Catholic Church and other religions!

Which god? I see over 3000 to have a bash at

There’s an amusing cliché isn’t there, something like “the theist disbelieves a few thousand gods, I just disbelieve in one more.”

Whilst the same could be said to an extent about religion, the difference is that no-one seems to be able to agree (even within the same faith, let alone between different ones) and so the whole thing then becomes an exercise in who can make up the least implausible story.

In general, there is agreement within denominations and whilst there is still some diagreement it is probably in the order of that within the sciences especially if we include the social sciences. There a various competeing theories, even disagreements on what constitutes evidence. And if you want to take a scientific approach to religion or God, it would be reasonable to use a social science approach rather than a physical science approach

Have an open mind by all means, just back it up with a little scepticism and critical thinking.

Yes, that’s true. I suppose we all draw the line in different places.

I think most atheists aren’t bothered by any individuals spirituality, most have issues around the special status given in society to churches

Yes, and I suppose that is what this thread opened with – I suppose I was just trying to make the point that religion is about finding expression for spiritual tendencies, not forcing an idea down the throats of others.

Actually, I’d reject the assumption that “all” of a given demographic are anything, really

Yes, me too! Not sure if your comment was in response to mine, but I definitely wasn’t trying to say that all atheists have closed minds – just observing that, on this thread, it’s been the atheists who are coming across as most closed-minded and least-tolerant (‘you can believe what you want, just keep it to yourself’).

Calling aethists closed minded is hilarious. I dont have faith in an answer that has no evidence and adhere to it whatever the facts show. I am the opposite you can change my view with evidence and facts and yet some wish to suggest (blind)faith is somehow more open minded. Lol and incredulous smiley
As for rosey careful now you are in danger of mocking our views and apparently only we do that 🙄
Tbh when ever j hear an appeal to be open minded U jt is almost always by folk who have no rational argument to make. Conspiracists, crystal healing energies alternative medicine and other stuff that has no rational basis nor evidence. Ironically it us said by people who have no doubts on the truth of their own view which us counter to the actual evidence. Its a desperate cry.for help really

String theory JY?

You’ve probably been the most passive aggressive atheist on the thread JY.

Yes, and I suppose that is what this thread opened with – I suppose I was just trying to make the point that religion is about finding expression for spiritual tendencies, not forcing an idea down the throats of others.

Yes, the concept of evangelising is just a figment of the imaginations of closed minded atheists.

“And it’s the atheists who are sounding closed-minded.”
Surely not.
I thought they had all personnal tried finding God, rather than just dismissing faith without even giving it a good go themselves.

I have experience of being a Christian, being brought up as one. Have you tried being an atheist? I wouldn’t even necessarily describe myself as an atheist, despite being accused of ‘ranting militant atheism’.

No, i’m not sure who you think expects you to take it more seriously as a result.

Wrong seems a strange word to use in thsi context. It didn’t happen, it is allegorical. That doesn’t really make it wrong.
Unless you think Harry Potter is wrong, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea is wrong, Shakespeare is wrong. When Munch painted the Scream, that wasn’t a real person, so he was wrong. Picasso’s Guernica did not happen literally as depicted. So he too was wrong. However, wrong as they are,all these things help us to know more about ourselves and the human condition. Would you dismiss them?

Want to repond to these JY? In case someone decides you’re the one who says nothing.

Hmm. No answer. Better start at the (known-of) beginning then!

Time to worship Abassi: “Nigerian Creator God and Lord of the Sky” for a bit.

I’ll let you know how I get on. Next week: Achimi from Algeria!

I have experience of being a Christian, being brought up as one. Have you tried being an atheist? I wouldn’t even necessarily describe myself as an atheist, despite being accused of ‘ranting militant atheism’.

Did you evangalise, when you were Christian?
How would you describe yourself then? Christian? Muslim? Agnostic?

But lets see, how much evangalising have folks seen in the month of febraury? Obviosly i don’t mean if you walk into a church but just everyday on the street on your doorstep evangalising.

JY is there such a thing as love?

A little light-hearted tale, not directly pertinent to the debate, but I thought it might amuse a few. Apologies if this derails the serious discussion.

