Amber, my comment is that love is not related to a need for worship.

Love always maintains the critical functions of the mind and does not cripple Eros but worship certainly does a pretty good job with various degrees of destructiveness and depression where we see it can only create false versions of the world that clash with the reality. Worship effectively is designed to strip away critical functions and create obedient stooopids. If we observe the popular media we see that it is awash with the worship mindset and this cannot be good.

Blind trust ultimately relates to this worship mindset where the desire to believe is easy and the exacto opposite to the love to find out and gain understanding.

Lesson 1, Don't ever become a worshipper, Keiran.
Lesson 2 Love is the source of real breakthroughs while worship embodies a psychosis and delivers at a cost nothing but very phony, cosy environments for those who conform (which is akin to Thanatos).

Peri

What do you see as the difference between agnosticism and atheism?

Pericles,

I think you have misinterpreted me slightly. I was trying hard not to say that all atheists believe the same things. (I know too well that not all Christians believe the same. This could be generalised even further. In fact, my grandfather once told me, “Only two people in the world are not loopy, me and you, but I’m starting to have doubts about you.”)

I don’t think Philip Adams really believes in nothing. He just said it as a quick summary statement. Rather, I know for one thing, he believes in the value of promoting the Australian film industry.

I can well see that my faith and your unbelief are very different in nature. However, what I was attempting to show was that atheists often hold to unprovable beliefs. For example, I pointed out the many unprovable beliefs of the communists, and generally speaking except for possibly around the fringes, they were all atheists.

There could here be an issue about definitions. For you claim (if I have this right) that you have an absence of belief in God, whereas the classical definition for an atheist is a belief in the absence of God. I wonder, if I had an absence of belief that a man had walked on the moon, would that be different from a belief that no man had walked on the moon?

I think if you want to make such a fine distinction, then you should call yourself by a word other than ‘atheist’, perhaps an agnostic or a religious sceptic. For by the dictionary definition, an atheist believes there is no God, and this is a position that is accompanied with as many difficulties with regard to evidence as proving there is a God (if not more).

OK, ok, if the classic definition of atheism is a belief that there is no god, then I hold that belief.

(Waterboy, an agnostic is one who believes that the existence of God is not provable, as opposed to the atheist's view that God does not exist. Atheists are agnostics who refuse to sit on the fence.)

But I still maintain that the nature of my belief, that something does not exist, is a substantially different animal to that of a belief that it does.

To believe in a god requires not only belief, but faith, in the teeth of a massive and all-consuming lack of evidence. This creates an enormous chasm between the concept of "I believe", with all its inexplicability, and my "I don't believe", which requires no evidence or proof.

Which is why I reject MickV's supposition:

>>an atheist believes there is no God, and this is a position that is accompanied with as many difficulties with regard to evidence as proving there is a God (if not more).<<

There are no difficulties involved in a non-belief in God. No evidence is required, not to believe. No proof is required, not to believe.

To use your example: "if I had an absence of belief that a man had walked on the moon, would that be different from a belief that no man had walked on the moon?"

Strictly speaking, yes. I could hold the first view comfortably and safely if there were no evidence available that man had accomplished this feat; the second I could also hold, whether or not evidence exists, e.g. if I thought the whole thing was a conspiracy to fool us, and filmed in Burbank.

The fact is, you can point to evidence that man did walk on the moon. There are recordings. There were broadcasts. There were physical manifestations, people, machinery. If I were to hold such a disbelief, I would need to challenge this evidence in order to have any credibility.

As it stands, I need to challenge nothing in order to hold my disbelief in gods, singular or plural.

I like your writing Amber. Thanks for your support on the mark of the beast system. Irks me to think of all of the conspiracy that went into the ID chip on either the right hand or forehead (Revelation 13:16-18/14:9-11). Someone said the Australian banking systems long knew about it. Henry Kissinger once said that "if we want to control all of the people, we have to know where they are". I guess this is the system he wanted. A number of pastors I know (one from up your way) are worried about the beast system, but I sent an e-mail and reminded them that The Lord fed the tribes in the desert 40 years, HE will feed us. My wife reckons their shoes didnt wear out either. I must look it up. Sounds better than Nike. I never buy their products because of the child labour they use in the poor countries. Its likely that there will be a "wall" between us and the system in the form of all of the G8/greenie/APEC protesters folk who wont want the mark either. Jesus says tough it out and HE will be with us. Maybe a year or two yet. No sign of the beast on the world stage.

I actually attended an open air combined church service in my small village this morning. There was discussion about what Jesus meant by saying "If any one wants to follow me, he/she must deny him/her self, take up their cross, and follow me". We talked about what these words actually mean to us individually.
Most of those very very few people present today know that in the future, possibly not too distant, the Australian believers in Jesus Christ will be persecuted.. But there was also talk about how God is in Control, and as you say Gibo, He did feed the Israelites and their shoes did not wear out over those 40 years in the desert. But there was also talk about how the Romans tried to kill off the Christians for sport with the lions and they were annoyed that the people died smiling and praising God.
During the boxing day tsunami a couple of years ago, a large group of Christians were told to get out of the place by the muslims, they could celebrate Christmas but far away. The group were on a hilltop away from the village celebrating God when the tsunami hit. They went into the village and gave aid and support to those that had hunted them away. The persecuted ones genuinely showed the Love of God through their faith in action towards their persecutors.
It is often said that the Church (underground) in china is the fastest growing and most faithful fellowship in the world.
Australians are growing fat in their complacency and material comfort.