I’m just predicting the wave of semi-abusive self-congratulatory posts blah blah blah

So a) it hadn’t actually happened at all, you just made it up, and b) the first (only?) post on this thread that could be construed as “semi-abusive” is, in fact, your own?

Good work.

I find the anti-religion bias here strange & unpleasant when the mere whiff of any other cultural/racial/gender bashing brings out the pitchforks and banhammers.

Yes, you’re quite right, it’s all one big conspiracy. We have regular meetings at STW Towers to discuss how we’re next going to persecute poor little religion.

The problem with your straw man here is that all of those other things are genetic. One does not wake up one day and decide to be, say, gay, or French. You can’t pool religion in with these (well you can, but you’d be wrong) as religion is a choice, a belief, an idea. I couldn’t become a woman just by really believing that I could.

And ideas should be challenged, discussed, shared. Religion isn’t special in this regard, any more than what the ideal wheel size is or whether helmets should be worn.

What would you prefer? Censorship? Silencing the masses who express an opinion you don’t like? Pretty sure there’s a word for that…?

And ideas should be challenged, discussed, shared. Religion isn’t special in this regard

Absolutely, but we in doing so we should not be arseholes as I’m sure you’ll agree.

but we in doing so we should not be arseholes as I’m sure you’ll agree.

I know, you say the same thing every half dozen posts or so on every religion thread. Which is admirable, but seemingly blind to whether that’s actually happening or not.

Can we establish, formally, that we should treat each other with some respect? I’ll put <mod> tags around it and everything. Then you can change the bloody record and we can get on with having interesting conversations again. (-: If people are being abusive, that’s what the ‘Report post’ option is for.

This thread started with a couple of harmless jokes, was followed by a few people taking it seriously and attempting to discuss the theme raised, and then half a page at least of people complaining about how the thread might go or how previous threads have gone, derailing (again) any hope we might have had of actually having a sensible discussion.

And now I’m bloody well doing it. Argh!

I’m beginning to believe in reincarnation. I have the strangest feeling I’ve been here before….

Science clearly trumps religion as one is factual and one is not.

Many a dying person asks for a scientist to comfort them in their final hours…

Yes I do, of course I do.

You just don’t understand what I write!
so you believe their is a non physical world and a God then ?
That is what the atheist physicists believes?
Save me saying that is not what you said etc
You always try and explain the christian view on these threads and you do not agree with that view /interpretation

now I’m bloody well doing it. Argh!

I have faith in you 😉

Many a dying person asks for a scientist to comfort them in their final hours…

Many a dying person asks for the help of science to cure them.

We could keep this up all day.

chiefgrooveguru – Member
Many a dying person asks for a scientist to comfort them in their final hours…

Yeah for more drugs/a cure

One interesting thing for me is this. STW somewhat unsurprisingly is comprised of people from atheist and religious viewpoints. Regardless of their perspectives, most people here have so often come together to support, advise and just be there for others has regularly reinforced my faith in people*.

Science or religion, science and religion not sure I care really. Just be decent and humane and I am happy.

*Will not deny I’ve been disappointed in occasion too..,

so you believe their is a non physical world and a God then ?

No. I’ve never argued for that.

Listen up now I’m going to explain.

Some people like the idea that there is a benevolent all powerful being who loves them. So they believe it. It doesn’t really make a difference if they are right or not. And belief in said being does not necessarily mean that person believes in the creation story in the bible. It also does not mean that person is stupid.

Do you see what I mean?

Science clearly trumps religion as one is factual and one is not.

Facts are not necessarily important to everyone. This is what some of you are failing to understand.

So we should willingly decieve our children before they are intelligent enough to make their own choices? We should allow them to believe in stories which have no basis in evidence or rationality, yet are presented as facts?

After all, facts may not be important to them.

So we should willingly decieve our children before they are intelligent enough to make their own choices?

What? That doesn’t follow on from anything I’ve said!

Listen up now I’m going to explainI am going to express a view i dont personally agree with then deny doing do it to keep the argument going .

Yes i can see that wise and intelligent people can believe in things that are not real and have no evidence to support them…..well done you proved some people are religious and we are back to this but which never happens

Start a thread claiming something you cannot prove that has no evidence to support it

Facts are not necessarily important to everyone. This is what some of you are failing to understand

NO we ar enot we are pointing out this is a stupid stupid thing to say.
Hey I have this opinion, its not based on facts and they are not important BUT it tells you all about the life, the universe and all meaning if you just have faith
We know this is what they do and we point out this is a most unwise choice…in fact one so unwise they only do it for this one issue.

