Let me put it this way:

religion

pumping archaic brains
toxic with superstition marching
down history cocksure
to the thumpty-thump
of old battle hymns
revelations and prayers

ii

i’d rather save a moderate applause
for a saner science
it’s little discoveries won
with reason and compassion
in the atmosphere
of a clear air

cheers

Ok..Pericles first.

Your feedback has helped, as feedback does in an electronic closed loop, by refining the original signal.
If I may, I should add some limits to my statement 'by their fruit'.
You have aptly pointed out, that if this is too broad, it has to include the historic manifestations going under the name of this or that faith. Fair point.
You are quite justified in pointing out the 'usual' list of horrific things done by historic Christendom after Constantine.

I would like to clarify the limit now, and restrict it to the "founder" and his immediate circle of disciples/followers. After all, it starts and ends there. We can only assess the behavior of 'followers' in terms of 'leaders'. The primary leader is the main focus. I think any fair minded person will agree to this?
Hitler.....Nazism.
Mohammad...Islam
Jesus....Christianity
Quiboloy....His own thing.

Alan, I sense your passion there, but you are simply "asserting" with more confidence than the issue can withstand. I point to Christ, in faith, and for faith. I believe it is reasonable to do so on the basis of the evidence, both intertnal and external to the NT. I fully appreciate that Pericles and yourself may disagree with this.

I draw your attention to Pauls own testimony.. "If Christ is not risen, we of all men are most to be pitied"

Regarding my rants.. you know what to do..'change the chanel' :) no-one is forcing you to watch.

All religions are false. It is amazing that in this day and age people still believe in such tripe. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus settled the matter once and for all. He put it like this:

Either god wants to abolish evil and cannot
Or else he can but does not want to
Or he cannot and does not want to
Or he can and wants to

So, lets deal with these four propositions.

If god wants to remove evil and cannot, he's not omnipotent
If he can but does not want to, he's not benevolent
But if god can abolish evil and wants to
how then is it that evil exists and persists?
Since evil does exist and persist
and god is described as being both omnipotent annd benevolent
then god does not exist

Either god exists or doesn't exist. If he does exist, he's not a god worth worshipping, for he has either permitted a measureless amount
of unjust pain to continue, or else he directly wills this suffering upon us. God is either, irresponsibly negligent or downright sadistic.

peace

Why has God stopped talking to us, back in the olden days every time you turned around there it was, this big booming voice coming from heaven "don't eat the apple". Then it stopped Why?
Why doesn't god make the earth bigger? its gotten too small, and theres not enough water, shouldn't be too hard just make it a bit bigger, chuck in a continent in the temperate zone and some really nice big fresh water lakes, presto problem solved.
While he is at it, clean up the air , now thats not too much to ask surely.
I mean 6000 years and no renovations.
And how about some more books in the bible, heck its nearly 2000 years since we have had an update, and the world could do with some moral guidance.
I'm feeling a bit let down here, seems like we have been abandoned,I know we have been a bit naughty, what with all this sex and far too many wars and not feeding the poor, but no need to be vindictive just a few minor adjustments and we should be right for another couple of 1000 years, we will even bump off a few sheep if that makes you happy.
Looking forward to hearing from you I will stand out near the carport tomorrow at noon if you want to talk to me.
Regards Alan

I'm not sure I entirely understand your response, Boaz, so let me try to make my point again.

You said "My main thesis is: "You can tell false religions by their fruit"

To which I said, fair enough, but you have to accept that the fruit of Christianity includes the Crusades, Oral Roberts, Adolf Hitler, paedophile priests, ducking witches, the Spanish Inquisition, the Borgia Popes, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy etc.

You now reply that you would like to "restrict it to the 'founder' and his immediate circle of disciples/followers".

But Boaz, I'm afraid you can't do that. The founder can hardly be described as fruit, can he? It is what is propagated by the founder that is fruit.

Do be reasonable.

You then further confuse matters with the statement:

>>We can only assess the behavior of 'followers' in terms of 'leaders'<<

But Boaz, this is impossible.

The behaviour of followers, the fruit as you describe it, can only be the result of the leader's example, not the cause of it. That would be utterly ludicrous, now wouldn't it?

So we are left with the simple conclusion that the depradations of the fruit, e.g. the Crusades, Oral Roberts, Adolf Hitler, paedophile priests, ducking witches, the Spanish Inquisition, the Borgia Popes, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy et al, are the direct result of Jesus' teaching.

But we know that cannot be the case.

So, in your own terms, Christianity can best be described as a whole bunch of people - the Crusades, Oral Roberts, Adolf Hitler, paedophile priests, ducking witches, the Spanish Inquisition, the Borgia Popes, Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy etc - making it up as they go.

Seems the only way to reconcile the facts, don't it?

You are quite right about those groups 'making it up as they went'.. spot on. And clearly they were doing things outside the scope of behavior laid down by the founder/foundation documents.

That 'is' my point mate.

When we see horrific behavior which MATCHES the founder and foundation documents, we can judge this as genuine 'fruit'

Fruit, comes from the root. But like my pear tree, it was grafted onto a wild rootstock, and consequently, 'strange' looking growth occurs coming up from around the bottom of the tree, stemming from that wild rootstock. That weird growth has long sharp spikes.

So, this fits in with false religion. If the rootstock is the wrong kind, there will be a mixture of 'pleasing' and 'dangerous' growth.

This illustration falls down in one area, we know that the "wild" rootstock in fact makes the 'intended' fruit tree more robust. But leaving that aside, there are some similarities.

May I refer you to this discussion from the ABC, by a former Muslim, on the issue of apostasy, and Islam in general, and you may observe the similarities to my 'rootstock' illustration. (The same applies to Quiloboy by the way)

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s892997.htm

He includes:

"I saw a well-equipped invading (Muslim) army indiscriminately killing millions of civilians and raping 200,000 women."

In Christian circles, we heard during that war that many Muslims were leaving the faith due to the unspeakable horrors perpetrated by Muslims. Ibn Warraq is one of them.
Note his mention of the connection between the 'root' and the fruit.