DonRamsay

The theory was that a horse could about 30 miles in a day and after a long days ride, both you and the horse should be entitled to one to settle the dust even though it was Sunday. Of course Christians are notoriously useless with Calendars (except for Gregory of course). How do they mix up the first and last days of the week? And surely Christians should be following the Ten Coomandments and keeping holy the sabbath day not Sunday?

And finally, why religious people despise logic and prefer "mysterious ways" to explain everything: [ATTACH]47535._xfImport[/ATTACH]

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I like to think that our laws are based on logic, good science and ethics rather than the ravings of a bunch of ignorant (by today's standards) superstitious, desert dwelling, goat herders from several millennia past. Many of our laws are handed down from pagan Romans and adopted during the Roman occupation of Britain. In fact many of our laws are intended to keep church and state apart. Our Federal Constitution makes provision to prevent Churches having undue influence in our legal system. Our laws are to our benefit despite the attempts of bigots like Fred Nile and his fundamentalist cronies. When the Christian far right held sway, you had to drive 30 miles in NSW before you could have a beer on a Sunday. There were plenty of laws like that including incarceration of homosexuals and women choosing what happens in their own bodies. Fortunately for all, most of those stupid retrograde laws are now repealed. I wouldn't and don't out of regard for the feelings of others. But I would happily mock the inane rantings of some of his followers. Satirical mocking of historical figures and leaders has been an industry for hundreds of years. The question might better be put as to why a religious leader should not be satirised when all others are? What? Like the Devil? Beelzebub? Satan? Couldn't possibly because, sadly enough for Satan, I don't believe in him either. He's just the religious equivalent of the bogeyman under the bed.

My latin is a bit rusty and mostly derived from Catholic Church latin - their lingua franca until quite recently and perhaps still? So, I looked up a definition and came to this: Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, "by Scripture alone") is the Protestant Christian doctrine that the Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice. So how should we understand the following as an authority on how daughters should regards their dads? "The next day the older daughter said to the younger, "Last night I slept with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." Genesis 19:34 Is that better or worse than Mohammed marrying a 6yo and having the common decency not to sleep with her until she was 9yo?

Now this is funny: [ATTACH]47533._xfImport[/ATTACH]

"Impious" simply means "not devoutly religious". If a not devoutly religious person DID believe in God then he indeed would be a fool. But the way this psalm is written it is the psalm-writer who has written something illogical and foolish - not to mention prejudicial and discriminatory. And worst crime of all is that it is just not funny!!!

Why is it I only ever get questions from my questions? You never answer when it gets difficult just change the point of attack. But, to answer your question . . . probably not your particular religion because it hadn't been invented in the Dark Ages. It had to wait for a new period of unenlightenment to spread its mythology to people who would rather believe than think and look at the evidence. Seems there is more than one "Providence College". You could have been quoting from the Rhode Island Providence College, but somehow I doubt it since you are so prejudiced against the Catholic Church. "Providence College is a primarily undergraduate, liberal arts, independent, not-for-profit, Catholic institution of higher education." No, probably your video crock came from Providence College of Prager University. Seems any institution can confer "University" status on itself. Here is a quote from their own website: "Prager University is not an accredited academic institution and does not offer certifications or diplomas." Gnarly, I am happy to retract "Mickey Mouse University" as a description of Providence College - that could be seen as elevating it to a lofty status to which it could never aspire.

GG, I am no fan of a religion that promises death to anyone who blasphemes. What part of "Sticks and Stones" do they not understand. My question to you was how do you feel about blasphemy. Christian England was still executing blasphemers well after the Dark Ages. That video was another crock and a total waste of electrons. If the Christian churches were so enlightened why was it that Copernicus refused to allow his work to be published until after he was dead? And why were the enlightened christians burning people at the stake in Rome in Galileo's time. Perhaps the two are linked. The Dark Ages are named such because of the lack of enlightenment. But, you would hardly expect a "Professor" of some Mickey Mouse University to understand that.

