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I know you believe that Christianity is a religion of peace and goodwill, but it’s actually a murderous and primitive religion which has adapted to survive and restrain itself in a secular society of peace and goodwill.

There are still Christian groups that burn books, Christian groups that violently exorcise schizophrenics, and, of course, large Christian groups working tirelessly to replace science education with religious dogma. These assaults on modernity give the Wahabists a run for their money any day. It's antisocial in the truest sense of the word.

Plus, the only reason that you’re not waving an AK47 around and shouting "alhu akbar!" is because you're a native of the West. If you'd been born in the Middle East your devotion to Islam or Judaism would be equally strong. You cannot argue an accident of birth as evidence of superiority.

That we should even be having this debate in this day and age is evidence of the Christian desire to hang on to the Dark Ages at all costs.

>> The atheist consensus is that questioning Muslims is a no-go zone for a Christian <<

I'm not an athiest, Katie-O, so I can't tell you what consensus the Council of Atheist Elders dictates at the secret global meeting where all atheists receive their opinions, but you can comment on Islam to your heart's content. It just makes you a world-class hypocrite, especially since your posts are cliches of judgementalism and pretentious piety.

Oliver: “Love and kindness should be attached to the individual…via one’s personal relationship with their chosen God”.

Agreed!

The irony of Christian faith: God calls us to faith but also gives us the faith to respond.

Our response to believe (which is determined by our freewill), joins us in relationship with Him, made possible by the death of Jesus Christ, but otherwise impossible.

We can only understand our faith in the context of what God has done for us.

Honestly, Oliver, I agree with you when you wonder how anyone could make a logical and rational, ethical and moral choice to be a Christian (and all the baggage that it entails). The mere impossibility of such a choice must indicate that there is something supernatural about faith or give a clue that faith is beyond human reason?

It's a cop out to assume that all believers (in the history of the world) have been deluded.

I love this prayer from Mark 9:24

“I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

When I understood the gospel and acknowledged the truth of the Word, I entered into the worldwide communion of believers (rather than signing up).

We need an acceptable tool to analyse warfare, to help us distinguish if adherents of a religion are culpable of killing innocents or justified by God. Thus, we can determine if all religious wars / all wars / all religions / a particular religion is/are evil.

I propose a set of questions to help understand the link between religion/war; to show if the relationship is causal, pre-conditional, deliberate, typical/atypical, or non-existent:

(1) Is death or killing condoned by the religion or the religion's God
(2) Is the text misinterpreted - either intentionally or unintentionally
(3) Is the religious text being used to justify the killings or to further the instigator’s goals

An authentic, holy war would produce the result: (1) yes (2) no or n/a (3) no or n/a.

The only circumstances in which I can get this combination are when I apply this measure to the Jewish conquest of the promised land. Others?

Sancho.

I got away from the church for about 35 years, but came back in 2002 as a deeply considered joint effort of the head and the heart.

I can't argue with you about the history of institutional Christianity. I just think that in its own history, and in your thinking now, there is a baby thrown out with the bathwater, and that's profoundly sad.

If you want to lump together all people who call themselves Christians today, irrespective of where they sit on the theological and personally spiritual spectrum; and present-day Christians together with the European past of unity of church and state, then I can't stop you.

If Christianity, and for that matter religion in general which you would dismiss as nonsensical and pernicious godbothering, can't add a positive dimension to human life, then can you tell me, what does?

Is there not a capacity for extremism, benighted intolerance and human indulgence to emerge in the practical application of ANY belief system, religious or secular-political?

It comes down to human nature. I believe people have a natural tendency toward evil because they find it easier to pursue their own, selfish, short-term interests. Civilized life and human happiness, individual and in society, depend on our finding within ourselves something that counters that.

Immanuel Kant (The Critique of Pure Reason) wrote that there can be no proof of the existence of God, but it is in all our interests to behave AS IF he exists.

Kant was a profoundly moral philosopher. Also in the Critique, he wrote "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."

Where did Kant’s underlying moral sense come from?

Where is the secular equivalent in our society of (say) The Salvation Army, that might come anywhere near close to matching the depths of practical compassion and altruism that is based on love of God and man? TSA's Mission Statement is "Save souls, grow saints, serve suffering humanity".

