Originally posted by @Chertsey-Saint
Originally posted by @Barry-Sanchez
I’m seeing the word nonce…
Someone graffiti your car again?
Cherts is still high fiving his life partner at getting the most up votes in his 54 year old life.
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It’s an amazing achievement.
Firstly, I’d like to thank God…
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We are all atheists really… just some of us believe in one less god than others. Afterall Christians, Jews and Muslims all worhsip the same God in their different interpretations, but don’t believe in the vaious Hindu Gods or shintu or Budhist dieties… one of which must surely have appealed to Princess D… as it was rumoured she liked cock…
On a more serious note, we need to separte faith in some devine being, from followng a religious doctrine. Faith in something, anything when giving comfort cant be shat on if it helps folks in their need… (but will come back to that…)
However, folks should remember that the organised relgions all have origins in in the not too distant past… eg when humans became smart enough to realise the power in it - and abilty to control, when the sun god or volcano gods no longer cut it.
So dont get me started on Spiritualism (1880s) or worse Scientology (1950s and Hubbard). Spritualism began with 2 girls playing a game/trick on dinners guests at their parents home… and fuck knows how many folks have been conned out of their cash in the last 140years as a result of the woo… its always about the money
Many atheists often dismiss folks faith as something trivial and nonsensical to a scientific/ rational an logical mind - I say that is where they lose the argument because they are trying to dismiss a natural human emotive desire with cold reason. That there is nothing to have faith in… never going to win when people believe.
Its more appropriate to ask the question of how the abilty to have faith evolved in humans. The human brian is complex and has evolved the abilty to question and reason - the result is that it drives our determination to understand everything including our own existence (and thus our desire for scientific discovery and learning), but also opens the door for the need to explain what we cant understand.
Over generations of scientific discovery, scientific understanding has eroded many of the domains of the ‘church’ - from storms to volcanoes etc etc… but explanation does not erode the belieff or need to believe at the same rate - in effect, the more we explain away with science, the more we need to have something else to hold on to - afterall the thought of being nothing but a slave to our genetic virus can be a bit depressing… It also helps some folk deal with all that appears ‘unfair’ - believing in heaven and how good it is, explains why some still find it OK to believe in a God that lets kids die from cancer… when we know that kids sadly die of cancer because they simply are unlucky in the genetic lottery…
I have no beef if folks chose to believe in this stuff provided they:
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Dont try and convert me
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Dont take money of the innocent, gullable or vunerable (spiritualists are cunts preying on vunerable people ALL OF THEM)
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Dont try and tell me that all goodness in humans is down to religious teaching and all bad is our free will…
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That it all our fault and that God is not to blame for anything bad… this is fucking illogical and stupid and fuck all do do with faith - afterall same god who was happy sending a flood to kill everyone apart from a select few… and promised not to do it again - porky telling god that one… (classic is when my sadly departed Catholic Gran used to try and say the old testament god had to be more wicked because the people were more wicked then… )
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Attempt to help themselves. Waiting for god to heal you or help you is futile - JWs are worse still refusing blood donations for thir kids… utterly stupid cunts - as with all ‘doctrine’ its been diluted,perverted translated and interpreted fuck loads of times before being spat out of Caxton’s press to polute innocent minds…
This may sound harsh, it may even sound offensive to some, but in my defence, I bare no ill will to those that have faith for their own need/support - its when it starts to spread beyond their own four walls that I have a problem, or when children are given no choice than to blindly follow the ‘faith/doctrine’ of their parents.
Folk with faith dont need to prove god exists - the belief without proof is what faith is. But I would suggest that ‘reason’ is just as enlightening, that the amazing science in something as simple as a flower or as complex as an eye, that can be explained scientifically does not make these things any less remarkable.
When we recognise that what we do in this life, and how we effect others good and bad is our legacy, we dont need to worry about what happens next - I wont go to any heaven, I will rot in the ground and return to earth. But it wont just be my Genes that live on in my kids, but the memories of me they carry with them and influence them in their own lives and if that is good stuff, then that is heaven enough for me.
Amen
Blimey GA, you’ve been busy haven’t you…
I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph
Am now going to sit back and see who out of Barry or MLG comes up with the most entertaining response…
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I don’t think anyone is going to try and convert you, GA. Most would have given up reading after the cock bit.
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And I have said I admire someone who has faith, someone who has everything they want in life and still see a higher God and heaven as their nirvana, I don’t know why but that to me is amazing. It doesn’t religion being elitist,sexist, racist, homophobic, divisive and backward though. Colour and please take note doesn’t feature.
But you keep on having a go at one faith in particular?
All faiths but the Islamic is the most backward in termsof homophobia, sexism and human rights, do you disagree? Nothing to do with colour.
Not really. Most of the holy books have pretty horrific stuff in them. It’s the level of literality and cherry picking they do that breed violent ideologies. You’ve got Christians over in the US believing that it’s okay to murder doctors at abortion clinics. A twisted mind will twist the material to suit its own twisted ends.
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Interesting post Gay. I would say the spiritualism that I am talking about has nothing to do with Sir Arthur Conan Dolye’s parlour games but is something that has been around as long as mankind.
How many Christians Pap? A handful in an area? That makes no difference anyway, they’ll all backward and should be shown up fo what they are? Agree? Also the Islamic faith is the worst for human rights, again agree?
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
One of the most interesting points made on religion was made by Daniel Dennett as part of the ‘Four Horsemen’ discussion together with Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins; that actually, very very few people actually believe in God insofar as they really do believe in God.
If people really did believe in God, you’d see them making apparently suicidal and utterly fatalistic life decisions without a care in the world for the consequences with total regularity. After all, if life is essentially just a test of “Be-good-and-you’ll-get-into-heaven-safe-and-sound” then what sense does it make pursuing much other than a life of being on your best behaviour?
What do you care if the serial killer gets let off the hook? What do you care about any sort of injustice whatsoever? God takes care of more-or-less anything at the end of the day.
Most people don’t believe in God in the way that you and I believe we’re looking at words on a computer screen and as such, the word ‘belief’ is quite a misnomer. Dennett’s opinion was that such people ‘believe in belief’ - they think that belief in God is a good thing and see things like ‘faith’ as virtuous, they see religions as an important part of one’s identity worth preserving.
But they don’t actually believe it.
And I think that in the West we’ve actually got a tacit acceptance of that. People who say that they’re a Christian or believe in God etc. are thought of as fairly normal, but if someone told you that they were actually going to do/avoid doing something because of the instructions written in the Bible most people would think they’re a bit of a nutter who should stop taking things so seriously (predicated on the idea that when we say we ‘believe in God’, we actually don’t mean it in any meaningful sense.
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Not sure this is the place for this Barry.
Unless you are trying to make a point about something…have no idea what it might be. Surprise us …
I thought I was given a thread to post this relevant stuff concerning religion? If this is the wrong thread what one is the correct one given for it on here?
bbc reports shooting in Munich.
No mention of Muslims just yet though. S, no I’d say it’s not the place to post…for the moment no doubt
Ok the BBC linked in the Bavarian stabbings in the article but for the sake of fairness I won’t state anymore until more is known.
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Good man
Maybe because they were both in Germany?