Peter the Believer said: "These black hearted atheist villains, whose religion knows and gives no mercy" - the point is atheists are without religion. You will also find, if you take the time to read your holy book - that the religion of the jealous sky god is ruthless in it's call for death to not only competing religions, but also death to the "unbelievers". If you take some time, the passages are very easy to find, not to mention frequent. That god is documented in your pseudo-fiction many times as being without mercy.

Peter the Believer also says "Atheists would be alright if they came out and said so straight out". This is interesting on several levels. As an open atheist, I would say that I have done exactly that. Also, you have said in my first quote above that all atheists are villains, but now you're saying the one's who "confess" are ok? Sounds like the same logic used during the inquisitions. If we "confess" we're ok...except your bible prescribes special treatment be inflicted upon us by his believers.

Of course, if you want to say those bits of the bible aren't meant to be taken literally, go right ahead. Oh - but you can't can you? That would mean acknowledging that not only do you employ selectivity when deciding which bits to believe, but also that maybe all of it is just fiction after all. If it's not fiction, then surely you have to accept the whole thing as truth. So where are your demands for the death of all atheists? Ah but of course, self preservation persists, and to do such a thing would be unlawful, and see you end up in jail.

100% hypocrisy.

The clamour from the atheists is a bit too much. Such caterwauling.

Peter's article was titled "The impossibility of atheism". The impossibility was in the nastiness of true atheism towards the Christian God as opposed to the "paganised" God that Dawkins et al attack. He posits that rational atheists could be not be so dark.

There is no need to have read Dawkins to know his definitions of God : there has been plenty of newspaper articles and ABC programmes on his work with direct extended interviews.

It is as Peter's objection in a later comment: Dawkins defines the God of my faith and then goes about dissecting and ridiculing it with rational argument, except it is not the God Peter and I and billions of others worship. And so we have a right to comment. And we ask that this be respected without abuse.

Peter states: " My argument is that the God that the atheists do not believe in is not the God that Christians worship, but rather an idol of our own making or unmaking". He then sets about putting his case including the debunking of the Dawkin's straw man god. And he follows with a list of objections to which an atheist should take on based on the "idol" Christian God that prevailed for centuries.

Having made clear the Christian God of whom he writes at all times, Peter provides a definition of an atheist which has a dark description if critiquing the real Christian God.
But declares that is not who atheists are as their debunking of the "idol" God is valid.

If I may be so bold to suggest that he has used the technique well exercised by Brian's mother in the Life of Brian : you the atheist " are not atheists, just naughty boys and girls.." As in being prejudiced and active against faith towards the pure rational. Whereas we of faith live life with the full resources of reason at work through faith's application to life - its joys, suffering, love and hurt, and peace.

Continued:

Continued:

As I read the atheists' responses I wonder is there more to atheism than intellectual pride and deep rooted prejudice. It cannot claim Science as its own. It can claim the new extensions of moral boundaries beyond the Judeo Christian ethic in abortion, reproduction technologies, biomedical developments and euthanasia . Just as it did with Social Darwinism that ended up feeding the militarism of the elites in the 19th / 20th century to deliver the bloodiest of centuries. This of course at a time when the faith prevailed in the rationalised "God of the 17th/18th century theologians/scientists" which Dawkins et al attack. In that sense they do have a calling and can join with Peter.

Comment to Shaithus:

Watching David Attenborough is not necessarily an intellectual exercise requiring learned commentary. It is rather an exercise foremost of wonder at reality as presented and truth as felt within the sense of oneness in the beauty and grandness of creation - the natural world and beyond.

This is as it is, with a living faith in the God of three persons - including that of a man who has walked the earth. The God who willed life in its origins, who sustains life in all of its presence and calls us to a fulfilled life in Him. It is a sustenance for all without intellectual measure or restraint. You are free to partake or otherwise. In not doing so you simply miss an opportunity to delight in the most profound of relationships available in life whilst you exist on earth. A delight from which all desires are met for a full life. It is here and now.

APOLOGIES TO SELLS and other on topic posters.

Dear Dear Spikey :) I love you..I really do! as they say.. 'give a bloke enough rope and he will hang himself." welcome to "dangle-land":)

I have a feeling you don't have the slightest clue about the implications of what you presented and how much it supports pretty much everything I've been saying ad nauseum about Islam :)

If you read that Keegstra case carefully, you will see that it says THIS!

"Section 319(2) of the Code constitutes a reasonable limit upon freedom of expression. Parliament's objective of preventing the harm caused by hate propaganda is of sufficient importance to warrant overriding a constitutional freedom."

Which means.. you cannot claim 'freedom of expression' if that expression incites hate or vilification against an identifiable group or religion.. DUHx5000!

Now.. all I've been raving about all this time is exACTLY that.

but let's recap your own post for a moment: put these two things side by side and actually REEEEAAAAD them :)

YOUR POST: (I_absolutely_love_this!)

<<The laws illustrate an international determination that nobody should be under THREAT OF VIOLENCE because of their RELIGION. Article 20.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966, protects against “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”>>

QURAN 9:30 And the JEWS say: 'Uzair (Ezra) is the son of Allâh, and the CHRISTIANS say: Messiah is the son of Allâh. That is a saying from their mouths. They imitate the saying of the disbelievers of old. Allâh's CURSE be on them, how they are DELUDED away from the truth!

It get's better:

QURAN 9:29 "FIGHT those who do not believe in Allah and the last day.. even if they are Christians or Jews....etc until....they are subjected!" (WOOPS...my 'threat_meter' just clanged on 'Overload')

Now..I would argue in any court in this_land..that such statements DO constitute 'incitement to violence and hatred' against Jews and Christians. AND...those statements ARE correctly interpreted based on Mohammad's example/oral tradition and the 4 rightly guided Caliphs.

I'd call certain Muslims from Melbourne as witnesses..

A difficulty for the objective observer reviewing Sells’ comments is, having chided atheists for their alleged lack of insight and for their dependence on mechanical thought, Sells, on crossing the floor, immediately shifts focus from the generic to the specific. Else put, his criticism of atheism addresses the general notion of the nature of God and the definition of said God in the broadest context.

On changing tack, Sells narrows the focus in on one particular Christian god.

This shift in scope, I posit; presents a lopsided a priori conjecture. It assumes one god does exist and assumes a unique character of the Godhead. By way of omission, Sells wrongly leads readers to the proposition that the architecture of the Christian theocrasia is unique to history:

“Christian speech about God is essentially Trinitarian and is quite different from pagan speech about God.” – Sells

Not so.

Herein, of pagans, Wells notes of Horus, whom interceded on behalf of the humankind justify sin to the Father, was the only beloved son of Osiris:

“The worship of Serapis spread very widely throughout the second and third century BC world, to dominate forms of (religious) expression. (In Christianity), the central idea, the living spirit, of Christianity was (posited), (as) a new thing in the mind and will of Man; but the garments of ritual and formula that Christianity has worn, were certainly woven in the cult and temples of Jupiter-Serapis, and Isis that spread from now Alexandria throughout the civilized world in the Age of Theocrasia in the second and first centuries before Christ*.” - Wells

* And would have been known to the Framers of the Christian Trinity in the fourth century CE.

And while we are on the subject of religous discrimination and the law, how about being discriminated against for not being Christian? Things such as paying taxes while the Christian church does not. You want to be a Christian, that is your choice, but I do not want to pay for it or be continously bombarded by purile Christian propaganda.