Religion - Put it in it's place

[randdebiel²]

[markfiend]

Indeed.

[Loki]

@ randdebiel - Having read through this thread from start to finish I can only assume you are now main-lining on kebabs.

[pikkrong]

Some ***s in Estonian corridors of power want to establish teaching religion as a part of general education which in principal would be propaganda of Christianity (i. e. Lutheranism) for under-ages. I'm an atheist, not an anti-christian but these are things I cannot bear Last year I couldn't stop myself and made a speech against it on the annual congress of Estonian Writers' Union. You can't imagine how many enemies I got during those minutes

[_emma_]

No matter if God exists or not (but then again if God didn't exist, would we ever come up with the idea of questioning his/her/its existence at all????),unless you treat others the way you'd like yourself to be treated, it's all nonsense. What matters is love, mercy, and the ability to forgive. Religion... is a smile on a dog.

[Gripper]

I've studied this thread and have come to my own personal conclusion- religion never solved any problem but it sure as hell made people wake up and think about the world. And that's something 95% (stupid, rough estimate) of people are too self-centred to bother doing most of the time.

[randdebiel²]

@ randdebiel - Having read through this thread from start to finish I can only assume you are now main-lining on kebabs.

what do you mean?

[Thrash Harry]

if God didn't exist, would we ever come up with the idea of questioning his/her/its existence at all?

Not sure I follow this logic. Surely all religions are just an attempt at making sense of the human condition i.e. why are we here and what happens when we die? The way I see it, man invented God, not the other way round. Aren't most religions essentially based around a set of 'rules' designed to bring out the best in all of us and make the world a better place? The Ten Commandments, for example. Most make sense to me, I just don't see why we have to project this 'goodness' onto a higher being as opposed to recognising it in ourselves. If there was a Church to celebrate all the good things in humans, I'd be there every day. Perhaps this is the aim of most organised religions, but in my experience, Church was somewhere you went out of duty and got in and out as fast as you could without talking to anyone else if you could help it.

[Black Shuck]

if God didn't exist, would we ever come up with the idea of questioning his/her/its existence at all????

As Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, man would create him."

BLACK SHUCK'S CONTROVERSIAL (as ever) OPINION:
I think banning overt religious symbols in schools is a good idea- I don't understand why anyone would want to spend every second of their life outside the home wearing a single item of clothing. wouldn't you get sick to death of it?
Seriously, this move by the French government doesn't go far enough to tackle the BIGGEST problem facing Europe in the twenty-first century: mass religious/cultural segregation.
It is utterly absurd that there are estates in my home city of Manchester which are almost wholey Jewish, or Hindu, or Muslim.
Sticking to your own community is entirely understandable for recent immigrants to a new and frightening country, but come on, after a few years, surely people should be mixing and matching and meeting and f**king people of ALL creeds and colours, not just their 'own culture'.

It's madness.

I honestly think that the government should ban ALL schools, community centres etc. which only cater for a single bunch of people, and 'ethnic estates' should be bulldozed to the ground, with the residents relocated to places like Marple, my home town, which has a population of 24,000, out of which 23,990 are white.

Religion... is a smile on a dog.

great song! even the baby spice version was surprisingly good.

[_emma_]

if God didn't exist, would we ever come up with the idea of questioning his/her/its existence at all?

Not sure I follow this logic. Surely all religions are just an attempt at making sense of the human condition i.e. why are we here and what happens when we die? The way I see it, man invented God, not the other way round.

Well I don't know who invented whom, I just believe that the profound need to find contact with the higher being, the "why are we here and what happens when we die?" question means that the higher being must exist. If there was nothing, would the question ever arise? You could say it's just the fear of death that makes us believe in "God", but then again where does that fear come from? Would there be fear if there wasn't a relief from it?
As for recogninsing the goodness in ourselves, I totally agree with you. And no, I don't go to churches to pray.

[Thrash Harry]

You could say it's just the fear of death that makes us believe in "God", but then again where does that fear come from?

But is it a fear for our own passing, or the pain we feel for the loss of a loved one? I'm fortunate enough no to have lost anyone that close yet, but when I do, I reckon I might start praying again.

[Thrash Harry]

if God didn't exist, would we ever come up with the idea of questioning his/her/its existence at all????

As Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, man would create him."

