Amber describes how most of these teddy infected unfortunates become so well immunized in the process that they just do not play outside their playpen. They have been repeatedly warned, are well armed with entrenched avoidance behaviours like pulling down the shutters, disconnecting and walking away from highly plausible arguments. This kind of belief doesn't require evidence because it is issued as pure rote "learning" and certainly has all bases covered. e.g. The great disconnect where belief in something without evidence is elevated as a particular virtue because there is this notion that any fool can believe something based on evidence. BUT, belief without any evidence takes "real character". lol

Well atheism can be said to be grounded in absolute truth because atheism is for those who transcend the facile whims of fashion trends and is forever the same concept. There are no fashionable teddies real or imagined, and there is no extortion of your psyche here .... just reason, humility, free inquiry, dignity, participatory democracy and much more.

Probably harder to understand for the teddy infected types is that their delusional attachment that supposedly takes "real character" is one of the major causes of crime in every shape and form.

Well said/written, Kieran! But of course quite beyond those infected with the faith virus.

The shifting definitions….The ‘Sticks and stones etc.…’ we’ll leave for the keeper.

R0bert, I asked what sort of evidence you were looking for. Thanks for responding. I am not sure I understood all you said but would like to pick up on some of it.

‘No duplication in other faiths’ – If I understand what you’re saying, this criticism is unfair. If there is only one God, creator of one human race, then one might expect certain conceptions and information about him would be shared amongst differing peoples of differing faiths.

Something which “was verifiable and which did not have a reasonable scientific explanation.” - Try this, the law of biogenesis. I think (believe) this word was invented by Louis Pasteur. It describes the scientific observation, verifiable countless millions of times per day, that life only ever proceeds from other living things. Living things don’t suddenly spring into existence from non-living matter. The implication being that the first living things on earth must also have come from a living being. Try as they may, scientists are yet to even come close to approaching any reasonable materialist explanation for this.

“No claims thousands of years old.” This is also unfair. Christianity is based on an historical event (like the day an astronaut walked on the moon), the death and resurrection of Christ. If that happened two thousand years ago, nobody can change it.

“Cleaning up their houses.” To find perfection (this side of heaven) amongst all those who claim piety would indeed be amazing, and even contradict the words of Jesus. He warned that weeds would grow among the crop, to be sorted out on the Last Day.

As for ‘preaching hate’ and ‘horizontal dancing’, I didn’t hear or see those when I last went to church. Maybe our church is one amazing exception.

So if you're looking for perfection from everyone who lives under the Christian banner, you will always have reason to disbelieve. If you are seeking some honest people trying to live an honest faith, you will find some and maybe sit up and pay some serious attention.

Mick, "If you are seeking some honest people trying to live an honest faith, you will find some and maybe sit up and pay some serious attention." What I've found is somthing that all to often the churches refuse to acknowledge, those type of people can be found across a swathe of thiestic and non-thiestic belief and value systems.

I spent years in the church and in hindsight I saw nothing that suggests honest people trying to live an honest life/faith are any more prevelant there than amongst any other group of people who try to live to a value system. Our resident mossie Fellow Human strikes me as one such from what I've seen of his behaviour online. Years ago I was astounded by the sacrificial giving of some new age people I came across and their determination to live their lives with integrity. I was told that people outside of faith in christ were lost in some kind of moral mess without a solid foundation but thats just spin. It's not the reality of people outside the christain faith who think that the way they live is important.

Cheers
R0bert

Robert
You said
"I was told that people outside of faith in christ were lost in some kind of moral mess without a solid foundation but thats just spin. It's not the reality of people outside the christain faith who think that the way they live is important."

You are right... to a point.

The reason Australian Churches have no martyrs is that the Church is not persecuted by the state. For all its flaws our government does go about the business of governing in a way that seeks to be democratic and deliver justice. To the extent that is possible, individual freedom is respected, differences of opinion in politics and religion are allowed.
In fact, secular society has largely overtaken the Church in the delivery of justice and the Church, to a great degree, has lost its reason for existence and become fragemented in the sense that its organising narrative and central symbols do not tell the story of our place in our society. Being unable to relate its story to our community and our society it has become indiviudalised and focused on personal salvation. Hence we find ourselves arguing about 'beliefs' and the existence, or otherwise, of God as a speculative concept.. all of which is pretty pointless.
And yet... there are still people around us that are not finding the fulfillment and satisfaction of full participation in community and society. Perhaps the story of the archetypal man who 'gets it right' is just what we need to imbue our lives with meaning.
God-talk, as figurative language, has the power to stir the imagination to find realities and a way of being that is beyond what can be found through conceptual speculation.
Maybe, even in our society, the sacred still works to lift us out of our hum-drum everday working lives and view the cosmos as a full participant in its awesome magnitude, as a partner in its creation and end.