Leslie

You have misunderstood me. I said that I deplore those who choose to refer to my personal beliefs in insulting terms. It really is not necessary to refer to me or those like me as being "bonkers" or worse as I have seen often enough both in this forum or elsewhere. I thought I had made that clear enough.

I have no bad feelings against anyone who disagrees with my views since I mentioned in my earlier post that I consider that we are all entitled to come to our own conclusions.

I have not said that I do not believe in what science proves is correct and will accept what it may say. I did say that I happen to be of a scientific term of mind anyway. I did also say that there is a difference in positive scientific proofs and theories however in reference to "rational theories" which was mentioned in an earlier post. I am not so stupid to be blind to anything which is positively proved even if it did shoot down anything that I thought before.

I too went to a religious school where we had "apologetics" classes where other religions and beliefs were all covered without bias and we were left to make up our own minds what conclusion to come to. My beliefs do not lead me to think that the theory of evolution is wrong, I have even seen the dinosaur bones for myself in the museums and they seemed real enough to me. It is a common fallacy that a Christian cannot accept evolution. We see evidence of it every day!

Les

Norman D. Landing

Live and let live is indeed good advice but you don't need the existence of a god for that. Perhaps the believers wouldn't elive and let live if they decided that the omnipresent/omnipotent being that they fear (in a 'godfearing' sense of the word) didn't exist after all.

The one thing that I struggle to understand is blind faith that this invisible/inaudible/invincible/caring/generous being lets acts of evil occur each second, and still his believers preach that he is able but unwilling to intervene for his own reasons that we have to simply accept. I hope a believer will please comment?

I wonder if the wife of Gary Newlove was a believer and whether she still is, just as a topical example.

Alan C

With the possibility of overloading you on top of Andy's excellent response, I'll add my own quick reply. Firstly, I wasn't smoking you out, I did say that I was sincere in my wish to discuss this with you, and I am. I hope you enjoyed your Bike ride!

It's pretty clear that you have no fundamentalist religious tendencies, so maybe these discourses are unlikely to be taken from extreme sides.

I think there's some truth in saying that if you aren't going to follow the 'true path' as pointed out in Gospels that you sign up to or believe in, then why follow them at all? It seems plain to me that the Bible states laws and rules and, if you follow that faith, they should be adhered to. Cherry picking the best ones is hypocritical to a large degree. This is countered to some degree in your case as you do not 'preach' or peddle the various chapters.

If you follow them to get moral guidance then fine, moral guidance and help can be got from any walk of life and experience, but the overtones of the Bible are overtly religious and from a stone age time when morals actually permitted and sanctioned many despicable acts.

So my argument is that this book is probably the LAST place you should be getting any guidance from.

But at the end of the day, you have said you are a Christian, and this admission carries a lot of historical baggage. In your case, I'd probably argue that it would be better to build upon the Moral guidance you seek by bringing yourself up to date in a secular way. The Moral guidance you'll get by free thinking yourself to a conclusion (this would include ALL inputs of moral teachings, that include the Bibles Golden Rule) that the Holocaust was morally wrong would be the safer way than relying on one particular reference.

This probably misses the target with you as you appear to do this anyway by the way you refer to science, but there's a lot of Christians (and others) out there who could do with really thinking beyond the narrow confines of having just blind faith in something.....

I also deplore those that just resort to name calling as they are as narrow minded as the ones they attack. So we agree on something there! Take some time to have a listen to Sam Harris as he really does it well.

(Apologies to the fans of Dawkins and Hitchens who are just great at needling the opposition... )

Leslie

Thanks for the reply, and yes I did enjoy the 'bike ride even if it was a bit chilly around the knees.

You seem to have me reasonably well sussed out in many ways. No I am not a fundamentalist in the accepted meaning of that word these days. I much prefer to take a broader and probably more ecumenical view in that I think what is most important in life is that we all exist in a tolerant manner towards others and observe the rules of common decency and natural law. Any religion which promotes that can't be all that bad after all. Most of them do that anyway. That is why I would not decry a different religion to the one I favour. I am not totally dyed in the wool in that I am fully prepared to accept anything which is proved to be right and I do believe that there is a place for faith in certain respects if not the totally bilnd example that you quote. Now there is a statement for a bit of bone picking! Sometimes one has to apply a bit of balance of course. I have of course known people who feel thay have to follow every tiny bit of every bit of advice and although they are basically good people they must find it very wearing to go through life that way. That is their choice of course. I do not slavishly follow the Bible's teachings straight from the text since I do not count myself well enough qualified to be able to construe all its teachings correctly. I do get visits from a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses who as part of their religion's requirements will show a piece of it's text and explain how that can be applied to wordly matters. I don't mind that since although I am not of their persuasion, I consider them to be good people and I also enjoy having a conversation with them on wordly matters and putting them all to rights! They never seem to be that far off the mark either. I am happy to accept the teachings of my own religion and accept it's guidance on life in general but will repeat what I said about blind faith above.

