Oh Philo... if you follow Pericles advice, please take BOAZ with you.... Pleeeeeeze!

ybgirp,
If Boaz and I left you atheists would not have a mission and no point to counter in your argument.

I will stand by my statement since I have worked with hundreds of troubled people from the street. ">>Those that are agnostic from childhood ignorance and family background seem to have less personal agenda to be rebellious and negative in their approach to people of faith than the hardcore atheistic rebelling against their families values<<

Atheism becomes a default position in immoral rebellion rather than a conclusion from genuine research. They do not have a mature understanding of God incarnate gracious and forgiving in their life, but rather of God as one who condemns and punishes the guilty. Their image of God is built rather from their poor relationship to their father.

For Pericles sake - if he recognised the term "demon" in Greek referred to an affectionate term for gods whom the Greeks believed controlled human behaviour and thought then he should recognise monotheists do not believe in such beings. Though many calling themselves Christian today are actually polytheists in their view of reality.

For me the spirit of a person is defined by their thinking and self image often influenced from others, not by some being that needs exorcism. Thought to persons who actually believe they are controlled by beings they may need the help of a physical demon- stration to ensure them they are now free to be themselves.

For AJ Philips sake I work in environment groups and find most of them are believers in the fact God gave us the Planet and commissioned man to care for it [Genesis 2: 15] and man will be evaluated upon how we managed God's environment [Revelation 11: 18]. The plagues of diseases etc in Revelation are as a result of man's poor behaviour.

If AJP knew the NT he would realise Jesus view of natural catastrophe is not based upon moral behaviours. The ideas of how God is revealed in reality is a Biblical development - the book of Job is a prime example. Jesus taught it rains on the just and unjust alike that God is not vengeful, when rebutting teaching that personal catastrophe is as result of sin. When teaching his followers that the child born blind was not as a result of the parents or the childs sin. That the collapse of the Siloam tower killing 18 people in Luke 13: 4 was not a judgment of God, but unless Israel changed their attitude of living godly in their situation they would similarly perish.

Which they did at the hands of the Roman soldiers because of their rebellion against being good citizens of Rome. Followers of Christ Jesus though persecuted at first their lifestyle became influencial in Rome.

Still no come-back on the volcano, Philo? Nothing more to say on those pesky swine? Pity.

Your posts are still crammed with logic leaps and non sequiturs though.

>>If Boaz and I left you atheists would not have a mission and no point to counter in your argument<<

I can't of course speak for other atheists, because we all think independently and come to our own conclusions on matters religious, but you shouldn't flatter yourself that I would miss your contributions. It isn't a mission, as such, because I have nothing to prove.

And I certainly don't evangelize. Your posts, in general, add very little to the debate, so it is not even as if I have to dig deep for responses. Think of it more as an automatic reaction that I cannot control, like flicking a fly that is buzzing around my ear.

Boaz is a slightly different kettle of fish. He tends to lead with his chin, posting excited observations that are founded on half- or quarter-truths, and expanding them into a mozzie-bash. I'd definitely miss him, since he represents a dangerous body of opinion in this country that could inflame hatred and violence.

That is more of a mission. In order to stay vigilant, I need to keep pace with what the Boaz's of this world are thinking.

>>[Atheists] do not have a mature understanding of God incarnate gracious and forgiving in their life, but rather of God as one who condemns and punishes the guilty. Their image of God is built rather from their poor relationship to their father<<

Wrong again. Atheists have no understanding or perception of a God. We can only imagine what it must be like for you, from the way you handle your beliefs.

So you can forget the father figure stuff - which I rather think is transference on your part - and look at yourself. It is people like you who give atheists a view of what believing in a deity must be like.

Can you wonder there are so many of us?

Philo,

I am still waiting for a reply to the following questions I have asked before:

>>>Philo, with many interpretations of biblical myths and thousands of religions, do you think it wise or appropriate to indoctrinate children with any of them without a consensus based on fact. And do you think it wise or appropriate to make political decisions based on scriptural writings against the informed wishes of the majority population? I ask you to remember, when answering, that Australia still follows the democratic ideal and is not as of yet, a theocracy.<<<

Maintaining and protecting belief in otherworldly concepts by way of evading pertinent questions is a sure sign of psychosis, brought on by religion. It could also mean the psychosis existed before the religious belief.

David

Thanks Opininonated2 (and David Nicholls),

I really hesitated in posting that because I didn't want to get too personal on OLO, and run the risk sounding like I was just feeling sorry for myself. And I certainly wasn't in the mood to be told, patronisingly, that I mustn't have ever truly found Jesus.

But I had a story to tell that I felt needed to be told at that particular point, so I told it.

There's a lot more I could have said, heck I could write a whole book on it, but I felt there were other other points that needed to be addressed.