Are you a believer?

[Spacecadet]

How about just giving a big two fingers up to the whole thing.

The whole God VS No God debate is being dragged down to the level of:
Apple vs Microsoft
xbox vs PS3
Eastenders vs Corrie

[Zippy]

I'm afraid so. Your only hope for clemency would be to +ve rep me and I'll put in a good word for you.

HTH

I cannae do it Captain. The rep system just cannae take it.

The dilithium crystals should be recharged soon.

[meridian]

... Now if any God figure is that nasty then I really don't want to preach in his temple.

Try reading the Old Testament, it's full of nasty-God stuff. He's more than happy to ask Abraham to kill his own son, or to turn a woman to a pillar of salt for the heinous crime of turning around to have a look, or to flood the entire world because he'd had enough. And to condone the stoning of homosexuals.

Thou shalt not kill. Unless you're a god, apparently.

[xoggoth]

The whole God VS No God debate is being dragged down to the level of:
Apple vs Microsoft

I don't think it's quite that vicious yet.

[IR35 Avoider]

Isn't everybody with a functioning brain agnostic, but somewhere on a scale from 'almost certain there is God/Allah/Big cow/goblins' to 'almost certain there is no supernatural being'?

No. I am an atheist and would object strongly to be described as an agnostic of any flavour. An agnostic regards a supernatural being as a possibility, whereas for me it is not even a question of arguments/evidence for and against, the very concept does not fall into the domain of valid answers to big questions, in the same way that "blue" cannot possibly be the correct answer if the domain is arithmetic and the question was "what is one plus one?"

[Spacecadet]

So all good ? Unfortunately it also provides justification for prejudice, hatred and violence for those seeking it.
Each to their own and we all pick and choose stuff as a tradition for weddings, wintermas etc but when I see supposedly intelligent people declaring themselves believers, they go down in my estimation - e.g.Tony Blair (although it was hard to downgrade from existing low standing)

Pot, Kettle, Black?
So it's fine for you to immediately judge someone just because they happen to have mentioned that they hold a belief that you don't have.

given fewer than 10% of britons attend church on a regular basis, the 'believers' are vastly over-represented by the bbc etc

proper thinking doesn't get a lot of air-time anywhere, philosophy or truly unbiased political commentary

thought for the day should be renamed patronising finger wagging of the day, except when lionel blue is on

Thought for the day is on for 5-10 minutes inside a 3 hour (180 minute) programme. So compromises less than 10%... I'd say the 10% of church going britons are under represented.

Strange how no one mentions prayer for the day
Or for that matter the truly awfully patronising religious segment on radio 2

[xoggoth]

Justification for prejudice, hatred and violence?

Yes, but in the absence of religion it gets justified in some other way, like socialism, nationalism, racial supremacy etc. History's greatest butchers like Stalin and Mao weren't religious and none of the major wars of the last 200 years have been over religion. Even before that, it is true that religion often provided a justification for wars but the main cause was the struggle for power. Most of the serious incidents of terrorism in Europe today are down to separatists and left wing groups.

[Mich the Tester]

No. I am an atheist and would object strongly to be described as an agnostic of any flavour. An agnostic regards a supernatural being as a possibility, whereas for me it is not even a question of arguments/evidence for and against, the very concept does not fall into the domain of valid answers to big questions, in the same way that "blue" cannot possibly be the correct answer if the domain is arithmetic and the question was "what is one plus one?"

Do you believe in complete certainty?

[shaunbhoy]

Do you believe in complete certainty?

Not sure about that one............maybe..................well yes actually..........probably.

[Mich the Tester]

Not sure about that one............maybe..................well yes actually..........probably.

Well that´s actually quite a smart answer. You see it´s impossible to prove the non-existence of anything, so the furthest an atheist can go within the bounds of reason is to say that he considers the possibility of a god so remote that it's not worth considering. My position is exactly that. To claim with absolute certainty that there is no god or other supernatural being is untenable.