Is it possible that Jesus, unlike 98 percent of his fellow Jews, was literate and educated? Yes, it's possible.

Many of the prophets of Jesus's time were thought to just be mad men, just sort of crazy people who were claiming to channel the divine. Perhaps that means we should be a little less judgmental of some of our own crazies talking about God on the corner. They might actually have found a pretty comfortable place in Jesus's time.

Authoritarians tend to consolidate support by using fear, but more importantly by driving a wedge among the people that they want to control.

When I was in the US, I felt that the discourse there surrounding Muslims as the other, problematising Muslims and Islam as the other was very similar to what we find in Australia, which is that the image of Islam is a constructed image in the West. We are starting from a point of view that Islam and Muslims - well Islam is a violent, misogynistic, hateful religion and that is where the debate always starts from - that presumption underlies the discourse.

We need to do whatever we can, legally and within our power, to remove Donald Trump from office as fast as possible before something serious happens in this country.

Anyone who says that Iran will commit suicide with its nuclear power is a moron and has no business in discussion.

The key to recognizing who Jesus was is to recognize this fundamental truth: He was a Jew.