351. A hole lot of nothing found by astronomers

Comment #66152 by Northern Bright on August 29, 2007 at 4:30 am

Important update to this story:

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/science-%26-technology/scientists-lose-giant-nothingness-20070828368/

352. Fallen Pastor Seeks Aid to Pursue Studies

Comment #65923 by Northern Bright on August 27, 2007 at 11:37 am

11. Comment #65918 by scottishgeologist on August 27, 2007 at 11:20 am

My favourite Haggard clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX79GiZPP1Q

WARNING: might make you ill.....

OMG. Not even your warning fully prepared me for the sheer gruesomeness of that clip. Lying for Jesus again. And they're not even good at it.

Here, in return, is my favourite Not Quite Ted Haggard clip. Fellow devotees of Root of All Evil? may find it spookily familiar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBC5L6cyq2Y

353. Interview with Richard Dawkins about 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #64168 by Northern Bright on August 18, 2007 at 9:19 am

Had to laugh when I saw the comment about Part 2 of Enemies of Reason in the latest Radio Times (that's a UK TV & radio listings magazine, for anyone who's not familiar with it):-

Enemies of Reason (Channel 4, Monday 20 August, 8pm)
The subtitle for this concluding episode of Richard Dawkins's lively two-parter is The Irrational Health Service. We spend £1.6 billion a year on alternative medicine – or 'unproven healing magic' – as Richard Dawkins calls it – and he's had enough. As he invited alternative practitioners to defend the claims they make, he's unfailingly polite in situations where he could be forgiven for popping a vein or two. In one hilarious scene a Glastonbury healer called Elisis explains to the eminent biologist about DNA as if he hadn't heard the good news yet. (If I understood her correctly, it's from Atlantis). Sometimes the politeness gets frustrating – when you're dying for a heavyweight bout, all you get is a little light slapping. (My emphasis)

I just love that. One minute Richard Dawkins is being criticised for being too aggressive, ranting, rude and arrogant. The next he's criticised for being frustratingly polite! The poor guy can't win :-)

Or could this inconsistency in reviewers' perceptions of him be seen as supporting evidence for Dawkins' (and others') claim that, whilst most forms of superstition are seem as fair game, in its religious forms it's seen as strictly off-limits to criticism?

354. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #63875 by Northern Bright on August 16, 2007 at 1:32 pm

1834. Comment #63855 by _J_ on August 16, 2007 at 12:47 pm
That is a truly impressive post, _J_. Well done, and thank you.

355. Atheism isn't the final word

Comment #63186 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 12:49 pm

I just love it when a writer includes the counter-arguments along with the arguments, don't you? Let's look at a few examples.

Though no one can prove or disprove God's existence, our history reveals the unmistakable footprints of something greater than man.

Great - one sentence, 2 conflicting arguments.

Oh, for the days when one could safely stroll into a bookstore without tripping over the latest atheist title.

OK, well, that seems pretty clear - the old days were better. Oh no, wait:

Whatever the impetus, as a believer, I welcome the phenomenon.

Now I'm confused. Were the old days better, or is it better now?

The books referenced above assert that the debate is over and that atheism has won

Oh really? I don't like to be picky or anything but has he actually, er, read them?

But belief survived, while scientific socialism is now defunct.

Now scientific socialism is indeed a concept - but the term does have the advantage of being a little confusing to the uninitiated, who can be relied upon to read it in this context as: the Soviet Union didn't survive - science won't be able to either!

Half a world away, America has the highest weekly church attendance in the industrialized world, notwithstanding attacks on faith from Hollywood, academia and a judiciary seemingly intent on purging religious symbols from public spaces.

Don't you just hate those crazy judges who insist on upholding the US constitution?

In the USA — the most science-oriented society in history — Christian bookstores, radio stations and TV programming proliferate.

Sorry, just got to get this off my chest - hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ah, that's better. Tell me, is it possible for an entire sentence be classed as an oxymoron?

"Thou shalt not kill" loses much of its force when reduced from commandment to a suggestion.

Well, anyone who thinks secular laws prohibiting murder are just a suggestion had better just make sure they don't get caught, that's all I can say.

How inspiring can it be to wake in the morning, look in the mirror, and see an accident of evolutionary history — the end product of the random collision of molecules?

So there must be a God because a bunch of self-obsessed idiots can't make it through the day unless they believe the whole universe exists entirely to make their existence possible? Now seems a good time to quote:

A bit of humility might make their case more convincing. Then again, humility is itself a religious concept.

