Good points from John which I think conclusively answer beliefs some (not myself) Christians may have that moral ideas and equality were absent pre 30-33AD.I've appreciate both standpoints in this Blog! I think the source of Jesus' & Paul's beliefs has to be founded in OT theology due to their context which was most certainly Jewish?

(James Thompson, on "Atheism and the Good Life")

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Man made religion?

Review: Rodney Stark – Discovering God – the origins of the great religions and the evolution of belief (HarperOne, New York, USA, 2007)

Simon Smart

  ‘The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made.’
Christopher Hitchens1
 

Does God exist or did we make him up? Is the idea of a God or gods merely wishful thinking, a source of much needed comfort, or a contrived explanation for natural phenomena that in the modern scientific age we no longer need? Or, have some of the world’s religions glimpsed the creator? Whatever answer one might feel inclined to give, Rodney Stark’s latest book, Discovering God – the origins of the great religions and the evolution of belief, offers much that is worthy of discussion and debate.

Stark addresses this foundational question by examining the formation and growth of the world’s great religions. A highly respected sociologist, Stark, who taught the University of Washington for over thirty years, and now at Baylor University in Texas, has spent decades studying comparative religion, and assessing the contributions - good and bad - of the world’s great faiths.		  
   
  

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