David f, you doubt your own existence. There is no such THING as a soul, you are the soul. It is not a thing it is the living breathing person. It is the life and impact you make by living. The spirit is the heart of your inner values. Your spirit is based on negativity and opposition to others' reality.

The way soldiers are treated these days, a regular standing army will become a thing of the past. Our increasingly Communistic politicians will have to resort to conscripted troops to hide behind.

Who would volunteer after the way soldiers returning from Vietnam were treated? After the Brereton Report, the Morrison slandering of troops in Afghanistan, Cpl. Roberts-Smith - who would enlist?

How about the submarines that we will probably never get? There are moans already that nobody wants to crew them - or any other submarines - because of the time spent away. The reticence is more likely down to not wanting to be treated like criminals by the riffraff population they would be protecting.

david f

The difference between you and a possum is that you are a human being and a possum is an animal.

Dear ttbn,

Both possum and I are animals. We are different species of animals and have different ways of life. Possums don't invent gods and don't kill other possums because they have different beliefs.

Dear Josephus,

I exist. If I didn't exist, I couldn't reply to you. We don't have different realities. We have different ways of looking at things, but we share the same reality. I try to be neither negative nor positive but in touch with reality. I try not to cloak reality with nonsense. I see no need to define soul, god or God as I think they are imaginary entities. I follow Occam's razor which is a principle of theory construction or evaluation according to which, other things equal, explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more. God, god and the soul are examples of those unnecessary entities.

david f

I don't degrade myself and other humans, including you, by identifying with animals. But, you have that 'kink'. So be it.

I'll repeat what I posted earlier in answer to the question
being asked in this discussion - whether we should remove
the Lord's Prayer from Council meetings and Parliament?

Yes we should. People could make an oath or affirmation
of some kind for being given their privileged position.
However they should have a choice as to how they will
do it and the Lord's Prayer should not be mandatory for all.

This discussion shows how opinions differ on religion
and belief in God. Forcing someone to prayer to a
Deity they do not believe in is immoral.

And, talking about morality the following link is worth
a read:

http://psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-secular-life/201908/how-can-you-be-moral-if-you-dont-believe-in-god

Gosh, here we have calls for the removal of a traditional and innocuous practice because it involves Christianity, ironically brought to you by the same people who are all for shoving welcome to country down our throats an wishing us to become legally obligated not to offend the possum spirit. Good help us!