You mention secular guidance. I am not certain what you mean by that except that if you mean the rules of natural law etc, that I dont see all that much difference from the religious teachings anyway. I have already said that I have never believed that a non religious person is not able to live just as good a life as anyone else. Its all a matter of understanding the difference between good and evil and following one's own conscience which is usually a force for good. I will say though that as this country has become more and more secular in its outlook, the forces of evil have become stronger in many ways. I also think it is a mistake for atheists or agnostics to treat those of a religious bent as the opposition! It is difficult not to notice that it is always the non religious who are ready to decry those who are rather than the other way round. I wonder why? Please bear in mind that I do not spend time trying to convert people to my beliefs, but merely to defend them from unfair and unpleasant attack.

One for Normandy Landing while I am at it!

It is a common excuse to support the lack of a God by saying that if He did exist then he would not allow all these disasters to happen. Let me tell you that those who believe in Him will tell you that we were put on Earth to live our lives as long as they may or not be in order to prove if we are fit to enjoy eternal life in the hereafter. Life was never meant to be easy, if it was then we would all soon become suicidal since it is part of human nature to need a challenge. It actually happened when Sweden introduced its socialist state when all was done for the people to avoid them having to think about how to run their lives and the suicide rate went up significantly. Basically we were not promised a "rose garden" as they say. I state this purely as a simple bit of reasoning as an example for you. I imagine you will laugh this out of court but it is at least an answer.

Les

Geezer

That's all well and good, but if you believe that, do you pray? If so, why? Praying wont do any good if you have free will.

Geezer

Alan C

There's several bones to pick over in your reasoned response!

I agree with you (probably more down Richard Dawkins' line) that religion has it's place in modern society. Literature, History and much culture could not be taught or even appreciated properly if religion was 'excommunicated' from the curriculum or our libraries. But deism really has no place in a modern society. Why? Because it stunts free thought and open debate. It saddens me more than you could know to think of the wasted Human talent and ability that has been fed solely into Theology. Who know what we could have achieved if religion hadn't have sucked dry some great minds in the pursuit of supernatural answers.

But I fear you continue to make the same mistake. You and your Jehovah's witness friends pick the palatable parts to discuss and live your life by. This is of course sensible and right. But the bible isn't a menu selection of ideals. It's a rule book, full of fantasy and magic that people of religion must follow. The fact that some follow it more than others reeks of hypocrisy and duplicity.

To give you some idea of the fantasy... Your witnesses friends are taught and believe that during Armageddon (which is 'imminent with no date set)' the wicked (this is everyone who has not followed the book properly and includes all Homosexuals and ANYONE who has engaged in premarital sex) will be destroyed (very nice thank you), and survivors, along with millions of others who will be resurrected (from the dead), will form a new earthly society ruled by a heavenly government (this totals 144,000 spiritual Israelites) and have the possibility of living forever in an earthly paradise.

No read that aloud and tell me if that sounds sane, never mind reasonable. There's plenty more where that came from believe me. Some rather less pleasant ones too. All of that is from an offshoot understanding of the same Bible you follow.

Madness. I don't use that term, lightly, because if I suddenly made something like that up, I'd expect to be laughed at.

Though we've become more secular, where is this increased evil coming from? These very real evil acts are done in the name of a religion, because the more moderately religious void is now being filled by more fundamentalist doctrine.

This is one BIG generalisation and I can not cover it here... But I think the atheists, agnostics and even some moderates are sick and tired of seeing religions (note the plural) being given special dispensations in law and taxes to name but two and the constant millennia of forced teachings to kids at school and through TV etc... All of it fantasy rolled up in spite, hatred and goodness.... No wonder people rebel..

Leslie

I am not going to go into another great long post again you may be relieved to know.

Let me say in the first place that although I am prepared to talk to the JW's on a friendly basis, and recognise that they are good people who lead a pretty blameless life, I do not accept most of those beliefs that you mention and a good few others too, which may explain why I am not a member of their religion!

I also said in effect if you remember, that rather than being a slave to the words as written in the bible, I am quite happy to be guided by my own religion. That is where my faith lies since I am happy to believe what it says. I am also quite capable of looking at it all with an enquiring mind without becoming overly introspective and what I have seen so far has been satisfactory as far as I am concerned. My religion also accepts that it is a human failing to do wrong and that forgiveness is to be given in the event of true contrition for having screwed up! Does not say however that punishment should not be given according to the crime. I think that is fair enough under the circumstances.

My point about things going wrong under a more secular rule is simple. Children who were brought up in a religious country were taught the meaning of good and evil from a young age as well as discipline and respect for other people. This was all part of an education backed by religion. This has been lacking for some time now in this country and we are seeing the results-in spades! I really don't think I need to paint the picture do I?

Don't you think it is about time this secular government started to do something about educating all children and in particular their parents about the importance of acting to maintain a safe and morally effective society. Or should we all become part of a "Mad Max" mentality? At the moment it is descending into the depths of moral depravity.

I find that I am less concerned with picking holes in peoples' beliefs about religion, atheism, agnosticism etc. so much as seeing something positive being down about the morass that this country is heading towards and very fast too.

