Oliver,
“When I was ten, I had to make-up sins for Confession, … gave me a dressing down in front of 10-12 of peers.”
Now, I think, I can better understand your sentiments, and feel very sorry for what happened to you. The argument “do not blame mathematics for a bad maths teacher” still holds, but abuse of religion, especially when the person is very young, goes much deeper than any “abuse” of maths.

You see, I had an experience in exactly the opposite direction. Growing up in a communist country had many disadvantages, but one advantage was that priests like the one you describe (or the Egyptian priest mentioned by FH) were immediately blackmailed by the authorities into cooperation (if they did not cooperate already voluntarily). They were known as “patriotic priests”, and people could easily identify them by the way they behaved or preached. The rest were held in very high esteem by the population, not only Catholics. Many were jailed as “Vatican spies”. However, only old people could communicate with “non-patriotic” priests on a personal basis (except for the impersonal confessional); for the rest it was safer, for both the priest and the layman, not to be seen as having personal contacts. So for us, Christians, faith became a spiritual (or psychological, if you like) source of mental resistance to the ubiquitous public brain washing. I think something similar would be true about Islam for Muslims in some former Soviet republics.

I have to accept that you are finding confirmations for your “unfaith” (or just “un-Catholicism”?) in history and anthropology, the same as I am finding confirmations for my faith in (philosophy of) science and (the symbolic relation to reality of) mathematics, where I feel at home. Also, I think, you therefore sympathise with anti-religious sentiments expressed on this forum, although you probably would not subscribe to all of them. The same as I a priori sympathise with the Muslim faith as expressed here by FH, although we probably differ in some details of what – or rather how - we believe. (ctd)

(ctd) About one kilometer from where I now live in Cologne, a big mosque (and Muslim cultural centre) with two minarets 50m tall (the Cologne Cathedral/Dom is 157m tall), the largest in Germany, is going to be built for the 100,000 (10% of Cologne’s population) Muslims in Cologne, mostly Turks or of Turkish descent. I am looking forward to visiting it on one of their open days.

I think there are already more Muslims in Cologne attending weekly their improvised mosques, than there are Christians attending church every Sunday. Whoever is to blame for the religious vacuum in (Western) Europe – this includes some of the most vociferous opponents of the new mosque - it is certainly not the Muslims, and I think we cannot blame them for moving into this vacuum. I also think that this will give the “secular humanist” majority a jolt, though it will take a generation or two for the implications to seep in. I am not sure to what extent can this be applied to present-day Australia.

stickman,
“as an atheist, what am I missing out on by having no "faith" in anything?”
Faith, very roughly speaking. is belief plus trust. You do not have “no "faith" in anything”: you trust for instance, your parents, and you believe that the material world that science studies “is there and was there” before anybody studied it.

You actually ask what you miss out by having no religious faith, i.e. in a Something beyond what is classically called material world. I got the impression that you study medicine, or something related, so may I recommend you a book I just finished reading, which though not giving you an answer to your question, throws some light on “spiritual awareness” from the perspective of a professional biologist. He is open to a religious interpretation but does not force it upon you through a misuse of science. The book is David Hay, Something There: The Biology of the Human Spirit, Templeton Foundation Press, 2006 (paperback 2007).

George,

Thank you for your thoughtful words. At the moment, I aim involved in some data collection on tight timeframe. I will come back to you soon. As a mature adult, I do realise that many clerics would not have approved of my parish priest's zeal and that apart from the wicked needs performed by the Church against other religions and to control the political/monarchical process, there have many brave, moral believers, including in the Church itself.

Regardless, of whether one is a Christian, Jew, Muslim or other faith, or, agnostic, or, atheist; I do feel Jesus is best studied from the first century, before doctrinal accretions clouded events.

O.

Fellow_Human,

Referring me to a cleverly written site will not hide the FACT that such verses exist in your holy book and are a cause of embarrassment to Islamic scholars.

I will save you more humiliation and not publish the verses here.

Remaining the fact that Mohammad or some missinformed person wrote the Qur'an - judging from all the gaffes mentioned above.

More surprising are your statements:

“There are no proofs whatsoever on anything spiritual otherwise one would have been proven and we will be living in a boring mono-belief world.”

And

“We believe simply because we want to believe”

You can definitely speak for your way of “believing”. You believe just because the prophet said it no questions asked. Allah knows best.

After all Mohammad received all the enlightenment from his imaginary god and his angel and jinns..but who is going to challenge that - certainly not you FH.

Well this is clearly the difference between a cult (Islam) and a true belief like Christianity based on provable historical and archeolical FACTS.

Time to go back to the Bible FH – the only reference to things “spiritual”.

God did not NEED to do anything for us by He did it out of LOVE and compassion for you and me.

He didn't just send a recipe BOOK - but He came himself to save us.

Can Allah match that? Can Allah save you?

Coach,

“ Referring me to a cleverly written site will not hide the FACT that such verses exist in your holy book and are a cause of embarrassment to Islamic scholars “

Incorrect, these claims are not in the Holy book. Please learn a bit more about the topic.

Just forget about ‘my God is better than yours’ crap and be positive. Did you go and watch the Islamic art museum?
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/islam/index.html

Also, and speaking of modernisation of Islam, here are efforts by modern philosophers that I just shared with Danielle:

The ‘spiritual/ mystic’ group: lead by Fethullah Gullen (www.fethullahgullen.org). He is into mystic spirituality of Islam.

The ‘secular modernist’ group: lead by Dr Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at Cairo university, Egypt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Hanafi

Don’t you think these are positive steps?

Also, the Shalom organisation in the US started moderating interfaith dialogue. Have a look:
http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy/term/102

Peace my friend and please chill,

'In his contribution Prof. Hanafi tries to view the theme of progress and religion in its cultural plurality. Therefore he sums up different examples which should demonstrate the fact that long before the so-called “Western” concept of progress there were already others – among them also religious – concepts which aimed at some kind of progress. Hanafi also assumes that “progress contains in itself regression” and therefore is a dynamic process which can move to its contrary – regress – too, if there is not at least some kind of controlling force. This force can be religion, because it is not concentrated on material, but on spiritual progress. And: there is also some kind of inner-religious progress. Hanafi tries to describe this from a historical point of view and finds an upward-movement from Judaism over Christianity to Islam.'

http://www.goethe.de/ins/vb/prj/fort/fur/hah/enindex.htm
http://www.goethe.de/mmo/priv/888262-STANDARD.pdf

Fellow-Human, I don't like the sound of Hassan Hanafi. He sounds just like every other card carrying Muslim fundamentalist to me. What makes him different is that he appears to promote his religious dogma by stealth rather than by force.

A true Islamic reformist would take the bit between his teeth and admit that the human race HAS to move out the bronze age, ditch monotheism altogther and embrace an idealology based on scientific naturalism.

For Hasan Hanafi to claim that Islam is the obvious 'upward movement' over Judaism and Christianity is to rattle off the same old boring Islamic cliches. The plain fact is that all three montheistic sects are worn out and due for the scrap heap. None of them is particularly outstanding.

What's more, as science and the scientific method based on scepticism seep into hitherto closed Islamic cultures via globalisation and the internet we will find that the hardcore assertions of Islam will begin to whither.

I can hear the 10 year olds now, "Daddy, do angels REALLY exist? Aren't they made up just like the tooth fairy?"

And all of a sudden theologians like Hasan Hanafi are as about as relevant as the old fashioned witch-doctor.