Choice should not be limited to people purely on the advice of a few moralising and whinging religious people.

If you want to rob someone of that choice please prove it really is necessary. Oh, and the rubbish in the Bible, and religious mumbo jumbo is no reason to restrict anyone.

(a) what is legal and what is beneficial/good/right are 2 different things – as you probably agree. We all know which things are legal. The question is which things are beneficial. Anyone who wishes to limit the number of harmful things is obviously someone caring. Anyone who doesnt care about whether harmful things are limited or not is obviously someone uncaring.
(b) Different things are legal in different ages of history and in different countries. What is so normative about the UK in AD 2005?

‘Choice’ – you havent yet got to grips with the point that ‘choices’ made by one’s rational natue and ‘choices’ made by one’s physical nature are 2 separate categories of thin which may sometimes conflict with one another. Some so-called ‘choices’ are the result of the physical nature getting the better of the rational – i.e. we all sometimes (because we can be weak-willed) choose to do things which we already knew to be wrong beforehand. The way you speak, one would think that people always choose things that they consider to be right. But you know very well that that is not true.

Don’t read it, or watch it then.
What I simply cannot accept is the repressive attitudes of people like yourself who want persuade UK lawmakers to deny others the legal right to make a different choice.
Preach to people by all means, but those who try to use the legal system to prevent people from doing what they merely disagree with are simply using co-ercion, and repression to impose their so called “standards” on others. As such it must be clearly necessary, and justified, not foisted upon others solely because of the moral sensibilities of a few God botherers…

This is one of the BIGGEST fallacies the porn censorship advocates use. It patently ISN’T true. There have been lots of sex crimes committed where pornography hasn’t been a factor at all.

Nor is there a link. Please read kutchinsky at:

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/14/kutchinsky.pdf

There is even evidence to suggest that Ted Bundy was in fact lying, and it is documented that the police found NO pornography whatsoever.

Peter sutcliffe, who murdered 13 women, said God told him to do it. Should we ban religion because he blamed God for his crimes ?

The BBFC who classify porn films in the UK, maintain there’s no evidence of harm when there is no violence.

All people who commit sex crime, breath air. Is air the cause ? They also drink water. Is that the cause as well ?

Most men have looked at porn at some stage or other. Many do so regularly. They don’t all become rapists. The vast majority don’t. But the fact that so many men look at porn, means it is hardly surprising that it is found when men do rape. But it is by no means all the time.

Dr. Shell I accuse you of being guilty of fake science. Which of course is what theology is anyway…

It’s not letters that forms the basis of your belief, is it? it’s Jeebus and his amazing miracles, such as resurrection (fiction) feeding of the five thousand (fiction) water into wine (fiction) and so on.

*Of course, being an atheist, something being gospel means I’m prepared to accept that some people believe it as truth, but I’m not going to waste my time reading it ‘cos it doesn’t relate to anything that has the slightest relevance to me. The new testament could be jeebus’ bible for all I care, it doesn’t make it true.

Your words ‘The book was written many years after Jesus died’ expresses an opinion on dating. Either you are in a position to express such an opinion or you arent. If you arent then what you should have saiud was ‘I dont know when the 27 books of the NT were written, because I have not looked into this topic.’ The point is important, becauise in debating one needs to make sure that all parties are honest, and genuinely concerned with the truth.

Again, if ytou have never looked into the topic, you are not yet in a position to classify it as a ‘work of fiction’. Why dont any (and I mean any) NT professors (Christian or nonChristian) agree with you? Is your knowledge greater than theirs?

Most of the NT is letters. How can letters be fiction?

One can be awed by the wonder and the incredible beauty of nature without belief in god. I can’t believe that you gullibles are trying to appropriate awe along with morals, honesty and family values for your own belief system. sheesh. humility my arse. sanctimony, more like.

Show me a sex offender – even one on death row – and I will show you a stash of pornographic magazines. No connection? (A further connection is that both the magazines and the offenders are examples of depersonalisation / dehumanisation. And a third connection is that both are trying to stand against the Christian view of these things. Do you think their version is an improvement on the Christian one?)

You mentioned ‘rights’. ‘Rights’ don’t exist in nature – they exist by convention. They only ‘exist’ when some body decides they exist.

Tom-
You raised the point about when the New Testament is to be dated – in such a way as to imply that you have good and new information on this. What are your views on this? – as if you have new insights it would be good to hear them.

I guess this particular tooth fairy must have a lot of added powers – not many tooth fairies have the ability to create a universe with more stars than grains of sand.
The only appropriate stance is humility, awe and wonder. ‘Two men looked through prison bars: one saw mud, the other saw stars’. If Christians want to fix their eyes on the wonders of the universe, and some nonChristians on swearing and divorce etc, which of them would one want to follow?