"Aren't Western culture and civilisation distinctly, uniquely and inherently Christian?" I'd say the answer is -"No,it isn't". Most of the institutions that define Western civilisation have origins in Greco-Roman culture,the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution,Modern Christianity is a product of Western culture,it was not the inspiration for it.It took us in the West 1500 years to escape from the suffocating and lethal power of theocracy and superstition,I hope that the inhabitants of Islamic countries manage to do the same.
Christianity has no greater claim on Western civilisation than any other religion,those Christians, who think that it has, should examine their proprietorial claims in the light of history.

“So I often put up with having Christianity rubbed in my face”.
Broaden your horizons – take a more comprehensive view of the world. Then might come the realization that people like Dawkins with his The God Delusion is the result of having – not just Christianity – but religion in general rubbed in his face; gratuitously; continuously: each faith arrogantly ascribing, to itself alone, whatever beneficial aspect of, or civilized advancement made, by human-kind; with little regard to inclusiveness by giving respect to differing views of others.
As has already been posted, progress to civilized behavior was built upon more than a foundation stone of religion

And again our secularist are to blind to see that our first schools and hospitals were built as a result of peoples faith. It was only later the secularist decided to hijack the show and lower the standards.

Section 116 of the Australian Constitution states that "the Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth." As legal commentator Stephen McLeish put it, "the impulse animating s 116 is the preservation of neutrality in the federal government's relations with religion so that full membership of a pluralistic community is not dependent on religious positions and divisions are not created along religious lines."

The above is a much better idea than Christianity or any other religion. Religion in our society should be no business of the government.

I think it is a violation of the spirit of 116 for any aid to be given to religious schools of any sort, to have chaplains in schools or to have Irfan Yusuf feel anything other than a full member of our society.

I wish you could reclaim Christianity from the West and take all the other religious nonsense with you. However, I wish even more that you stay with us and join us in a drink. Two verses from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam are relevant.

LIX
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:

LV
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

You can have Christianity, and we can have Khayyam, a superb combination of mathematician, realist, bon vivant and poet expressing the wisdom of the east

Atheists don't have enough children to maintain the population - so their opinions will always be irrelevant. If the non-religious can come up with a Worldview that sustains itself through generations, then they can have a seat at the table and discuss how to organise a society.

TRUTHNOW78 wrote: Atheists don't have enough children to maintain the population - so their opinions will always be irrelevant.

Dear TRUTHNOW78,

The population doesn't need to be maintained. The present human population is destroying the planet. It can either be reduced voluntarily or through catastrophe as humans fight for vanishing resources and suffer.

Wisdom is not generally found in numbers. Hopefully, more people will come to realise the necessity of voluntary population decrease. Pun intended. The truth is unbearable.

TRUTHNOW78 the year is 2009 not 1978, Religion will always be around, some people simply can't cope with reality. However more and more people are joining the ranks of the enlightened (brights if you will), your kids included.
Kids today get their fill of fantasy from Computer games, they want reality-based government. It’s all down hill for religion no matter what the flavour.

You miss the point Kenny, if non-religious females don't have atleast three kids, then everything that the atheists stand for will die out (gay rights, The ABC, feminism, etc). And the Catholics and Muslims will simply keep reproducing.

As for the enlightenment - Christians believe it has helped us understand our faith better. I.e. quantum physics shows the limitations of science and the need for belief.

Irfan: Thanks for interesting and conciliatory article. There'd be no hint of "clash of civilizations" if we all took such a tolerant view. I agree with you in deploring Arab cultural imperialism within Islam - the view that Arabs "own" Islam just as you suggest that the West thinks it owns Christianity. Arabist Islam is the real cause of your "stigmatisation and marginalisation" in Australian society.

Ed Husain, in The Islamist: why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left (Penguin 2007), in his chapter "The Road to Damascus", writes of his own experience of a more tolerant and inclusive Islam in Syria:

p 222-3: "The term kafir is used in the Koran in the context of the brutal persecution of early Muslims at the hands of pagan idolaters. To reinvent that terminology and use it to refer to a population that is mainly Christian, or at least theistic, is an abject failure to understand the Koran. Worse, it indicates a serious sense of superiority, arrogance, and separation. In Syria, the Muslims referred to Christians and others not as kuffar but as masihiyyeen: people of the Messiah. Where did we go wrong in Britain? Why had we opted for such harsh language? … Christians and Jews in the Koran, believers in God, are not referred to as kafir but as ‘people of the book’ and thus deserving of reverence."

