Paris Terrorist Attack

It doesn't get the washing up done.

 

I entirely get that. All the physicists would probably have the same problem too. So probably not best to think about it all too much then. Just stick with an expanding universe which indicates a single point of origin, do the maths and see where that leads us ...

 

Not that. A zealot as in "if you don't believe in God then your are a bad person".

I think they are the equivilant of someone who says "if you believe in god then you're a moron".

Each to their own I say unless it impacts others.

 

Which it only does when society is organised either to the orders of, or making allowance for the whims of, religion.
Small example - all of my children's school meals are halal. Not the end of the world as I'm all for animal cruelty, but many are not.

 

I agree. But if I pray privately and people call me a moron for doing so, I don't think that's on.

I don't even go to church. How does that impact anyone else? I guess maybe there is a difference between faith and organised religion.

 

I agree entirely. But that's a very different thing from objective science v the bits religion disagrees with because it can't admit that their books might be wrong yet.

 

That sort of stuff annoys me too. Same on aeroplanes I'm led to believe. It's a pain to offer another menu option so let's go with the line of least resistance and the one where the diners are less likely to kick up a fuss if their meat's been killed the wrong way. If I go to an Asian restaurant I know what I'm getting. I've signed up for that. Otherwise I like a choice, particularly one that caters for the majority.

The cruelty angle could be argued either way though.

 

The Big Bang inevitably happened, and the universe has probably been alive for over 10 billion years. Lots of different pieces of evidence currently support this. But what started it all? Was there a beginning? If there was a beginning, then is this all random? It was a spark which created life and is still expanding 13 billion years later. In my eyes, it was most probably supreme intelligence, not a man saying' let there be', but a creative force which we could not begin to understand, other than pure randomness or unlimited time with no beginning.

Over the last seven or so years I've been fascinated by religious and philosophical thoughts that I had not previously heard of (because the abstract thinkers were often branded as heretics (including some religious thinkers which postulated evolution far before Darwin)). I am really interested in thoughts such as Panentheism. And how unconnected tribes used to note how they could feel the power of connectedness with the earth and with the energy running in nature around them. How eastern religions often talk about actions and equal reactions. How all religions are linked in very similar spiritual ways if you take the meanings and not the literal words. How even something as basic as the dirt beneath our feet seems to be perfectly designed to take in our bodies and everything else that dies on it that existed, and recycle it all for further life.

Everything is so balanced, and the world and nature exist in cycles; every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Energy is never created nor destroyed.

Of course this could be a cosmic coincidence. But I'd hate for people to simply think so because of the concreteness of current popular religious thought.

Just because Science is right, it does not mean that God(s) do not exist. Newton, Pasteur and Einstein agreed that much.


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I hate the supposed cruelty of Halal killings, but think that we can't be too critical due to how cruel the farmers have probably been to the livestock we consume on a daily basis.

Hopefully science will allow us to grow our own meat in huge factories, rather than what seems barbaric right now.

Not that I thought twice about the beautiful steak I had tonight, mind.


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Well I was thinking more about what goes on in a regular abbatoir when I was talking about cruelty. Surely if halal slaughter was more cruel then it would be banned under the laws of the land anyway.

Most of us eat far too much meat. It's not good for our diet, it's not good for food production (cereal production is far more efficient if their isn't a requirement to convert it into meat protein) and if we concentrated more on producing cereals for direct consumption we could more easily feed the world. The cruelty of poultry, pigs and cattle being farmed in intensive battery conditions is driven by our insatiable demand for vast, cheap quantities of the stuff. It would be better if we all looked on it more as a now and again luxury and our livestock could all go back to living a carefree life on traditional, extensive farms.

 

Complete and total aside, I and an ex thought we'd take up the PETA challenge of going 'veggie' for a month. Even though I did eat fish during that period it was so much easier than I would have imagined.

 

You and I don't seem to disagree at all on the major discoveries of natural science. But I just don't feel the need to delve into all the other imponderable questions as well as indicated by you in your first para. and diamond @#664. I feel privileged to live in an age where a heliocentric solar system, Newtonian physics, Mendelian genetics, the work of Darwin and Wallace, plate tectonics, the dna double-helix, the expanding universe and a big bang, the earth/solar system and universe being 13.8 and 4.6 billion years old respectively (rather than a few thousand years) and quantum mechanics have all led or are continuing to lead us to a greater understanding of the universe we live in. And the work is ongoing, there's more to come and the scientific method is here to stay.

I agree with you that to conclude that a belief in Darwinian evolution is at odds with believing in the possibility of 'God', or some higher plane of consciousness, is false and unhelpful and an unnecessarily reductionist insistence on a bland, grey and austere truth. This is where I am fundamentally at odds with Dawkins' view that this must be the case. People, understandably and justifiably, want to hold out for at least the possibility of something more and Dawkins is now doing his justifiable anti-creationist quest a disservice. He seems to have lost the plot and hi-jacked Darwinism (which has nothing to say about God one way or the other) for his own atheistic ends after banging his head against a wall in Louisiana for so long.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the traditional major religions and more esoteric ones too often come to broadly similar conclusions on many things. Humans have asked the same questions across millennia and as yet there are no answers to many of them. But it's hardly surprising that the stories that purport to be answers are broadly similar too. That doesn't mean they're right and it doesn't mean they're wrong. Who's to say? But much of this quest for enlightenment is driven by a need for a comfort blanket rather than searching for something for which there might actually be any evidence.