Yeah, right. "We Christians are better at being humble than anyone else in the whole wide world."

There are no secularist counterparts to Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, William Wilberforce (the evangelical responsible for abolition of the British slave trade), Martin Luther King Jr., or the Christians — from France to Poland — who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

Ok, let's take a look at this.
William Wilberforce wrote his first condemnations of the slave trade as a child, before he became an evangelical Christian.
And I'm not sure that, as an advocate for Christianity, I'd be wanting to shine the spotlight too brightly on the activities of Christians and the church as a whole during the time of the Holocaust. It was hardly Christianity's finest hour. That is not in any way to denigrate the courage of those who DID act to rescue Jews and others - I'd like to think I'd have similar courage under similar circumstances, but I can't be sure I would. But to claim that it was only Christians who did so is outrageous. There were plenty of Communists who did for a start.
Martin Luther King Jr - yes, a great figure. Similar in many respects to Gandhi, wouldn't you say? OK, not a secularist - but not exactly a Christian either.
Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa - I'm not sure I'm too worried about not finding secular equivalents for these two. I think we'll let the Christians keep these all to themselves, don't you?!

There is no irrefutable evidence for God's existence or non-existence. But, if you look closely, his footprints can be discerned in the sands of time.

Oh boy, here we go again. I wish this guy would make his mind up. So is there evidence or isn't there?

Is it a coincidence that this tiny, originally nomadic people [i.e. Jews] generated the ideas that shaped the Western world, including equality, human rights and a responsibility to our fellow man?

Yes, these qualities just shine through the Old Testament, I've always found.

America's survival and rise to global pre-eminence are equally improbable.

Hmmm. Something tells me this argument that America's global pre-eminence is proof of a benevolent god won't carry quite the same weight outside the US...

356. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #63160 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 9:54 am

There's a Christian Beliefs forum I occasionally look into when I don't feel my life has enough humour in it, and I was amused to see that one of the contributors there - a pastor - was encouraging other Christians to watch this interview as an example of a "reasonable debate between two academics".

Needless to say, I hastened to add my encouragement for his suggestion, and posted the link to this site ... :-)

(He'd also claimed that the interview had been left out of The Root of All Evil - and omitted the question mark too - simply because McGrath didn't come across as the ranting, mad, loony that Dawkins wanted to portray him as; thus demonstrating the Christian lack of rigour in the search for truth that we have all come to expect.)

357. Richard Dawkins and the New Age fakers

Comment #63097 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 5:28 am

21. Comment #63089 by Lordsuhn on August 13, 2007 at 5:03 am
Couldn't agree more, Lordsuhn. Summer Seale, that was a seriously scary outburst and if I seriously thought that a majority of people on this site supported your views, I'd be out of here before you could say "Holy Communion".

However understandable the anger, you cannot promote either peace or rational thought through violence.

358. The Out Campaign

Comment #63079 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 4:36 am

714. Comment #63062 by epeeist on August 13, 2007 at 3:32 am
Thanks for the link, epeeist (and no, I'm not a school teacher LOL!). I agree with you and Philip - this stuff worries me deeply. Whether or not their claim that they're only seeking to use peaceful methods is genuine or just tactical, one thing is certain: any caliphate that resulted (whether through peaceful means or not) would NOT be looking to co-exist peacefully with the non-Moslem world: since this would not be in accordance with the strict interpretation of the Koran, which is what any such caliphate would by definition stand for.

I find myself feeling very pessimistic when I read this kind of thing. With the growth of fundamentalist Islam on one side and fundamentalist Christianity on the other, and with only a modest understanding of the scale of the potential threat amongst the majority of those caught between the two, I really don't know what - if anything - can be done to stop it.

I guess we just have to keep banging the drum and saying over and over and over again that a) this stuff's dangerous and b) it's totally unfounded. Slowly, gradually, maybe we'll get somewhere. I certainly hope so.

359. Amnesty to defy Catholic church over rape victims' abortion rights

Comment #63053 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 3:17 am

I apologise to Russell, IanG, Northern Lights and others on this thread. I cannot even call Benedict a pope. He's a Rat!!

Assuming you mean me, I can't think of any reason at all why you should feel you need to apologise for what you wrote!

The Vatican is accusing Amnesty of double standards, because it opposes the death penalty in all circumstances but, it argues, under some circumstances will now condone the killing of an unborn child.

