"You see..without agreed values not only do we have you and I acting like chickens and ducks.. but we have the ferret, the Wombat and all manner of other moral systems going for broke to make their mark."

BD, you miss the point completely, but then that is not unusual :)

Fact is that the religious do not have agreed values! Look around
you, lots of religions, lots of versions, brands, sects, cults,
all squabbling about their holy book and who is right about
their particular interpretation.

At least us secular types can use our ability to reason, think,
feel, etc, to come to a conclusion. You religious get bogged down
by some word in some holy book and squabble about it endlessly, as
you have for hundreds, thousands of years and common sense and
reason fly straight out the window

Hey guys what happened to the main questions of my thread?
I haven't got the answers yet.

I will have a go at that answer Angela, yes there is freedom of religion in Australia too much.
But sometimes none, if you want to build some Church's and schools in some places some will say no, I remain unconvinced they are always wrong for doing so.
Considering religion is said to be based on loving one another it often fails.
Most different brands consider only theirs to be the true one, all have too much influence on non believers life.
In the end they all are a fantasy from the days man thought the sun was a God.
We would be a better world if we had freedom from every religion, primitive beliefs are holding men apart not uniting them.

Boaz, my understanding of Deut 17:17 is that the commandment is that you not marry wives that are not of your religion (backed up by references to other verses and the explanation in the contemporary english bible), as they would worship their own gods and want their husband to do the same. It was common and accepted practice for the king to have many wives (and concubines). Just that they needed to not be foreign (maybe this is where the general dislike of interracial marriage comes from).

Botheration, when my parents married, they were from different protestant churches. Mum grew up with her parents going to different churches every Sunday and was determined not to put her kids through the same seperation. But at the same time being a strong-willed independent-minded woman, there was no way she was simply switching to dad's version. She went and researched every religion (including islam), and the main christian sub-branches, and arrived at the conclusion that dad's version (inherited) was pretty reasonable, so she switched. I'd love to be able to quiz her on her findings and why she eventually settled on the high anglican church as being ok, but she's been gone near 20 years now. So I guess that if you were to question the religion or version of that you "belong to", then there is nothing to stop you finding out about the others and making an informed decision. especially in this age of easy information.

Country Gal, it's interesting that we hear very little about the second half of Deut 17:17

17"(V)He shall not multiply wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself."

So the first half is about the best Boazy can find against polygamy in the bible and the christain church is almost universally against it. It seems that the concern with multiplying wives is not with the risk of harm to the participants (or their children) but rather that it's more satisfying than god.

Much easier to find verses about the dangers of wealth and I've heard very little advocy to have wealth banned (especially from the fundy crowd). I can't imagine that particular campaign would help the donation plate much.

If ever I get really bored I'll have to check the verses speaking against same sex relationships compared to the verses against greed and an excessive love of money. I won't be surprised if there is more said directly about the latter than the former.

R0bert

I think you would be fairly right there R0bert! Its even more interesting that the prior verse instructs that the king not "multiply horses". Maybe this is where BD gets the impetus to think that allowing same-sex relationships will automtically lead us to allowing bestiality! (note that he invariably refers to relationships with horses)