David f Your view is the superstition of the man god.

The fact is in Jesus we identify the true nature of God, His spirit reveals God. He lived life how the Creator intended - that is why he is spoken of as the Way, the Truth the Life. Read the story of Mary as a child at temple. As a young girl she was given the role as identified by Isaiah to give birth to a Deliverer; the zealots believed it was deliverance from Roman occupation. However he recognised his mission was for the World, a mission far greater than nationalism. His kingdom is not of this world's systems but for each individual in their relationship to God. the only way to deliver the World is by each individual accepting deliverance.

Not to worry. Even fewer people - around 7% - watch SBS than watch the ABC. I saw the ad for this dopey program last night while watching 'Red Election'. SBS is good for the sort of drama that used to be seen on the ABC. I turn off the sound when the multicultural, racist-left stuff interrupts.

Dear Josephus,

You don't recognise your beliefs as superstition. That is your blindness. A God that is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent doesn't need a sidekick like Jesus. There is no evidence at all that a God exists. You think you have the truth. So do believers in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, tribal religions and all the other varieties of belief in a supernatural. There is no reason to put your beliefs above other beliefs. I think it is arrogant of you to do so. In my view the Christian superstition is simply one of many superstitions. Humanity may free itself from religious superstition. It may not. Almost 2,000 years ago humans invented Christianity. Since then humans have invented other religions. Seneca said, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful.

Dear David,

«Seneca said, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful.»

That may have been so in his times: today, religion is regarded by the common people as either superstition or a social club, by the wise as the purpose of life and by the rulers as dangerous competition.

«A God that is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent doesn't need a sidekick like Jesus. There is no evidence at all that a God exists»

In fact, simple logic can demonstrate that God cannot exist.
But as the saying goes, one cannot serve two masters: it's either God or existence. The common people today value existence more than God, including even many who consider themselves religious and only cling to God because they [mistakenly] think that He exists.

Yet as far as we can tell, Jesus did exist, and by his wisdom and selfless example showed his disciples the path to God. Obviously God did not need him (or anyone or anything else for that matter), but people do, and if what we read about Jesus is correct, or even mostly correct, then he was very much needed in his time.

" Humanity may free itself from religious superstition.".

But it doesn't. As one religion is rejected it is replaced by another....

http://www.environment.gen.tr/religion-and-ecology/276-gaia-worship-the-new-pagan-religion.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_goddess

"When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything."

mhaze: "Australian natives alone failed to find ways to advance their culture and in many cases merely found ways to reduce their cultural output. In a more honest world, anthropologists would be studying so-called native culture to understand this phenomena."

Personally, though not an anthropologist, I can offer a few plausible reasons why their societies never increased much in complexity (most of these reasons are due to the nature of the environment that they lived in):

-no native animal that you can easily domesticate and control in a herd (*1)
-no native grain that lends itself to be bred to produce bountiful harvests (grains are exceptionally useful foods because they can be stored and transported easily)
-no native animal suitable to be a beast of burden (or for draughting wagons- but they never got anywhere near the wagon stage so this talking of draughting is moot)
-with a few notable exceptions (eg:the Murray) lack of inland fresh water with a reliable steady supply of potable water and food (eg: fish)
-with a few notable exceptions, lack of navigable waterways to move themselves/materials/goods/food
-they never advanced their maths and logical reasoning to a level which advanced civilization needs nor did they progress much in the way of permanent record keeping (*2)

* 1): While you can train individual kangaroo's and they do move in mobs, they're nowhere near the same level of ease to manage as our domesticated animals. Our domesticed animals don't need to be handled/trained much to be manageable. For example, I own a rural investment property which my neighbour runs goats on, and it surprises me how even young little kids can be herded and managed. We humans can effortless highjack their natural herding behaviours and social dynamics to our advantage to control them.

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