Jeez, I don't know TR. Why do intellectually stunted people like yourself with nothing but hatred and ridicule for anything they can not understand go around with such a huge chip on their shoulder. The only thing that is dead is your personal ability to grasp spiritual relevance in human history. Jesus is alive in the hearts of the Christian faithful and Mohammad is equally alive for the Muslims as Buddha is for the Buddhist etc.. That you don't like religion and have put together your favorite jibes into well practiced doctrinal rants is hardly reasoned conversational etiquette. And it isn't that I'm religious. I can appreciate human history and development and have never been one to go about condemning universal human practices. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has her story, in which ever fashion she chooses to tell it. It's one persons experience, not a mandatory perception. You are not being compelled to believe. You can slag both her and religion as you will but, please don't come the studied thinker as excuse for your pernicious attacks.

'Jesus is alive in the hearts of the Christian faithful and Mohammad is equally alive for the Muslims as Buddha is for the Buddhist etc..'

Aqvararivs, this sounds like more religio-double-speak to me. What on earth does 'alive in the hearts' mean?

The fact of the matter is that NOT all three religious figures can be 'alive' at the same time no matter how you try to spin it.

If religion does contain any truth at all then only ONE religious figure can be really 'alive'.

However, since it is NOT possible to tell which religious figure is telling the truth (because the accompanying 'history' is so inadequate) then the only rational recourse is to disbelieve the whole lot of them.

I like Jesus and Buddha because they reasonable role models to follow (Mohammad most definitely isn't). However as far as them being supernatural, divine, or extraordinary in any way - well, that's a complete load of unsubstantiated nonsense. Because Hirsi Ali is an atheist I think that she would at least agree with my sentiment.

TR I loved reading that ABC transcript.

When I was eight years old I read a book in which one of the fictional characters had the ability to hear through 7 walls and 7 doors, so that she knew everything about everybody around her.
It was a story that really intrigued me and I wondered if it was ‘really’ possible for me to train my hearing. After months of practicing every night, I started to hear the most beautiful music which I knew wasn’t “really” there.
I started noticing that I only could hear the music whenever there was already another sound present, like the droning sound of a fridge, the rain, a fan.

When I was 10 I figured that my ability of listening to ‘imaginative’ music was the same ability as watching clouds: when there are clouds, one can look at them and imagine all kinds of shapes, animals, castles, princes, monsters- your imagination is the limit. Even though you can ‘see’ the creative images, you know that they are not ‘real’.
When there are droning sounds, one can listen to them and use the imagination in the same way. I never thought that these sounds were ‘real’.
Perhaps the audial processing in the brain can be just as imaginative and creative as the visual processing.

I have been told by religious people that this ability is special and are ‘celestial sounds’ coming from ‘heaven’.
As a 99.999999999999999999% atheist, I think that my own theory sounds more realistic: it’s playing with imagination.
Perhaps some people hear music, while others hear voices, but it’s all imagination.

About the Jesus “resurrection” story, it’s impossible.
The criteria for ‘death’ are: absence of circulation, absence of respiration and absence of neurological activity (brain dead).
Either Jesus wasn’t flat lined and so wasn’t really ‘dead’ and there couldn’t have been a resurrection, or he was brain dead and then couldn’t have been resurrected since the brain of a flat-lined person starts liquifying soon after and there’s no return. So from whatever corner you look at it, there was no resurrection.

I'm glad you liked the 'All in the Mind' programme Celivia.

I must admit that I was really moved by Ron Coleman's testimony. His personal battle against schizophrenia (auditory hallucinations) and his choice not to take medication was inspirational.

"And it isn't that I'm religious."

But you are religious Aqva. You try to defend the Catholic
Church and get upset when people point out its many flaws.

I am just amazed that anyone can give that institution, any
kind of credibility. Why should anyone take any notice,
of what those old farts in Rome think? Ok, they were
brainwashed as children, surely they can think beyond
that? It seems not, quite often.

Now we have 700 million $ being paid out of church coffers,
to pay compensation for the sins of the priests. Did those
people who gave the church that money, really mean it to be
used for this purpose?

Some time ago, I read a book called "The Sex Lives of the Popes".
It was enlightening.

Considering the scandalous history of the Catholic Church,
the selling of indulgences, the having put to death people
who disagreed, the gross misuse of power, the inquisition,
the crusades, etc etc, why should anyone respect that Church
for anything? Because they happen to practise brainwashing
of children?

You might take your church seriously for your own reasons,
but don't expect anyone else to do the same. I respect your
right to believe whatever you want, not what you believe.

To me those old farts in Rome do little more then interfere
politically in peoples lives, increasing suffering on this
planet. But then suffering does not seem to be a problem
for them, some of them think its noble. Pffft..

Yabby, “But you are religious Aqva. You try to defend the Catholic Church and get upset when people point out its many flaws. “

Oh Yabby, I don't get upset when people point out flaws with in the Catholic Church. I think that is healthy for all. Those who are Catholic and those who are not. What pulls on a raw nerve is fools who use ridicule and belittlement in their post to attack in the name of studied reason rather than actually taking the time and effort to engage in reasoned discussion on topic. For example your rants against the Pope and the Church are so refined by time and tweaking that one can not be blamed for thinking it is a matter of cut and paste for you, your rant being so refined. Your no different than that other poster who accused me of propigating Catholic dogma because I said that I have a Catholic School upbringing.

At the moment I'm deep into reading Taoism and P.D. Ouspensky's Tertium Organum.

“Upon our very first steps toward cognition, writes Ouspensky, certain conditions determine both our usual way of thinking and understanding. Much of what we take as known and familiar in our daily lives is, in reality, far from certain and when pondered remains enigmatic. The question of time and its relation to space, problems associated with the mysteries of life and death along with man's various conceptions of God remain distant and, as it were, obscured from unaided reason. Yet a recognition of these problems as enigmas along with attempts at possible solutions remains fundamental to any comprehensive understanding of the world.”

“What is ultimately to be reduced must first be expanded.
What is ultimately to be weakened must first be made strong.
What is ultimately to be discarded must first be embraced.
What is ultimately to be taken away must first be given.
This is called subtle insight.”
-A Taoist thought.

Keep picking away at that scab on your brain. I'm sure it will heal in no time.