My daughter has expressed an interest in God for quite some time, I don’t really know where it comes from. Neither my wife nor I practice any religion but neither of us are anti-religion, except the fundamentalist nut job types, and the wife family being originally from the outer Hebrides has a deep mistrust of Presbyterians. The little one sometimes asks questions “what’s Heaven like” and similar, we tend to use the non-committal approach of answering with another question, “what do you think it’s like”, apparently it’s just like the pink palace at Eurodisney with unlimited pizza and cupcakes (chuck in Snow White and Cinderella and I quite fancy that myself).

We decided that it would be OK for her to go along to a Sunday school, so this Sunday we took her along to a local church for the first time. As it was a Sunday school, in a church I did expect a bit of preaching and maybe the odd bible/God reference but went along mainly to make sure there was no thrusting of anything down anyone throats going on.

We met the teacher, who was a lovely young lady. I suspect this is where things started to go wrong for me because there was a bit of coveting going on (Strike 1).

The room they were in was an annex of the church and it had an amazing carved oak table in the middle of it, the teacher overheard me ask the wife if she thought it would fit in our dining room, after all they didn’t seem to lock the door (I paced it out, it would). The teacher didn’t look amused (strike 2).

The kids all sat around and the teacher read a story about Moses, they had just passed the burning bush bit when I thought that I could actually smell burning, wow that’s pretty powerful stuff, maybe there is more to this after all I thought. It was then that another Dad tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to my coat, it was slung over the back of my chair and was pressed up against a radiator and was now smoking away. I jumped up, “’kin ‘ell my coats on fire” at a volume which was a bit above what I could have gotten away with, grabbed the coat and ran out of the building (strike 3 and I’m out).

In the car on the way home we were talking about what she had learned (except the fact that her Dad is an idiot who sets fire to his coat), and interestingly she has already decided that not every part of the religion is for her, she didn’t like the sound of “honor thy father and thy mother” because sometimes when we ask her to tidy her room she would rather play with her Barbies. She is also little bit concerned that God will “smite down” Aria and Damman, her friends who are Hindu because they don’t believe in “her God” (they have told her that before), although we have tried to persuade her not to try and convert them.

I’ve taken the whole episode as a sign that I’m not welcome, and more to the point that God considers The North Face the work of the devil, so next week the wife and daughter will go to Sunday school leaving me with all Sunday morning to go out on my bike and I get an excuse to buy a new (non-TNF) jacket. God certainly does move in mysterious ways.

I dunno, I suppose I still think of myself as Christian in some ways, having been baptised etc, but I’d probably say agnostic with strong leanings towards atheism.

And no I didn’t evangelise, but lots of Christians do.

Only passive DD I am improving then in my attitude then
CM see the bit you quote where he describes himself as achristian…..it might help you work out how he describes himself
Bth

Only passive DD I am improving then in my attitude then
CM see the bit you quote where he describes himself as achristian…..it might help you work out how he describes himself
Bth

Well there you go grum, you sounded less than sure, but JY seems pretty sure you described yourself as Christian. I mshould have known to ask him.

Incidentally JY, you’re starting to come across as a bit of a dick.

Oh, and no I didn’t. Do show me. It will be very useful.

And no I didn’t evangelise, but lots of Christians do.

This seems to be quite central to these debates, and i think only a small minority of Christians evangalise.

The 2011 census shows 33m christians in England and Wales in a population of 56m so even accepting that many pf those were kids might not have filled in the census form and that many of them called themselves christian but actually had never really thought anyhting of we could reasonably say that 1 in 5 people are Christian, and so if a majority of them started to evangalise, then we would see it everywhere. i can’t think of the last time i saw anyone evangalising. On the street or at my door. And when i think of the times i have seen it happen it was very easy to walk on and ignore.

……blimey a 655 post thread about religion with no one banned and its not been locked…… there must be a god after all!

Apparently it has to go to 666 before it gets locked

I guess the conclusion we can draw there is, it was a vocal minority causing all the problems for everyone else.

How very meta.

The problem there is, an open mind lets any old crap in if you let it.

Or put another way:
When you believe in nothing, you’ll fall for anything.

Incidentally JY, you’re starting to come across as a bit of a dick

I was not trying to be a “dick ” [ but I am as impressed by your contribution. Have I driven someone off the thread like you did with northwind?] i am not sure why you asked a question when your quote included the answer and so did your question – one Grum did indeed confirm 😕

Oh, and no I didn’t. Do show me. It will be very useful.