While you yourself are doing a stirling job, it is hard for people like me to accept the good faith of "moderate" Muslims who are disproportionately represented in interfaith talkfests. Why? Unlike the highly moral stance in the teachings of Jesus and Buddha, emphasizing truthfulness, forbearance and compassion, Islam has two teachings specifically justifying hiding the truth about its beliefs to non-believers and lying as a tactic to gain advantage.

The first is Kithman, "hiding the truth" (doctrine from the sixth Imam of Shia Islam, Jafar Sadiq), and the second is Taqiya, "deception" (Koran 16:106), a doctrine that allows all Muslims to deny any aspect of their faith in order to protect themselves from harm.

We see plenty of evidence of both in the "moderate and reasonable" statements made by Muslim spokesmen in interfaith dialogues. Evangelism (Dawah) in Islam is more than just "sharing the good news", it is war. Mohammed said "War is deception".

By contrast, Jesus said "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

I heard Tony Abbott on Q&A describe the Koran as “the Old Testament on steroids”. Seriously - how can a Christian not agree?

Today, nearly all Jews read the Torah relativistically, as a reflection of the culture and perceptions of the times: Leviticus, with its Bronze-Age brutal punishments, is not taken as literally applicable now. Early in Christianity, Paul pronounced: "We are not (now) under Law, but under Grace." Both Paul and Peter taught that many of the Jewish requirements, including dietary ones, were abrogated.

Islam's own (quite different) abrogation concept is nowhere near as clear, given the disagreement among scholars about chronological order of the surahs. Given Islam's abrogation theology, the Koran's "There is no compulsion in religion", cited by Imran Khan, is surely a demonstration of Kithman and Taqiya!

There will be hope for civilized Christian-Muslim relations only when a non-literalist reading of the Koran, a move away from regarding is as "the WORDS of God", enters the mainstream. Until then, should not we Christians take at its word, the clear incitements to violence and murder which the Koran and hadiths are full of?

Sorry but you're all mad. With the voices in your head and your talking to imaginary friends you are all destined for the nuthouse. Muslim, jew and christian alike.

TRUTHNOW78.

Could you please explain what you mean by "quantum physics shows the limitations of science and the need for belief"

Thanks

I agree with the general thrust of the argument - that Christianity is not the sole domain of the West. And it is a shame that the stereotype of Arabic equals Muslim or Arabic does not equal Christian exists.
Indeed, if Jesus were around today, with His long, full beard and dark, swarthy skin, I wonder whether He would be routinely rounded up by police on suspicion alone?

TruthNow78-

It is better for society to die out with integrity than to continue on living a neurotic lie. It is better for a person to live and die honestly than to go on living a fantasy. As Mel Gibson told us in Braveheart – “Every man dies but not every man truly lives”.

I would hate to be one of your children knowing that you only brought me into the world to further your own neurotic needs. I wouldn’t feel loved but used and abused. It is like sending your kids out as prostitutes in order to make money for your drug habit.

Religion needs to stand on its own merits. If it can only have credibility by out breeding the opposition then it must be a very insecure way of life.

Thanks for the article. I grew up Belmore/Lakemba and many classmates were Christian Arabs. It wasn't until I got older that I realised not all Arabs were Christians (who would have thought it).
As an adult I have a hard time understanding the finger pointing, hatred and blame games that go on amongst all types of people. Stereotypes are more of a threat to our society living peacefully than any religion (in my opinion). I think it was Monty Python who once said, "Why can't we all just get along?"
If people can find the strength to leave their stereotypes at the door then we'd all be much happier.

Let's see...

An agnostic mate of mine from highschool has three kids and another on the way, precisely because he wants to balance out the bogans and religious maniacs who breed like flies.

A Swedish friend of mine is one of seven, born to fiercely atheistic parents. He and his partner want at least three kids, who'll be raised as atheist rationalists.

Truthnow's beliefs about demographics are woefully mistaken.