What has the termination of a brutally imposed pregnancy got to do with the death penalty? The termination would be carried out in order not to inflict further, avoidable, suffering on the woman, not in order to punish the foetus. What about the double standards of opposing the abuse of human rights, and then forcing a woman to go through with a pregnancy that could be physical and mental torture to her?

There's no arguing against this stuff - it's so abhorrent, so despicable, there's really no common ground from which to start a discussion.

360. The Out Campaign

Comment #63049 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 2:57 am

Hi guys

Is it my imagination, or are we getting a bit off topic here? I keep seeing new posts on this thread and keep fighting to page 15 to see what they are, only to find that they're about pubs and birthdays! Not that they're not both very nice things in their own right, but .....

361. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #63032 by Northern Bright on August 13, 2007 at 1:36 am

58. Comment #62962 by wardsie on August 12, 2007 at 2:38 pm

My God Northern Bright (post #62872) You've hit the mark perfectly.

Thank you! (Now that's better than being accused of being a paranoid bully!!)

If that's your picture...how about coffee?

Er, if that's yours, no thanks!! ;-))))

362. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62940 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 12:24 pm

52. Comment #62938 by IanG on August 12, 2007 at 12:06 pm
LOL, IanG - you've missed your way in life - you'd have made a great vicar! :-)))

363. Grief Without God

Comment #62931 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 10:59 am

51. Comment #62924 by dubylsyx on August 12, 2007 at 10:31 am
Welcome, dubylsyx - good to have you with us.

364. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62928 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 10:55 am

I guess we actually need both approaches. Thank God, (just kidding), for Richard Dawkins AND Christopher Hitchens AND Sam Harris, AND all the others.

Nice point, IanG - I can't argue with you at all on that. Like the tiger goaded with a stick (that someone else mentioned earlier on), we do sometimes risk falling into the trap that's been set for us (I hope Magetoo will excuse the apparent paranoia of that phrase ;-) )

I had a discussion on a different forum about the interview with Philip Kitcher on this site, and came to the conclusion that both approaches are indeed necessary.

There are those (and I am one of them) for whom it is simply enough to point out (and demonstrate) that a position is illogical and irrational, for us to abandon it, regardless of any emotional distress that may cause us. I suspect that Richard Dawkins falls into this category too.

Then there are others who need their feelings to be taken more fully into account when arguing with them. Simply pointing out the logical flaws in their argument won't work, because they are arguing as much with their emotions as with their intellect. Somehow we have to deal with their emotions too. I freely confess that this isn't the strong point of people like me (and Richard Dawkins). People who are more emotion-led than this will, I'm sure, feel more able to listen and consider an argument put gently, softly-softly, in a Philip Kitcher kind of a way.

And it's no good a "Thinking" person like Dawkins trying to adopt the persona of a "Feeling" person like Kitcher for this purpose. There are two different consituencies, and a different approach is required for both.

Having said all of that, and at the risk of incurring Magetoo's disapproval, I think we do also have to be on the lookout for faux complaints about our aggression and ferocity - since these can so easily be deployed by someone who prefers not to engage with us on the grounds of the logic of our arguments for the simple reason that they know they can't.

365. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62927 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 10:36 am

37. Comment #62902 by magetoo on August 12, 2007 at 8:44 am
Sorry, Magetoo, I've been back and read the article again in the light of your comments and still stand by what I've written. Lynch devotes about half his article to making his point about similarities between the two "movements". Is the point that both sides use similar marketing channels to promote their message really worthy of so much column space? I doubt it.

366. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62898 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 8:27 am

I personally only know of two people who actually identify as atheist, apart from myself. If you ask some random person, chances are you will get the standard noncomittal answer of "I don't believe in God, but I believe there is something...". Hardly a striking endorsement of disbelief in the supernatural.

I agree with you on this, Magetoo - and it's precisely for this reason that I think our campaign (inasmuch as the word "campaign" is appropriate at all) should be FOR rational thinking rather than simply AGAINST religion.

367. Believe it or not: the sceptics beat God in bestseller battle

Comment #62895 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 8:18 am

Pardon me if this is a dumb question. Who profits monetarily from the sale of bibles?

Booksellers and book publishers. Dunno who gets the royalties though ;-)

368. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62894 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 8:14 am

My reading is simply that "The New Atheim Movement is picking up some of the methods and media smarts that have been used successfully by the evangelicals."; with a lead-in of "Richard Dawkins' new series" and a lead-out of "this may lead to conflict".