There you gop with added bold to help you spot it

GRUM: I have experience of being a Christian, being brought up as one. Have you tried being an atheist? I wouldn’t even necessarily describe myself as an atheist, despite being accused of ‘ranting militant atheism’.

CM Did you evangalise, when you were Christian?[you seem to understand here what religion he was]
How would you describe yourself then? Christian? Muslim? Agnostic?[/quote]

And yet i am being a “dick”
MMM are you trying for a thread lock? I shall happily ignore you CM to let the thread continue if you can reciprocate

I guess the conclusion we can draw there is, it was a vocal minority causing all the problems for everyone else.

How very meta.
😆

Well done!

CM Did you evangalise, when you were Christian?[you seem to understand here what religion he was]
How would you describe yourself then? Christian? Muslim? Agnostic?

Yes, i know what religion he was, i was asking how he described himself now, he got it. But thanks for your input

CharlieMungus – Member

Good, I am glad we agree that some unprovable idea – let’s call it God – has influenced a group of “people” to impose the threat of eternal damnation upon other people, unless they obey the rules set by the “people” in charge.

I preferred it the way you said it first time, lets leave it at that, unless you are actually looking to argue.

I am sure that you do.
No, let’s not leave it at that.
What you are suggesting is the playground equivalent of “my big friend has told me to tell you that if you don’t do as he has told me to tell you, then he has a horrible place waiting for you, for ever, and it will hurt a lot!”

You cannot equate religion and science.
The former seeks reasons and rationale to confirm the existence of something that cannot be proven.
The latter actively seeks to disprove the existence of anything presented as a truth and demands evidence a plenty to boot.

I thought they had all personnal tried finding God, rather than just dismissing faith without even giving it a good go themselves.

How do you give religion a good go?

Are non-believers supposed to attend church until they reach a specific time limit at which point the converted stay and the rest are allowed back to their daily business?

You either believe or you don’t.

I shall happily ignore you CM to let the thread continue if you can reciprocate

It appears you have been ignoring me already JY, i’ve asked you some direct questions which you have chosen not to answer. You seem to pop up to have a little go at me then disappear off again.

I am sure that you do.
No, let’s not leave it at that.

Ok, so I take it either you didn’t what you said the first time?

CM, if you were a good Catholic, you’d be evangelising too. 😉

http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=40083

What you are suggesting is the playground equivalent of “my big friend has told me to tell you that if you don’t do as he has told me to tell you, then he has a horrible place waiting for you, for ever, and it will hurt a lot!”

This is back to the long discussiowe had on the decription of consequences rather than the direct threat. Yes there is a threat of damnation, but no individual or mainstream church is threatening you. We have been over this a few pages back. And the bit you wrote seems to be the playground equivalent.

Good, I am glad we agree that some unprovable idea – let’s call it God – has influenced a group of “people” to impose the threat of eternal damnation upon other people, unless they obey the rules set by the “people” in charge.

What has been said the group of people are not imposing the threat of eternal damnation they are merely telling you that one exists. It is not there’s to decide who is damned and who is saved. Saxon Rider had it clear early on.

From grum’s link:

Let us here the call and respond.

*facepalm*

CM, if you were a good Catholic, you’d be evangelising too.

http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=40083

Even if I were, i might consider whether or not i do as the pope opines, it does not seem integral to catholicism

You cannot equate religion and science.

Yet there are plenty of religious scientists.

How would you describe yourself then? Christian? Muslim? Agnostic?

Yes, i know what religion he was, i was asking how he described himself now, he got it. But thanks for your input

ah right so when you said then you meant now and not actually then – i cannot think why that confused me 😕

How would you describe yourself then? Christian? Muslim? Agnostic?

Yes, i know what religion he was, i was asking how he described himself now, he got it. But thanks for your input

ah right so when you said then you meant now and not actually then – i cannot think why that confused me 😕

I’m a massivley lapsed catholic.

Just clicked on that. He kinda lost me at ‘spackeristic’. Cock.

JY is there such a thing as love?

Ooh Ooh can I play too?

Love is a social construct, just like good and evil it doesn’t exist in the real world in any physical sense.

