AJPhillips, in my opinion, any belief in the story of Jesus Christ must be the ultimate act of faith. Independentaustralia.net wanted to use a billboard stating "
'JESUS CHRIST — WHO IT TURNS OUT, WAS BORN OF A VIRGIN, CHEATED DEATH, AND ROSE BODILY INTO THE HEAVENS — CAN NOW BE EATEN IN THE FORM OF A CRACKER.'' as an advert for an atheist lecture.

My question has always been, if Jesus was born to Mary the virgin, who was married to Joseph at the time (otherwise Jesus would have been born illegitimate), then how/why hadn't the marriage been consummated? Joseph must have been one understanding bloke!

How does everyone know Mary was a virgin when she had Jesus?
Did they all just take her word for it, or was it the human bible authors who came up with that implausible notion?

Now THAT is faith!

Faith is trust without proof.

I and those who know me have faith that I can hit a moving target at 50 metres with a pistol.

Proof comes after the shot.

Dear 579,

I think it’s a bad idea to burn books because we don’t like them or disagree with their contents. The Bible, the Greek myths and other creations of the human mind tell us where we’ve been and who we are.

Heinrich Heine, the German poet, wrote:

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

(Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.)

Almansor: A Tragedy (1823), as translated in True Religion (2003) by Graham Ward, p. 142

The Nazis first burned books, then people. I think it better to burn neither books nor people.

Dear Is Mise,

All religions are religio-political or try to be. Christians have put fundamentalist chaplains in Australian public schools. The Queen of England is head of the Anglican Church. Buddhist clergy support the government’s war against the Hindu Tamils. Judaism has a preferred position in Israel. The BJP party in India pushes Hinduism.
Some religious people support separation of religion and state. Even in that they are political. Islam is not essentially different from other religions in being religio-political.

Dear runner,

You wrote: “just have a close look inside yourself and you will be a lot closer to some enlightment.”

You are close to the truth. All things, both good and bad, come from within ourselves.

You also wrote: “Just look at Stalin and Hitler.”

That’s a good idea. Stalin was a seminary student who discovered Marxism while he was in the seminary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

When Ioseb was sixteen, he received a scholarship to attend the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, the leading Russian Orthodox seminary in Tiflis; the language of instruction was Russian. Despite being trained as a priest, he became an atheist in his first year. He was a voracious reader and became a Georgian cultural nationalist.

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He anonymously published poetry in Georgian in the local press and engaged in student politics. Although his performance had been good, he was expelled in 1899 after missing his final exams. The seminary's records also suggest that he was unable to pay his tuition fees. Around this time, Ioseb discovered the writings of Vladimir Lenin and joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, a Marxist group.

In contrast Hitler was raised a Christian and died in the faith. He was not excommunicated by his church and died in good standing.

http://www.evilbible.com/hitler_was_christian.htm

Hitler’s involvement with the Church:

a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.

b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery’s coat of arms bearing a swastika.)

c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.

d) As a young man he was confirmed as a Soldier of Christ. His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal. Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and avenging for God in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.

f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt: The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church.

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This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie. Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party

g) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education. This photo [on the website] depicts Hitler with Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo, the papal nuncio in Berlin. It was taken On April 20, 1939, when Orsenigo celebrated Hitler’s birthday. The celebrations were initiated by Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) and became a tradition.

Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send ... warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars. (If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by Cornwell)

h) Due to Hitler’s involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings: “The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.” Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda “Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.” Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism

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How Christianity was the catalyst of the Holocaust:

Hitler’s anti-Semitism grew out of his Christian education. Austria and Germany were majorly Christian during his time and they held the belief that Jews were an inferior status to Aryan Christians. The Christians blamed the Jews for the killing of Jesus. Jewish hatred did not actually spring from Hitler, it came from the preaching of Catholic priests and Protestant ministers throughout Germany for hundreds of years. The Protestant leader, Martin Luther, himself, held a livid hatred for Jews and their Jewish religion. In his book, “On the Jews and their Lies” Luther set the standard for Jewish hatred in Protestant Germany up until World War 2. Hitler expressed a great admiration for Martin Luther constantly quoting his works and beliefs.

Hitler was born a Christian, was raised as a Christian, died a Christian and his hatred for Jews was a product of his Christianity.

Dear mhaze,

There is no reason we should match the certainty of religious faith. We may find out with new information or experiments that we are wrong. That is the scientific method, and I prefer it to the certainty that religious belief brings. Certainty that is impervious to evidence or reason is bad.

Dear ConservativeHippie,

If there is proof or evidence that a belief is correct or wrong it is no longer faith. It is based on reason or evidence. You cannot have it both ways. If a view is supported by evidence or reason there is no need for faith. It is only when our belief is supported by neither reason nor evidence that we must rely on faith to support it.

Dear Aidan,

Gullibility is the oxygen of religion. There is no evidence for the existence of a Big Daddy in the sky, no evidence that some entity can take on other people’s sins, no evidence for an afterlife, no evidence for angels or devils, no evidence that a ghost can impregnate a woman and no evidence for a lot of things that people believe. If it were not for gullibility religion would disappear.