As I pointed out in my comment above, the fact that 2 "products" use similar means to promote themselves, doesn't make them the same product. Yet it has become commonplace for the religious lobby (or even just the "belief in belief" lobby) to pretend that it does. How often do we see comments from people (who doubtless think they're being original) along the lines of "Have you noticed that these atheists have an almost religious fervour about them?"? The use of words like "fundamentalist", "followers", "faith", "creed" etc in describing atheists is deliberately loaded, and I see no reason to think that Gordon Lynch was using the words "TV evangelist" in any other way.

Personally I don't have a big problem with people disagreeing with my worldview - but I do resent people distorting it. Dawkins' views as put forward in TGD have been especially distorted - he is represented as some kind of ranting, hate-filled, aggressive madman (and I haven't met him so - who knows - he may be!! ;-) ) - but that's certainly not the way he comes across in the book. In fact he's positively mild-mannered, fair and balanced.

This whole "let's make them out to be trouble-making, hatred-stirring, intolerant bigots" thing is, I have no doubt, a deliberate ploy to misrepresent us and paint us as "a Bad Thing" without actually having to engage with our arguments. Which, when all's said and done, simply boil down to: "But where's your proof?"!

369. Believe it or not: the sceptics beat God in bestseller battle

Comment #62873 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 5:35 am

However, the publication of The God Delusion last year also prompted a 120 per cent increase in sales of the Bible.

I have no problem with that whatsoever - it's just what we're advocating, isn't it? i.e. check everything out for yourself, test everything you're being asked to believe, and work out for yourself whether it makes sense or not. If that's a valid approach to life (and I strongly believe that it is), then it's got to work both ways.

370. Richard Dawkins, TV evangelist

Comment #62872 by Northern Bright on August 12, 2007 at 5:27 am

Yet another article that simply proves the point: that society is losing the ability to think clearly and rationally.

So the "new atheist movement" is using methods of getting its message across that are reminiscent of the methods used by evangelicals? So what? It's called marketing. Who in their right mind would attempt to promote an idea globally these days without recourse to the internet? Or books? As for the fund-raising, how else would Lynch suggest we did it, other than through merchandise and the opportunity for supporters to donate? State funding, perhaps?

The marketing methods used by Mercedes Benz and Kelloggs also show considerable similarities to each other, but that doesn't make a Mercedes a wholesome breakfast cereal, and nor does it make your cornflakes do 0-60 in 4.3 seconds.

In this sense, while Dawkins's intentions are doubtless well meant, the rise of the atheist movement he symbolises could do more than the alternative spiritualities he disparages to threaten the fragile cohesion of our societies.

Ignoring the clumsiness of "well-meant intentions", this is still a complete non-sequitur, on the basis that Dawkins' argument against "alternative spiritualities" isn't that they "threaten the fragile cohesion of our societies" but that they are based on irrationalities at best and deliberate fraud at worst.

Similarly, this atheist "hatred of the religious" that people like Gordon Lynch are so desperate to see, is rarely anything of the kind. The worst he's likely to encounter, even in the most rabid comments on a site like this, is scorn for the religious. Now, even that isn't a particularly pretty emotion, I'll grant you, but it's not the same as hatred and it's not the same as believing that someone deserves to be assaulted, jailed, tortured or murdered for their beliefs.

I would suggest that most of us are not motivated by hatred but by a simple commitment to logical, rational thinking. Religion incurs our disapproval because a) there is absolutely no hard evidence to substantiate its claims, b) it elevates blind faith and obedience over rational thinking, c) it has enormous power, both over governments and over individuals, d) e) f) 100 other reasons, no doubt - but the key one is a) THERE'S NO REASON TO BELIEVE IT'S TRUE!!!!

Anyone who sees that position as hatred of religious people, is simply distorting language to suit their own ends. Believing someone to be wrong is not the same as hating them (unless you have a holy book that tells you otherwise, of course).

371. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62623 by Northern Bright on August 10, 2007 at 12:12 pm

It is easilly argued that the kids are getting a far better education than those kids in public school.

I suspect that will very much depend on how you're defining "education". Any definition that doesn't include an emphasis on learning how to think for oneself won't carry much weight with me. And that is notably absent from this school's ethos. Unless you think that teaching children every single subject through the filter of "biblical truth" constitutes teaching them to think for themselves, in which case you are simply redefining words to suit your own ends and discussion becomes meaningless.

Yet Biblical truths have yet to be debunked and never will.

Which biblical truths might those be, I wonder? Creationism? Adam and Eve? Virgin birth? The Trinity? Eternal life? Heaven? Hell? Salvation? The miracles? The resurrection? The bible as the inspired word of God?

