What do people wear to church these days

Cool sound bite bro. Look, I don't care what or who you or anyone believes in...but I am absolutely not going to ridicule you for your beliefs. Seems to me faith is the last refuge of legitimate hate....I asked what are you all so afraid of that you feel the need to demean, chastise and outright abuse a person's faith. Same as any phobia it's borne of ignorance and fear. For sure it's cool and right on to take the piss out of people that don't think they are the individual highest power, but hey live and let live, they are not taking the piss out of you.
I separated God from religion from the get go but the ones that keep introducing religion into this it is only the Abrahamic religions causing ALL the world's troubles. Buddhists never went to war with Sheikhs so far as I know.
Nobody worshipping a god has troubled you so no need to insult him over it.

 

Oh right, I thought that was Pikeys.

Buddhists may well never have gone to war with Sheikhs (milk shakes???), but a simple reading of the history of Sri Lanka, Myanmar and so on will show that they love a bit of violent bigotry as much as any Jesus-Freak.

 

So presumably that makes him/her responsible for all the school shootings? I guess that's something worth being afraid of.

 

It was a bit long for a soundbite.

I find it hard not to ridicule a belief which is really quite ridiculous. Sure, anyone is entitled to their belief, but don't expect people to respect it when it's completely illogical.

And my point was that religious people ARE taking the piss and worse out of people. Not in this thread maybe, but in the media of America, Islamic countries, Catholic countries etc.

 

My milk shake may get all the boys in the yard but religion is man made. The universe isn't. Something greater than man did that.

 

Wow! It’s taken a whole politics section bring one third of the forum to virtual blows but only one page of a thread on religion to do the same to another third. Any ***** up for a discussion on money?

 

The internet seems to be full of discussions about subjects that my parents told me never to discuss in public

 

I don't hate you by the way. Or anyone else because of what they believe. I just believe that it's ridiculous. That's my belief.

 

Is that Mrs Silva?

 

Aww gissa hug ya big softie.
Of course I have no problem with you believing anything is or isn't ridiculous. I respect your opinion without having the need to insult you over it.

 

My mother-in-law is a Jehovah's Witness, my preconceptions of which turned out to be massively incorrect.

Turns out all that they do is go round to the meeting place, the one that is thought to be most experienced leads a discussion (no hierarchy) and they just talk about their problems, beliefs etc in a small group. Someone I worked with last summer turned out to be as well, and she did the same at her one.

Seems pretty progressive in comparison to how many faiths seem to function. And, incredibly, I haven't been brainwashed, kidnapped and forcibly inducted into a cult by talking to them about what they believe in.

Err...

Besides, which area of academia encourages you to make assumptions about disparate groups of people?

 

I wasn't insulting you, or at least I didn't intend to. I do, however, reserve the right to have beliefs which are in contrast to other people's.

I believe some mad things too, if I am honest with myself.

 

if believing in god was effective, it would be illegal! e.t.c.

 

What they do in a meeting place is entirely their business I guess and no-one really has the right to comment on/laugh at/complain about it. Unfortunately though, that isn't 'all they do'. There's not a lot irks me more than being dragged away from the dinner table, the shower, my work - or whatever - by a couple of door-to-door evangelists who won't take no for an answer.

Years ago, a friend had a bright idea after having been plagued by such door knockers - he resorted to not saying a word but simply handing over a business card that read 'Our beliefs differ. I'm happy with mine and am not inclined to discuss them with you' - and would then shut the door. If they knocked again, he would hand them another card that simply read 'F*ck Off'.

 

Eugenics?

 

Uncanny!

I’ve used the exact same cards when meeting with potential US distributors.

No contracts signed yet but I am playing a long game.

 

Years ago when I still believed there may be a god and was interested in finding a church that convinced me I attended meetings at both Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Halls and also the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) - amongst many others. Both just have regular church services really. I was not convinced either of them had the "truth"but came to admire and respect their followers far more than I did many other denominations. Unlike hat wearing Sunday attending Church of Englanders and the like both those groups "lived" their belief and were kind inclusive and helpful. It is perhaps unfortunate for joe public that JWs believe they must share their belief and try to lead others to God - but it is in the Bible and they follow it. They are nowhere near as pushy as they once were though and nowadays when we get a visit all they do is offer us a leaflet - I am often disappointed they do not aim to chat more.
Personally I have no problem with any individual whatever they do or do not believe but I have a massive problem with the faith - particularly the Abrahamic ones where for all the "love" in their books they preach and practice conflict and war.

 

See my link on P1 of this thread. JWs are the same, patriarchal controllers that all of the abrahamic religions are, but with a few wacky frills. I worked with a young woman who was a JW, and she was a very nice young woman, and no, did not attempt to convert me - but then my personality would have made it obvious that she would have been flogging a dead horse, and I guess yours would too. All of these creeps (and I use the word with consideration) go after the low hanging fruit, the troubled, the lost, the addicts - and that's why I consider them creeps.
My wife when traveling after Uni was nearly 'got' by the Moonies hanging around the bus station in San Francisco. They don't let you know who they are until you are hooked, they just offer friendship and hugs to those they perceive to be lonely. The Saturday morning house calling is just an organised trawl to net some lost souls and a few hard of thinking (and easily led) individuals.

