Dear Remco ... and perhaps also burn Murdoch's and others' news media ... and lots of books and discs from who knows where ... but all that would achieve is to do away with the accounts and reports and recounts of what goes on 'our worlds' ... speeding cars along Western Highway killing older community minded couple ... which Bible or Qur'an or Torah gave rise to that kind of 'heaven'? ... and we'd be left anyway with what goes on in our heads and hearts, and what we do with our tongues and hands.
Would these be 'heaven for your soul' Remco?
I have kept up with today's new posts and intend responding again later! Sweet dreams!

*sigh* People like Remco and LSH make it really hard to participate in these debates as a nonbeliever trying to critique or intellectually interrogate Christianity. One becomes associated with these rather extreme perspectives. I suddenly have a sense of empathy for how a moderate muslim must feel half the time!!

For the record, gang, not all of we unbelievers think you are cowards needing comfort blankets, and not all of us think your holy books should be burned. Some of us just don't believe, is all.

Anthony

Ena,
While you make your point fairly well, your case is not aided by sweeping generalisations of this type – “the fact that all religions seem to have a problem with women being allowed to exercise their full humanity.” I only have to show one counter example to show this statement wrong, and I don’t think this is true of the church that I fellowship with.

Also, it might not be true that, “Unbelievers haven't often held serious debates on whether women are fully human.” I don’t know if you believe in evolution or not, for most atheists it comes as standard, but in places where evolution was preached most solidly in the first half of last century, they did debate whether African and aboriginal women (and men) were fully human.

Ena (and others),
I love most of the Brussels Declaration values. I wonder what believers think of the declaration’s values on religion.
https://www.iheu.org/v4e/html/the_declaration.html

On religion:
"For many people, their religion or belief is a profoundly important part of their life and of their personal identity. There can be no laws restricting freedom of belief, but freedom of religion does not extend to practices which could harm the rights of others. Freedom of religion includes the right to change one’s religion or belief, or to reject religion entirely.

Europeans are free to practise their religion in any way they choose provided their practice conforms to the law.
There is no conflict between freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief. Attempts to outlaw defamation of religion are misplaced. It is the believer not the belief that needs protection. People and property are already protected by law. Religions and beliefs per se need no other protection and all demands for such protection should be rejected. Defamation of religious believers should be treated in the same manner as defamation of anyone else.

No institution should be immune from criticism. The right to question any belief and to freely express one’s views on any matter is a human right. Human beings have human rights, religions, beliefs and ideas do not."

Celivia, I and most Christians I know would support these sentiments wholeheartedly. Bishop John Spong, arch critic of fundamentalism, says that “any God who can be killed, deserves to be.” Christians can only gain, and should have nothing to fear, from listening to criticism and doubts from inside and outside the faith.

I have one parial reservation - the proviso that practices are permitted “provided their practice conforms to the law” is reasonable, but may in certain circumstances be challenged. Some people may feel bound to break laws that discriminate against the practice of their religion, or laws that are fundamentally unjust, or even sometimes in countering some greater evil.

Martin Luth King – who often broke the law, though never lightly - wrote from Birmingham jail, “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

Bonhoeffer, who I cited above, was executed by the Nazis for plotting to kill Hitler.

Neither, however, expected to escape the punishment in consequence of their action. Indeed Ghandi argued that unjust punishment is a powerful propaganda weapon against repression.

These are not uniquely Christian or religious values - many principled secular humanists feel much the same – but they mean that the commitment to obey the law cannot be entirely unqualified.

To Bee Tee (and AnthonyMarinac). How on earth can you make a connection with the bible and violence and civil qualities? Which countries are the most warlike, violent and unruly? Where is the home of the Mafia, the Inquisitions, the Spanish conquests of the Americas etc (I am tempted to include GW Bush).

Christianity has promoted more deaths in the name of the Lord than Asian beliefs. It, like Islam, serves to impose a dogma that superimposes on the innate being of people. We are NOT born in "sin".

Yes burn the bible. Kill god. Yes do take on the uncorrupted sayings of Jesus (before being tailored to create and serve the establishment - that Jesus so hated). Love your fellow man as one and respect life. Be present. Dont be misled by the corruption of the bible terms like "meek" and "sinners" etc.

The religions and their dogmas and their sacrosanct books will surely place these millenia as the extended dark ages before enlightenment.