It has to be said, Peter the Believer, that your arguments are becoming increasingly incoherent.

Their meaning is pretty much lost to me, I'm afraid, and I suspect I may not be alone.

>>100% of Australians today are practicing atheists. We must go the church when summonsed.<<

You appear to have an idiosyncratic - and totally obscure - concept of both the term "atheist" and "church".

>>if sought, the request to worship Jesus Christ by having a jury is refused.<<

You need a jury in order to worship? That's odd.

>>Hard clear evidence for anyone to see for themselves. <<

Nope. Passed me by completely, I'm afraid.

And that was just the first paragraph.

I am sure that you are trying to tell us something. Perhaps if you were to be a little less enigmatic in your statements, and a little more straightforward in describing your concerns, we could all take part in your discussion.

But random sound-bites such as this one simply confuse:

>>Add in the hundreds of thousands deprived of their licence to drive a motor car, without any due process in the atheist sausage factories, the Magistrates Courts. Then add the 300,000 odd people at risk of losing their homes, because the atheists have removed their equity of redemption, a Christian concept developed to give lenders a fair go, when juries ruled.<<

There may well be a valid and interesting observation inside those two sentences, which we could discuss and comment upon.

But as it stands, the logic is invisible, and the thought processes impenetrable.

Have a great day.

Dear Michael (Dan S de Merengue),

If some feel they need religion to be humble, then that’s their prerogative. Just as some feel they need religion to lead moral lives.

While Christians believe that a god is behind the creation of the universe, it remains a belief. They don’t know that.

As for my question though, I have no idea how you could possibly interpret it in such a way. I neither said, nor said implied either of those things. I simply asked what the point would be in believing in something that we’d never comprehend anyway. That which we do not know about is usually worth knowing, but what’s the point when you’ll never really know it?

If by “god’s revelation to mankind” you mean the Bible, then I can only refer back to what I’ve said previously in this thread about it. There is no reason to believe it is the inerrant word of a god. But there certainly are reasons to believe that it isn’t. Muslims could say the same as you have said, about the Qur’an.

But if one was to lead a godly life according to the Bible, then one could also justify doing some of the most horrendous things had it not been for secularism helping to drag the churches kicking and screaming out of the Dark Ages, and allowing/enabling most modern Christians to cherry pick the good bits.

The assumption that chemicals could arrange themselves (and we know they can to a degree), is infinitesimally smaller than the assumption that a god started everything. Since there is no evidence of anything supernatural, the evidence for a natural explanation is infinitely greater.

There is simply no comparing the two assumptions.

Dan S de Merengue,

I maintain the claim that nothing in Victoria's laws prevents robust discussion of other religions. You claim to have given a counter example.

The Appeal against VCAT's initial judgement did not find that Nalliah (correct spelling) and Scott were not guilty. They required a new hearing of the allegations against them.

In doing so they commented that "the prohibition in s.8 is not a prohibition against saying things about the religious beliefs of persons which are offensive to those persons, or even against saying things about the religious beliefs of one group of persons which would cause another group of persons to despise those beliefs. It is against saying things about the religious beliefs and practices of persons which go so far as to incite other persons to hate persons who adhere to those religious beliefs."

You say: "Speaking your mind openly is part of our heritage as Australians. I don’t see the need for politicians to tinker with that." In that case should we abolish the Crimes Act and laws dealing with defamation along with the religious vilification law?

Nalliah and Scott were not "dragged through Victoria’s courts after offering their opinion on another religion". It was more than mere opinion.

The Catholic Church and the Uniting Church supported the Islamic Council's case against Nalliah and Scott, while the Pentecostal and evangelical organisations alleged that the law inhibited free speech.

Mr Nalliah himself -as candidate for the Family First Party - is on record as advocating the pulling down of 'Satan's strongholds' including brothels, gambling places, mosques and temples including Freemasons, Buddhist and Hindu temples (Lateline 11/10/2004). Tony Jones said: "Most Australians would consider that to be an incitement to religious violence. To which Family First Party Chairman, Peter Harris replied, "Oh, absolutely."

Mr Nalliah's views sounded pretty rabid and zealous to Tony Jones and Peter Harris - as they do to me. But not to you?

Not much freedom of religion or free speech there if you worship in a mosque or temple.

Oliver,
I entirely agree, the patterns 'found in Christianity are evident in other religions'. A more 'elevated' historical view perhaps provides deeper perspective. The world religions of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam may be compared in their common characteristic giving cause for a missionary drive. Certain characteristics of other world religions, such as the mother religions of Hinduism and of Judaism, have kept them from spreading to the same extent as the three religions, as mentioned. The failure of Christianity to spread to large empires or civilisations that existed to the east of Jerusalem, most notably, Persia, India, and China is interesting. Less familiar, however, and just as interesting were the successes in spreading Christianity to the Syrians, Arabians, and Central Asians. Numerous small kingdoms and tribes existed in these regions as opposed to the monolithic entities mentioned.

An important socio-cultural characteristic of the receiving societies of Christianity was a type of religious pluralism, where perceptions of rewards associated with religious identities were most important. It is perhaps noteworthy here, for those who primarily think of Islam as having close association with political-military power, is to recognize that Islam spread to many peoples without the aid of armies. Many Turks and especially Mongols accepted Islam when they, not the Arabs, were dominant. Also, Indonesia, the most populous Islamic nation today, received Islam primarily through traders.

Important to both Christianity and Islam, in relation to other religions, is that each religion has sought to be monopolistic when and where it could, whether this could be done through conversion or expulsion. The point here is that the monotheism of each religion made possible an ideology for religious monopoly and for the conversion of the followers of other religions. Arian Christianity, a version later largely rejected, was primarily responsible for the initial spread of Christianity to the European tribes. So, one could surmise, there seems little ground for Christians in the West to claim any superiority for their version(s) of Christianity over the small Christian communities that have developed in the East. Nevertheless, important distinctions between and amongst differing religions continue to be made.

Dear Spikey
"It is against saying things about the religious beliefs and practices of persons which go so far as to incite other persons to hate persons who adhere to those religious beliefs."
Are some of these photos examples of inciting people to hate persons who adhere to those religious beliefs?
http://sheikyermami.com/2009/01/21/pics-from-the-disgusting-hamas-rally-in-melbourne-last-
Regards
Blair

Christians claim their deity is loving, merciful, generous and omnipotent. They also claim there religion is a fount of much goodness, and that by living by it, they are better persons.

So how charitable, forgiving, merciful and generous are they really? Will one of them step up and pay for my root canal which the public health services denied me to save themselves money, probably to pay for a supernatural festival to disseminate religious propaganda.