Reiba.

I'm sorry to tell you this but the Christian religion is based on fear, misogyny, intolerance and totality of thought. There is no room for diversity at all. 'Believe what we tell you to believe or you'll go to hell.'

This sort of stuff scares the bejesus out of children and primitives. Just read Paul's letters.

And it all started with God so loving the world that he drowned everyone, except Noah and his family ... and Moses murdering 3000 of his parishioners.

If that's tolerance and diversity I'm a monkey's uncle.

It's all about control. The truth will definitely set you free from this nonsense, but you won't hear it from many pulpits.

UncleFrank... to be 'blunt'... mate.. you need to read the scriptures, without the baggage of some haunting childhood bad religious experience,
or..some 'moral' reason for your way of describing faith.... I think if you thought a bit deeper.. it might become clear.

Pericles :) you don't like it when u get picked on do you?

You are too free with your one liners and 2 worders mate.. almost to broken record level.

But rest assured..there is always hope for you while there is life.

1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

That can be your experience too... let's all hope and pray that it will be not just for you, but for all here who do not yet know Him.

Why not plumb the depths of that couple of verses.

-Justifed....though faith. (The sourece of the reformation)
-Peace...with God.
-Through.... the Lord....Jesus..(of Nazareth)..the Christ.
-through whom.."we" have gained..'access'...
-Grace.. in which we stand.

So rich.. so deep.. so profound.

CJ Morgan,
Thank you for your kind words, and for reading my OLO comments. So, after all, it would not have been so bad to have you in my class :-) (yes, in the 80s I was still teaching). I just do not understand what you mean by religionist. My dictionary says that religionism is a pejorative term (excessive religious zeal). I do my best not to sound excessive.

I am not sure Sellick maintains that the two things you mention are indeed “equivalent“, he just claims that the one should not replace the other. There are things he says that I agree with, and others I see differently, but his contributions enrich our understanding of a non-trivial topic like this, which one cannot say of those who just deride and abuse points of view (beliefs, if you like) that clash (or they think clash) with theirs.

As mentioned, I believe the 21st century Christian perspective (way of looking at reality) is COMPATIBLE in principle with a 21st century scientific perspective, which does not mean that there are no theists and atheists, who are looking for contradictions by misinterpreting either or both, or whose mind is a captive of, say, 19th century.

As for your “gorilla”, that is a different animal. One thing is the above compatibility of the two perspectives - that belongs to the realm of philosophy - and another thing is the problem of “abortion, euthanasia, ... etc“, where not religion or Christianity as such but concrete persons, often Church representatives, participate in the public debate displaying too forcefully - intentionally or not - their Christian identity. But so do many ardent secularists with their world-view. Until recently, all such debates were conducted on the background of shared Christian values. The problem is that some people cannot accept that this is not the case any more. Here the issue is not theoretical COMPATIBILITY of two or more world views, but practical TOLERANCE for the views of others in the public debate. Jürgen Habermas, an atheist, put it nicely in his recent paper on the “post-secular society” (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html.).

On the contrary, Boaz, I relish it.

>>Pericles :) you don't like it when u get picked on do you?<<

Especially when it is you who do the picking.

To borrow Denis Healey's observation on Geoffrey Howe, being attacked by you is like being savaged by a dead sheep.

You may dislike my use of "one liners and 2 worders", but their virtue is that they tend to be meaningful as well as concise. Which is far more than may be said for your scattergun application of biblical quotes.

Let me see if I can explain without resorting to one-liners.

Sells suggests in his opening remarks that secularism has displaced religion, "the replacement of the Christian story with that of natural science has been a disaster".

Most posters here have agreed that there is ample room for both to live side by side. One is based upon belief, the other upon testable hypotheses.

Neither is in any way complete.

Science will never be complete, since its scope - to understand the working of the universe - defines a task that will endure far beyond any possible span of human existence. Similarly, religion will never be complete, since it requires the application faith in order to complete its structure.

This is probably the single greatest obstacle to the two concepts coming together. Man can live happily with either or both, since they are in no way mutually exclusive. But until there is a scientific breakthrough that finally validates one of the thousands of religious stances available - which, as I said before, simply ain't going to happen - one will remain subjective, the other objective.

Hence, your choice of biblical quotes, Boaz, will only ever have meaning to you and your fellow travellers, not to me.

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand."

It really doesn't cross your mind, does it, that the above sentence is entirely devoid of meaning to a non-Christian?

The creation story in the Bible is not a Christian myth. It is a Jewish myth that Christians incorporated in their Bible. Then they proceeded to persecute, exile and massacre the creators of the myth because they would not accept the Christian mumbo jumbo.

The myth of a psychopathic God who subjects his own son to torment, the son who was born of a virgin like the pagan Gods, Mithra and Osiris, and the Holy Ghost who impregnates human females ala Zeus and other pagan gods are myths that hordes of the gullible choose to believe..

Since these myths are part of our culture like the other myths of antiquity they should be taught as the other myths are taught. However, they should not be taught as anything other than myth which people may choose to believe in as people may choose to believe the sun is really Apollo racing around the earth in a chariot.

Frank,
In any religion, including the Christian one, some use fear, misogyny, intolerance and totality of thought – you’ll need to cast a little wider to see the diversity created from a dissident, if not heretical, Jewish sect.

Your comments on Paul of Tarsus form some degree of accuracy. Pauline Christianity forms the basis of many Christian theological beliefs such as the ‘atonement’ and ‘original sin’. Paul was a Hellenist or Diaspora Jew with no personal knowledge of Jesus. The philosophies and theologies that he created were conceived within a Hellenistic world, colored by his education as a Pharisee, and the pagan religions which surrounded him. His writings evidence these influences in his dogma viz, concerning, 'calling,' 'chosen,' 'predestined,' 'pre-existence,' and 'election'. These are concepts that have kept the world's philosophers and scholars debating for thousands of years.

The content of his conversion can be seen to have been a fit of epilepsy (perhaps, medically, quite likely) or as others see it, a ‘genuine’ visionary experience. Close scrutiny of Paul's writings often bear what we’d call an irrational or pathological element (perhaps related to his ‘condition’) – an element which could not but repel the Jewish Rabbis. Maybe his pessimistic mood was the result of his physical condition as he suffered an illness affecting both body and mind. Nevertheless, his fiery temperament and controlling manner were intimidating. Paul’s view was where "the whole creation groaneth" for liberation from "the prison-house of the body" from this earthly existence, which, because of its pollution by sin and death was intrinsically evil – dismal stuff producing a lasting theological effect.

Paul believed in supernatural powers, in fatalism, in "speaking in tongues” and in mysteries or sacraments, a term borrowed solely from heathen rites. He was an overbearing man of his time, to be sure, and through a strange irony or quirk, enabled the relatively obscure Yehoshua of Nazereth, who saw his mission as being for the Jews by the Jews, transported into history. Jesus’ basic tenet was one of love and tolerance – he didn’t describe Hell as an actual ‘place’ of punishment.