Like religion in fact

Your arguments therefore are circular, self referential.

What are you on about?

Well – you are saying it’s all rubbish, cos there’s no proof, because only things that have proof are real, and you only care about stuff that is real.

That’s circular, because if you are only interested in real provable facts then you will only ever deal in those.

What I am saying (and many other religious people) is that religion isn’t necessarily about who or what created the world. It’s a different way of thinking about things. So it doesn’t matter that there’s no proof; in fact, that’s the whole point.

But you will reject that out of hand because you have already decided that only things with proof are worth anything.

Ad hom/insults again

It’s not meant to be an insult. I just don’t think it’s ever going to mean anything to you. I’m not asking you to believe, I’m just asking you to accept that it works FOR OTHER PEOPLE. If you’d been born blind, there’d be no point in me trying to describe red to you, would there?

i have suggested for all the reasona above that this is unwise

That’s going to be hard to prove. You can believe in God and it can have no impact on your outward daily life. So why the hell would it be unwise? You’ve taken it for granted that the only thing worth looking for in life is the ultimate truth about the origins of life.

As I said – there is no evidence of a god, so to attribute a measurement of probability that the universe was “triggered” by a god is, to put it mildly, risible.

Why is it risible?

If I show you a closed box and ask you what is inside it, what are you going to guess? You might say an apple, a toy car, a dead hamster, lots of possibilities. You won’t however say an ocean liner, a happy feeling, aliens – why? Because you know from previous experience that those things cannot be put in boxes, or are unlikely to exist. Because you know that in your experience so far you have never met an alien, and that big things or ephemeral things cannot be put in small boxes. You know what a box is like and you understand it, and you understand what an ocean liner or a warm feeling is, you know they are incompatible.

However, you have no concept of what God might be, and you’ve got similarly no concept of what was ‘before’ the big bang, so why the hell would you consider any ideas about those things risible? You’re totally in the dark as much as anyone else.

Let’s consider another analogy. Let’s say some big thing happened out in space, 5,000 years ago, but it happened 10,000 light years away. How do we know what happened? We don’t. We can’t ever know, it’s physically impossible for us to know anything at all about it for another 5,000 years. Whatever that event is, it is a physical cast iron truth, but it is impossible for us to know about it. There’s no point in arguing about it, or saying nothing happened just because nothing happened there 10,000 years ago.

Retro-fitting “god did it” as a convenient explanation for anything we don’t understand is a cop-out

Sure, but once again you’re getting mired in the question of ‘who created the universe’. That’s not necessarily that big of a point – and it’s also unproveable either way, as above.

The problem there is, an open mind lets any old crap in if you let it.

Yeah. I have an old piece of canvas in my living room covered in weird oily splodges. Any old crap. But I love it.

What has been said the group of people are not imposing the threat of eternal damnation they are merely telling you that one exists. It is not there’s to decide who is damned and who is saved.

It is implied.
These are the rules that we choose to impose.
A third party may damn you for all eternity if you don’t follow them.
As the third party has not engaged in any of this dialogue, then it is clearly the people who are imposing the threat vicariously.

Roger – as I have said before, it would be really a good idea to familiarise yourself with what religions actually say. So with the Christian’s there is no concept that failure to follow the rules (I assume you mean the 10C) will lead to damnation. The RCs in particular, are quite precise in explaining this in their user manual (The Catechisms) so perhaps it is time to drop the ‘threat of damnation’ accusations? There are far better and more accurate things you could focus on.

Plus, to repeat myself…so what? If hell is defined simply as seperation from Almighty God ie, something that you are sure doesn’t exist, then the perceived “threat” is meaningless anyway. It is very odd to be concerned about the perceived threat of something that you know cannot happen. Its about as sensible as Vitalstatistix and the rest of Asterix the Gaul’s friends worrying about the sky falling on their head!

but the fact that a set of rules, defined by the church, that state clearly that some deity, the existence of whom cannot be proven, may condemn you to purgatory ad infinitum implies the fact that you will be damned if not explicitly stated.

You seem confused ?

A perfect example of quoting what the Church apparently “clearly state” and then getting it completely wrong (while using some semi-fancy words)

Surely it would be better to try and learn a bit about a subject before trying to debate it ?