1. Do you believe the Devil is a real entity as you believe your god is?
Answer: It is man who is at enmity with the purity of God.

2. Do you believe the Devil entity exists in Hell?

Answer: Hell is the eternal termoil state of the soul of the person who's life is opposed to the purity of God. It is an unfulfilled life that has never realised the desire for righteousness.

3. Do you believe the ‘souls’ of ‘sinners’ go to Hell and are tortured by the Devil entity and/or its minions or both for eternity?

Answer: people who follow evil men and ideas find themselved in eternal torment.

4. Do you believe that children should be indoctrinated with these ghastly ideas?

Answer: Do we warn children of consequences of bad behaviour?
As well as example ourselves and teach good character, motives and actions. Some use fear to control children which is poor parenting.

5. Do you believe the demons cast out from humans into swine, apparently an act of mercy by Jesus (in one version of the 'event) instead of sending them to Hell, were real demon entities?

Answer: NO! I've written a whole article on this. The man himself believed he was posessed of demons; identified when Jesus asked his name. Jesus never stated people were posessed by demons unless they themselves believed they were. A common idea of the culture of the time to understand antisocial behaviour was to consider the person demonic. Demons were a Greco-Roman cultural idea not a Christian concept. Jesus freed people from the belief they were demonic.

The text says it was the man now empowered who sent the swine into the sea. This to him indicated he was freed of the social stigma and in his right mind

Josephus,

These are your answers of sorts:

1. Ambiguous but possibly no Devil. (This is not a common thought in Christianity but I guess your interpretations is the correct one)

2. Yes there is a hell. (If there is no Devil, who runs Hell?)

3. Yes, people are tortured forever in hell. (By who or by whom if there is no Devil?)

4. Not a distinct answer to, ‘should children be terrorised by stories of hell’. Some use fear to control children is a strange comment. (As Hell is part and parcel of religion, that means not some, but the majority of religious parents teach of the terror of Hell.)

5. That is one interpretation of the Gadarene Swine myth. (One assumes that other interpretations are wrong?)

How wonderful is the religious mindset that can accommodate that people can be tortured forever. I know of no human who would be deserving of such a monstrous punishment. I know of no human who would deliver that kind of torment. It is far more than a psychopathic action.

Hiding from what effect this might have on children is a big problem with religion. It is one of the biggest problems with religion.

And the Australian government is foisting this onto children in thousands of state schools. It is not uncommon for children to inform their parent that the parents are going to hell if they don’t accept Jesus as their saviour. The children don’t even know what they are saying. All they have is the fear factor of eternal torture. It physically sickens me to the stomach every time I hear that a child has succumbed to this insidious religious propaganda whilst in the care of the government. I never get used to it.

David

David,

You are an activist and an atheist so the description is apt and remains.

As to absolutism, its mildly amusing that your view that only your understanding of the term is valid. An absolutist about absolutism.

This is of course, quite standard among the zealot. In David's world, he is both rational and educated and therefore the conclusions he's reached about the deity (or anything else for that matter) are rational and educated. It follows therefore that anyway who has reached different conclusion is either irrational and/or uneducated. This theme continues on the AFA website where belief in the supernatural is considered to be infantile and the result of brainwashing.

So let's consider some of the people who would be considered to be the victims of brainwashing such that they aren't rational or educated enough to avoid infantile beliefs. Let's ignore all the great minds of history and look at the last generation or so....K.Rudd, K.Beazley (snr and jnr), T.Blair, Obama, JFK, Pachauri. All of these believe(d) in " imaginary supernatural beings" and therefore, in AFA-world are irrational/uneducated/brainwashed.
Obama is particularly interesting. Having been raised in an atheist household, he came to his 'irrational' views in adulthood. That type of thing probably doesn't compute in AFA-world.

The fact is that millions upon millions of people come to belief in a deity not through irrationality or lack of education or brainwashing. They look at the same world as David and come to different conclusions. It takes a certain type to assume that they are therefore stupid.

mhaze,

Who do you think you are fooling with the ‘activist atheist’ comments? You use it as though demonstrating that religion has negative effects on actual people is a bad thing. Grow up.

Let’s not beat around the bush here, what am I absolutist about. Why do you have to play with words to try and make a point? A point that is nonsense, might I add.

There are many opinions on the AFA website and they don’t necessarily reflect the opinion of anyone but the author. It seems trite to ask this continually, but have you a point to make about this. If so make it and stop fudging. Yes, I try to be rational and I am sorry to hear you consider that a bad thing. Educational levels haven’t a great deal to do with belief in a god or not but they appear to be significant statistically.

That you have to bring in the argument from authority of such wonderful people who are religious smacks of that you have no case. What if I brought in Einstein, Hawking, Dawkins and a whole heap of others, would that be proof of anything. No, it is not.

Then it is the argument ad populum. Saints preserve us, do you read anything? Just because a billion people believe in Islam, does that make Allah real?

I see you are sensitive about being ‘stupid’. Actually, that doesn't have a whole lot to do with being religious. Cultural indoctrination and evolution propensity are the main components. Can you point out where I have called religious people, stupid?

Again, I certainly hope that government minders are watching this thread and working out that the unhealthy mix of religion in politics and state schools is not going to benefit Australian citizens or the polity in future. You are doing your political masters a disservice if you refuse to inform them very strongly that the changing attitudes of the average person will not continue to accommodate antiquated ideas formed in the cauldrons of an ignorant antiquity.

David

David seems to think that democracy would work better in a secular world where people weren't brainwashed into beleifs that he considers infantile. It is a unifying feature of the zealot to think the world would be a better place if only there were more people like them.

Just as a thought exercise I'll just put this out. Every time democracy has arisen organically (ie not been imposed) it has been in a highly religiously devout society. We have no examples of how a democracy would work in an atheistic society (ie Athens, Rome, USA, Britain).

On the other hand we have some very good examples of how government and society works when it is dominated by atheists - Germany 1933-45, Soviet Russia, Maoist China. The most murderous regimes of all time.

I think anyone who knows their history would be rather circumspect about living in an atheistic society.

mhaze,

Those hackneyed arguments have been handled umpteen times and shown not to hold water. Ideologies that force people to comply is not a part of the discussion we are having. You are living in the dreamland of people who are panicked by the rise of non-religion. It is a worldwide phenomena so you had better get used to it. David Nicholls is not causing this, even though I thank you for the praise, it is the result of people making their own choices.

If you consider that indoctrinating religion is the way to go, then you live in a world where choice is not an option.

Please read this and try to understand that freely chosen atheism has never caused any problems for any society. Freely chosen secular states or those trying to achieve that status are the best protection against ideological take-over that exists for everyone. Do some reading on the topic and get back to me.

David