51. Fleabytes

Comment #140178 by flying goose on March 7, 2008 at 3:21 am

Goodness me so much has gone on since my last posts. I have enjoyed reading some of the responses to some of my points and those of others, I will need more time to take some of them in. I decided not to read the fleas when they're in flea mode. I am however reading Don Cupitt's Taking leave of God. It begins with a quotation from the 14th century German mystic Meister Eckhart, " man's last and highest parting occurs when, for God's sake he takes leave of God." So if you are wondering where all this non realism comes from, now you know. PS I am using my computer speech recognition and speaking this, it's great, for a dyslexic it makes life so much easier. I will keep looking that way post until this evening, unless I get tempted.

52. Fleabytes

Comment #140025 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:53 pm

I picked the following up on web site aboute Don Cuppitt.
" Don Cupitt's philosopy of religion is often described as non-realism, a word which has given rise to much confusion. What Cupitt calls non-realism is very much what Richard Rorty calls 'antirepresentationalism'. In Rorty's worlds our belief are not copies but tools. Before Kant philosophy usually tended towards dogmatic realism. Euclid's geometry and Aristotle's logic were thought of as being objectively true. There was an objectively-ordered intelligible Cosmos out there, independent of the human mind and copied or mapped by our descriptions of it. Religious thought too was usually dogmatic-realist: there was an eternal world 'up there', and a created, visible world 'out there'. Only one religion reported the cosmic facts correctly, namely Christianity. Our minds, being created by God, are made to know God, and can correctly track the cosmic and moral order he has pre-established for us. So, in the classic world-picture, the whole of religious truth was thought of as existing 'out there'.
After Kant we began more and more to see that our knowledge and our language are only human. In all our knowing, the mind conditions what it knows: the facts are profoundly shaped by the theories under which we view them and the language in which we des;;cribe them. We are always inside our own language and our own human standpoint, and can never directly compare our vision of the world with the way the world is absolutely. We are only human. In short, we cannot claim to have purely-objective knowledge of THE world, but we can claim to have many very useful ideas about OUR world, the world we see and the 'life-world' we inhabit.
So, very briefly: realists think that mathematical truth is discovered, whereas non-realists about maths think that maths is a complex collection of useful games invented by us. Realists think that scientists discover 'the laws of Nature', whereas non-realists think that scientists invent theories that help us to tell stories about why things go the way they do, and to predict outcomes successfully.
Today, a realist is the sort of person who, when his ship crosses the Equator, looks overboard, expecting to see a big black line across the ocean. Realism tries to turn cultural fictions into objective facts. A non-realist sees the whole system of lines of latitude and longitude as a valuable fiction, imposed upon the Earth by us, that helps us to define locations and to find our way around. For a realist Truth exists ready-made out there; for a non-realist we are the only makers of truth, and truth is only the current consensus.
In brief, we don't know and we cannot know THE world, absolutely. We know only OUR world, a world shaped by our ideas, seen from our perspective, and built by us with our needs in view. Such is Cupitt's non-realist philosophy. It implies, by the way, that we have no privileged knowledge of ourselves either, hence Cupitt's phrase "Empty radical humanism". It means "We alone improvise our knowledge about everything - including even ourselves". There is no absolute or perspectiveless vision of the world: the best we can have is a slowly-evolving human consensus."

53. Fleabytes

Comment #140022 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:49 pm

Steve, yes the earth, or even the universe for that matter do exist, but the world is wholly dependent on us for its existence. I think.

54. Fleabytes

Comment #140021 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:46 pm

Point taken Diacanu

55. Fleabytes

Comment #140019 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:44 pm

or been transported in a amphibious armoured vehicle?

56. Fleabytes

Comment #140016 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:41 pm

ever played cricket?

57. Fleabytes

Comment #140014 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:41 pm

what is a duck?

58. Fleabytes

Comment #140007 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:35 pm

Is the world the same thing as the earth? Or put another way, would the world exist with out the rational beings that live within it?

59. Fleabytes

Comment #140004 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:31 pm

re all the above.

