Waterboy, thank you for bringing some valuable insight into an argument that has been more and more a repetitive clash between mobs of equally determined ignorance.

Building on your well-expressed view I would say that there is more than a single reality. People who restrict their being to one reality deny themselves the abundance that life can offer.

Thank you to every contributor to this monumental debate. There is an email in my inbox this morning from Hillsong Church, seeking from its membership, a hand in extending the mercy of Almighty God to all who have suffered in Victoria. Those who worship the creation rather than the creator, and live among the gumtrees will from time to time get incinerated. Mary Grant Bruce wrote warnings about this sixty years ago, in the Billabong series.

I want to thank you all, especially Peter Sellick for starting it. I have been struggling to understand why Australians have tolerated the abolition of Protestant Christianity, and the merger of Church and State, introduced into Australia by the Liberal Party. I grew up under Labor Government, and the separation of church and State was taught in Queensland Primary Schools, by Labor Governments.

The Victorian Bushfires are a direct result of the assumption by the State of Victoria of Sovereignty. It closed its independent courts in 1986, when it merged the function of judge and chambers, and it has Joe Saltalamacchia, as the guardian of the Supreme Court and Rules, to deny access to the exclusive brethren who now rule Victoria. Without that Sovereignty, those who suffered from Ash Wednesday last time, would have so crippled the State, with lawsuits, for allowing fire to escape from National Parks like a beast to destroy private property, that the buildup of fuel would never have been allowed to occur this time.

If you and others are fair dinkum, write to the PM, and ask him to repeal S 39 Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and Order 46 Rule 7A Federal Court Rules and give those of us who are Protestant Christian back our right, intrinsic in S 79 Constitution, to go the court and worship Almighty God, in at least three persons, (The Trinity) instead of a State appointed god surrogate. The repeal of 24 words, in S 39, and The Rule, that prohibits free access to court, will ensure the State of Victoria never afflicts its residents in this way again. Lest we forget

Micheal
If you want to see the legal nature of Christianity look at the posts of Peter the Believer. His latest post linking Christain law with the Victorian bush fires is reprehensible. If that is what he is doing. I have problems working out what he is saying.
Since the separation of Church and State the Burnings have stopped and Heretics (meaning someone who does not belong to the same club as you) can voice their views without being tortured into recanting and being burnt at the stake. Bush, Blair and Howard have given us a wake-up as to what happens when Christianity is bought back into the law. Gitmo Bay, torture and so on.
The only difference between the 'West' and most Islamic states is that the Islamic state have yet to separate state and religion.
Jesus fought long and hard against the Pharisees who where the Jewish religious lawyer only to have the church that bears his name continue the same way through Paul the Pharisee. Christianity has become everything that Jesus opposed.
I do not vilify Christians, only the despotic organization that lies to them. The proof that the hierarchy knows Christianity is a lie is contained in Pius the ninth's papal decree of 1854 that attempts to salvage the wreck of Christianity. The Christian dogma regarding original sin is as I described it. Hence the invention of the Immaculate conception.
Christian churches stay well away from this issue for good reason.
The more I research Jesus and Christianity the more I appreciate how Jesus was spot on with his teachings and opposition to the Pharisees, and the more I am appalled by the way Christianity has butchered his teachings.
If you want to know God you will not find it in Christianity.

And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! For, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.

Luke 17 20 (KJV)

waterboy, good post. i would have preferred you used "spirituality" rather than "theology", but no big deal (for me).

i'm also wary of science being reduced to being simply another "narrative" - i think science has been too spectacularly successful (in explaining and predicting) for that. but no mind.

crabsy, perhaps you are right that there are here "mobs of equally determined ignorance". i'll just note that a number of people, including me, have replied to your posts in what at least appears to me a sincere manner, inviting dialogue. as far i can tell, you haven't even acknowledged any of these posts.

Round and round we go, Daviy.

>>This RHP. [I presume you mean 'this is RHP'; otherwise it doesn't make sense] Is there any proof of this other than I cannot prove other wise? Off with the fairies you go<<

Has it ever occurred to you that you cannot "prove" an assertion by using the same assertion as proof?

You suggest that RHP as a theory that has some intrinsic value.

I say that it does not.

Your response is "there you go, that just proves my point"

>>Ok, prove to me you are not thinking about robbing a bank. Can you?<<

It has been long established that it is tough to prove a negative. Simply giving it a fancy new name does not constitute original thought, nor does it add to anyone's understanding of logic or argument.

>>Do you understand that it is impossible to know what the side effects of a new technology until that technology is introduced?<<

I can indeed accept that, no problem.

My points were that i) when you are at war, you are less likely to perform thorough testing and ii) the tools with which to simulate possible outcomes were at that time fairly primitive.

The physicists involved weren't working in total ignorance, you understand, but they lacked access to sophisticated systems into which to feed the variables involved.

The additional problem with your use of the "theory" to point the finger at genetic modification, is that GM is not "new technology", nor is it impossible to model potential outcomes with considerable accuracy.

So even if you accept that playing with atomic bombs was irresponsible, because they couldn't predict all of the side-effects, the analogy does not hold water when applied elsewhere.

On that subject, what's your view of the Large Hadron Collider?

Have a great day.

Daviy,

For modern religionists, it was not so much Jesus criticised the Laws of Pharisees, rather his substance "substituted" the Law of Moses, which was Humanity's end of the Hebrew coventant/deal made with their alleged god.

Creeds cum Christian Laws became evident before Nicaea until after Vatican II. A constitent thread has been for, the Churches of the Christian religion, to monoplise the definition the demarcations between the supernatural & the natual and, who legitimately reveals knowledge and who does not.

The rub is, if the current trajectory continues, the Law could prove in the ascendant. Not the Law of God, but the Law of Mathematics.

O.