Moreover, the extremists who represent the real religious threat will always drag their countries backward because they don't accept science or rationality. Luckily for such savages, they're able to inhabit secular societies in which unbelievers will prevent them sliding back into barbarism.

Hi Stezza, my understading of what TRUTHNOW78 means by ""quantum physics shows the limitations of science and the need for belief"
is this:
One of the benefits of understanding the basics of quantum physics is that you can finally see clearly how your thoughts, ideas and beliefs control the outcome of your life.

Quantum physics is the study of the building blocks of the universe. Let's use your body as an example. Your body is made up of cells. These cells are made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which are in turn made up of sub-atomic particles such as electrons. The study of quantum physics has proven that everything is made up of 'large groups' of sub-atomic particles.

Your body, your car, plants, trees, thoughts, light, everything else, including the entire universe are 'concentrations or large groups' of energy or sub-atomic particles. The only difference is in the way these particles are grouped together into building blocks.
The sub-atomic particles are energy packets that are sometimes called "quanta".

Knowing how they work and knowing how they are drawn together is the KEY. Everything in this universe is made up of energy, and these energy packets behave in the most amazing way! To put it simply, they have intelligence, this intelligence is "spirit" or for a better word GOD. You can thus see were science ends and spirit continues.

The reason they appear as certain things and arrange themselves into an automobile or a table, for example, is due to our individual and collective thoughts which is driven by spirit.

Spirit and Mind shapes this energy into physical form. If you can see what I see, then you will understand the relationship between spirituality and science much more clearly now

Dear jakkelaas,
There is a big difference between dust particles and living tissue.
There is an equally big divide between quanta which performs under strict universal rules (OK, some of which we don't currently understand - ie Heisenberg uncertainty principle) and self-aware human beings, so I cannot understand how you can pull these two together to provide a quasi-religious interpretation of matter.
My Spirit or your Spirit doesn’t "drive" my car - a tank full of diesel does.
God is God and particles are just that - particles. Particles don't have any intelligence. Like a faithful mutt they do what they’re told.
How does the universe exist if I don't give it one second’s thought during the day?
Sorry, doesn't wash with me.

jakkelaas

I have been concentrating on my coffee table with every part of my being (mind and spirit), it is still a coffee table rather than the $1 million I was envisaging.

Your advice would be appreciated, I have a mortgage to pay and I'd like some spending money.

Thank you

Fractelle,
All I can say is LOL

Irfan Yusuf, you are denigrating my Arab Muslim colleagues are you not? I see no reason to denigrate all Islam out of 'not understanding' that an Indonesian muslim is a different person to a Palestinian Arab, a Moroccan, Turk or Persian person. I don't see the need to denigrate you for your religion either.

I don't see the West banding together under Christian ideology.

However, if a Muslim gang murder thousands of innocents (including Muslim civilians) for ideological reasons explicitly based in Islamic teaching, the whole religion suffers by their association with that ideology. We don't shoot you for that, OR Arab Muslims - just the murderers. Stiff cheese, mate.

And if the religion gives rise not to just one of these gangs but hundreds of them, individuals voluntarily becoming murderers through association at the masjid and via teaching of ignorant mullahs, then I think its bloody lucky that the West is so tolerant and inclusive as to carefully not collectively blame the religion or the ethnicities involved. However, that collective guilt IS taught by the inciters of these little dog-packs of murderers, by certain mullahs and sects, against the heterogeneous and tolerant West

Thanks for your opinion jakkelaas,

As you say "energy packets behave in the most amazing way! To put it simply, they have intelligence, this intelligence is 'spirit' or for a better word GOD. You can thus see were science ends and spirit continues."

I understand that the behavior of subatomic particles is not fully understood (thus the reason for the experiments planned at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva). However attributing unknown properties of subatomic particles as a 'spirit' or 'GOD' just shows how some people like to fill in current unknowns in life/science with an imaginary "revealed truth". Similar comments would have been made regarding things such as fertilization or the movements of the planets. If you would like to rebut you could elaborate on how the energy packets behave and how this supports your theory.

