Here it is


And if anyone's interested here is the ASA ruling about the prayer advert;

Incidentally three MP's wrote to the ASA to try to get the ban overturned. Whatever your thoughts on the subject, their letter plumbed incredible depths of stupid.

Thats fine Jo and I have no problem with your opinion but in several posts you made the statement, and you are not alone by a long shot, that religion was "bad" and all religion was at fault, I am simply stating that its simply not the case. I will also make the point that religion itself is not at fault, the message most religions carry is a good one, it is MAN that screws things up, MAN that twists it to his own needs, MAN that makes religion hate.

No it wasnt, religion didnt invent those things. They have always existed

Probably the greatest book on morals even written is Plato's Republic written way before Christianity and very little mention of God or religion in it

Humans by nature are kind, honest, generous, loving and the exact opposite at the same time

religion was the man made police force of the ancient world. Giving guidance on the correct way of living and using a scary god to act as punishment, that is no longer needed. Thats how a friend of mine describes all of them

Jo xxx

Quote:

Originally Posted by rugbymatt;10022538[B

]Name me, without Googling (which I doubt very much) 10 religions

Apart from the ones you have mentioned....Jainism, Sikh, Hindu, Confucianism,Taoism, New Age, Satanism, Wicca, Scientology, Est.

Didn't Google, honest.

Oh, did they? Thats interesting. I take quite a fanatical interest in ancient British history and naturally an interest in Ancient European history and there are numerous quite shocking cases of infanticide, genocide, cannibalism, barbarism and xenophobia in Ancient European history. If you go farther a field and look at Africa, Asia, central Asia, South and North America, all these places, before the introduction of organised religion and their collected sets of rules and morals and you can see countless examples of less than pleasant activities.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating everything written down in the "Good Book" but many of the "commandments" (Oh and people... there were FAR more than 10!) were simply a set of morals enshrined in a religious text to try and drag mankind from the shit pit of moral degradation it was in to a more enlightened stage... like it or loathe it, religion has given society its moral backbone, regardless of the mess that follows it, it gave more than mankind could without it.

Oh and I notice that you haven't answered my question about other religions....

Well I probably couldnt name you 10 religions (certainly not 20), mainly because they dont interest me. Just like I couldnt name you 50 fairy tales.

You do know that the 20th Century was the most bloody in the history of mankind? Despite the fact that religion was around. Being Catholic didnt stop Hitler, Franco or Mussolini. And being aethiest didnt stop Stalin. At the end of the day, religion had nothing to do with the decision to kill or not.

The Jews were mudered not for their religion per se, but because they are an ethnic group that hung out and did business together and were a convenient scapegoat for a mad dictator.

Remember that it is the bad stuff that makes history, not the good stuff. Also remember that infanticide, genocide, cannibalism, barbarism and xenophobia happen across nature. As society evolves so does human's ability to decide and regulate what is right and wrong, but there is absolutely no need for religion to play a part.

The biggest role of religion in history has been to strike fear into the populace, to oppress and to inspire people to go to war. In the absence of truths, data or facts people have to believe something that is easily explained. Hence they go for a paternal big daddy in the sky when the answer is a lot more complicated than that

Do you not see the constant in all that? Man. Do I really need to spell it out?

The bible for example, tells us "Thou shall not kill..." (I'm paraphrasing because it didn't say that) yet Christians do, all the time. The Koran tells us that "A man may not punish a child for their fathers sins..." yet if we are to believe the propaganda one of the biggest Islamic Republics plans to build a nuclear weapon that will do just that..... It is mans interpretation that is at flaw, not the words written and certainly not faith in itself. Oh and you need to do a little research into our Laws in this country and see how many are influenced by the Bible.

If religion doesn't interest you why are you on this thread anyway?

Oh yes He was!!!
What was written down was inspired by Him ( what Timothy 3:16 calls 'God breathed').
The New Testament letters/gospels were written from observation, inspiration & oral testament.
So all in all, the 66 books were written over a period of some 1500 years & finally assembled into why we have today round about the 4th century AD.

Man has gone astray with 'religion' & rather spoilt things, as we are so good at doing.

God didnt write any of it - timothy was inspired thats all - it was all written by people of the time and then translated and interpreted many times over the years!!

Jo xxx

The Old Testament is, as you say, a lot of death & destruction. But it has to be relevant to us today, because that's all they had to 'go on' in Christ's time. The New hadn't yet been written.
Far be it from me to try & summarise the Old; I have a great companion guide, called "unlocking the bible" by David Pawson. Brilliantly explains its relevance, such as incest, murder, adultery, slaughter by armies, etc.
Makes Eastenders look very tame.

Religion doesnt interest me personally. But I am interested on how infringes on my personal freedoms and those of my family e.g. try and find a nursery that doesnt tell the 2 year olds to pray before lunch. Tough!

I still remember my brother singing a song about Jesus when he was 5 on the way home from school. He had never even encountered religion bfore that. It is simply brainwashing

And I am pretty sure that many people had come to the conclusion that "thou shall not kill" many years before some person wrote it in a manuscript that would become the Bible. Again, read the Greek classics. You'll find plenty of stuff that are now laws of the UK and Spain, nothing to do with religion! It was the first democracy after all and much of European society as we know it can be traced back to that age

You are correct, we are all of those things, good & bad. It's in our 'nature'; Dawkins would no doubt say in our genes.

For that reason, the only way we could be 'saved' from eternal fire/death/worm-eaten, was for God to come & show us what to do. So He came down. And look what we did to Him!!

Christians can be horrible at times & atheists can be wonderful.

I reckon Pascal (1623-1662) got it right when he said to unbelievers "live as if God did exist, even if you don't believe".

I live by my own rules and conscience, not gods and judging by the disgraceful nonsense in the old testament I think thats a good thing

Jo xxx

God inspired words to be written. Of course He didn't write it Himself. Otherwise He might as well have sent a copy by airmail.

The original manuscripts were faithfully written as per God's words.
Then they were copied by scribes. That can lead to small errors. Translation can lead to other errors, but not really enough to detract from the principle of what was being said. Especially when there are teams of researchers poring over every word.