I am an atheist.

[IR35FanClub]

A cursory survey of the literature shows most studies show an inverse correlation between religion and inteliigence.
Perhaps you're not very bright?
And if that's the case, like most people on thsi forum, you wouldn't know it.

I remember a study a few years back that also showed thicker people were likely to overstate their intelligence, whilst clever people would understate it. Something to do with trying to normalise yourself against others and not stand out too much. It was based on exam grades and people expectation of themself IIRC.

[sasguru]

So if I was a Christian and my daughter was not then I would be at paradise in heaven, knowing she was being tortured for eternity for her lack of belief - something which by definition is not her choice (you cannot chose whether you deep down believe things) and I would not care?

I would need some pretty powerful brain altering mojo for that, caring for my children is an intrinsic part of me and if you take that away I will no longer be 'me'. Hence I will not be in heaven, a distored version of me will be.

The more I hear about the Christian God the more I think he is horrific.

Quite. The way some believers tie themselves in knots trying to make sense of obviously simplistic man-made concepts like heaven/hell is truly mindboggling.
I'm reading John Gribbin's book about multiverses at the moment and am looking forward to the end where apparently he makes an argument for a creator. I'm not averse to entertaining the posssibility that we may be the creations of say, a superior intelligence, soimewhere else in this universe, or another universe.
But the self-centredness, and obvious cultural "artefaction" (to coin a phrase) of any of the major religions alive today is obviously a very old, very childish, very simplistic way of making sense of this world.
I'm amazed educated people today still believe in this infantile nonsense.

[Gibbon]

Heritage

What people should realise is Christianity’s heritage. In 312CE when Constantine declared toleration for all religions and began to promote Christianity only approximately 15% of people were Christian and these were spread around in many varieties depending on geographic location within the Roman Empire. Constantine is strongly suggested by modern scholars to have chosen Christianity because of the obedience of its followers to their bishops. The corruption and abuse started at the first council of Nicaea when Constantine sought to unify the variant cults and have himself recognised as Gods leader on earth, One God, One Faith, One Emperor was the intention and so began the conspiracy of state and church to control peoples actions and beliefs and which is why kings and queens are anointed. Interestingly, and as SAS alluded to earlier, despite Constantine’s policy of persuasion of conversion to the new faith the educated elite were fairly impervious to it; but the lower classes who had much to gain by there being a better life after this one were converted with less effort. Constantine, frustrated by this as it kept Christian building to the periphery of Rome amongst other things went off to found Constantinople as a Christian capital.

By the end of the 4th century paganism was still alive and kicking much to the chagrin of the Christian community and so Theodosius effectively forced Christianity on everyone and took part in the destruction of Pagan sites. Therefore Christianity was an imposed religion forced upon people by the state much like the Islamists today imposing Sharia law where they can. This forced imposition lasted for the next 1.5 millennia until the aptly named enlightenment. Only recently has it changed and become ‘tolerant’ and only because events have forced it to back off from literal interpretations. Another thing worth noting is that Mohammed noted the control aspects of Christianity and extrapolated it out to found Islam to unify the Arab peoples. A sobering thought given the state of the world at present.

It is a defunct and shallow philosophy that requires fear to persuade people to behave well rather than the reasoned arguments of the ancients. The morality issue of the Christian religion is a last feeble attempt to find a reason for existence in the modern world. People certainly had moral frame works before it and most have now without having to believe.

[d000hg]

I'm reading John Gribbin's book about multiverses at the moment.

I hope you got the large-type version with lots of pictures.

</SB>

[d000hg]

The faith schools are heavily subsidised in order to attract people to them and indoctrinate the next generation into their beliefs.

I went to 'faith schools' and my wife has taught at them. This is nothing like the truth from either of our personal experiences... my schools were normal schools except you had to sing hymns in assembly and go to the cathedral once a term. Typical CofE "sing the words while thinking about the girl in the row in front" experiences like when all schools did this stuff. You were taught the normal RE syllabus covering the major world religions pretty equally. None of them tried to indoctrinate anyone... we were typical "default atheists" as most teenagers are.