The assumption that all children born to believers become and remain believers is -- thankfully -- mistaken; a good proportion of the children of believers become atheists. It is no coincidence, of course, that religious belief is strongest in those countries where literacy and education are worst; there is nothing more destructive to religion than a good education. This is why the Taliban are so keen on closing down schools -- especially for women, who they prefer to keep in poverty and ignorance -- and why the Catholic and other churches are struggling so hard to keep their grip on at least some of the Western education system, despite the tremendous levels of abuse that have taken place under their stewardship.

Still, all things being equal we can expect to see religion dying out in the educated enlightened West while it experiences a renaissance in the developing nations -- hopefully a brief one, lasting only until they reach Western levels of education.

Since 're-establishing our Christian heritage' means re-establishing ignorance, prejudice and mind-warping superstition, the sooner we eradicate it completely the better.

Irfan,

Over the years you've posted here I've come to respect you as intelligent, well intentioned, rational and persuasive. Altogether a decent man.

I note you've quoted Tony Abott and his views on the influence of christianity on westerners.

I think both you and Tony are missing many of the basic tenets of Westernism. For you both to focus only on the Hebrew heritage is to narrow.

While the Hebrew heritage, through Christ and his message, does as Tony holds, have a fundamental impact and is a 'core document' of Westernism there are two aspects not completely nor widely understood.

Firstly, I think you'd understand all the implications when I say to you the most important aspect of Christs message was his rejection of most of the tenets of the faith of the Hebrews and their book: What we know as The Old Testament.

It was only the Council of Nicosia that included that particular 'heritage' (The Old Testament) in the Christian bible. We as Westerners, like Christ, simply don't adopt many of the beliefs or practises contained in that book. Many of the Eastern religions, generally, are rooted in the ideas of the Old Testament. That has led to a fundamental cultural, not only a religious, difference between the West and East.

Secondly as a lawyer you would understand the other great fundamental 'core documents' that help shape westerners. The philosophy of the Greeks. Neither Tony nor you acknowledge that influence and I think an argument could be put about how that influence is greater, on Westernism, than the Hebrew influence. And again that influence is omitted from the cultures based on or rooted in a belief in the types of ideas found in the old testament.

It's an interesting point of view I am putting and here doesn't allow sufficient space to expand the ideas I've touched upon.

Regards

ps nice to see you contributing here again.

Both Christianity and Islam are completely irrelevant to the modern society I live in.

The really meaningful things in my life revolve around family, science, art, literature, good food, wine, and sport. I even prefer my politics secular. Then there's Christmas and Easter. Let's not ruin them with a Jesus cult.

As usual, Irfan and other monotheistic types are having little more than a wet dream if they think religion is the be all and end of society.

Come now Irfan, apologist for the more ruthless aspects of Islamic teachings.

Christianity rubbed in your face? You should want this, as it means freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, tolerance. You DO live in a country built on it's values (i.e. all the good countries) no?

Yes yes, I know you try to taqqiya us into believing Islam is tolerant, and have bizarrely often referred to medieval Spain as an example (if they were so tolerant, why would the Spanish so badly want them gone and kick them out?) but try harder.

Jon J wrote: “The assumption that all children born to believers become and remain believers is -- thankfully -- mistaken; a good proportion of the children of believers become atheists.”

I can attest to that.

Over the years, I’ve bumped into a few of the kids I used go to church with as a child, and when we’d get to talking about church, every one of them would say that they no longer “believe in all that” and we’d often have a good chuckle together about what nonsense it all is.

This gives me confidence that religion will one day become a facet of society so small and insignificant that no one ever really hears much about it.

I suspect that there are far more 'Muslim atheists' than at first glance. The reason that they don't 'come out' is because of the psychological warfare waged on them by their own family and community.

People get angry when you touch their faith. I appreciated this article. Some time ago the phrase that God is completely 'other' resonated with me. This article moved me forward in my search for truth in a Christian context. I agree with the idea that we create our God in our own image, but struggle to fit it all together. Thank you Peter.

Oops! Sent it to the wrong place.

Dear ChrisPer,

You described the west as 'heterogeneous and tolerant'? The German part of the 'heterogeneous and tolerant' west murdered 11,000,000 untermenschen including 6,000,000 Jews. There was a Conference on Jewish refugees in 1938 at Evian les Bains in France. The Nazi government passed laws that progressively deprived German Jews of citizenship and property rights, rights to work in most occupations and the right to marry non-Jews.

