Believing in God

Badly I guess, in the 60s it was not isolated it was an every day occurrence if you had any sort of spirit, and my parents always told me to open my mouth and be heard, so that's what I did

So.. what do you make of the implication then that the Pope, Arch-Bishop, Bishops and all the other heirarchy of church officials, and indeed whatever the leaders are of other religions are called, are all fraudsters and fakes and should be locked up in jail for fraud, misreputation and deception..?

I don't know about being locked up. The religions of the world could be sued for fraud and it's surprising they haven't, yet.

I'll go with it, the Pope and bishops etc have presided over, and protected all manner of systematic abuse and paedophiles over the last few years,  can anyone defend this?

Good point ekgo

Religion has played it's part in controlling people and fear of a bad after-life has worked for centuries, probably more so than I'd like to acknowledge, but it needs to be shattered now.

We are the first true generation free of War and religion, as we have now educated ourselves away from the influence of religion, and therefore justification of War (in the name of .....) has become difficult, slowly this will happen world wide, it's what form of behaviour that takes over that we need to be concerned with.

EKGO wrote (see)

 

We are the first true generation free of War and religion,

Come again??

PhilPub wrote (see)

 

EKGO wrote (see)

 

We are the first true generation free of War and religion,

Come again??

What, you made him come the first time? You are sick.

In answer to that though, we will never be free of war or religion, at least not in my lifetime. That's a really naive or stupid view.

We will be free of war. I doubt if humanity will ever be free of religion though. There will always be little cliques who want to carry on with it, however enlightened and rational the rest of the human race becomes.

Colin McLaughlin wrote (see)

We will be free of war.

I doub that very much.  In world of growing population and limited resources, there will always be groups of people with conflicting interests who will end up killing each other.

Unless you've discovered some amazing new drug? 

ha ha yes I see what you mean, to qualify the statement, we are the first generation that have never been called to war, I can see it's a totally different statement the way I put it, and that was not the intention

The amazing new drug - Education, how many educated people in the UK right now would follow a call to arms, drop their jobs and volunteer to attack a foreign country?

How many apparently Educated people still believe God exists? 

Before I go off to the heathen masses

Well in my Church thismorning there will be 80 -90 people in a town of about 6000 people. Every one of them is very well educated. We have Doctor's, pilots, company owners etc So this is a microcosm, so a lot of well educated people believe in God. The excuse these people are un-educated, deluded etc just does not stand I am afraid.

The fact that some nuns used to cane people hasn't really got much to do with God as in secular schools this used to happen all the time too. My mum was beatn with a slipper on a regular basis in a secular school, my dad the same etc Just part and parcel of going to school a few years ago.

As for the Gay debate. When somebody says to me being Gay aint right I say point out in the Bible where it states this. They will say leviticus says a man should not lay with a man. Then I say if you read the next few verses it also says man should not wear 2 kinds of thread. So I ask them what their clothes are made out of. After a few seconds they look at me funny and I say why is that rule ignored but the other is not? I then usually win that argument

We are not all the same. What people may think of religion is not usually what really happens. As I said before its pretty boring. Today I am taking a service in front of a few people and i am doing it from the BCP to celebrate the anniversary of it. We may get a few more people for this. They will then have a cup of tea and a chat. Go home. Possibly say their prayers each night and read the daily office. Thats about all the negative effect these people will have on the world. That's it they will not be standing in a picket line with plaques saying fags go to hell. They will not going around murdering people in the name of the lord. They will not go around sexually abusing people. Sorry guys were all pretty boring really

Vicar of course people will still believe it's a choice, people for years have been led by religious notions that you must behave to reserve a place in the after life or face a hell of some description, so of course there will be ongoing reverberations.

That notion (with education) is dwindling and although nothing turns off like a tap it will eventually mean very few people will follow religion and there will probably be a new cult-type following.

You mention the Gay debate, I have to ask why raise it, it's not really relevant.

