Philo I can not let you put that on non believers heads without reminding you.
In the name of your God some wed many times ,some to little more than children.
Some say only members of their church, not the many others who believe are going to heaven.
Like it or not some , not from one church but many sexually assaulted children.
Crimes are committed by humans no evidence exists that non believers commit more.
Some place even now, people who have not yet heard the story of your God may live.
Do you tell me they are then more likely to commit evil?
I could lay great numbers of crimes at the feet of cults who say they follow your God ,but no more than the rest of the world.

Well Pericles.. it took some digging..but I did find your source.. or one very similar

http://www.drbilllong.com/LegalHistory/Greenleaf.html

But that's ok :) I agree.. the 'myth' of Greenleaf does serve Christian populist interests better when one considers him a 'former atheist'...but in truth, I was reporting other's assessment of him more than my own. I did 'assume' that his reported endevour to disprove the resurrection mean't he was an atheist.. but clearly that assesmment was incorrect. Thank you for pointing it out.

One minor flaw in your approach.. is this. You seem to assume that I believe people will be converted by the dropping of high powered names.. who were kind of modern Pauls.. adamantly opposed to Christianity..then suddenly dramaticlly converted after a titantic intellectual struggle.....

Not at all.. it does warm the heart to know of people in that situation, but the only one we really need is Paul.
So, rather than questioning my report.. which was more that of another than my own... you should be questioning my motives. My motive.. is to encourage belief in Christ as Saviour. I certainly don't want that to rest on anything other than the plain simple Gospel.

Clear ?

Woody Allen asked:

"How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?

To Philo and Boazy,
Your Lord and his writings in the Bible no doubt have been an inspiration to many people to do good things over the last 2000 years.

However on balance I suggest that for the last 200 years or so all Christians have done to other races and Religions is attempt to destroy them or convert them at great human cost .

They have even destroyed with a vengence their own fellow believers that do not have identical political views such as what occurred in the WW1 and WW2 etc. etc .

Some fundamentalist Muslims of particular religious bent do the same thing to their own fellow "believers".

That "great" US Christian Army commander George Bush , I am ashamed to say, leader of the US Army, has ordered invasions in Afgahnistan and Iraq that has probably left nearly a million people dead - many of them unarmed civilians .

Philo,

How many of those unarmed women were pregnant and looking to a future in Peace when they were struck down .

My guess and hope if he is up there - the Good Lord will throw up the Boom gate for him and others of his kind no matter what belief.

I do not profess to be a Bible scholar but the little I do remember
about his methods was that when alive he talked to unbelievers and took them with him .

Unlike so many Christian leaders today .

Philo and Boazy,perhaps you and your fellow worshippers ALSO seem to forget the Lord's commandment "Thou shalt not kill"!

The thread could go on forever, full of emotion and the need to defend positions.
I have learned some do not explore for answers about their belief but have little trouble devaluing the belief of others.
We return to Jesus again and again but forget he is one of truly tens of Gods.
Maybe tens of ten is closer to the number, and that followers of each believed in them just as strongly.
It is also clear every thing we wonder at even love is attributed to God by his followers every one of those Gods.
Books being printed now talk of God, but not one we knew about just 100 years about, people reading those books in 100 years will think that God gave us sunlight and the sea.
While Jim in the post above lays blame for wars at the strange bloke leading America, I in truth think belief in Gods divides us more than anything we can think of.
Yet I also understand some of mans best achievements have been made in the name of God.
So sadly have some of our worst

Boazy: "rather than questioning my report.. which was more that of another than my own... you should be questioning my motives"

Brilliant. When caught out for being less than truthful yet again, Boazy says that we should excuse him because his motives are pure. I'm beginning to think that the kind of credulous mind that can accept a fundamentalist notion of "God" is predisposed towards mendacity.

After all, if you're willing to accept the really big lies, it's only a small sin to tell a few little ones, eh?

More on the predisposition of fundamentalist Christians to tell porkies at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1072#19261 .