The Nazis would not allow Jews to take property out of Germany. The would-be host countries did not want poor Jews. Australia agreed to receive 15,000 within the ensuing three years but actually only admitted about 10,000, pleading that they wanted a "uniform population." Heterogeneous? Tolerant?'

The Australian part of the 'heterogeneous and tolerant' west has put people fleeing tyranny in detention camps and has only in 1967 decided that Aborigines who were living on the land before European settlement are citizens. In 1928 A WW1 veteran shot 32 Aborigines at Coniston in the Northern Territory after Aborigines attacked a white dingo trapper and station owner. A court of inquiry said the action was ‘justified'. It is only in the twentieth century that Australia abandoned its White Australia policy.

We can also be aware that except for Turkey and Afghanistan all the Muslim lands were at the beginning of the twentieth century protectorates or colonies of the west due to conquest. Many Christian churches supported western imperialism to bring enlightenment to the 'ungodly' masses who didn't follow the Christian humanoid God.

Many Muslim states subjugate women. At the beginning of the twentieth century most women in the 'heterogeneous and tolerant' west did not have the right to vote.

President Bush lied the US into a war which started with "shock and awe" bombing. How many Iraqis were killed in the 'shock and awe?' Will Bush be tried for his crimes as he tried Saddam Hussein?

Benjam1n asked: if they were so tolerant, why would the Spanish so badly want them gone and kick them out?

Answer: Because the Christian bigots did not want tolerance. Their Inquisition burned people at the stake.

Dear Jon J,
Perhaps you were not aware that most universities and sites for higher learning were founded by Christians. All but two of the first 108 universities founded in America were Christian.

Many great scientists were Christians. Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Copernicus, Kepler, Planck, Lord Kelvin and many more. Many highly educated people in our day & age believe in a God, so you can hardly say that higher education destroys faith in a higher Being.

The printing press was invented by Gutenberg so that the Bible could be distributed into the hands of as many people as possible. The number of believers INCREASED rather than decreased because of “education”.

The Bible is the most printed book in the world. Only literate people would buy one, so obviously there are quite a few people around that don’t share your opinion that Christianity and lack of education go hand in hand.

True Christianity does not fear well-educated followers. Why should it? Christianity is not about head knowledge. It’s about a relationship. So whether you are well-educated or poorly educated, God is the same and the enjoyment of a Father in heaven is equally available to all.

God gave us a brain and He expects us to use it. Every person has a right to an education. Every person also has freedom of choice - whether to believe in a God or not - but that ability or desire has NOTHING to do with their level of education.

Do not make the mistake of bundling all religions or belief systems together. The Taliban is nothing like Christianity.
And to say:
Since 're-establishing our Christian heritage' means re-establishing ignorance, prejudice and mind-warping superstition, the sooner we eradicate it completely the better.
is such a broad generalisation as to be meaningless. What sect or 18th-century view of the Church are you basing that comment on? Certainly the churches I am aware of (of all denominations) are nothing like this.

Every organisation or group of people has its extremists. But to base your arguments on these people is unhelpful and misleading.

"Do not make the mistake of bundling all religions or belief systems together. The Taliban is nothing like Christianity." - Martin

Christianity was very much like the Taliban after Constantine:

http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/article_060.htm

After three centuries of persecuting the pagans, Christians fought amongst themselves for a century over the role of icons, then we the Crusades, the Great Schicism, thence the Inquisition and next the religious wars of the Reformation and afterwards came witch hunts, slavery and colonisations, the ethnic cleansing of American Indians by Christians, the Monkey Trials and Hitler (read Mein Kampf).

I suspect the Koran and the Thoughts and Words of Mao Tze Tung, would contest for second place for the most published book.

Re-establishing true Christianity would require going back to the Jewish sect which existed before Hadrian expelled the Jews from the Holy Lands. Back to a time, when people could better remember the remarkable mendicant on a mission from the House of David. A teacher whom would have little respect for the sweep of Christianity's history.

Secularism and the Taliban have far more in common than Christianity has with the Taliban. The number of unborn murdered, suicides as a result of godless advice and the blind faith secularist live by testify to both belief systems resulting in death to the most vulnerable.

