To Toni Lavis. Always an accuser, and always ready to drag someone through the mud.

[And if they neither require nor desire the sort of 'help' that you offer, you'll go right ahead and 'help' them anyway, all the while patting yourself on the back for being such a good bloke for doing them such a big 'favour'.]

This would be a more effective point if people are always right in their denial of help. It would be effective if people as a whole don't need help. Let me make it clear. If a person is on drugs, and their addiction brings them harm or brings them to harm others then that person needs help. Regardless if they want it or not. They may need help just based in the type of drug itself before they get to the point of harming others. If the need is there then this has nothing to do with me or feeling like a hero for doing good.

[Let us hope then that with sufficient time you may be able to get past your quaint notion that non-Christians are sinful or evil because they don't share your faith.]

I don't think that Toni. But again so quick with a handy accusation. I think that everyone sins, and that we all need God. They say power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. I disagree slightly. I think that we are all corrupt, and if given enough power to not be restrained, our corruption will be manifest. Our sins stronger and with more influence. It is our weaknesses that restrain us from doing worse then we already do. But each of us Christian and non-Christian needs God.

Go ahead and laugh, or mock, or accuse. But hear my words none the less. You need saving just as much as I do. You need Jesus, and you need God, because you are sinful. Not because you aren't a Christian.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

Your cant about all being sinners and needing God and Jesus makes me very sad and somewhat sick. It is the stock in trade of Christian evangelists.

I think all of us have done both good and bad things. No magic will wipe away the bad things that we did. Believing in nonsense about Jesus and God won't change the bad things that we have done. We can reflect on what we have done and try to understand why we acted as we did. Rather than wallowing in sick guilt of being all sinners as Christianity would have us do we can examine ourselves, possibly with the aid of a professional, and try to do better.

There are many ways in which people can change their lives for the better. It might be a subject for research to compare the behaviour of people who have found Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam and Judaism, a new philosophy, a good psychiatrist, a new job, a new love or wise friend and see which of those alternatives is best at changing lives for the better. That certainly would be better than mouthing a need for God or Jesus without any evidence that believing in your particular mumbojumbo results in a better outcome than other alternatives.

Who defines what is sin? Is not believing in a particular religious doctrine a sin? If you are a Muslim or a Jew eating pork is a sin. To a Muslim you are a sinner because you are not a Muslim. I think it is better to think of being kind or unkind, thoughtful or thoughtless or all the other qualities that we think of as being good or bad than thinking of sin.

Philosophy asks, "What is a good life?" and "How can we lead a good life?" The pre-Christian philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism and Cynicism have all given answers to those questions. I think their answers are better than the Christian sickness of wallowing in guilt and hoping some magic belief will take away our sins.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

I am sorry, but due to evangelical attitudes like yours, other people get to hate religion, as well as completely misunderstand what it is all about - and you clearly see it expressed in this forum. Perhaps you do not mind, but it does worry me because as a result, all religious people might be persecuted and all religion mocked, not just your persuasion.

Yes, all of us here are sinners and we all need God. However, each one will eventually find our own paths to God, in due course, once we are ready - and these different paths will likely not involve the same deity and the same prophet.

If yours is the biblical path, then get the best of the bible while you can, but many have found God long before the bible was written and many will find God long after it is forgotten.

To David f.

Your stance on what makes Christianity evil makes anyone who practices and preaches as evil. You and I can disagree with religion, with God, with what it means to follow Jesus verses abusing people in the name of religion. We very much likely disagree on all of these. But your stance that a preacher (not just a missionary) is the face of evil draws the line far from what is actually evil. Your view of Christianity being evil has it's flaws. Let me explain.

[It asks people to accept primitive legends when there is a wonderful world out there which science and reason make us aware of.]

Christianity asks people to seek God and turn from their sins. Archeological studies continue to find support to foundations of the stories within the bible. Small things like the accuracy of cities, rulers, and events lead to supporting the the main. Narratives of the bible that are supported by these findings. The complaint of being primitively is not correct because it's not primitive. God really is real. Nor is the fault of being legends accurate. More and more the stories are supported as being part of history, not just legends. As for science, if Mhaze's points have any merit, then Christianity in societies actually positively influences the environment for scientific discovery. It is the unfortunate human tendency to not admit that we are wrong combined with the greed to hold onto power that I think influences leaders of churches to withstand scientific discovery. As far as I am aware the bible is an authority. However, scope is not science but to find God. So when there is nothing about dissecting a cell, or the production of energy through photosynthesis, it does not mean that the bible opposes scientific discovery. Go and seek the world with all the awe that it inspires.

[It rots the mind]

No it doesn't. TV, movies and video games can be counted as rotting the mind. Drugs, abuse, depression even more so. But Christianity, in spite of being said to be otherwise, is very healthy

(Continued)

(Continued)

[It has a history of intolerance and violence.]

So does every nation that I know if. Which just contributes to my finding that power shows our own corruption. Societies having common ideas among it's people all seem to find ways to be intolerant and violent to the minority and less powerful. This isn't power of a leader, but observation of groups being less restrained because of their greater number. It's not a condition of religion. It's a condition of mankind.

[In trying to spread it you are the face of that evil.]

So far it doesn't seem to me to be evil. Not in any of the practical ways that it would mean to follow and teach from Jesus's teachings.

I'm sorry if what I've said makes you sad or feel sick. But what've said is still true. Though there is a wide diversity of people doing good, that doesn't remove their wrongs. Sin is part of being human. Or another way of phrasing it. "Nobody's perfect."

[We can reflect on what we have done and try to understand why we acted as we did. Rather than wallowing in sick guilt of being all sinners as Christianity would have us do we can examine ourselves, possibly with the aid of a professional, and try to do better.]

Facing our wrongs is an act of maturity and takes strength. I know guilt never feels good, but it is not a sick attribute.

(Continued)

[There are many ways in which people can change their lives for the better. It might be a subject for research to compare the behaviour of people who have found Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam and Judaism, a new philosophy, a good psychiatrist, a new job, a new love or wise friend and see which of those alternatives is best at changing lives for the better.]

I think that would be a wonderful study. However to cover potential biases these comparisons should have more then one group of researchers studying it. That way by comparing findings from one group that is in a Christian culture, one from a Hinduism culture, and hopefully findings from at least two others; through comparing them it might weed out biases where each group shows their own core beliefs to be the strongest benefactor. I think there would be some surprising conclusions and could benefit everyone with such a study.

Who defines what sin is? God does. The next question should be which prophets and which teachings are from God. Not all religions are on the same footing. Unfortunately it's not that easy because as this conversation is showing, many people don't even acknowledge God to then move forward to seek what is from Him and what isn't.