Tell me Gnarly Gnu, how do you feel about a religion that likes to attack people they see as blasphemers? Were the Muslims right to attack Charlie Hebdo? If somebody showed you a picture like the following, would you want to physically punish them for mocking your god? [ATTACH]47531._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Neat piece of argument there Gnarly but let me explain again if you are having trouble grasping the logic. I know logic is not important in matters religious but it is when having an argument. Clearly, it is easier to understand something that makes sense than something that does not. In fact, it is by definition *not* possible to understand something that does not make sense. So it makes perfect sense for an intelligent person to have difficulty understanding something not clever said by a not clever person. Please don't ascribe this "gem of wisdom" to me - I can't claim authorship of the fact that religious people are less intelligent than non-religious people as it came from the scientific study. Oh, but wait a minute, Science must be crap because it doesn't align with the Bible.[ATTACH]47532._xfImport[/ATTACH]

"A new review of 63 scientific studies stretching back over decades has concluded that religious people are less intelligent than non-believers.A piece of University of Rochester analysis, led by Professor Miron Zuckerman, found “a reliable negative relation between intelligence and religiosity” in 53 out of 63 studies." This possibly explains why you often cannot understand the arguments implicit in GG's posts. Still generalisations cannot logically be applied to individuals, to do so would be prejudice. An interesting article but one that ignores the devout evangelical Christians who kill women and their doctors at abortion clinics and believe it is Gods will. Or the Christians in the USA who, en mass, support the death penalty.

Oh, and I wouldn't touch IE with your 40 foot barge pole. Safari or Chrome are just fine.

Never had any significant problems with Vista and moved to Win 7 when I bought a new laptop. There was a free upgrade to Win 8 but never felt the need. I did Win 8 on a touchscreen desktop for a friend who is not into computers and it seemed OK. The big revelation I had today is I can probably break my addiction to MS Outlook after decades - now that I have Apple phone/tablet. I keep Contacts and Calendar and Notes on the Apple stuff and am wondering about deleting mail from the laptop that never leaves my desk and the big screen. Only thing the tablet is not good for is Spreadsheets though I haven't tried Excel on the tablet (iPad) yet.

Sorry for the late post on this but I've been idly distracted by the real world for a while. Just a comment on laws and their origin. My recollection is that most fundamental British Law emanates from Roman Law and the contribution thereto of the fabulous Brothers Gracchi (Tiberius and Gaius cica 135 BC). Then the British Common Law was developed over centuries by god fearing judges and magistrates. The test always was acute logic and often came back to what would a reasonable man do in the circumstances.

I'm sorry Turbs but you'll have to explain to my feeble mind how objecting to s stupid definition can be characterised as "sink the boot into believers again". And, I re-iterate that I had a great time while a follower of the Catholic faith. I didn't give it away for any reason other than Reason. I think - therefore I am not a believer. I need to rely on reason not some mythology that somebody told me I must believe. Quite possibly much greater minds than mine like Plato and Aristotle, if they could have, would have urged me to believe in the Greek Gods. And King Bluetooth the Norse Gods. But I am fortunate to live in an age of enlightenment where it is clear that neither the Norse Gods, the Greek Gods, the Egyptian Gods or the God of Abraham have any reliable evidence of their actual existence. They are all just great stories that may or may not have helped people with far less understanding of the natural world than we are blessed with.

I used to work with one back in the 1960s. They were convinced the world was going to end about then and nominated the date. When it didn't happen they just came up with a new date. Another invented set of beliefs that enslave the believers.

I wish I had had it printed up as a card to hand out to the Jehovah's Witnesses that were down on the Newcastle Harbour waterfront yesterday proselytizing. Or perhaps as a poster and just sit down on the next bench and wave it about.

Turbo, I strongly suspect that the cavemen of the stone age craved the comforting certainty that comes from presuming (for them knowing) there must be Gods - some benign, some cruel. WTF that has to do with whether there are or are not deities escapes me. It's a bit like the "everyone's doing it" argument so it must be OK. People deluding themselves for many millennia does not make it it so. I doubt that you would take advice on almost any subject from a person of 30,000 years ago (if that were possible). Those people were by today's standards were not what you would call well-educated. They had not had the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants like Newton, Copernicus and Darwin. There is an evolutionary argument that says a commonly held belief assists with binding a community together and making that group better able to survive than a group without such a culture. We all understand that a cooperative group is stronger than every man for himself. Please don't quote that nonsense from the New Collins Dictionary at me again - it must have been written by a person who believes in one or more of the innumerable deities. No atheist would ever define themselves in that manner. An atheist is one for whom the existence or otherwise of a deity or deities is of no relevance. An atheist when asked what religion they are would choose "N/A" not applicable. They would not chose "Denier of the existence of Gods". It is a non-question to an atheist.