As for your examples of scientists who believed in the possibility of God. Well I'd add Darwin too. He was a very God-fearing man and struggled greatly when he contemplated the inevitable 'heretical' conclusion to which his work was leading. He got a lot of grief from his wife about it too. He held off publishing for a long time to the extent that his thunder was almost stolen by Wallace until they came to a gentleman's agreement that Darwin would publish first. He anticipated the ridicule he would receive in challenging the established order of things and was duly rewarded. But he went ahead and published anyway because he believed in the evidence he had accumulated and the scientific method he had employed to derive his conclusions.

If we stick with that method as being superior to spiritual meanderings we'll discover lots of other real truths too in the fullness if time.

 

How is that an aside? Seems right on the money to me!

I've never taken a specific decision like that but rather a more general and vaguer one to eat less meat, especially red meat. So I now eat less meat (except free-range chicken) and more fish (especially oily fish - love mackerel). I'm quite happy with the odd veggie meal either at home or in a restaurant too. My sister and her family are all strict veggie and I'm happy to eat what they eat when I'm with them. I'd say I'm healthier for the change but the change in diet has been accompanied by an increased exercise regime too (slightly compromised by slumming around on here too much recently!) which is also important in that.

The thing I'd miss most in being a veggie is the long-term variety I think. I do like a big juicy steak now and again. You say you gave up meat for a month (and even then ate fish). How about trying it for a year?

 

I once went pescatarian for a month. ****ing bored me to tears. I don't eat much red meat, because it's not good for you, but I eat about a chicken a day.

 

If Darwin hadn't meant us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them full of meat.

 

If Darwin is right we are cannibals.

 

Just because we don't and cannot know doesn't mean that all explanations have the same validity. Faith is just that. It's not knowledge it's belief and therefore not opening the batting for reason.

 

Darwin's genius was to express an incontrovertible truth. The survivors survived. Evolution is therefore self evident. New forms appear and not even creationists claim that God is still at it. Therefore the descendants must have changed. There is no other possibility.

 

Finally getting around to answering this. There are only so many hours in the day/night!

Why was my post 'nonsense'? I didn't say that ALL conflict would cease in the absence of religion. Of course humans like to feel part of a group and then fight about other stuff too (WFC v Lut.n?). But in the absence of religion there'd be one less thing to fight about. Would you deny that the current problems and Israel v the rest in the middle-east aren't principally about religion and have been going on for 3500 years since the Exodus via the Crusades until now? This is a three and a half millenia scrap between the three principal monotheistic religions, all derived from the Abrahamic religions as set out very clearly in cybainternetdog's diagram @#632. Hindus and Buddhists et al seem more able to stay out of this stuff although there is of course a major Hindu v Muslim problem in India and a Buddhist v Muslim one in Myanmar although that may have more to do with communism.

Northern Ireland is an interesting case. Ostensibly Catholic v Protestant so more tightly drawn than even Christian v Muslim v Jew then. I have up until recently been a supporter of a united Ireland on three grounds:

1. A bit simplistic. The pink bit up in the top right corner on a map just looks silly. Surely both islands should be either all the same colour or each island should be an entirely different colour.

2. Ireland should never have been split when the majority of it became independent in the 1920s. That was done to avoid a bit of potential difficulty in Ulster which would probably have been short-lived and we've been suffering as a result of that decision ever since.

3. Catholics were second class citizens in N.I. as regards the job market etc. The way to overcome that was to unite Ireland.

Developments since the Good Friday agreement are particularly interesting. I made a simplistic assumption that the Catholics would simply breed their way to victory. Certainly they do breed faster than Protestants and the percentage of Catholics in N.I. moves inexorably through the 40%s towards 50%. At that point I assumed there'd be a referendum and the Catholics would secure a victory and unite Ireland.

However, not all Catholics are Republicans. And it would seem, since Good Friday less and less of them are. So the trend is away from a demand for a Republic.

I can only put that down to them being happier now that there's more of a level playing field in N.I. and that their views and wishes are driven by pragmatism rather more than ideology. I find that reassuring and it has led me to question my own view.

On Harry Potter/J.K.Rowling. I'd blame the perpetrator. I'd say he/she was irrationally driven by a slavish devotion to the cult of HP/JKR which drove him/her to murder. There are lots of other devotees of HP/JKR who are similarly devoted but not to the extent of committing murder. It would be helpful if they all left the silly bits of their religion behind, or simply regarded them as a quaint tradition rather than being absolute, as the rest of us do, especially where they conflict with accepted science.

