We don't.

Excellent. So why do we need anything to get there?

Sorry I've not been around, I got over my cold but since then our car has died and as we live in a village the middle of nowhere this is somewhat worrying.

Yeah, I can see how that could be a problem. Sorry to hear it.

All we need is Jesus. We need to accept him as our Saviour, repent (i.e turn away from) our sins and he will do/has done the rest.

Now this of course does not mean that Christians never do anything wrong, we are only human, but we have to do our very best to live in a manner worthy of our calling. When we fail, we pick ourselves up and try agin.

I have spent a long time looking at things and wondering why it is that people make them complicated, when there clearly is a far simpler way of looking at things. Plus don't forget, Occam's razor tells us that the simpler things are more likely to be correct. ie, if you hear hoofbeats, it ain't likely to be zebras out there.

So, let's extend this logically. You don't need popes, priests, churches, so why not consider that we don't need doctrine either. Prayers. The priests tell us our prayers are answered, but in reality you might just as well pray to the holy milk jug as to a god, because to assume that there is a deity who doesn't save people in the twin towers, the earthquakes, the tsunamis et all, but will attend on your (comparatively) trivial requests is completely insane.

Plus, that piece of instruction comes from the priests who we already agree, are, in the scale of things as much use as a chocolate fireguard. If we don't need priests, then we certainly don't need what they say, or what they write. So, out the window with the bible, and everything like it.

That just leaves us. So, why not consider that there is no hell, no heaven per se, just somewhere else, and we all get to go there?

Of course you would have to agree to abandon all the nastiness in human nature, like the desperate desire to see people you consider wrong to be punished, but let's face it, that attitude is rubbish too, isn't it?

But children are subjected to misinformation on a daily basis, religion is the lesser of the "evils" they might hear, my problem mate is the fervor that people of faith are attacked with, it doesn't matter what someone else thinks about the way the world works or how it was made etc, what matters is how people behave towards other people.

Spot on. Child abuse to me includes teaching them false data. I'll attack church, creed and priest. Not those who follow their beliefs without doing harm, but since I consider indoctrinating children evil, I have a problem with it.

I can make a small bet how you feel when you see the religious nutters in the USA indoctrinate their children that the only good human being is a WASP, that Hitler was the son of god, and Jews and Blacks are subhumans.

I hear children on those programmes blithely repeating this shit and it makes my blood run cold.

So how do you feel about Buddhist children reciting mantras all day long? Is that evil?

Does it do harm?

Of all religions probably Bhuddism is the least harmful, so it bothers me the least, but I would prefer that they were taught things more relevant to the real world. Not evil per se, but not good either.

What would you rather they were taught? Many of the Buddhist practitioners are found in countries with their own significant problems and in many cases that "indoctrination" of the young monks keeps them from being involved in less than legitimate activities, many are street children and the religion provides them the only outlet they will ever have.

I have said this before about religion and I will say it again, religion can heal, it can save and it is quite often a savior, I have seen this first hand in our family and I know if it hadn't been for religion they would not have been here now.

It heals and it can harm, it can save and it can destroy.

So Bhuddist indoctrination is better than them committing crimes on ther street. That's a bit like damning with faint praise, tho, isn't it?

Back to the point.

Since when has it been right to tell lies to children?

So you don't need the priest, then why do you need the stories he tells?

Why do you 'need' jesus? To get you past what the bible describes as a 'Jealous god' ?

Hmm, you know, that just doesn't sound good, does it? An omnipotent omniscient being who knows every last thing that you think..... and suffers from Jealousy?

No, if that were true we would all be in the shit.

Did you tell your kids from the beginning that Santa was a myth? Did you never tell them of the tooth fairy? Never tell them that if they rub a graze it will feel better or that a dock leaf on a stinging nettle rash will "cure" it?

On your point about religion harming and destroying... so can almost anything in life, science hardly has no blood on its hands. Life is not black and white.

The first time my kids asked me about santa, I told them the truth. I figured that when it came to the important stuff later on they would remember that I was in the habit of being honest.

There is a major difference between allowing kids to think there is a santa, and telling them he is real. When children ask questions they should be given honest, sensible answers.

Rubbing or stroking a graze really helps. It initiates the firing of nerve pathways that interrupt the pain signals.

Not all wives' tales are false, not all are true, but give a child a mind that can apply critical reasoning, and you protect it in later life from the many con artists that are waiting to exploit the gullible.

Science is simply the asking of questions. That's all it is. How tall, how wide, how deep, how does it work, what does this do.