Christians keep coming onto this site and claiming these things as truths, and that they have evidence for their claims, but no matter how often and how sincerely we ask, what they produce (if anything at all) is always simply just further claims and further assertions, but never anything resembling evidence.

If you can be the exception, issuser, and give us evidence for why the sorts of "biblical truths" I've listed above should genuinely be considered "truths" rather than "claims", we'll be delighted to hear from you. (But first you might like to just check out the definition of "evidence" in any decent dictionary.)

372. The Flea Circus Invites a Newcomer!

Comment #62615 by Northern Bright on August 10, 2007 at 11:26 am

'It doesn't matter what the evidence is, evolutionary biologists are happy to change their story to suit.'

Yeah, it's pathetic, isn't it. All it takes to get these scientists to change their story is a bit of fresh evidence that suggests that the old one wasn't accurate. So obviously even the scientists themselves didn't believe what they claimed before - if they had, they wouldn't abandon it at the drop of a hat, would they? How is anyone supposed to take them seriously when they keep changing their story every time new evidence comes along? I mean, new evidence comes along all the time - if they had any sense at all they'd ignore at least some of it: updating their story each time just draws attention to the fact they don't know everything yet.

No, far better to follow the example of Christianity, which has been telling the same story, steadfastly ignoring all the evidence and all the developments in knowledge and learning, for thousands of years. I mean - anything else just isn't credible, is it?

373. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62588 by Northern Bright on August 10, 2007 at 7:57 am

The idea of God diminishes both us and the incredible beauty and wonder of the natural world and the greater Universe beyond. We are better than that and we should say so with pride, rather than with the apologetic guilt that is inevitably expected of us by those for whom faith and guilt are a ruling duopoly, whose reign is based on submission, obedience and ignorance rather then challenge, enquiry and understanding.

Beautifully put, IanG - thank you.

I started reading Richard Dawkins' books for their anti-religious polemic; but now I read them for the science and am discovering a universe that is far more fascinating, far more awe-inspiring and far more exciting than any of these religious myths could ever be. And it seems such a tragic waste to me that all those religious people out there who truly believe that "God is the answer" and promptly stop asking the questions are missing out on so much. And they accuse us of having a negative world view!

374. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62582 by Northern Bright on August 10, 2007 at 7:22 am

Here are just a few gems from the "school" website:

Castle Hills First Baptist School
A Ministry of Castle Hills First Baptist Church

Note that: it sees itself as a direct part of the ministry of the church.

Our mission is leading students, in partnership with families, to know Christ and to make Christ known

So, not to give the children a rounded education that will form the basis for a lifetime of learning and an effective career, then?

The declaration that parents have to sign:

I have read and fully support the Statement of Faith of Castle Hills First Baptist School.
Should the time ever come that I can no longer support the Statement of Faith, I will discretely and politely withdraw my child from Castle Hills First Baptist School.

So if the parent stops believing, the child's education has to be interrupted, whether the parent wants it to be or not. And if the parent objects at a later date to something the school stands for, going public isn't allowed.
(I note that elsewhere on their website they refer to all truth being God's truth. Sadly they don't seem to subscribe to the notion that all spelling is God's spelling and their own education was obviously too focused on God, God, God, God, God to have taught them the difference between "discrete" and "discreet". But hey, they're only a school, wanting to take people's money for educating their children - why should they be able to spell? Good spelling is probably the mark of the devil anyway.)

And finally, from their pre-registration questionnaire relating to children enrolling in kindergarten classes:

4. Would you describe your child as being strong-willed or compliant?

Strong-willed
Compliant
5. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being strong-willed and 1 being passive), how would you
rate your child?
6. How do you instruct (discipline) your child? (Check all applicable)
a)
Redirection
b)
Warnings (# of warnings before action is taken ____)
c)
Think and pray time outs (Length of time outs____)
d)
Corporal punishment (
Frequently
Seldom)

Is it just me, or is anyone else out there feeling rather sick?

375. Why Richard Dawkins is right on alternative medicine - but not when it comes to religion

Comment #62542 by Northern Bright on August 10, 2007 at 4:12 am

He loathes the idea of Hell, but the notion of torture by eternal sulphurous flames is as dead as Hieronymus Bosch

Dominic Lawson appears to think that the polite, slightly apologetic tones of the Church of England are typical of Christianity (and even more inaccurately, ALL religion) as a whole.

