Simon Paynton

The hope that is brought by living on the right path.

Jesus stands for hope, optimism, and positivity, and that’s a good thing.  I agree that the situation of believing in God can sometimes turn toxic in various ways: for example, when it becomes blended with the Patriarchy and all its associated ills.

The idea might help some people in the same way that healing crystals or astrology helps some people.

But those things don’t get people off drugs, and keep them off, for example.  They are puny compared with the force of Jesus, whatever that might be.

If there’s nothing to it, then why does “Jesus save”?  How can people have their lives turned around, over nothing?

toddayoung wrote:

There sins from lies to murder all 10 commandments broken & they are judged to have repented? So they have a free pass to the afterlife? I think not.

I don’t believe that Jesus’ sacrifice means that now, sins can be forgiven – I don’t see that this scenario makes sense.  But I do believe that following Jesus’ teaching (“love…[Read more]

If God was real, it would make sense that He would want to send a person down to Earth to teach us His ways.  i.e. the right way to live is cooperatively.  This coincides with what we find in evolutionary ethics.

If this was the case, I think it’s plausible that Jesus wouldn’t know everything God knows, since he was a human being.

The “miracles” are either not true, or are the work of an extraordinary human being.

I think that the New Testament is a mixture of fact and fiction.  One of Jesus’ messages is that an ethical cooperative life is the best possible life to live under the circumstances, and I agree with this.  Also his central formula “love God and love your n…[Read more]

I believe in Jesus as a teacher and an exemplary person, but I don’t believe Jesus is God since I don’t believe in God.

It is unfortunate that we require “sovereign” nations and borders. Implementation of the concept of world citizenship is beyond the grasp of our species.

It’s inevitable that we’re always going to live in groups, they’re part of the social structure of the human race.  Internally, it works well, but when they bump up against each other, ther…[Read more]

The situation sounds like the atom bomb at the end of World War II, and this isn’t thought of as a war crime, although, a horrific use of force.

I think the key consideration boils down to gratuitousness.

This is like I always say: the right thing to do is the maximum benefit and minimum harm available to someone.

I prefer this site.

Davis wrote:

It’s also at the heart of one thing wanting to attack another thing just for the sake of domination.

Could you expanding this a little more please?

I’ll answer with a quote from Frans de Waal:

Natural selection works on every individual’s relative advantage compared with others; hence, gaining an absolute benefit is insufficient. If…

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