It's about as logical as not accept penalty rates for the Queen's Birthday if you're a republican, or for The Melbourne Cup if you don't believe in the importance of horse-racing.

I do enjoy it when theists come out with statements like that, as it only too well exposes how hopeless their position is.

David, are the parameters of your world really so narrow that when I expose your gobbledygook you spit the dummy?

Again for the blinkered. Eventually expose the point that you do have beliefs, despite your insistence for weeks that your atheism has none, you fess up.( all the while on the web for all to see}.

Your total failure to address the point that science hasn't a bloody clue about the creation of the precious thing called life. Just hypotheses.

You use and hide behind words like psychosis and delusion. I credit you with the intelligence to know that bandying words around such as these, aimed at others, will be insulting to them. And all the while proclaiming your rationality. What's rational about sneakily insulting others?

Get a dictionary David. My initial understanding of "by way of" is the most popular understanding of the idiom in 3 of 3 I checked.

And as for your sentence on religion and Dawkins. You said it. Perhaps you might be a little more thoughtful next time?

Otherwise, I have no problem with your idea that indoc. of children is a bad thing. Any overwhelming of any one's self discovery or realisation is poison. But even when I tell you my own story you are deaf. Your insistence that all who may believe in any spiritual concepts are somehow subject to an unknown, hidden influence such as a nebulous "indoc" indicates a closed mind.

Your as intemperate as those you preach against.

palimpsest,

Taking the line that you are affronted and I overly offend others, is really a poor way of argument. Using the rubbish statement that I have beliefs and then exaggerating what those beliefs are, is a sign of desperation. I guess I will have to ask you direct questions in the hope that you will have the temerity to answer truthfully.

Shall we look at that to which you are possibly referring concerning my alleged beliefs? The following from a post of mine.

>>>Just a few words on beliefs. I actually do have a belief…It is the belief that the combination of reason and our five senses accurately portrays reality better than any other way. Bertrand Russell has a very famous quote about this: “To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.”<<<

1. Apart from the above, where do I profess a trust in human reasoning capability,
where are my beliefs which are in any way similar to religious beliefs?

2. Do you have a belief in human reasoning capability?

I have never said in any of my writing that science knows with exactness how the universe or life started.

3. Where have I stated that it has?

There have been over 20,000 religions many vastly different in beliefs. The example of these religions I generally use is that the Aztecs ripped out the still beating hearts of humans they sacrificed. They, as most thinking people now acknowledge, were deluded.

4. How would you describe the mental condition of the Aztecs and the adherents of the other 20,000 religions?

I used psychosis for extreme case of religiosity affecting normal reasoning ability. Delusion is illusory thinking, thus the name of the Dawkins book.

5. Have you read Richard Dawkins’ book – The God delusion?

Your thoughts about the word idiom are nothing but pseudo intellectual wank. The beauty of the English language is that complex ideas can be explained using simple words.

6. Why do you not use some of them to clarify your argument coherently?

David

Judeo-Christian religion can be explained in context of history and the Axial Age and later Nicaea. The OT God(s) would Have the Cannanite El a war/volcano god transform into elohim [Jacob], meaning Yahweh became the tribal god of the henotheist [not monthesist]Isreal. In Psalm 82 there is reference to the older Council of the gods having a dufferent godhead than the NT. Regressing the Trinity backwards into would have Yahweh as "God the Father", the father of many gods. Moreover, the diety El Shaddai as the Cannanite and Hebrew High God, as in Isra-EL. Nonetheless, the early Hebrews could have believed in Marduh, Baal and Anat too. Asherah could be said -from the Cannanite Baal- to be "God the Mother" - Jesus' mother in NT terms? Inconstistences exist in the OT perhaps because many of the, if they occurred, happend c. 1,850-1,200 BCE, howver, the fabricators of the text wrote c. 700 BCE.

The first 10-15 bishops of (NT) Christianity were Jews. When Hadrian bannished the Jews from the Holy Lands, where religious Jews were compelled to pray, it was necessary for the sect to allow Gentiles in in so the Romans, would allow the groups to pass into Jerusalem.

By the time of Nicaea there many localised gospels, from separated in tome and geography. The Council patched it all together and then acted like today's Taliban destroying ancient monuments.

The above is history but it is not taught in the churches.

References: Gibbon, Wells, Quigley, McNeill, Mack and Armstrong.

Although David has covered this, Christmas / Xmas is rooted into Saturnalia in Classical Rome and the feast of Dionysus in ancient greece, the beer (or mead?) worship of southern England ( the name of the god of which is where we have got the word "god" from )and the Nordic , Germanic , Russian , Mongol and Persian Solsitice Holy festivals of various "Beliefs".

Ergo in Europeanised Australia (21st Century Australia) Christmas / Xmas is a cultural festival and is not owned by any particular cult although cults will perform their particular superstitious rituals such as mass during this time. I would argue it is anti Australian to work on Xmas as it is clearly a snub of Australian culture. I would expect anybody needing to work (emergency services) or those who work out of raw greed ( the local supermarket remained open although thye car park suitedtumbe weed at this time) then anybody working should be compensated. Perhaps Christians should pay a tax if they see a Christmas tree , Christmas lights , santa claus or hear Christmas Carols, give and recieve gifts , feast, all of which are pagan and Teutonic traditions.

Philo a close freind was terminally Ill , she is atheist, her family atheists , nobody prayed for her. She lived well over the statistical life expectancy, her cancer finally disappeared. Her specialists told her sometimes the bodies defences kicks in and overcomes cancers as it is meant to do. She was told this was the case for a little over 1% of Cancer patients. No miracle , just the body does what it evolved to do and does for us every day. Praying does not regrow limbs , missing teeth , makes short people tall and giant people short or rescue the intellectually disabled. "God" cannot do the impossible in nature, man can make an artificial limb. Your coma miracle is no miracle , she had medical care , she should be more respectful to the people who saved her and thank the hospital staff.

West you are desperate to claim as fact that the celebration of Christ's birth is actually a pagan religious festival. Just because the celebration of two birthdays fall on the same date does not mean the later is actually celebrating the former. Such logic means that the celebration of your birthday was taken from the original person who celebrated their birth on the same day as yours.

Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Christ otherwise it would be spelled Ergomas, Dionysusmas or some pagan and Teutonic god or tradition. Spell the word C - H - R - I - S - T -- M - A - S. Christians have used previous local festival days to celebrate strictly Christian festivals, but it does not mean they are actually corrupted or pagan. They are Christian festivals, because the religious culture is based in celebrating Christ