Les

Alan C

Les. I'm happy with your sentiments, you're a good person with a good sense of right and wrong and do indeed appear to be tolerant, opinionated when needed, but always respectful.

I certainly see where you're coming from in terms of the perceived slide into corruption of the young etc. There's no denying that religion can teach right from wrong and a good sense or morality (when picking the good bits from the bible), but your view is too simplistic. There's many other factors that can lead to such disaffection; economics, lack of a social coherence in a shared goal etc. You could also state that moderate Government, where the Police have lost much of their power, Political correctness preventing simple challenge processes and crazy lenient punishment laws tied to the over crowding of jails are as much to blame than loosing your local school assembly and Sunday trip to Church.

I'm not so sure it's any worse than it was 20 or 30 years ago! We have instant communications from any part of the Globe and the Internet and the many media channels means we can see so much more of the depravity and evil than we ever could on News at 10.

But this is waaay off topic, and is in areas that I am weak on.

But I can say one thing, this has been a good discussion. Thank you.

Leslie

I do agree with all those possible causes that you state and rather than wanting to be simplistic, my accusation of the depths to which this country has sunk is based on the attitude of our leaders to all this sort of thing which has not only allowed but encouraged it to happen. One should lead by example and what kind of truth and honest behaviour have we seen demonstrated for so many years now? I was of course stating the facts of what has happened rather than the reasons. It is not just the slide into corruption of the young but of such a large proportion of the population and consequently their children. The lack of action by the authorities is encouraging the bad behaviour of the children as well of course.

No it was nowhere nearly as bad all those years ago as I can remember very well. At least I can speak from experience here. Of course there were badly behaved children and criminals, but nothing like what we see today. There was always a proportion of hooligans and crooks since those are the incorrigable ones or the small minority in those days who had dysfunctional parents. Even then we did not have gangs who provoked trouble deliberately or who were prepared to knife or shoot each other or innocent members of the public. One importent factor was that we were all taught to feel shame if we transgressed the law or against others. That seems to have sunk withoutv trace!

As you say, the police have now appeared to turn their backs on taking effective action as have the courts unless they are pushed into it by circumstances.

I did not go to Sunday School but was taught Christian beliefs by my parents and at my school.

I am the first to say that I am opinionated of course, but isn't everyone who posts on here, and isn't that what this forum is for?

I too enjoyed the civilised discussion and am grateful to you also.

Les

Alan C

If I was going to blame one single thing, I'd say it was the restrictions placed on the Police. We have two coppers in the club and they are simply the best. Hard working, consciencious but fed up with the erosion of their powers. All they want to do is catch criminals, but end up to often spending time managing some kid who's nicked a Mars bar. If we could increase the numbers of beat officers significantly and let them simply concentrate their efforts where it's needed and dispense some decent on the spot punishment, I'd suggest we'd see a decent reduction in anti-social behaviour which does lead to harder criminal actions for some.

The parents themselves should also be brought to task.

My main argument here is that I was brought up in the opposite environment to you, ie a non-religious family with no religious education beyond what was mentioned in assembly or RE. My 3 kids have also been brought up in the same environment. I simply have three of the most courteous, helpful and considerate kids a parent could wish for. My eldest is in Nursing, my lad is looking to follow his Dad and join the RAF as a Pilot (I wasn't a Pilot like your goodself) and my 5 year old sings herself hoarse to High School Musical. Not one ounce of their ethics, morals or outlook on the world was shaped by religion, but by my wife & I with our own ideas of right and wrong.

Most likely not in your case, but there are plenty of kids who it can be argued are being abused by the religious doctrine they are being force fed. Told at a very early age that they are a Christian, Catholic, Muslim child and then force fed that belief from day one. With stories of eternal damnation, hell, the devil etc all thrown in to make sure they stay true to their beliefs, with Islam throwing in Death for apostasy as good measure. To me, this is abuse, plain and simple. Not in any other field do we see children labeled as such.

Nowhere do we see people labeled as Muslim mathematicians, catholic astronomers or Christian Doctors etc. Only religion gives such a label. The term Athiest was invented to describe someone as having no belief. Again, we see no such word for people who are non-astrologers or non-teachers.....

I do feel that Humans are coming out of the 'dark ages of religion' (sic) and are slowly shedding off the shackles of mysticism and theist delusions, fundamentalism is filling the void and I believe it's up to us all to stand up to that destructive dogma and to not let it run on unchallenged.

ScoTTyB

Bible basher alert

to claim people believing there is an invisible man in the sky is not bonkers, is in itself bonkers

ScoTTyB

praying, i.e talking to ones self = bonkers

Leslie

Congratulations on your two lads. As ever-it is how you take your responsibilities as parents that does the trick.

As ever there are always wrongs on both sides of the fence, all down to human nature of course.

Les

Leslie

You are of course breaking SN rules by implication with both of your posts.

You might have been encouraged because I stated that I do not give infractions. There may well be others though who dislike Trolls as a matter of course!

Les