Hello Bosk,
I see I am implicated in importing anti-evolutionary comment.
You may have the loaded agenda running here.

You pointed me to the "let's attack the fundo' website". I looked. It is dull.
I am not a fundamentalist. [Talk about a bunch of God-obsessed atheists! Why don't they go outside and do something useful with their (limited... ha! ha!) time.]

I am not interested in introducing the stale old "science has proven", "no it has not", "yes it has", type debate. I am grateful for all that science has shown. Keep at it, I say.
(I am also grateful for all that God has revealed ... even if it seems folly to the brilliant Greek minds in our midst).

Certainly the basic framework that I use of:
1. Creation,
2. Fall,
3. Redemption -

is as helpful a view of the world, as I have ever seen and known. (And I have enjoyed Bill Bryson's: 'A Short History of Nearly Everything)'.

Again - I put it to you, (and fellow secularists) -
1. What is the Universe, and what is its goal?
2. How is it that humanity does inexplicable evil, (with such useful minds for reasoning)?
3. Where does humanity get hold of noble ideas, such as redemption? What is it? (...some huge humanist D.I.Y. salvation, pulling ourselves up by the bootlaces, reducing greenhouse gas, and being nicer to each other).

The Christian firstly meets Christ, who lives. Then, from the influence of His Spirit - finds that the whole plan is full of wonder and amazement. Let me restate it:

1. Creation (in Christ) with purpose.
2. The Fall (of Man into sin, the resulting death, the growth of evil), the matter of present judgement, where nothing can reach its goal apart from God's grace and redemption.
3. Redemption, of all creation, as gift, by the power of the risen Christ, and inclusion into the grand eternal future, for all who like to participate.

Makes excellent sense. Causes my heart to sing. And my life to join in on the fun.

Tennyson, in answer to your three questions:

1. Don't know.
2. Don't know.
3. Don't know.

And neither do you.

Any other reply would be intellectually dishonest.

Dear Mercurius,
I see you have come out with all guns blazing!
"Intellectual dishonesty", you maintain, you assert, you charge.

If your forthright claim is correct, then I have been deceived. Deluded.
In company with all who have believed the message of Christ Jesus.

However, I differ. Your bold assertion, is incorrect. This is not intellectual dishonesty.

Alas, this knowledge is the grand claim, and proclamation of Christians through history.
(The Christian message is primarily a joyous claim - not a gun-at-the-head 'say sorry' or-you-go-to-hell ultimatum).

Knowledge given thought Christ, by his Spirit, is of that which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor any human brain concocted. Knowledge through actual revelation.

From your stand point, you have already decided that any such insight must be a hoax.
You have no room for it: a priori.

From the stand point of a Christian, genuine revelation has come - more certainly - than any other empirical knowledge. Repeat - this knowledge ... has come.

From your standpoint, all Christian people must be charged with intellectual dishonesty.
Feed them to the lions!

The Apostle Paul - whom so many thought was mad - and John, and Peter, and so on down through history, and indeed all who believe their writings, must really be charged with intellectual dishonesty too. (I do hope you are not drafting the next round of vilification laws).

May the Lord continue to reveal such securing insight to more and more.
Cheers!

Thanks Col for your positive feedback.The funniest religious man who considered himself to be an athiest was Dave Allen,his satire and humour had us all rivioted.May his god go with him.

I was taught by a very intelligent Augustinian Priest one Father Ralph Cameron who was way beyond his era back in the sixties.His sermons and classroom antics had us not only laughing at our own foibles, but laughing at the irony of life.He was religious,believed in Jesus,yet had a way of thumbing his nose at the religious aristocracy.

There are no absolutes in life,however survival,courage and love is the focus for us to evolve into better people.

Tenny, your so called heart singing etc, perhaps explains why religion matters to you. It makes you feel good! As human brains
evolved to become smarter, they also became more anxious. The brain relies on homeostatis to stay on an even keel. Perceived certainty
helps some achieve that, it can change brain chemistry. Anxious
people are not happy people, bingo, religion makes you feel good!

The choice we have really, is between understanding ourselves in
terms of how we evolved as a primate species with a larger brain then
other primates, or the god of the gaps/imaginary friend theories
promoted by the religious.

Regards your three questions:

1. Perhaps the Universe just is, with no purpose.

2. Evil- there is no objective morality, just our subjective
opinions of what we think is evil or not etc. So called morality
can be shown to have evolved in various social species as a way
for them to coexist in tribes, for the wellbeing of
the group as a whole. In other primate species we can note empathy,
food sharing, cooperation for the wellbeing of the group.

What we know about the mind is that the mind is, what the brain does.
Change some wiring in the brain and you change behaviour. Neuroscience is full of examples. So its highly likely that what
we call psychopaths, are people born with in our terms "faulty"
wiring. So called freewill is not half as free as we think.

3. The idea of redemption is a great way for those who claim to
be in touch with the almighty, to gain control over those who
believe their story. How many times was I told that Jesus died
on the cross for ME, trying to make me feel guilty. What bollocks!
People die miserable deaths every day. Unfair deaths, cruel deaths,
fed to the lions deaths, you name it. Innocent babies are born
with the most cruel disfigurements, so called gifts from god.
Billions of people die sad deaths, yet the redemption story focuses
on one single death. Bollocks lol, I had nothing to do with it.

The major Religions have some moral principles which are worth thinking about even if you are not a believer.

Iran is a good example of a country that isn't secular in how it is run, I wonder how many would like to migrate there? During the Dark Ages religion held sway in Europe; do we want to go back to those times?

Here in Australia we have politicians who profess to be Christian, but then they do not appear to make decisions where the ethics or morals of a situation have been taken into account. For example, the way disabled people or refugees are being treated.