Are you all Platonists then? Searching for and believing in absolute and immutable truths waiting out there to be discovered?

60. Fleabytes

Comment #139993 by flying goose on March 6, 2008 at 11:19 pm

Is there anything real out there? I just read something which put forward the notion that true empiricism is wholly subjective. Any thoughts anyone?

61. Fleabytes

Comment #136144 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Thank you, I will try that when I have got a moment. Now it is time for sleep, Good night all.

62. Fleabytes

Comment #136134 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 1:23 pm

just to say that I have been a way for a while because my password would not work, eventually got a new one.

PS anyone know how I can change my user name?

63. Fleabytes

Comment #136122 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 1:18 pm

cheers again, Paula this time.

Marcus

64. Fleabytes

Comment #136116 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Cheers

65. Fleabytes

Comment #136113 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 1:16 pm

but what did William believe?

66. Fleabytes

Comment #136110 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Bonzai

not I

67. Fleabytes

Comment #136066 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 12:56 pm

for a while, a very short while, I thought that the fleas might have some answers, they do not, and I would rather read The House At Pooh Corner.

68. Fleabytes

Comment #135970 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 11:41 am

bonzai
thanks, but I wasn't being sour, I was just trying point out that arguments about god's existent are not very interesting, people and their ideas are, which is why I come here.

69. Fleabytes

Comment #135961 by flying goose on February 29, 2008 at 11:32 am

hello


I fail to see the point of trying to convince most of the posters on this site that God exists. Because I doubt you will succeed. It is a clear thinking Oasis which might be dangerous place for a believer, but it is better than being muddled.

70. Fleabytes

Comment #134905 by flying goose on February 28, 2008 at 10:04 am

And you can download each episode too.

71. New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

Comment #117182 by flying goose on January 28, 2008 at 11:40 am

If we are against dogmas, are we against having opinions? Given that's what dogma means.

72. Britain cannot put its faith in religiously divided schools

Comment #114373 by flying goose on January 22, 2008 at 5:21 am

This like many things in education is driven by those living in urban areas where I think it is possible to speak about faith schools in this way. In my part of rural Britain the picture is somewhat different.
Our local c of e primary isn't a faith school, it just happens to be on land donated by the c of e.

73. It was a bad year for God.

Comment #109650 by flying goose on January 9, 2008 at 12:01 pm

'It was bad year for God.'

Just like it was a bad year for the little green men who live on Mars.

Oh, so it was a bad year for those who believe in God.

Just like it was bad year for those who avidly read their stars every day and believe what they read.

Bad year only, I think, for those who have whistled away for years, stayed un afraid, only to find that too much whistling chaps your lips and stops the happy tune.

I wish I could touch type.

74. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108700 by flying goose on January 7, 2008 at 12:48 pm

Comment 225 by The Truth the Light
"I'm not sure if you are saying that from a positive, negative or neutral sense."

In no sense and all three. I think I was rambling towards something like religion is about more then just beliefs and when you lose it you lose bad and good bits. Religion actually means somthing that binds people together. From religare - to bind.

75. Six Reasons to be an Atheist

Comment #108588 by flying goose on January 7, 2008 at 9:40 am

Paula Kirby and Steve Zara, thank you.
You both remind of something Lional Blue once said
'It is not so much the ideology or theology you hold rather it is the kindness with which you hold it and the courtesy you show to those who oppose you other wise we will all end up like Bosnia' or words to that effect.

I think I am in th process of losing my religion. Which doesn't mean I am becoming an atheist but reading TGD has been a loss, as has visiting this web site.

It has also been a real stimulation and a 'God'send one of the things that has helped me through my slough of despond.

I think I have come to the point where for me at least, words like deist, theist, pantheist atheist are meaningless and a chasing after wind.

Maybe a dark night of meaning.

One things religion can do very well is give you a way of life and group of people with whom one can live it, belief is only one part of it.

76. Changing my Mind

Comment #108546 by flying goose on January 7, 2008 at 7:01 am

Richard you sound a bit like me. Love to discuss but only intermitently or perhaps off line, work and all that.