BLACK SHUCK'S CONTROVERSIAL (as ever) OPINION:
I think banning overt religious symbols in schools is a good idea- I don't understand why anyone would want to spend every second of their life outside the home wearing a single item of clothing. wouldn't you get sick to death of it?
Seriously, this move by the French government doesn't go far enough to tackle the BIGGEST problem facing Europe in the twenty-first century: mass religious/cultural segregation.
It is utterly absurd that there are estates in my home city of Manchester which are almost wholey Jewish, or Hindu, or Muslim.
Sticking to your own community is entirely understandable for recent immigrants to a new and frightening country, but come on, after a few years, surely people should be mixing and matching and meeting and f**king people of ALL creeds and colours, not just their 'own culture'.

It's madness.

I honestly think that the government should ban ALL schools, community centres etc. which only cater for a single bunch of people, and 'ethnic estates' should be bulldozed to the ground, with the residents relocated to places like Marple, my home town, which has a population of 24,000, out of which 23,990 are white.

Can't disagree with much of this, except perhaps the sensationalist tone. But you're a football man, you understand the tribal effect. If yourself and Snowey were to meet up unwittingly one day at a hot dog stand without the masks and make eye contact over the ketchup, you might even start talking bollox about kissing your sons/ daughters/ neices/ nephews little toes and agree that all anyone really wants to do is protect and provide for the people that they care for.

And before you start. I'd rather be a hippy than a goth. Two sides of the same coin really. Though I struggle to be convincing in either guise.

Thankyou and goodnight.

[andymackem]

No matter if God exists or not (but then again if God didn't exist, would we ever come up with the idea of questioning his/her/its existence at all????),unless you treat others the way you'd like yourself to be treated, it's all nonsense. What matters is love, mercy, and the ability to forgive. Religion... is a smile on a dog.

But you'll find precious little love, mercy or forgiveness in the current global climate of religion as a spiritual and tribal commodity.

I do try to treat others as I wish to be treated (but then again, I'm an anti-social loner who is quite happy to shore up in my Ivory Tower and sneer at the peasants outside ), but I'm not sure many religions do this.

It's very selective: within the clique there is total support, but anyone outside that is condemned and destroyed. This is an explicit part of the faith, and the greatest and most irreversible transgressions are the ones against conformity of thought, rather than social proscriptions.

Thus you have a situation where my Christian friends are happy to worship a God who will cast a section of their circle into eternal damnation for the "crime" of exercising the free will they claim we were granted. That is absurd.

Either it shows they don't truly believe it, or they value their acquaintances differently according to faith, or they are too stupid to truly comprehend the enormity of what their beliefs actually mean.

Overall, it's not a pretty picture, is it?

[andymackem]

I've studied this thread and have come to my own personal conclusion- religion never solved any problem but it sure as hell made people wake up and think about the world. And that's something 95% (stupid, rough estimate) of people are too self-centred to bother doing most of the time.

A pity when so many of them woke up, they came up with the wrong answers ...

But I remembered getting slated for suggesting something similar a little while ago.

[MAtT]

Atheism is effectively a religion. The only logical standpoint on the matter of god is agnosticism.

I disagree. If it is asserted to me that this room is filled with invisible pink unicorns, I am right to disbelieve, even though I have no absolute disproof. There has been no individual god described to me which is incapable of disproof, so why should I suspend judgement on any further hypothetical gods that may yet be invented?

You are not right to disbelieve. You have only your senses to go on, which are horribly flawed. Nothing in this universe or any other is 100% fact - only degrees of what we currently believe to be fact. Study Einstein's special Theory of Relativity, chaos theory or quantum mechanics and this becomes clear. We know nothing for certain - inclusing whether or not the room is filled with pink unicorns.

To believe OR disbelieve in anything is slightly foolhardy, as we can say we believe "according to the current weight of data". To believe or disbelieve in GOD is the ultimate human arrogance. There is no data and we can't even get off our piddling little planet yet, understand our own brains or basically do s**t-else. We are puny animals just starting to gain a little intelligence. To think we KNOW anything about "god" or "no-god" is ridiculous.

[MAtT]

if you were capable of disproof you could make a lot of money with it, caus in philosophy of science ontology and all those things it's been established as a fact (by proof yes) that you cannot disproof the existence of a God, or prove it for that matter....
the "individual" in this post is actually even out of place, as maybe you can disproof a religion, but never a god....

I disagree again. I take as an example of an "individual" god, the omniscient, omnipotent, loving god of Christianity:

The Problem Of Evil:
If God is not aware of the evil in this world then he is not omniscient.
If God is aware, yet unable to act against it then he is not omnipotent.
If God is aware, able to act, yet unwilling, then he is not loving.

QED. The omniscient, omnipotent, loving god of Christianity cannot exist.

This says sweet FA about god. It only talks of religious concepts.

[Quiff Boy]

maybe He is an non-interventionist God?