And then there is this great thought:[ATTACH]47526._xfImport[/ATTACH]

This thread is getting far to humourous . . . oh, wait a minute . . . Anyhow, just for GG's benefit and those who are under the delusion that Hitler was an atheist and that Nazism was anything other than Christian and anti-semitic: Hitler was a Christian. This undeniable fact couldn't be made any clearer than by his own confessions. Beyond any reasonable doubt, Hitler and his Christian Nazi Party were acting in complete concordance with traditional Christian anti-Semitism. Here are just a couple of Hitler’s Christian confessions: “Besides that, I believe one thing: there is a Lord God! And this Lord God creates the peoples.” ~Adolf Hitler “We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations; we have stamped it out” [2] ~Adolf Hitler I do not argue that Hitler did what he did out of regard for the Bible and Christianity but to prove he at least claimed to be a Christian not an atheist as Gnarly claimed and that he worked hard to eliminate atheism from his Reich.

But now for something completely different. The old scribes of the Bible had a real talent for writing smutty stuff like in Ezekiel 23:20 "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." And this one gave me a chuckle . . . [ATTACH]47525._xfImport[/ATTACH]

It is to the benefit of people of all religions, as well as the non-religious, to keep religion and state totally separate. That is the only way all religions will truly have freedom to follow their particular beliefs. Freedom of religious practice has limits the same as free speech has limits. These limits come into play when they harm others. A classic example is religious parents that refuse a life-saving blood transfusion for their child who is not able to give informed consent to that decision. The state has to step in to save the life of the child. Similarly, pre-teen child brides after the style of muhammad's marriage to a 6 year old girl and subsequent consumation at 9 years is utterly repugnant to non-muslims. It is illegal in Australia but not always able to be prevented. And then there are the genital mutilations of women and "honour" killings. All horrific. The situation in some English cities has now become very unattractive because of religious enclaves, particularly Muslim enclaves. Non-muslims are treated with contempt and it is no longer safe in many parts of England to be obviously non-Muslim. This is a very sad development and one we must be on our guard against here. There is a huge difference between being genuinely politically correct and appeasing violent minorities. So far Australia has done a very good job of managing this. But, we have not had to contend with the saturation of large parts of certain cities with people whose culture is an anathema to that broadly recognised as "the Australian Way".

They all believe that they are the only correct one and Islam is totally intolerant. Many Muslims do tolerate other faiths and the three Abrahamic faiths of Islam, Judaeism and Christianity lived peacefully together in Southern Spain until the Catholics put an end to that. Even though many Muslims are enlightened and tolerant, their religion, Islam is not. It demands conversion or death of infidels. It demands execution of anyone who chooses to step away from Islam and most of us on here have written more than enough to be sentenced to death for blasphemy. In countries that are ruled under Sharia Law, tolerance is not an aspect of the culture. I wonder how tolerant Christians would be if they ruled with the absolute power they had for many centuries? Would we see executions for blasphemy that only ceased in the UK in the 18th Century? Left to the Bible Belt in the USA, that is not out of the question. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition is a way of life for those wackos. Incidentally, for those who doubt Evolution as a Scientific theory, you will no doubt be delighted to know that the UK has banned teaching of creationism as Science. At the same time in the USA, the bible loonies are trying to get a law passed in Missouri that would require schools to notify parents that evolution theory was going to be taught on a particular day. God fearing yanks would not want their children exposed to that sort of science porno.

I don’t mind in the slightest referring to December 25th as “Christmas.” To us it is a mostly joyous time. As we all know, it was originally a pagan, mid-winter festival before it was hijacked for Christ's birthday celebrations. I am much happier about Christmas than the Jack the Ripper story of Easter. Historically, December 25th was “Dies Natalis Solos Invicti,” a holiday in the name of the Roman sun god Sol Invictus that marked the winter solstice, and the period from December 17th to 25th was a Roman holiday called “Saturnalia.” For around 1600 years, a substantial number of people have been calling it “Christmas”. That I'm an atheist doesn't stop me from enjoying the cultural festivities of Christmas even though I don't worship Sol (slip slop slap) or JC.