Hi STEZZA and MartinsS....I respect your opinion and your belief, so the only way I can try to further explain what I belief is thus:

Catholicism, Atheism, Communism, Methodism, Muslims, and proberly all the other ism out there have no real scientific proof of their truths. Yet people BELIEF in them and in many cases have been very good for people and their progress. The Wright Brothers BELIEVED that they could produce a flying machine, contrary to all available science at that point.

I have been told that the word belief is derived from BE LIEF, which literally translated, means TO LOVE, so to belief in something, you are actually “in love with the idea”.

Now my understanding is, Albert Einstein “believed” in GOD (one of the few scientists that I know of that did). And he believed there was a connection between Quantum Physics and infinite intelligence (God). My understanding is that he believed that the now so called Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is infact Infinite Intelligence at work.

From the tone of the comments , it would seem that quite a few people are academics on this forum. Now I am not too sure if you guys are in the same league as Albert Einstein, but I believe he was right. I also believe we all draw from the same source of intelligence, so it does not really matter in the end.

In the end we all have our believes

Jakkelaas wrote: "The Wright Brothers BELIEVED that they could produce a flying machine, contrary to all available science at that point."

Dear Jakkelaas,
Humans knew that living beings could fly, and there had been many attempts before the Wright brothers to produce flying machines. Leonardo even drew up plans for one. Science knew flying machines were possible.

Einstein did not believe in a personal God who interacts with humanity. The following are quotes from Einstein on the subject of religion and God.

A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (1954)

I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.

We can ascribe anything not yet comprehended to god, or keep digging for answers.

I'll go with digging for answers, because I prefer things like medicine and electricity to living in a cave praying to god to cure my family of smallpox.

David F, Re "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."

I have no argument with that, yes I also believe GOD is not concerned with humans daily activity from a PERSONNAL point of view, rather that GOD is EVERYTHING - "the orderly harmony of what exits". This is the GOD I believe in and that I understand Einstein to believe in.

The Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists.

Constance wrote: The Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists.

Dear Constance,

That is just name calling not reasoned argument. If a person is an atheist because that person decides the available evidence does not support a God and that person feels that there is no need to believe in a God, atheism is a reasonable stance. That is neither intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted nor a belief system.

Back to Irfan's essay for a minute. I still find it ironic that Muslims have arrived back into Western societies at the very same time that Christianity is in rapid decline and ripe for collapse. And so, there is very little meaningful Christianity to be 'reclaimed'.

The problem for Muslims is not that Australians see Christianity as a 'white' religion but that we find monotheism itself laughable. After 2000 years Jehovah/Allah has finally made it (inevitably) too the same status as Woden and Thor.

That Jehovah/Allah is the same status as Woden and Thor is not an arrogant or bitter assertion, but rather a mere statement of truth. Monotheism has been debunked.

jakkelaas,

May we have a citation please? The commentary I have seen is to the effect that Einstein did not believe in QM, hence the quip, "God doesn't place dice with the universe". Here, he was saying a figurative god does not allow uncertainty.

Constance,

I agree with david f. You merely name calling.

Constance wrote: The Atheists embrace a belief system as intolerant, chauvinistic and bigoted as that of religious fundamentalists.

This is the exact attitude from Christians and Religious alike that aggrovates respected and fruitful debate between religions and atheisism. As persons of faith it is not our right to judge.

In the same respects many (I admit I am generalising) atheists need get off their high horse and cease in the attempts to belittle those of faith (again it works both ways).

PeteBRFC: In the same respects many (I admit I am generalising) atheists need get off their high horse and cease in the attempts to belittle those of faith (again it works both ways).

Dear PeteBRFC,

I think faith is bad. It is accepting by belief alone rather than using reason or evidence. People of faith are human and should receive the consideration that all humans are entitled to. However, I still think faith is a vice and is not entitled to any respect at all. In the ancient world people believed in the pantheon of Gods and demanded respect for that belief. They penalised those who would criticise those beliefs. Now those who believe in current religions demand respect for those beliefs. Current beliefs supported by faith are no more entitled to respect than the ancient beliefs that were supported by faith.

I agree in the sense that blind faith is bad however many have turned to their faith through reason and evidence. Many also deny faith claiming the same grounds.

A person of faith or a person not of faith, neither has a more valid belief system. I demand no more respect for my beliefs than you demand for yours.