Where the wife worked, it was by no means the case that all teachers were believers... they are supposed to retain certain %... and most of them were nominal only - they were catholic because they had been baptised catholic. As an active believer, she found being surrounded by the frappery of religion without any actual belief to be worse than being in a regular school.

So unless you are focusing on schools very specifically set up to preach to children, or not limiting yourself to the UK, I think this is BS generally.

[sasguru]

What people should realise is Christianity’s heritage. In 312CE when Constantine declared toleration for all religions and began to promote Christianity only approximately 15% of people were Christian and these were spread around in many varieties depending on geographic location within the Roman Empire. Constantine is strongly suggested by modern scholars to have chosen Christianity because of the obedience of its followers to their bishops. The corruption and abuse started at the first council of Nicaea when Constantine sought to unify the variant cults and have himself recognised as Gods leader on earth, One God, One Faith, One Emperor was the intention and so began the conspiracy of state and church to control peoples actions and beliefs and which is why kings and queens are anointed. Interestingly, and as SAS alluded to earlier, despite Constantine’s policy of persuasion of conversion to the new faith the educated elite were fairly impervious to it; but the lower classes who had much to gain by there being a better life after this one were converted with less effort. Constantine, frustrated by this as it kept Christian building to the periphery of Rome amongst other things went off to found Constantinople as a Christian capital.

By the end of the 4th century paganism was still alive and kicking much to the chagrin of the Christian community and so Theodosius effectively forced Christianity on everyone and took part in the destruction of Pagan sites. Therefore Christianity was an imposed religion forced upon people by the state much like the Islamists today imposing Sharia law where they can. This forced imposition lasted for the next 1.5 millennia until the aptly named enlightenment. Only recently has it changed and become ‘tolerant’ and only because events have forced it to back off from literal interpretations. Another thing worth noting is that Mohammed noted the control aspects of Christianity and extrapolated it out to found Islam to unify the Arab peoples. A sobering thought given the state of the world at present.

It is a defunct and shallow philosophy that requires fear to persuade people to behave well rather than the reasoned arguments of the ancients. The morality issue of the Christian religion is a last feeble attempt to find a reason for existence in the modern world. People certainly had moral frame works before it and most have now without having to believe.

That's why CUK is still worth it sometimes. In amongst the dross, you get true quality stuff like this.

[sasguru]

I remember a study a few years back that also showed thicker people were likely to overstate their intelligence, whilst clever people would understate it. Something to do with trying to normalise yourself against others and not stand out too much. It was based on exam grades and people expectation of themself IIRC.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

[MyUserName]

Does God need a God?

[d000hg]

So if I was a Christian and my daughter was not then I would be at paradise in heaven, knowing she was being tortured for eternity for her lack of belief - something which by definition is not her choice (you cannot chose whether you deep down believe things) and I would not care?

I would need some pretty powerful brain altering mojo for that, caring for my children is an intrinsic part of me and if you take that away I will no longer be 'me'. Hence I will not be in heaven, a distored version of me will be.

It's pretty clear that things are different in Heaven; a new body and the fact that marriage relationships are no longer meaningful are just two others.

The bible is very clear that when you will die you will realise that God's logic is perfect and only true justice is possible. So the fact you'd realise your daughter deserves her lot is answered - in the same way that if your daughter killed someone you might agree with the judge's sentence as being appropriate.

However the part about not being sad about it even if you realise it is totally justified, that is the one good question I've seen you ask on the subject. You might agree your daughter should go to prison in the above example, but that wouldn't mean you weren't upset by it. Your emotional response to things is not tethered to what you logically know to be right.

I shall think about that further.

[northernladuk]

That's why CUK is still worth it sometimes. In amongst the dross, you get true quality stuff like this.

Hmm, maybe I ought to go back and read it on that recommendation. It was the one post, as well as all of yours Sas, that I didn't actually bother to read.