77. Changing my Mind

Comment #108532 by flying goose on January 7, 2008 at 6:34 am

From 1988 to 1999 I used to suffer from cluster headaches ( a sort of migraine that occured several times a day for up to six months before disappearing). In 1990 I went to an acupuncturist who treated me. The treatment did not work. Finally in 1999 I went to my then GP who offered me acupuncture. It worked, I have not had a bout of cluster headaches since.
My question is what was the cure? My belief in the the man of science as opposed to my disbelief in the quack? The acupuncture explained physiologically, rather then a by use of terms like chi. Perhaps its the fact that I gave up smoking in 2000? Ah cigarettes I still dream about them.

78. Archbishop of Canterbury Praises Richard Dawkins

Comment #104915 by flying goose on December 30, 2007 at 12:34 am

'whom he described as being in touch with the "amazement and awe" of God's creation.'

No he did not
he quoted RD and then actually said.

The temptation to quote Richard Dawkins from the pulpit is irresistible; in this amazement and awe, if not in much else, he echoes the sixteenth century mystic.

79. The Pagan Christ

Comment #102188 by flying goose on December 22, 2007 at 1:18 am

Fighting Falcon

You might find Ronald Hutton's book
'The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
Their Nature and Lagacy', especially the final chapter, 'The legacy of shadows'

also his
'The Stations of the Sun
A History of the Ritual Year in Britain'

Both are very informative and interesting.

80. Good God! A politician who doesn't believe...

Comment #102180 by flying goose on December 22, 2007 at 12:38 am

A politician being asked if he believes in God...

Perhaps this is the Dawkins effect. Here we all were in secular religious compromise, religion gradualy dying, secularism a practicle reality, then all the books and now the questions to Nick Clegg. I am reminded of the move to ban fox hunting, there it was a dying money starved activity, dead within a generation, and the government gave it new life. Be careful what you wish for.

81. 2007, a bad year for God squadders

Comment #101768 by flying goose on December 21, 2007 at 12:15 am

This person doesnt understand the dark night.

by the way its is not depression.


negativism is the winner here.

82. Interview with Richard Dawkins: On Christmas

Comment #101538 by flying goose on December 20, 2007 at 1:42 pm

Annabanana please don't come out because of what I wrote. I go with USA Limey.

83. Interview with Richard Dawkins: On Christmas

Comment #101517 by flying goose on December 20, 2007 at 1:17 pm

Annabanana, God is it really that bad in the bible belt of the US? Its almost enough to make me chose atheism in sympathy.

84. Three wise men just legend: archbishop

Comment #101509 by flying goose on December 20, 2007 at 1:06 pm

I can't believe your surprise, this is first week, first year under graduate stuff, no it isnt, its O level RE.

85. Do the laws of God trump those of man?

Comment #101224 by flying goose on December 20, 2007 at 5:40 am

all laws are human constructs.
Conscience is my guide plus the laws of the land I am living in. If ever, like Bonhoeffer conscience causes me to disobey those laws, ID cards for instance, I will expect to be subject to the rule of law.

86. Clegg 'does not believe in God'

Comment #101175 by flying goose on December 20, 2007 at 3:53 am

I think there is a danger of letting labels speak louder then humans. Nick Clegg is an atheist which means he has to fit that box and his wife is a catholic so it is into that box she goes. I don't think people are really that simple.
Whilst we are on the subject of children and their upbringing, children I think do have a natural spirituality, by which I mean they are all dancers and singers, story tellers and questioners. If children have religious parents it seems natural for those children to go to church with their parents. My parents took me to church until I was about nine, that gave me faith. Then my father started to question it all. That taught me to doubt. I could imagine that growing with articulate atheist/catholic parents could make conversations interesting.
I would however want to disapprove of indoctination. Problem is I am not quite sure what indoctrination is. I would be interested to read your thoughts.