We both understand the scientific method and evolution. We both understand how Darwinism can be hijacked for evil ends. I have given my views on spiritualism and mysticism @ #677 above. I trust that I have convinced you elsewhere that I am not 'reductionist' with regard to Darwinism and religion.

 

If the church is right, how come snakes have forgotten how to talk over 6000 years?

 

Or given us dirty great carnassials to carve them up with ...

 

You know I've always wondered why so many claim Islam as a religion of peace when their prophet Mohammed (or however you spell it) was a child raping, philandering genocidal maniac. Not exactly the prime candidate for a peaceful religion when you marry a 6 year old.

Although I'm an atheist I've got a little more tolerance for the teachings of Christ as he is in effect a 'hippie'.

 

Nice, subtle.

 

I take it that you read the Koran in it's entirety in order to produce that summary?

As for Jesus, just a shame that during the next 2000 years his followers commited so many acts of genocide and torture.

And that's the thing. You can make this stuff anything you want it to be, anything that suits your purpose. We have to put aside the notion that any of it is true or divine, that any of it offers more than a personal guide and resist all fundamentalist interpretations.

Good night and may your God be with you.

 

Not entirely. hornetgags has a reasonable point. I wouldn't describe Jesus as a 'hippy'. More like the first socialist to me. And relatively benign. Muhammad however has a far more warlike history and his appaling attitude to women has carried through into a significant proportion of his followers carrying on that tradition to this day including in our own liberal, secular country. So it's not all equal.

Can we please call it like it is without p.ssyfooting about? There's far more wrong with the attitude of the Muslim minority in our midst beyond the worst of their 'nutters' murdering the infidel. They live in a tolerant, inclusive society that goes out of its way to accommodate them. So when it comes to accepting that that licence carries with it a responsibility to step up to the plate and accept the primacy of tolerance, liberalism and democracy it's make their mind up time. Time to admit that much of their medieval belief system is complete b.llocks and leave absolutism behind.

 

Interesting article discussing secular family values and their moral impact on various societies.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0115-zuckerman-secular-parenting-20150115-story.html

 

A great opportunity for all the Parties and moderate Muslim groups to show a united front against the extremists has been missed.

The letter from Pickles and Lord Ahmed was a carefully written and moderate plea for help from the Muslim community. Sadly, indignation, pettiness and party politics got in the way as it was not readily endorsed by the opposition parties nor by some of Muslim groups who pertain to be moderate.

Pathetic!

 

As I said .... threaten to treat Moslem worship as they treat that of other religions in Islamic countries. They will soon change their tune.

 

The problem with this bellicose attitude is that most Muslims are secular and accept the attitudes that you describe. They will be uneasy about then being lectured because it creates a false difference.

I.e - 'we' say to them 'Stop living in a segregated religious ghetto' and then we address them as if they are in fact part of an imaginary whole. Worse we use religious and community leaders as the pathway cementing their place as de facto representatives.

If I was a secular Muslim words written to a nearby Mosque wouldn't have a great deal of meaning for me any more than i feel connected as a (Christian raised) atheist to what the Synod is discussing.

 

Explain please.

 

Well I'd love to see some data around 'most Muslims are secular'. Just listening to the Beeb news and there is data that 'Muslims have the least doubts about their faith'. Seems at odds to me.

If you were to ask the question 'which is more important to you, your religious beliefs or the laws of the land you live in?', are you seriously suggesting you'd get a similar answer from the Muslim minority and the wider community? Sure, some Christians would put their religion first too. Thing is, the law of the land was derived from the Christian tradition anyway so there's not really much conflict between the two. Much the same can be said for Jews, Hindus and Buddhists too (as regards conflict). So again, it's only one religion that has a particular conflict between it's religious views and the secular ways of the land it exists in (particularly in its attitude to women which may not even be a minority view). And it's only one that is presenting a terrorist threat in our midst because a minority are up their arses with the importance of their medieval beliefs.

Other crimes - thieving, fraud, drug trafficking etc don't have a religious component. Those criminals know they're breaking the law. They don't try and justify their actions by claiming higher authority. If Liberals like GF (who is threatening to close the mosques!) and me are taking this view then I'd suggest the Muslim community need to wake up and smell the coffee. Whether they do that through their religious leaders or via some other route doesn't particularly bother me. Just get on with it.

 

I would guess at around a third of Muslims being 'observant'. That's what it is in France and Holland. I would also guess that attendance at Mosques is declining. In an American poll very slightly more Muslims than Christians in the US considered they were their religion before their nationality, but both were under 50%.

I would agree that Muslims appear more observant in the UK than Christians, but non-observance is more common and observance is declining.

In whose interest is it to present Muslims as all about their religion? Apart from racists I'd say it was Muslim religious leaders. They want to keep their power which is declining and without this crisis would be further marginalised.

 

Which could be a good thing too, it's not easy to radicalise if you don't have a soapbox to stand on. However just the threat of large scale Mosque closures will be enough for them to preach moderation amongst their minions. Sure they do now but without conviction and much of the message just goes unheeded.