If the Canaanites can be found maybe we can get Palestinians and Israelis to leave Israel and bring them back. The Book of Joshua describes a genocidal occupation of their land. Of course genocide becomes acceptable when God orders it.

Joshua 8:24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai who had pursued them into the field and wilderness, and when every last one of them had fallen by the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and put it to the sword as well. 25A total of twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai. 26Joshua did not draw back the hand that held his battle lance until he had devoted to destructionb all who lived in Ai. 27Israel took for themselves only the cattle and plunder of that city, as the LORD had commanded Joshua.

In the New Testament God gets worse. He has his own son subjected to an agonizing death.

Thankfully, the English in Aotearoa behaved better than the god of the Bible. They didn't exterminate all the Maori, but they tried to give them the God of the Bible. No reasonable person needs that bloody monster.

Hi David,

The traditional Maori people are religious, we have a number of ministers within the family. My wife is a practising C of E, but has two bob each way with her Maori gods.

Dear Paul,

My older son studies religion as an anthropologist and has written about the religious aspects of Amazonian indian peoples. His brother is a member of an atheist club. He is inactive because he found them boring although he still is an atheist. My daughter lights the Jewish Sabbath candles on Friday night, sings in the Unitarian choir on Sunday morning, attends a Buddhist sangha on Sunday afternoon and has received her certificate as a Buddhist lay practitioner from the Blue Cliff Monastery. I am fascinated by and appalled by religion and found MacCulloch's "A History of Christianity" fascinating and appalling. I worship my wife.

Hi David,

Not to be boring.

Buddha story; When asked is there a god?

To the believer Buddha said; Yes there is a god.

To the Atheists Buddha said; No there is no god.

The point being the existence of God is irrelevant to ones behaviour good or bad. Take Putin for example, he may well believe in God, he could well pray 10 times a day, on the other hand he might be a complete atheist. None of that is relevant, what is, is Putin's earthly behaviour.

There's a God & there's no God, it all depends what you want to believe !

So the Maori after committing genocide and cannabilism against the Moriori the original occupiers now supposedly want the whole of New Zealand for themselves.

There is no legal basis for this and is never going to happen.