87. Interview with Richard Dawkins: On Christmas

Comment #100677 by flying goose on December 19, 2007 at 5:14 am

Apologies if this sounds a bit smug and English, it is not intended to be a put down to those in the US.
The debate over there seems to be terribly polarised. Perhaps with good reason, perhaps the land of the free isn't, if you are an atheist. I don't live there; have never been there so I can only comment on reports.
My point is this. It can be argued that this sort of polarisation is alien to our English tradition and has been since the English civil war.
My concern about the whole of this site is that it might inadvertently be importing the kind of polarisation they seem to have in the US in to our discourse. I for one don't want to end up in an intellectual ghetto.
Maybe you just need a constitutional monarchy, an established church and a parliament of commons and peers, a system of checks and balances that has 'evolved' to guarantee freedom of thought and speech.

88. Interview with Richard Dawkins: On Christmas

Comment #100648 by flying goose on December 19, 2007 at 3:46 am

I can't quite see what all the fuss is about. In my mind there is nothing offensive about an atheist singing Christmas Carols. Some might think it hypocritical but that would be uncharitable.

I love singing and have done so all my life, singing a well known carol with others can be a wonderful thing.

Some people don't like singing, some 'strange' people don't like music. Thats ok, but let the rest of us sing.
'For in sweet music is such art that killing care and grief of heart, fall asleep, or hearing, die'

89. God rest you merry atheist

Comment #99946 by flying goose on December 17, 2007 at 11:48 pm

Dr Benway

Remember that the Christians stole midwinter's celebration from many other tribes. Holly, mistletoe, yule log - all pre-Christian.

Did the builders of Avebury Stone circle steal an idea from the tomb builders of West Kennett when they built the cove, or does it represent the continuation?

90. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #99530 by flying goose on December 17, 2007 at 2:09 am

DavidJMH

"Jesus" is a corruption of the Greek word "lesous" which in turn was a transliteration of the Hebrew "messiah" meaning "leader from Roman occupation". "Christ" comes from the Greek title "Christos" meaning "annointed one"

Not quite.

Christos does mean anointed one, but it is a translation of the Hebrew messiah, meaning anointed one.
Jesus is indeed from Iesous, which itself is from Jeshua, the Aramaic form of the Hebrew Joshua meaning the LORD saves. Jeshua was a popular name in Palestine at the time.

91. Atheists' sign sparks controversy

Comment #97589 by flying goose on December 12, 2007 at 12:00 pm

On Christmas Day, after, let me see, 10 carol services, two midnight masses, and two Christmas morning services, more mince pies then I care to think about, completley worn out, Oh and yes if I here O come all ye faithful one more time it will be too many times, I usually come home, go into my study and listen to John Lennon's Imagine. Therapy.
Now don't me wrong I love Christmas. But 'Imagine no religion' has its place. Now I think I read somewhere something about peace and good will to all.

92. Springer opera court fight fails

Comment #94344 by flying goose on December 5, 2007 at 11:44 am

"The blasphemy law should be abolished altogether. If God's offended by something someone's said or written, let him sue on the grounds of slander or libel, like anyone else."

I couldnt agree more.

93. Finding My Religion: An Interview With Shalom Auslander

Comment #94207 by flying goose on December 5, 2007 at 3:02 am

I think I must be the opposite of many here,

My parents believe in God, they took me to church,until my father decided he didn't want to go any more, then I went by myself when I was old enough, but I can't say that I was ever indoctinated in the way that some of you seem to have been.
I am not an atheist who can't quite shake off God,
I have been a theist all my life, but with the persistant thought that there is no God. I am not plagued by residual belief, quite the opposite.
Oh and I sort of like it that way, I think.

94. Fear of censure deflects The Golden Compas

Comment #94200 by flying goose on December 5, 2007 at 2:32 am

I wrote this when I finished His Dark Materials.

'These books have disturbed me. They have left me with more questions than answers. Good.'

That all said, I prefered 'The Flying Classroom.' and also 'Danny the Champion of the World'

2
4
5 and never will be, not a moderate or liberal either.