I will save Flashy the trouble

Religious people don’t start STW religion threads, do they?

No, they are not that daft 😉

If you’re wired up to believe in god then you do, I’m not wired up like that so I don’t. It’s virtually impossible to move from one camp to the other and completely pointless to try and convince either side the other is right.
I’m increasingly coming around to the idea that all that really matters is how people behave.

Science is about theory which are tested and agreed with until a better comes along.

I really want to be there with Dawkins when, for just 1 day, god appears in a way which is indisputable. That’ll test his claim to be a scientist.

Evening all

A quote by Felix Baumgartner… you know the fella with the massive balls… who has been held up a science’s poster boy our OP.

“I believe in God and I truly believe that there is a plan that he has for everybody. And I also believe that he has a plan for me. It looks like I am becoming an astronaut,”

You can find the quote here on this Science web site ….

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-austrian-space-diver-stranger-danger.html

But what I want to know is, why didn’t old Felix raise his arm and shout

” DROPPING “

As he stepped off

Peace

Out

Many a dying person asks for a scientist to comfort them in their final hours…

Working in an environment where I see many patients who have no further treatment options available to them prepare themselves for death, I can comfortably say that those who request spiritual comfort are very much in the minority.

[video]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5b1aIuoCq4w[/video]

/thread.

Do these threads ever get anywhere or are they just intended as an amusing diversion?

Joolsburger hits the nail on the head.

JCL –

/thread.
So is that “we must fight religion because religious people can’t wait to die”? Seriously? Wow.

I used to be anti-religion, used to go along with the whole “religion has been the cause of more deaths…” thing, but my point of view has changed. I’m still not religious, I still don’t believe in a god, but I’ve grown to have a kind of grudging admiration for people who DO believe – by and large, it seems that these are people who take all the sh!t that life throws at them and it seems that to them it’s just part of a larger plan they’re not privy to – the whole reason my thinking changed was that I got envious. Imagine having all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune thrown at you, and knowing that it’s part of god’s plan – man, in desperate times that must be a heck of a comfort, a feller could get envious.

So maybe that opened my mind a little. There’d still stuff about religion that makes me uncomfortable, the idea that a lack of belief will bar your entry to heaven no matter how otherwise godly you’ve lived your life, but if like me you don’t particularly have faith, what’s to fear from that? What I HAVE found is that, generally speaking, the devoutly religious people I’ve met have largely been more friendly, more giving, generally nicer people than the non-religious people I’ve met – it’s not exclusive, I have a “Christian” friend who’s all over the BNP and UKIP on Facebook, and how they reconcile their Christian beliefs with pseudo-political fringe groups who espouse exclusion and bigotry I have no idea, but broadly speaking, religious people in my experience are really nice people.

So Mrs Pondo and I go to church every now and then, even though we don’t believe, and it’s mostly a nice experience. We have a nice sing-song, the sermon is inevitably thought-provoking and well delivered (although I suspect we’re quite lucky in that respect with where we live), and the only thing that ever annoys about it are the thoughtless eedjits who let their kids run riot while they’re playing with their phones making facebook posts about how bored they are being forced to sit in church in order to be able to get married there. But the message is always positive – be nice to people, help those who need it, be selfless, be aware that you are luckier and more privileged than 99% of the entire human race. For me there’s a real disconnect with Prof Dawkin’s message of religious fear/hatred.

Couple of other points. Belief’s a funny thing – this post is particularly apt, focusing as it does on Religion Vs Science. I don’t think the two things are mutually exclusive, they’re both really taken as a matter of faith. I fully accept that science is more rigidly based on experimentation and proof, but even so some things that are “proven” become less proven as time goes by and scientific method changes and improves. But I think religion changes over time too – time was when to be jewish in England was a seriously dangerous thing to be, but hopefully that’s not so much the case now.

