600 years before Christ and half a world away, Gautama Buddha promulgated a moral and ethical code which became Buddhism. It developed and expanded to the point, 265 years before the birth of Christ, when it led to the establishment by the king of the world's first major Buddhist state, of free hospitals and free education and also the first recognition of human rights.

These people had never heard of Hebrews, or the Old Testament, and were a quarter of a millennium ahead of Jesus in suggesting that one should respect the rights of others and indeed respect all life.

Iona, please explain how that relies in any way at all on your world view, on Christianity, or on the Bible.

Don T.