Dear StG,

Yes, I do have an agenda. However, it is not to harm. It is to prevent harm. I have been appalled by the harm humans do to each other. In the twentieth century millions were killed because people of faith showed their devotion to their faith by their willingness to commit atrocities. It was not just religious faith. Nazis and Marxists also showed their devotion to their faiths by acts of brutality and murder.

When I was a child I heard about Abraham's willing to murder his son to show his devotion to God. I asked dear old Dad what he would do if he heard a voice telling him to kill me. He said he would see a psychiatrist. My faith in Dad was strengthened, and faith in God started to disappear. It is unreasonable to have any faith that demands atrocity to show devotion.

My agenda is to encourage people to question rather than to believe without questioning. This string on the Seven Deadly Sins is because I questioned, and I wonder if anybody would care to join me in my questioning of sins that I don’t think should be considered sins.

I don’t think the Holocaust would have happened without the centuries of hatred promoted by Christianity. In Northern Ireland Protestants and Catholics have killed each other because of their different faiths. They look alike. They have the same accented English. The difference is faith,

In the former Yugoslavia Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims have been fighting and killing each other. About a thousand years ago or so they were all Orthodox Christians. Then the Turks conquered the Balkans, and some became Muslims. Then Catholic Austria-Hungary took part of the area from the Turks, and some became Catholic. The three peoples speak the same language, have a shared ancestry and kill each other. They are driven by their different faiths.

DNA analysis shows Jews and Palestinians have a shared ancestry. They are driven by their different faiths to kill each other.

My agenda is to promote questioning and the realisation that we all are human beings.

David f writes

'I believe the Bible is wrong'

You can believe what you want and obviously do. The fact that you think you know more than God shows what state your heart is in. To pretend your agenda is noble shows how self deceived you are.

And that's the whole problem with your hatred and intolerance of others. You confuse religion and faith for the actions of those with personal agenda of evil.

People like you blame God for the evils of men. God isn't responsible for war, or rape, or incest, or murder, or intolerance, the free will of man is and everyday we both make decisions not to break the law. There's been PLENTY of opportunities and motivations for me to take a bat to thead of others that 'trespass against me' but not once have I put myself above the laws and morals as laid out by those who demand equality for everyone. I understand your questioning of religion, and much of it is justified, but the way you do it is your measurement against others and those from your foundation are measuring up against the Nazi's you yourself said did it in THE NAME OF GOD. They did it in the name of hate and intolerance. You can't see that?. I believe you can and you're just some lonely little twisted average man with an average existence and this stuff you do for the same purpose those 'religious' extremists end up doing what they do.

Really? An apocryphal collection of folk stories scraped together from nomadic Bronze Age shepherds might wrong about the human condition? Don't be silly, David f.

Next you'll be telling us that pi doesn't equal 3, that the sun doesn't orbit earth, and that god won't send you to hell for wearing polyester.

I'm not sure why I keep posting in discussions about religion, as they all seem to head down the same track. I'll try to keep to the original topic here and avoid the old 'religion is bad' 'no it isn't' 'yes it is' conversation.

My understanding of the Seven Deadly Sins stems in part from my Catholic catechism and partly from my ability as a human being to think about and rationalise things for myself.

The principle behind the nasty seven is that they are the root causes of all other sins. It is not the pride that is a problem - it is what pride can cause us to do. The belief, for example, that you (a wonderful Aryan specimen) are better than others can cause you to treat your fellow humans with disdain and, in some cases, in a particularly evil manner. Take that pride in your genetic good luck away and you may well take away the other sins.

Realistically, I think the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins is a good, but entirely theoretical idea. I can't think of many nasty acts that do not stem from one of the seven, but on the other hand each 'sin' can lead to good things. Envy of your neighbours can cause you to work harder, save harder and provide a better future for your kids. And I don't really believe that, if your kids want to make you proud, they are part of some sneaky plot to lure you into sin.

while there are plenty out there who would condemn me for endorsing a 'thinking man's Catholicism', I think many Christians are like-minded - they are aware that lusting after your neighbour's wife is a bad thing, but that controlling that lust and refraining from acting on it is a virtue that balances out the sin.

Dear StG,

I blame God for nothing. I see no point in putting guilt on imaginary entities.

I remain appalled by what human beings do to each other justifying it by their beliefs in fantasy objects or unprovable propositions.