Following on from that, people cite religion as a dangerous thing because there are messages in the bible/koran/torah etc that can be interpreted as violent or discriminatory. For that I think you have to take a broader view – religious people are by and large not violent or discriminatory, which I think is a reflection of the broader message of religious text; do unto others, thou shalt not kill, all that good stuff. These people who do evil things in the name of religion, I don’t think it’s fair to blame religion, I honestly think they’ve interpreted it wrong.

I’ll leave you with better thoughts than mine – saw the excellent Mark Steel last week and he related the fact that Sikh temples will feed anyone who turns up for free, no matter what, no questions asked, and mused that the Dawkins view of religion, that it’s all negative, all borderline evil, might not necessarily reflect religious behaviour in all its forms.

The science only changes if it contradicts new evidence. Whereas religion(s) change scriptures to be less barbaric and exclusionary.

I haven’t got a lot of time for religion or people of “faith”. It’s a mental illness. A societal schizophrenia.

You know, I do so tire of Richard Dawkins being held up as a posterboy spokesman for everyone who isn’t religious, like we all replace ‘Jesus’ with ‘Dawkins’. You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone on STW who holds him up as the modern-day ‘leader’ of atheism (not least because it’s hard to form a club of people who are united by an absence of something, but also because he identifies himslef as agnostic). The only time his name crops up on these threads seems to be when the theists need a straw man to attack.

It might come as a shock to some, but we neither want nor require a figurehead. We’re doing ok as it is, thanks.

I haven’t got a lot of time for religion or people of “faith”. It’s a mental illness. A societal schizophrenia.

I think that’s fine, in my experience the religious will generally have time for you if you need them and not label you as mentally ill for having a different belief pattern to them.

Edit just to reiterate that I don’t simply believe that thinking yourself religious makes you a “good” person, as I’ve met just as many devout idiots as I have atheist idiots.

The only time his name crops up on these threads seems to be when the theists need a straw man to attack.

I mention him only because a) I watched JCL’s Hitchins vid above and stupidly assumed that was Dawkins and b) because Mark Steel referenced him when we saw him last week.

in my experience the religious will generally have time for you if you need them and not label you as mentally ill for having a different belief pattern to them.

Sure, because your experience is based in the relatively progressive West. Whilst I don’t think claiming that people are mentally ill is a particularly pleasant or respectful thing to do, on balance I’d take the UK’s ‘being offended’ any day over somewhere like Iran where Apostasy is a criminal act carrying the death penalty.

Will this thread still be going on the sabbath?

C’mon cougs, make the sticky. You know you all want it – Matthew 5:14-15, if you need any more encouragement, 😉

Sure, because your experience is based in the relatively progressive West. Whilst I don’t think claiming that people are mentally ill is a particularly pleasant or respectful thing to do, on balance I’d take the UK’s ‘being offended’ any day over somewhere like Iran where Apostasy is a criminal act carrying the death penalty.

I do only speak from from experience, for sure, but I would say there are other countries that are perfectly hapoy to apply the death penalty without labelling it with religious terminology.

I was an atheist before I saw this…

[video]http://youtu.be/JipYDDXo5C0[/video]

Wow…hair spray really does work. I kind of doubted how effective it is but I’m bald so never use the stuff. I’m just happy there is one product that really does work as advertised. Thanks science!

I don’t get the science “versus” religion. They are 2 different things, they aren’t fighting with each other, they’re not mutually exclusive. You might as well say tea versus cake.

Will this thread still be going on the sabbath?

Where have you been all day? It’s been going fine!

My attitude to religion is one of ambivalence, I consider myself a pantheistic humanist, various friends go to church and I’m perfectly fine with that. However it’s when you get the condescending attitude from some that I find my hackles rising.
I remember years ago my mum telling me about a conversation with a couple, distant relatives from the New Forest, who asked if my brother and I went to church, to which she replied no, it was up to us to decide for ourselves whether we wanted to or not, whereupon they sort of looked down their noses and said, “oh, we feel so sorry for you!”
Bloody sanctimonious bible-pushers!
‘Faith’ isn’t a commodity that you can peddle door-to-door, like encyclopaedia, no matter what some might believe; it’s something that some find inside themselves that gives them some sort of comfort, and I’m fine with that.
I don’t deride it, I just don’t need it myself, but I resent others telling me what I ‘need’ in order to live my life to its fullest.
What I need to live my life to the fullest is a lottery win so I can pay off my mortgage, all my other debts, retire and travel.
Currently praying I get a win next week… 😉