Ouch! o.k., o.k., I get the sarcasm in your "delight" and gold star award. But hell, I was only responding to your questioning of "you and your mates" by pointing out that my friends beliefs are nothing to do with me. And am STILL trying to puzzle out why you assume both I and any putative friends I may have are christian?

And I apologise if you have never posted before then I must have mixed you up with someone else. I realise this is the first thread you have initiated but I was also under the impression you had contributed to other threads. Sorry.

Vanilla: now I know how you were feeling recently! Seems its my turn not to be understood this week. Like you, I am beginning to wonder what has happened to the way I express myself?

"… values such as kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity, humour, gentleness, equality, listening, egalitarianism, respect for the elderly, love of children, diligent respect for the land, plants and animals...”

What a wonderful list of values. I agree, we all possess an intuitive ethical compass if you like. And drawing on our own inner strength is surely more empowering than having to rely on a god or holy book for direction.

I know and admire Christians who live out these values in their lives and I know Muslims and atheists who do too. To me the religiosity or lack of it is irrelevant, these people just happen to be innately decent. Conversely, I come across Christians who proclaim their religion very publicly and yet whose words and actions belie these values completely.

“…an omniscient creator of the entire universe who turned himself into a human then volunteered to subject himself to the usual Roman punishment for enemies of the state [hundreds of thousands of men were crucified, not just him], then turned himself back into a god again to escape the grave, then turned back into a man again to say hello to a couple of old mates who had difficulty recognising him, then turned himself back into a god and drifted off into the sky – unharmed.”

Yes, this captures the absurdity of it all quite brilliantly I think.

I’ve held off from commenting on this thread until now, mainly out of respect for Foxy. But I decided to weigh in and show support for Peter's position when I noticed the number of negative responses it was attracting!

The appeal of the atheist viewpoint has firmed for me over the years pretty much in direct response to the assault by organized religion on our long held and time honoured secular institutions, a fact alluded to also by Peter. I'm particularly angry about the attack on public education and the way the intertwined growth of religious and private schooling is destroying the egalitarian fair go for all and creating a segregated and stratified society in its place.

Bronwyn

I concur entirely with your post. I am very concerned at the 'special' deal religion gets in our society. It definitely needs to be made accountable and stopping the tax breaks would be a good start.

Peter

Thank you for your reply - I appreciate what you said. Another thread is Turnrightturnleft's discussion called "A dark side of Christianity - will reasonable Christians renounce it?"

Here's the link: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1598

At OLO we need as many rational thinkers as we can get. The invitation is there, the rest is up to you.

Romany, I know exactly what you mean about feeling misunderstood, that is how I have been feeling of the "Fair go for Women" thread.

Finally, I loved the quote from Peter about how the christian "logic" works... or doesn't.

Fractelle,

Not to worry, I think your posts, and Vanilla's, are models of clarity and have never seen them any other way. And yeah, the Fair Go thread is another one where I seem to have lost the plot. At such times my mother used to recite the "All the worlds a little queer..." thing to me which, while it didn't help too much, at least would bring a grin.

And yeah - the "logic" thing was a gem.

Peter
Your welcome and regards