Sorry Greg but you make the mistake many make.

That is the basic message of Jesus is, of course, sound and is exactly what I believe and try to follow.Not easy and forgiving others for many things is not the way to go as they just go further.

But the basic message is really the ONLY message and it has nothing to do with religion, belief, faith or God.

It's just blatantly obvious that if we don't at least attempt to live closely in that manner we are cavemen fighting over every scrap of food, or like today, every single cent in the market. Those guys will kill for a profit, which is what they are actually doing.

However to want to live as basically preached by Jesus is not an indication one should swallow the man made fantasies that have confused and damaged that message.

The hippies essentially tried that way and got hammered (in 2 ways as we know). And who were the biggest critics of their way? Religious far right lunatics of course as they "know" the truth. Of course they don't as the truth there is those right wingers are just dangerous and ignorant people.

To try and put down Dawkins by saying more intelligent people believe otherwise is really, really dumb. You see religion is mostly hammered into our brains in the age range 0 - 5 and very little changes that learning. Religious parenting? Religious belief, forget logic.

Intelligence has little to do with sanity when religion is the issue. But the ability to think through an issue regardless of training does.

It is time, well beyond actually, to put away the pschological needs of ancient man and deal with reality. The problem there of course is the poorer countires cannot and are unlikely to even consider that as it's all most of their people have to believe in, real or not. So in many ways it's better to keep these fantasises alive simply to avoid the clashes between cultures. Bad enough as it is.

Boaz, I'd like to help, I really would.

>>...Pericles..who's last paragraphs of his last post were barely comprehensible and stopped in mid air<<

Which part did you not understand?

Justice in the Old Testament? Two examples:1) if an Israelite buys another Israelite, that person can only be owned for 6 years, and on the 7th must be allowed to go free. Very generous indeed. And 2) each 50th year, any purchases by Israelites of land owned by another Israelite, would be declared null and void. Hence the power relations which had been established at some early point in Israelite history, would be perpetuated. Hardly justice to do that.
The Old Testament is replete with an attempt at domination, by the Israelites over the other populations of the area, and lots of attempts at revenge, both against the Israelites (!) and against their opponents, by the Israelite's reputedly just god.
Neither is there any love in the New Testament, only an act of child abuse, preceded by a cacophany of contradictory stories and statements, the banal amongst the inexplicably violent.
So much for Christianity. As for Islam, their book is the most immature thing I've ever read: threats, real and fantasy, are kept apart only by tracts of self praise and imprecations to join the caravan. It is an early attempt to sing the praises of Fascism, pure and simple. It would be hillarious, except that around 1.2 billion people we share the planet with follow it. I'm very glad most appear not to have read it, or can't bring themselves to do what it wants of them.
The most remarkable aspect of the childishness of these two religions is that devotees could read all of this and not see it for what it really is. Instead, they could explain it away, justify it on whatever grounds, or simply deny that it is really there.

Some very interesting posts indeed. I think john Lennon said it beautifully!

All you need is love.

Long-live the hippies\environmentalist.

Thank You all for your words of wisdom
and just let it be.(song)

I believe there are things man should not Question and the search for god is one of them.

All the best.

EVO

Greetings Polycarp,

I would be included towards Occam's Razor. That is, accepting Moses acted to unify his people under their Hebrew nomadic tribal god, before accepting an ethereal entity entered onto the World stage to project manager humanity. Assuming Moses et al., existed, which case is the most plausible... The most like likely?

Cheers,

Oly.

I would like to add my comments to this article as well and point out that there are approx 4,500 known religions in the World.

If one was to 'join', which one would you.

I agree with other 'negative comments' on this, that children are too young mentally to have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong, and get caught up in the fear factor that they 'won't go to heaven' if you dont believe and condemmed to a life of malpractice!

So wrong to brainwash people!

The Muslim faith must be the worst regarding brainwashing young from birth into its' belief system, and not giving people a chance to choose another religion or none.

The Muslim countries which practice this are denying people of this choice and condemming them to a life of fear that Allah (God) will punish them if they don't prey 5 times a day and collect 'points' particuarily if they prey in a Mosque rather than in a room by themselves.

It is a male driven religion which precludes women from recognition, and makes women wear the hijab to cover themselves, treats them like second class human beings.
I feel that this is disgraceful.

I work in a multi-cultural place in which I see Muslim men use the male toilets vanity basins to wash their arms and then their feet before dissapearing into their own 'prayer room', leave the vanity cabinet and floor saturated with water, use toilet paper and paper hand towels to dry themselves, which is left in the pedestal clogging it up or filling up the waste bins to overflowing!
And if you complain about it then you are classed as a racist, even though this can be identified as a workplace health and safety matter, should someone slip and hurt themselves!

Could I be feeling the same the majority of Australians who are losing their identity and the religious 'takeover' here and our inability to do anything because we are then labelled as stirrers, radicals, racists and made to feel like we are the minority here!!