George
In general I would personally prefer more detailed study of ethics, philosophy, theology etc to be handled at tertiary level rather than in high school.

Glorfindel

In regards to human nature there are certainly aspects of our nature that tend toward the negative (I don't like the word evil as I think pure evil is rare). I am not sure how adherence to a religious code will change the premise that humans are inherently evil.

If it was thus, religion would surely be redundant in the face of our natures. Especially given the evidence globally that religion does not always act as a positive force and sometimes even serves to perpetuate evil - only in God's name. It might be different if we were all of one religious code perhaps but that is unlikely given the variations in culture, language etc. Even in the West the Christians have not been unified as one cohesive group.

There was that awful Four Corners report about the killing and mutilating of purported 'witch children' in Africa by Christian zealots. Religion can too easily be distorted and used by 'evil' purposes. It does not in itself appear to restrain humans much from doing bad things. It comes down to human nature, if someone is bad they are bad, regardless of religious backround.

You mentioned Kant. If we were all to behave AS God existed (even if he doesn't) aren't we living a lie? It is an interesting question about where our morality comes from. I don't think morality can be dictated in terms of 'because God said so' this is not morality but obedience.

There are many charitable organisations that are non-affiliated with religion. The Flying Doctor Service, Care Australia, The Smith Family, RSPCA, Doctors without borders etc.

We should be thankful for the efforts of all charitable organisations regardless of religious affiliation particularly if the focus of the aid is to help rather than to indoctrinate. The Salvos are quite good at giving aid impartially and without judgement. They don't push the religion angle too much so I have heard.

Hi Oliver,
Knowing and appreciating you from your previous posts I am deeply saddened that you seem to endorse the STYLE of the quoted "contribution" to this OLO. I might disagree with many things you say but it would never occur to me to call you a "superstitious nutter" or write about you and those who share your world-view: "(You) are all evil and elitist and foul minded bigots who want to force (your) sick views onto the rest of the world and subjugate us to (your) sick and twisted morality."

Would it not be fairer to admit that there are self-righteous and arrogant people among adherents to all sorts of world-views, theist or atheist?

As for Dawkins, I do not know whether he "tests his atheism". I suspect he would not know how to do that (neither would I) since his world-view - the same as anybody else's - is not a testable scientific hypothesis, though there were and are many naive theists as well as atheists - nowadays, it seems, especially the latter - who think it is.

Pelican,
I agree, with emphasis on "more detailed": children of any age create their own "world-view" but need some help with it (like in math, you have to do your own thinking but you need some input from the teacher). The problem is not only who, of what world-view orientation, should provide this help, but also at what level (appropriate to the age of the child).

I don’t actually belong to Christianity, Sancho. I have faith in God.

I don’t claim Christianity as the religion of peace and goodwill. I agree that historically Christianity has been a flawed and frequently unsuccessful vehicle for spreading God’s peace on earth.

It should also be said that the church that I belong to is a mainstream faith that has co-existed with the secular state from its inception, posing no threat to the security of Australia for the foreseeable future.

Where have I denied the bloody history of Christianity or sought to justify it?

The foregone conclusion of my suggested analysis (above) is that in every case you will find that the party motivated by greed, ambition or aggression will be found to have acted beyond the limitations of scripture if they are professing Christians.

All wars fought in the name of Christianity fail the criteria of being a justifiable holy war. Without exception.

As I believe in the inerrancy of scripture, the only explanation is the error of the human antagonist.

However, I don’t believe that we need to accept that it is human nature to fight and wage wars, while invoking the name of God, for any person of belief.

If Teuku were a Christian writer I would be raising the same debate.

But that’s the issue, really. There is no equivalent of the Christian “moderate”, “radical” or “neo-fundamentalist”. The minute Christians veer into that territory, they are outside the fold and you can trust me to be opposed to any scriptural justification.

Then there are the Jews.

Oliver, I can’t conceed that “Much of the OT is the antithesis of Jesus' teachings” for the reasons given in the above post, namely, that the blood-letting of the OT was God’s direct judgement on the non-believers and frequently, on the Israelites themselves. The confidence to carry that righteous anger into the current age, has no scriptural basis however.

George, Pelican & AP, I greatly value your contributions.