Also regarding abuse (Physical and Sexual) I know organised religion over the years has accepted it, and protected those responsible, but I'm not aware of it being made compulsory so I would not expect your congregation to go out doing this.

Science is fact...   peer reviewed...  repeatable...  its not a case of belief, its just what happens...  

Religion is a lifestyle choice...  there's nothing to it...   an analogy could be music..  some people like heavy metal and dress in black and leather..  some like jazz and wear cords and polar necks, some like dance etc...   its all just music and personal taste but it doesn't mean anything in the context of the world around us.  Religion, of whatever choice, is the same.  It means nothing.

Science has gradually explained all of those fascinating and remarkable questions that we wanted to know.  Perhaps in future years scientists will discover the answers to those questions that still remain unanswered.   

My worry though is that religion relies not on freedom of choice, but on an almost brainwashing mentality.   In some socities around the world it has gone beyond a lifestyle choice to a demand and expectation...  this is where the extremists become dangerous...  they don't have the intellectual independance to question what they are told..  they just follow the leader...    that is the danger to society...

A frustration for me is that the best human minds that have ever lived (Einstein and Newton to name just two) have devoted their lives and intellect to solving complex questions and yet religious beliefs just disregard this.  We now know so much about the world we live in and this knowledge can be tested and repeated over and over and over.  We know to an fair degree of accuracy about how old the earth is, about geological events that have moved the land masses around (and indeed still do), we know about gravity, how and why plants and animals can survive, we are constantly discovering new plant and animal species.   The list goes on and on...

Our knowledge for what happens outside our little world is alos increasing and astronomers are discovering new facts about the distance space.

It doesn't matter who you, where you live or what you believe.  This is all FACT and is just what happens.

No amount of praying at someone's death bed is going to stop them dying...   there is no heaven or hell or any god at all...   we know how life is created and how it ends.  There doesn't need to be any magical story.

It is frustrating that despite all of this knowledge and advancing science by these amazing people that some people still choose to disregard the facts.  More fool you.  You are wasting your time and your life.

TheVicar wrote (see)

As for the Gay debate. When somebody says to me being Gay aint right I say point out in the Bible where it states this. They will say leviticus says a man should not lay with a man. Then I say if you read the next few verses it also says man should not wear 2 kinds of thread. So I ask them what their clothes are made out of. After a few seconds they look at me funny and I say why is that rule ignored but the other is not? I then usually win that argument

 

The only argument here seems to be that we shouln't be using the Bible to tell us how to live.  This Leviticus passage is always used to show how certain instructions are just a bit weird, completely outdated or downright absurd.  How does that help the case for being religious?

The reason people cherry-pick from the Bible is because, deep down, their morality is informed by their humanity, their empathy, and, actually, they are good despite their religion, not because of it.  Hence the exodus of numbers from the Catholic church since the true horrors of the child sex abuse cases came to light.  People's deep-rooted belief systems weren't fundamentally challenged; they were merely disgusted by the acts of the church that was supposed to represent them, and decided they want nothing more to do with it. 

That's a very good point philpib..   

One more point to add, is that beliefs are rather dictated by the upbringing...  so.. being born into a catholic, protestant, islamic, sikh, hindu or whatever other religious bias society will likely have an influence on those people....   and yet, they ignore this simple fact and argue against science and indeed other religions...

I always invite Jehova Witnesses into my house when they're doing their field work.(I kid you not, I fill em up with tea and keep them away from my neighbours, bladders at bursting point out they go, home) On one occasion we didn't even get around to religion. I'm aware they detest Catholics. I do point out that they are simply teaching other people how to live in a more civilised manner. Even they don't have an answer when I mention that they could do all of these things without a God being anywhere around. Whenever I mention science to these people they always insist that the scientists don't know everything. I assume that waving their book of stories around means that they (the J'W's)do. At the very least, they're of the opinion that, 'We know something, you don't'. Haven't seen them for ages.