology and progress happened despite religion, not because
of it. Reality does not change, when you close your eyes and wish it would...

I'm posting comment number 104 (obviously a successful article) and have little more to say on this subject other than to note that after all the interesting and fanscinating points of view that have been covered about Peter's article all I have to look forward to tonight on Compass (ABC TV) is "Opus Dei and the Da Vinci Code".... what a yawn! When are the producers of this programme going to get online to forums like this and find out what the real issues are. Come Peter...you have some influence I'm sure.
This show is a farce put together by the lazy and the timid. It claims to report on religious issues in Australia but either just propogates doctrine or covers things generically "spiritual" (like the spiritual outlook of some football player). It is so careful not to cause offence that it informs us of nothing.
Thank you Peter for at least presenting current topics with some kind of depth.

Gawwwd we've had a teddy debate this time where a real, top shelf, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient teddy (god), for strategic reasons best known to the virus writers, is unloved, dismissed and abandoned. Now what? Just seems these teddies if they could be real as in the Bible, couldn't knowingly invent anything and yep now we have a teddy as some other artifact to do with an historical event. One might conclude that this new teddy is information but that is problematic too. Ultimately, a teddy, if one could exist, needs logic but logic does not need a teddy. So what does all this actually mean? Well, just seems all this fuss is down to the fact that religion is fashion and any teddy is an artifact of fashion. Religious playpens change continually and can vary enormously depending on time and culture so can any really be grounded in absolute truth?

Well atheism is grounded in absolute truth because atheism is for those who transcend the facile whims of fashion trends and is forever the same concept. There is no extortion of your psyche here. Also, just seems that the more secular democracies all enjoy good social conditions never seen before in human history. In contrast no highly religious nation enjoys high levels of social health. In the US of A, for example, the most religious and strongly xtian states are a basket case with high homicide, juvenile and adult mortality, STD infections, abortion and teen pregnancy, and throw into the mix primitive gun laws and you see serious societal dysfunction.

Well there we have it! Opus Dei, sounds like a cult within a
religion, worth billions of $. All very kinky lol, with
whips and spikey chains. Now who said that I should ever
take religion seriously?

The Bagwhan clearly did well, by promoting his philosophies.
I must remember to start a cult sometime, push peoples
emotional buttons and they will flock in it seems...

As my old uncle used to say, "for every fool that dies,
another 10 are born". He really had a point it seems.

David W
Thank you for your comment. You had me rushing to my copy of M Buckley “
At the origins of modern atheism” to look up what he says about Descartes. Your statement “The "rationally testable arguments" Descartes insisted upon force us to acknowledge reality and in so doing, interact more successfully with it” does not hold. Descartes’ way of dealing with the world, of finding certitude about the world was entirely theoretical and not observational. His arrival at certitude was more a property of his consciousness than a property of the real world. He thought that mathematics was the key to certitude, however the world cannot be defined mathematically, ask any biologist. Descartes’ philosophy was a dead end for natural science.

Your other comment about keeping the real and the mythical separate is also interesting. We might say that the cross of Christ occurred within the horizon of human history while his resurrection was not. There are two different events here both of them real but a video camera would only record the first. The resurrection is legend (myth has other connotations) that points to the meaning of the cross. This Jesus, whom you crucified God raised up. The one we put to death is vindicated. This too is an event but an event unlike the cross. The modern problem of separation is that the legend comes off as unreal or not true. However, the biblical account would have it that the resurrection was more true than the cross in that it was an act of God.

Ah! theology Peter. That's more like it.
Let's investigate some of your terminology and concepts.
"Raised up" could me many things but does not necessarily mean resurrected, it could mean "get up" or "arise" as in what happened to Lazarus (who Jesus admits was not actually dead). If we accept Mark as the earliest gospel then we must contemplate the fact that early versions of Mark don't go beyond chapter 16 verse 8. The "Long Ending" containing the resurrection story has been obviously added later. This is the "Legend" you talk about.
You state "resurrection was more true than the cross in that it was an act of God." What you are suggesting here is a pure piece of Pauline "gnosis". It is clear from the 6 letters actually attributed by scholars to Paul that he was a Gnostic and that the resurrection was a pagan addition to the Jesus story. Dying and resurrecting would have been a natural thing for a godman to do in the mind of Paul. Being a Hellenized Jew from Tarsus he was well versed in Mithra and Dionysus as well as scripture. Let us call a spade a spade. Your belief system is based in Hellenistic 1st century myth (legend, if you like). That this myth has some deeper meaning to you and your ilk is not what I dispute and in many ways these myths gives positive spiritual meaning and understanding to those inclined that way, as do rainbow serpent stories to the Aborigines. I do however balk at you mixing myth and post modern concepts, secularism and rationalism to come to some conclusion about the way we govern ourselves. Your spiritual dreaming is your business but let us please seperate fact and fiction.