As for progressive - their bars on medical intervention would be fine if they kept such dangerous ideas to the willing and competent, but to refuse a blood transfusion for a baby?

 

Religion is borne of ignorance leading to fear.

 

I thought that the blood transfusion thing was no longer a thing due to the introduction of blood substitutes?

 

A child with religious parents has no say in the ideas shoved into their head (let alone the physical abuse that is circumcision that some practice). Their rights are never considered and for that reason, religion deserves to be called out.

Religion would be dead in a generation if parents didn't indoctrinate their children. An adult would laugh at the nonsense that they peddle, but the fear of hell, death for going against it, upsetting your family and having a life built around it is enough to permanently scar a child's mind.

 

Maybe so, but the principle remains.

 

Absolutely this. Is it even debatable? Listening to LBC as news of the Pope's 'admission' that hell doesn't exist, on Majid Nawaaz' show the absolute nutcases phoning in made me realise how we could end up with brexit. The number of people who are prepared to ignore all rational thinking to cling on to comforting delusions. In the 21st century in a developed, industrialised, 'educated' country. Astonishing.

 

And fear leads to the dark side.

Yoda (21:11:17)

 

You just can't get off your Brexit train can you Barry? Remoaning - the new religion.

 

Well, from an initial discussion around dress-code this thread sure seems to have moved on a bit.

Anyway, I'm an agnostic. This isn't a wishy-washy position. It's simply a recognition of the distinction between those things I can know (derived from science) and those that I can't. Is there a God? Haven't got a scooby mate. And, seeing as there's no way I can know the answer to that question in my lifetime I really couldn't give a toss what the answer is either. So I'd class atheism as a religion too. Claiming that you know the answer to a question that has no answer one way or the other.

What I am glad of and am privileged to be part of, is that I live in an age when I do know that we live on a globe, that we and the other planets go around the sun rather than vice-versa, that the astounding biodiversity of this planet is derived from species to species evolution and that evolution is also facilitated by the continents careering about the place and bumping into each other and throwing up vast mountain ranges. Who'd have thunk it all? Well not anybody back in the day when shepherds were making up their fairy-stories.

I've got no problem with people having a faith. As long as they stick with understanding that's what it is. They can't KNOW this thing. Just as atheists can't KNOW the answer either. Religion is mostly just a crutch to lean on because the big-wide world and its imponderables are just too frightening for some otherwise. But if some tw.t wants to come along and tell me that their particular deity did it all in six days and then chilled out and watched Andrew Marr on a Sunday ( in direct contradiction to accepted and empirically derived science) then they'll be getting short shrift from me.

What I would do is try and break a link in the chain. One break should do it and see religions in terminal decline. It would be impossible to stop parents indoctrinating their kids with crap entirely. But please let's see the back of faith schools.

 

Before the Big Bang there was nothing, no time or space and definitely no matter. Yet science tells us you can not create or destroy matter, you can only change it. That aside, science can theorise the when and how the Big Bang but what of the why? It was a singular event, Big Bangs don't happen every few billion years, it was a once only chance to get the universe, our solar system and especially for us our planet working in perfect unison. The tiniest of degrees of change in Earth's make up would mean no life.

Humans may be the highest power that we can see but humans can't create perfect universes out of nothing at all. Religions can't either so I don't know why people keep pointing to the failings of religion as proof there is no God. I said already religions are man made and the bible is the word of man. I don't know who or what God is, doubt very much he sits on a cloud sporting a long white beard. I just understand there is a power greater than me. I don't worship him I don't act out odd rituals in his name I just acknowledge the fact that mankind is not the be all and end all. Replace god with spiritualism and people tend to be more accepting.

I don't think having this view makes me some fairy- believing loon and I don't think the ridicule and abuse is justified. That is all.

 

Substitute the word think for understand there and there's nothing much wrong with that at all. Much of it is a list of those questions that we don't have an answer to YET so aren't really worth spilling much angst over for the layman. Leave that to cutting-edge physicists working on the answers.

Some of this thread has had a go at organised religion. Me included. I defend anybody's right to pursue any religion of their choice and I defend my right to take the p.ss out of it if I choose. As you say, it's the word of man and that leaves the door open to leaving it all behind. Saying it's the word of God is what invites ridicule.

I doubt many posters on here would have much of an objection to someone believing in God along the lines you've decribed and certainly not me.

 

Wrong, so if you can't even get that entry level bit right, there's really not much point in continuing.

 

Somebody showed me this yesterday, and I thought I would like to share. I may have to change my views on religion, it made me think.

 

Source?

 

I certainly didn't intend to start this debate with a fairly innocent question

The only comment I'd make is that I think many of the atheist responses are a bit OTT in their generalizations about religious folks.

I think I am typical of quite a lot of people of faith. I make no attempt to convert those who don't share my views nor do I show (or feel) any lack of respect for them or their views. As far as religions other than my own, I treat those with respect except where they hurt others.

 

Tim Minchin always reminds me of Robert Smith

 

He obviously hasn't been to Kenilworth Rd

 

Do your own work