[_emma_]

You are not right to disbelieve. You have only your senses to go on, which are horribly flawed. Nothing in this universe or any other is 100% fact - only degrees of what we currently believe to be fact. Study Einstein's special Theory of Relativity, chaos theory or quantum mechanics and this becomes clear. We know nothing for certain - inclusing whether or not the room is filled with pink unicorns.

To believe OR disbelieve in anything is slightly foolhardy, as we can say we believe "according to the current weight of data". To believe or disbelieve in GOD is the ultimate human arrogance. There is no data and we can't even get off our piddling little planet yet, understand our own brains or basically do ****-else. We are puny animals just starting to gain a little intelligence. To think we KNOW anything about "god" or "no-god" is ridiculous.

You are so right MAtT.
And I'll say again: the mere fact that we ask ourselves the question is more than enough.

[MrChris]

Many of the norse gods were far too busy duffing each other up to bother mortals. When they did, it was only to duff them up too, for practice. Plus, they all died in the end, in a massive battle. Disprove that one, eh?

[andymackem]

Many of the norse gods were far too busy duffing each other up to bother mortals. When they did, it was only to duff them up too, for practice. Plus, they all died in the end, in a massive battle. Disprove that one, eh?

Yes, but the Norse gods were cool. They had style and flair and didn't pussy-foot around with all this worship crap.

[RicheyJames]

You are not right to disbelieve. You have only your senses to go on, which are horribly flawed. Nothing in this universe or any other is 100% fact - only degrees of what we currently believe to be fact. Study Einstein's special Theory of Relativity, chaos theory or quantum mechanics and this becomes clear. We know nothing for certain - inclusing whether or not the room is filled with pink unicorns.

To believe OR disbelieve in anything is slightly foolhardy, as we can say we believe "according to the current weight of data". To believe or disbelieve in GOD is the ultimate human arrogance. There is no data and we can't even get off our piddling little planet yet, understand our own brains or basically do ****-else. We are puny animals just starting to gain a little intelligence. To think we KNOW anything about "god" or "no-god" is ridiculous.

what does knowledge or fact have to do with belief? the whole point of religion is faith is it not? the idea that one must make a leap of faith to believe in a deity who's existence can be neither proved nor disproved is the fundamental basis of at least the judaeo-christian religious tradition (i can't pretend to know enough about other religions to claim that this applies across the board). i don't understand how this can be considered arrogant???

[Black Shuck]

Yay! Richey's back.

what does knowledge or fact have to do with belief? the whole point of religion is faith is it not? the idea that one must make a leap of faith to believe in a deity who's existence can be neither proved nor disproved is the fundamental basis of at least the judaeo-christian religious tradition (i can't pretend to know enough about other religions to claim that this applies across the board). i don't understand how this can be considered arrogant???

well said, my friend.

[Thrash Harry]

Where's that fatted calf?

[MAtT]

You are not right to disbelieve. You have only your senses to go on, which are horribly flawed. Nothing in this universe or any other is 100% fact - only degrees of what we currently believe to be fact. Study Einstein's special Theory of Relativity, chaos theory or quantum mechanics and this becomes clear. We know nothing for certain - inclusing whether or not the room is filled with pink unicorns.

To believe OR disbelieve in anything is slightly foolhardy, as we can say we believe "according to the current weight of data". To believe or disbelieve in GOD is the ultimate human arrogance. There is no data and we can't even get off our piddling little planet yet, understand our own brains or basically do ****-else. We are puny animals just starting to gain a little intelligence. To think we KNOW anything about "god" or "no-god" is ridiculous.

what does knowledge or fact have to do with belief? the whole point of religion is faith is it not? the idea that one must make a leap of faith to believe in a deity who's existence can be neither proved nor disproved is the fundamental basis of at least the judaeo-christian religious tradition (i can't pretend to know enough about other religions to claim that this applies across the board). i don't understand how this can be considered arrogant???

You can make a "leap of faith" and believe anything you can imagine about anything you can imagine and hold that belief to be 100% true because of your "faith".

Just because in this case (and usually of course) faith refers to a religious belief, does that make it any more valid? Would you think that ANY 100% belief made on faith is non-arrogant and acceptable?

If I say that I believe the world is flat based on my own faith and (at least by implication, but often explicitly) then assert that any contradictory belief is incorrent - does that make me arrogant?

I think it does, and the shape of the planet - and many other beliefs are within our grasp to test. The existance of god is not - so imo "faith" in that is even more arrogant as it's so more beyond our understanding.

Religious belief has managed to gather some protective shield based on "respect of belief" and other things that just don't cut it with me. Logically religious belief is no different - and no less validly subject to critisism than any other.