@squirrelglider I had not realised that Murdoch was still so active over in Oz! For some reason I thought it was the Anglo American community he was trolling !!

It took me a good twenty years to go from hard-core religion to atheist. It took a long time to lose beliefs. First hell, then the devil, then I was somewhat of a pantheist, then agnostic and now I’m comfortable saying I’m atheist because I see so little probability of there being a god. After reading probably ten books pro and con I now think Jesus was merely a myth. Also I don’t think most declared Christians are hypocrites but I think the more they lean to fundamentalism the more hypocritical they become. You seem to be explaining where you are on your journey so in response this is where I am at.

Could be, but probably not.

You believe Jesus existed. That is a meaningless statement. What is belief but delusion on purpose.

check the roman tax rolls . they were meticulous record keepers. no mention on jo mary or little j. GAME OVER

All Christians walk the walk... regardless. That's the beauty of religion. They get to pick which scriptures are important to them and which ones aren't. The KKK, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, all use the exact same bible that Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, and C.S. Lewis used. The only thing that separates any of these people is/are the scriptures they chose to embrace.

They all use the same holy book and that book has scriptures that will support whatever they desire, whether compassionate or heinous.

I'm not sure our little pea brains have the capacity to understand everything, and for that reason I do not conclude with 100% assuredness that there isn't some kind of creative force or energy (read: "higher power" ) behind everything. And BECAUSE we have little pea brains and have very few answers, I also refuse to anthropomorphise things I don't understand. God of the gaps thing again. I even have issues with the term "higher power", but that's just a personal thing.

I like where science is taking us, with its acknowledgment that everything is vibrational energy; that leaves lots of doors open for quantum physics to suggest reasons for so-called metaphysical/woo-woo phenomena. But that's me.

I actually don't think Jesus existed. Paul talks about a revelatory being in his epistles. The gospels are so allegorical and contradictory that you cannot determine much of anything about the life of Jesus if he existed. No historical corroboration. But it really doesn't matter. If he did exist, he was nothing more than a legend.

They were surely just as insane pre Trump? I do think there is a certain percentage of American and British people who felt ignored and that their views were seen as uncivilized by the liberal majority, hence the fight about political correctness, which basically just seems like trying to be polite to me !?
It's as though Trump and Brexit have made these forgotten (mainly older ) people feel that they have some relevance for the first time in years. The pro Brexit extremists (not everyone but the far right) are basically Trumpian in outlook.
These people have felt left behind by the global economy and the fact that they have to compete for jobs for which they do not have skills.
Both Brexit and Trump were perceived by these people as a victory and now they are drunk on that power.
Nobody has given them a second thought for the last couple of decades, over here we call them Little Englanders, basically they are racist and badly educated and this is a massive fuck you to the so called elite.
What they have failed to understand is that Trump is the elite, just the other side of the coin to the liberal elite and, unlike the liberals, Trump and his donors really don't give a damn about them and just used them to gain power for his own agenda.
Rupert Murdoch has a lot to answer for in both of our countries and he's a bloody Aussie as well !?