Oliver,
"How do you feel abour Church funds/resources being used to defend priests? Should a few Bishops be gaol for shielding pedaphiles?"

That first is an interesting question. Has the guilt of the priest been established?
The second is simple, it's a matter of law, an accessory to a crime can also be charged, tried and convicted.

West,
"...why do you think sledging or violence occurs? Is it because individuals are generally bad people or is it that the competitive nature of football drives a person to act out sledging or violence?"
Neither. Individuals are not "generally bad people". Competition may be a factor but it is not the reason. There are many players who do NOT have to resort to *undue* violence (some use of force is part of the game) or sledging, possibly because they are sufficiently skilled at the game not to need to.
Football would be in a better position to claim a good example, if all it's players and members lived up to it. Just like religion. But because many players have not set this good example it weakens the strength of any such claim (ie moral superiority, NOT the truth of the beliefs, two different arguments that your are switching between). It comes down to the fact that the individuals, or in some cases whole teams, do not live up to the good example, not that the game itself is generally bad.

Oliver,
"But on balance the history of the Christian church is evil, especially after the third century."
Very debatable and you're getting very black and white about it. But i care not to engage in lengthy debates about the actions of avowed Christians over the centuries.

Just because science lead to the production of the atom bomb, does not mean that science itself is evil. The same is said for religion.
The morality of the particular scientists who were directly involved in the design and production of the bomb could be questioned however.

I really make no point greater than this.

Donnie you want it both ways , if a person acts badly it is because they are an individual , if they act kindly then its because they have religion. You appear to arguing that having an ideology has no effect on people and the environment in which they exist in has no effects.

Why is it that Family First a theocratic party based soley on Christian values are trying to pass laws in South Australia to allow parents to beat their children? Is the basis of Family Firsts attempts to legalise child and human rights abuse based on the fact they are a collection of individuals or is it that they are inspired by the ideology of Christianity? Is the need to beat children a pressing issue in Australia or is it an issue formost in the minds of Christians only?

Why are not secular parties rushing to lobby public support into allowing Children to be bashed by parents? Is it because secularists are influenced by secular ideology and Christians are individuals.

Then there is the question of perception , Beating Children up is morally good because Christians says god says so? Why is child abuse in my book morally abhorent? Am I a moral deviant because I dont agree with domestic violence since god blesses the rod?

If Family First are successful I contend that Child abuse will once again become normalised amongst the greater cult of Christianity as it was when Christians had more influence on the law as ideology is a way of seeing , not an influence on the way we see

"Donnie you want it both ways , if a person acts badly it is because they are an individual , if they act kindly then its because they have religion. You appear to arguing that having an ideology has no effect on people and the environment in which they exist in has no effects."

West, you draw too many conclusions.
If a person acts badly, they are an individual. If a person acts kindly, they are an individual. Ideology and environment are factors that influence individuals. I do not argue that these influences are redundant, but i do argue that they are not exclusive nor even primary cause of an individuals actions. I argue that an individual always bears some responsibility. You seem to be the one arguing otherwise, by saying that a belief or following a religion is the root of evil. To me that is ludicrous. But then how could you argue otherwise, because from a materialist viewpoint all cause is physical based on electro-chemical changes, random and unmotivated. How can a person be responsible when he is just a result of these material interactions? "Yes i killed him, but how could i not? It's in my genes!"

"Christianity is in a continuity with pre-exilic Hebrew faith (quite antithetical to Greek philosophy and eastern religion) and even if Christian religious culture has adopted some of the accidental characteristics of other religions that does not bring it into identity with those religions. This is a point you seem incapable of comprehending." - waterboy

Apart from the examples provided above, I quote Karen Armstrong:

By the end of the second century some pagans [means civil] "began to be converted to Christianity and were able to adpt the Semitic God to of the Bible to to Greco-Roman ideal. The first of these was Clement of Alexandria [ca. 150-215], who studied philosophy in Athens before his conversion. Clement has no doubt that Yahweh and the God of the God of the Greek Philosphers were one and the same: he called Plato the Attic Moses"... "In the West, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon [130-1200] taught a similar doctrin. Jesus was had been the devine 'logos' who had become a man, 'so that you might from a man learn how to become a God.' " [Exhortation of the Greeks, 1.8.4, in Armstrong]

Friend, who are reading? [Religious tracts tend to have a theistic bias]

Donnie,

I am not saying that every Christian is evil. I said, on balance, the Christian churches have a history of prevailing evil. And as I pointed out to waterboy [in denial] that Christians destoyed statues and suppressed religions,as do the Taliban. You[?] and waterboy can believe that Christians did not destroy the Great Statue to Apollo [319]. Orthodox historians beg to differ.

A fiction with a point: If I went back in a time machine and said that in the twenty-first century the CERN particle accelerator sent me back in time; Plato or Cicero might humour me [a nutta in their midst] , until I showed them a hand-held calculator. They would be amazed ans ask about the future, me thinks. In constrast, Urban VIII would have burnt me at the stake.

What theological state did not have the death penalty or did not violently persecute non adherants of one sort or another ?

What religious fundamentalist leader resulted in a benevolent and proto utopian state?

What religious sect has not got blood on its hands and no skeletons in its closet.

The Christian claim is Christianity is evokatve of moral action but the reality is that it is the opposite.

Even the Islamic states that were enlightened by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians to pass on mathematics and astronomy were not shy of head lobbing and turning tribal cousins into living ant food.

West,

The Church certainly has much to answer for.
Ironically, even while the church was busy murdering and brutalising innocents, it continued (and still continues) to preserve the story of Jesus which was (still is) prophetic condemnation of its own evil.

The idea that God chooses the weak over the strong is an enduring challenge to all political domination systems, particularly those in which the church itself participates. Jesus was crucified for his criticism of the joint domination system of Rome and the Church (Temple and priests). No doubt he would also have been an early victim of the inquisition.

It is a sad truth that even today the church's 'social voice' is disqualified by its own injustices... the UCA's equivocal stance on gay issues, the Anglican Church's discrimination against women, the Catholic Church's cover up of abuse and so on. Yet the church continues to tell the story of the Christ who would tear down their temples for their injustice and their abuse of power and the evil they perpetrate. Through the liturgy the church tells the story even against itself. Which government, which political party, which warlord does this?