Dear David,

It's not only that I think that what you said is good (as in "effective" or "sharp"), but it also shows the goodness of your heart.

Jesus said, "There is no good but God", so by being more good and unselfish you are coming closer to God, or rather call it "closer to goodness" if you wish to avoid the common trap of confusing God as some deity or an imaginary being.

Coming closer to your own true nature of goodness is a religious achievement. Many theists who go to church and entertain the concept of God still fail to attain this.

Dear Yuyutsu,

We define 'religious' differently and talk past each other.

Dear david f

I don't give two hoots about the future of a Sino-Australian nation in which the descendants you refer to are the children of the Chinese Communist Party.

The government can just keep doing what it is doing now: bringing in millions of wealthy Chinese to keep the economy afloat. So if the Chinese are going to inherit the country why not make them foot the bill for giving seniors a fair deal.

Interesting, how the religious believers attribute all "goodness" to god, as a counter to "badness" which they attribute to the devil. To reinforce this belief they introduce the "Jesus said...", given that they believe all that Jesus said is true, simply having Jesus say whatever you want him to say gives the religious total authority over god and all things good. Giving themselves total exclusivity over the human virtues of good is a powerful control.

David, you would find my partner an interesting case study on religion, very intelligent, she professors to be a christian and a believer in the christian god, and all that god stands for. However at the same time she still holds a firm belief in the Maori gods, and they are many in number, just as real to "T" as the christian god. Never leaving on a o/s trip without asking for the protection of 'Tangaroa' the god of the sea, with her protective 'pounamu' (greenstone) around her neck. "T" sees no conflict between the two, when I asked about the other gods, like the Hindu gods, she said they were fine too, for the Hindu's.

Dear Mr Opinion,

I do give two hoots about Australia. An Australian whose ancestors come from China is as Australian as an Australian whose ancestors come from England or have been here for forty thousand years. Being an Australian is not a matter of ethnicity or religion. I came to Australia from the United States. Australia has never been a white Australia even though that was government policy. The English were the invaders not the original inhabitants. The fact is that mankind did not evolve in Australia, and the ancestors of all Australians including the Aborigines have come from somewhere else. I see where you are coming from and don't like it. All Australians should be given a fairgo and treated with decency and respect regardless of ancestry, ethnicity or religion. The Chinese had printing and blast furnaces when the English were painting themselves blue and worshiping trees. That doesn't make them superior, but it means their civilisation is older.

Dear Paul1405,

My daughter gets up on Sunday morning and goes to the Unitarian church. She sings in the choir and has sung in the choir in other churches. Sunday afternoon she attends a Buddhist sangha. Friday night she lights candles to mark the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. My daughter is also very intelligent having been a National Merit Scholar in the United States and having won a Presidential Scholarship to NYU which entitled her to a year at the Sorbonne in France.

Religious people may be good or bad. Non-religious people may be good or bad. I have no evidence to differentiate between the goodness or badness of religious and non-religious people. There is evidence that religious people tend to be more authoritarian than non-religious people.

Dear Paul,

I am not a Christian: I believe that Jesus had wisdom to impart because he was one among several teachers who were born to help us on our path at times when religion has gone astray (and it had gone badly astray for the Jews of his time).

The concept of devil, the personification of evil, is ridiculous (though useful in certain situations): evil is simply the absence of goodness, as darkness is the absence of light. It's the absence of seeing that we are all one in truth as there is nothing but God, thus if we hurt another we actually hurt ourselves.

Regarding your friend, I say "Good on her!". God is not a concept and cannot be conceived, so whichever concept(s) are helpful in focusing our attention on Him, I do support, including Jesus, Tangaroa and Pounamu.

Regarding the claim of exclusivity, I fully agree with David's reply: "Religious people may be good or bad. Non-religious people may be good or bad".

Religion is a journey, not a fixed state - and it spans all life.

At the beginning of this journey one is totally unconscious and at the end of this journey one is united with God and no longer exists.
In between, excluding those extremes, one travels from being bad to being good and can be found all along the spectrum.

We are all on this journey, so the term "non-religious" is relative and refers to those who have paused (or significantly slowed-down) for now, perhaps taking a rest from the journey rather than pursuing it ahead at this time. They too can be found pausing anywhere along the spectrum.