E b c+ e c+ b a g a b c+ e

1 4 4 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 8

95. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93144 by flying goose on December 2, 2007 at 10:07 am

faith
from fides
meaning
trust

'faith is dangerous'

so too can be trust

yet its rewards

96. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster

Comment #93124 by flying goose on December 2, 2007 at 9:03 am

Is sex outside of marriage a sin
Yes [depending upon what you mean by marriage
(a relationship built on trust.) and sin [that which which sunders such a relationship of trust])

Is it a public matter? No.

Is it forgivable? Yes.

97. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87847 by flying goose on November 13, 2007 at 10:47 am

There may be an unintended consequence of the campaign against faith schools. Many small rural schools are under threat because of the mean mindedness of the government. They want to bus children as young as four, for up to two hours a day, to be schooled in larger towns.
Many of the schools under threat are C of E primary schools that are about as indoctrinating as Richard Dawkins' school chaplain.
Closing schools hurts the children and the communities they live in. Please don't give our local authorities any more reasons to close our schools.

98. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87830 by flying goose on November 13, 2007 at 9:28 am

I take it back about AC Grayling being a public school boy, Wiki leaves that bit of his education out.
However would he be for banning privately funded religious schools? Failure to do so would surely privilege the religious and rich.
On faith schools, I speak with some experiential knowledge, pupil, parent and governor. C of E schools are not really faith schools in the sense that Catholic and Islamic schools are. Indeed the latter two seem to have set up in reaction to the former.
The C of E set up schools during the 19th century with a bit if RI thrown in. But that wasn't their reason for being. It was philanthropic, to provide an education for the poor of the parish.

99. Onward Christian teachers?

Comment #87709 by flying goose on November 12, 2007 at 11:29 pm

In the God Delusion RD writes about the secular but very religious US. So does Jonathan Miller on another part of this site. RD compares it with the not very religious UK with its eatablished church. Law of unintended consequences, be careful what you wish for.
I can't help noting that Grayling is a Public School Boy. Then Oxbridge. Me, I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth, C of E Infant and Junior and a bog standard comprenhensive. My point I think that snobbery can also be incalcated in the young at a very early age. Ban all private education now. It gives the rich the right to buy 'better' education where their children are taught to look down on everybody else.( I am sort of joking.)

100. Richard Dawkins at AAI 07

Comment #87493 by flying goose on November 12, 2007 at 9:35 am

On Heaven and Hell, Souls, non human animal or human. I have been meaning to post. Please forgive any pomposity below.
The word Hell derives from the Germanic goddess Hel who had something to do with the abode of the dead. It translates two New Testament words. Hades, the Greek underworld, the abode of the dead. Hence the in The Apostles' Creed we say, 'He (Jesus) descended into hell.' (Book of Common Prayer) This in turn translates the Hebrew sheol, meaning the grave.
The other word is gehenna a Greek version of Hinnom. This was valley outside Jerusalem where the rubbish was burnt. It is used as a metaphor for annihilation.
Now post mortem I shall be either be buried or burnt and 'I' as 'I' will cease to be. Now you might call that hell. Its not so bad I wont be aware of it.
So much for hell; what of heaven? 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' Could equally be 'In the beginning God created the skies and the earth's surface.' Heaven is just the sky, we still use it in that way.
Do non human animals have souls?
The concept of an immortal soul is Greek, it is not really found in the Bible. I think the writings in the Bible have a generally materialist view of the human condition. The spirit is breath, the body is made up of earth. The soul (psuche) is a breathing body.
I don't believe that animals human or otherwise have souls. As to non human animals being saved. If there is a God then there are snippets in the Bible, Romans chapter 8, for instance, that suggest that God intends that the entire creation is brought back into relationship with the creator. I suppose that renewal or resurrection is the process by which this might happen.
So where does that leave me? Is resurrection likely given the evidence? No. Is there an immortal deity? This seems improbable.
I am left with a choice. I choose to believe in the improbable, in the hope that the improbable might achieve the unlikely.
I realise that that is deeply dissatisfying to any rationalist. Sorry, but I hope it is honest.
By the way 'the kingdom of God is upon you.' Might mean get on with it now. The planet needs us to act, and we need to do so for all our futures, too much thinking about the here after blinds to the needs of the here and now.