Toni I was merely responding to some attitudes of people posting their views of the world on this topic. They themselves post negative views of others and do not explain their positive views. At least Dawkins can post some positive views, even of Christians world view.

Toni Lavis,
You also 'get very stroppy and start making personal attacks if anybody points out the inconsistencies in arguments pertaining'... to Israel. I've seen you act this way, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Quote 'Why do you feel the need to negatively caricature people who don't share your'... beliefs on Israel?
Look I'm not going to quote your whole paragraph - just change things to Israel or Jews and read your own argument, don't be a hypocrite.

// but was it really only Josephus who “caricatured people who don’t share his faith” (or unfaith), e.g. by writing “you believe in fairy tales of invisible gods” ?//

Quite right, the term 'fairy tales' is bang out of order: fairies are found in European folklore, not middle-eastern folklore. And the term it carries with it negative connotations, because we usually consider fairy tales to be childish things (although for the life of me I can't figure out why - I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods', a book which features a leprechaun and a kobold as important characters. It also contains quite a lot of violence, some sex, plenty of strong language and all manner of adult themes, and is definitely not for kids. There's nothing wrong with adults reading fairy tales). Calling the Bible fairy tales is a like calling Dreamtime stories fairy tales: it's inaccurate because Australian folklore also lacks fairies and it's a bit offensive. A far more appropriate term would be 'myths', which lacks the childish connotations of the term 'fairy tales', and accurately reflects the lack of fairies in the Bible.

The bit about 'invisble gods' is only half wrong: Christianity is monotheistic so the use of the plural 'gods' is inaccurate. As I understand Christian mythology, God is supposed to be invisible. If he were visible it would create some problems. It's the old Babel fish argument:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "being visible is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

So in summation: a more accurate and less condescending description of Christianity would be 'belief in myths of an invisible god'.

//Toni I was merely responding to some attitudes of people posting their views of the world on this topic.//

No you weren't. Let me remind what you wrote since you seem to have forgotten:

//That is the problem with atheists they see no purpose or hope in their world view. It is a pity they are so negative about life.//

What you've done there is taken some very dodgy assumptions about a minuscule sample size of some atheists and generalised it to all atheists. That's not very reasonable now is it? How could you possibly have any insight into the psychology of the countless atheists you've never encountered?

//At least Dawkins can post some positive views, even of Christians world view.//

Well blow me down, the great Dicky Dawkins posts on our little one-horse forum? Where? When? I have lots of biology questions I want to ask him.

AC,

Still got your nose out of joint because I ridiculed your dream of the Great Australian Dicatorship? You're off topic and trolling. Again. Don't you have a hobby or something?

Why thank you, nicknamenick.

<<Good thinking AJ.>>

That was what I was referring to in the first place though.

<<So back to my q. - God can block your vote , bank withdrawals and spoken opinions.>>

No, he can’t, because he doesn’t exist. But if he did exist, then he could, but he wouldn’t be a very nice god if he did. He would finally be intervening, but in a way that was not very nice.

Instead, he could limit his power to helpful deeds such as, oh, I don’t know… curing the cancers of children, or not inventing those cancers in the first place; not allowing Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Mao to be conceived, or guiding their lives in a different direction in the same way he helps Christians find their car keys while millions starve; not waiting 198,000 years to intervene while humans live short, brutish lives, scrounging around for food, constantly worrying about who might want to kill them.

You are appealing to the, “God doesn’t want robots”, argument and it’s nonsense. As the video (that you clearly haven’t watched) pointed out, your god only cares about the free will of evil-doers.

He was, however, happy to intervene before the invention of video cameras. But unfortunately, he was the instigator of much of the evil when when he was intervening, so perhaps that’s why he no longer intervenes? We have done much better since then, come to think of it.

Now there’s an argument you can use.

<<Interesting to imagine that. And imagine your expression when it happens.>>

Yes, my expression would probably be one of frustration because he would be using his powers of intervention in a not-so-nice way. So he'd still be a bit of a dick, just in a different way. That's why I spoke of warnings before. Perhaps, in the absurd instances that you provide, he could simply warn the person?