Split from Welcome FAQ thread - Is there a God? Discuss

[SupremeSpod]

Actually Spod, man is a very typical social animal. Being a social animal does not mean living in harmony, it means that conflicts with one's own kind are for a good reason, survival.

Watch Meercat Manor on TV and you see man. They fight for leadership over the tribe, they fight other tribes that threaten them, they cast out those who threaten the tribe's unity, they mate where they can. What they almost never do is attack each other for no good reason at all.

We have one thing social animals don't have, an intellect. We can therefore build on the sensible provisions of nature to improve our wellbeing, things like not eating our step children or killing the disabled.

Perhaps I'm just thinking about we Lancastrians...

[SupremeSpod]

Hey d000hg,
you previously stated that you never used to "believe", but that you now do. Care to share with the rest of us what caused this Epiphany of yours?

Probably a short spell at Her Majesty's Pleasure. That seems to do it for a lot of people.

[Gibbon]

Perhaps I'm just thionking about we Lancastrians...

Well can you hurry up and destroy each other then.

[SupremeSpod]

Oh, and in answer to the question raised initially in this thread. Of course there is a God.

YMMV.

YHWH - Shirley?

[xoggoth]

A lot of people derive a great sense of inner peace from their religion.

Don't disagree with that. If religious people would just get their own inner peace from it and stop trying to force it on the rest of us I would have no problem with it.

The reality from history and the present day is that most imposition is by the religious, there are/have been very few atheist states prohibiting religious practice unless contrary to normal laws. When you read of "assaults on christianity" etc today they are usually stories of people objecting to prayers at public meetings and the like, actually people objecting to having to participate in the faith of others. Huge signs outside churches saying "I am the light" etc are commonplace yet there was a huge fuss about an agnostic sign on a bus. Has anyone heard of atheists disrupting prayer meetings etc? I haven't. (yet)

As for this stuff "if a watch needs man to make it how can an entire universe make itself" is the stuff of the Cathlics Apologetics that I wasted months of my schooldays on. It is a mass of non sequiturs and false logic. It may be a unique feature of living things on Earth to make things, that does not prove everything in the universe had to be made.

The bigger problem with it is that it is making a comparison between things that have nothing in common whatever. Man only rearranges and reshapes existing objects, that has nothing to do with creating matter out of nothing. It is like comparing baking a cake to falling in love.

[Spacecadet]

Don't disagree with that. If religious people would just get their own inner peace from it and stop trying to force it on the rest of us I would have no problem with it.

I think the days of religion being forced upon you are gone. There are a few last bastions, like your example of the prayers before council meetings but these will die out.
As for a few signs and billboards. I don't see what the problem is in an age of free speech. I agree that the noise made against the atheist posters was hypocritical but why put those posters up in the first place if not to raise a response (which they did). To that end, they achieved their goal.

The reality from history and the present day is that most imposition is by the religious, there are/have been very few atheist states prohibiting religious practice unless contrary to normal laws.

This will sound pedantic but how many atheist states are there?
I know of a few secular states

So do you think we should change our national anthem to one that doesn't mention God?

[sasguru]

I think the days of religion being forced upon you are gone.

What an insular and ignorant statement.
Try having an alcoholic drink in public in Saudi Arabia.

[Spacecadet]

What an insular and ignorant statement.
Try having an alcoholic drink in public in Saudi Arabia.

I should have qualified the statement

I meant in western europe which is what xog's post was alluding to

[xoggoth]

Forced on you in many countries, not just Islamic ones either. Look at how Christian fundamentalism is on the rise in Africa. It has a huge influence on laws in the US.

Some communist states were avowedly secular like Russia under Stalin or Albania under Hoxha but off top of head, the only one I know of today is one of those central Asian ones, Azerbajan, or one of that lot, forget which. No comparison with the numerous states where people's freedoms, including their private lives, are subject to religious law.

[Spacecadet]

You seem determined to swing this topic onto a different subject in which I am not in opposition to you , so I'll let you have your discussion with someone else.