He clearly hasn't engaged in discussion with any religious fundamentalists recently. Just yesterday someone posted the following comment on an Open University atheist/agnostic conference:

The Bible says that Jesus will come again & take those who know Him to heaven & the rest will have eternal life in Hell (I know this won't go down too well in here but I'm sorry)

... and it was clear from the rest of her post that she was referring to (and believed in) the literal biblical version of Hell.

It's easy to refute this sort of nonsense, of course. But Lawson is being disingenuous if he is truly claiming that Dawkins and other atheists dismiss religion simply because of this kind of palpable absurdity. Of COURSE we realise that not all religious people believe in these things literally. But we would still dismiss religion even if ALL its followers understood it in mild Church of England terms. Why? Because there is simply no evidence for the truth of its fundamental premise (i.e. the existence of a god), and yet it uses this fundamental premise to "justify" its claims to legitimacy, to influence, to tax relief and to donations, and to complete and unquestioning loyalty and obedience from its followers. We would still dismiss it, because it is wrong to demand that people devote their lives to a belief for which there is no empirical evidence, and because it is an affront to the potential of human intellect and human compassion and human energy.

And the argument from morality is irrelevant. If there is no god, then there can be no god who gives us absolute morality. The human sense of morality can be explained perfectly satisfactorily through reference to our social structures. Those social structures change over time and location and, surprise, surprise, so do the details of what is seen to constitute "moral" behaviour. There is no reason why we should continue to hold the moral values of a Bronze-to-Iron Age Middle-Eastern, patriarchal society in higher regard than those of, say, 18th century China, 19th century Papua New Guinea, or 21st century Britain.

The interesting thing is that Christianity itself demonstrates this: my mother was raised a Methodist in the 1930s and was exposed to the full hellfire and brimstone version of Christianty. The emphasis was on sin and judgement and punishment and the requirement to believe in order to escape the wrath of God. "Fear of the Lord" was the watchword. These days (in UK Methodist churches - well, English Methodist churches, anyway) belief is presented, not as something we have to do in order to escape God's wrath, but as something we naturally do in response to God's overwhelming love and compassion and goodness. Punishment is out, love is in.

Has the bible changed? Has the unchanging God changed? No. But society has changed, and our understanding of people's psychological and emotional complexity has changed, and the way society deals with criminals has changed. We are more willing to take extenuating circumstances into account, we are more willing to give people another chance, we no longer whip our children into submission, or hang burglars - our society is far more compassionate than that of the 1930s. And, not surprisingly, our view of God has changed in the same way - after all, if WE are able to respond to people with compassion, then it follows that God must do so too.

We make God in our own image. Even the CHURCH makes God in its own image. Which means that we make God's morals in our own image too. And that in turn means that morals are safe, even if we come to see that God didn't make them and they are not (and never have been) absolute.

376. Curriculum for Baptist School

Comment #62363 by Northern Bright on August 9, 2007 at 12:12 pm

5. Comment #62324 by konquererz on August 9, 2007 at 9:34 am
Well, nothing new. I spent four years in private school, this is exactly how its put.

It's not that I don't believe you, Konquererz - I'm not suggesting you're lying or anything. But my brain simply can't take in the idea of a school curriculum like this. It's obscene. (But even as I write that, there's a bit of me that's half-expecting a Christian to pop up and confess to having made the whole thing up just to get us going.)

I do like the parts where they teach the scientific method.

Yes, I was wondering whether anyone else had choked on that one! Just imagine:
Hypothesis: God makes the sun rise.
Test: Did the sun rise this morning?
Answer: Yes
Conclusion: God exists!
And to think we dumb atheists claim there's no scientific basis to Christianity ....

377. The Out Campaign

Comment #62153 by Northern Bright on August 8, 2007 at 11:21 am

Look for "premium" content on the web, CDs and MP3s. Maybe a meet-and-greet with St. Richard for a small fee. Bumper stickers are an obvious choice. Jewelry. Mugs. Mousepads. Maybe a celebrity cruise with Dawkins, Dennett and Harris...

Sinbad's right, it does verge on the tacky. Maybe we should be State funded instead? ;-)

378. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #62094 by Northern Bright on August 8, 2007 at 6:17 am

(I suspect Northern Bright has been hang around James Randi's website to use that language.}

Not guilty, yer 'Onner. I've looked in once or twice but I never inhaled, honest.

379. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61940 by Northern Bright on August 7, 2007 at 1:53 pm

He is also confusing Dawkins for Hawking.

Yes, but be fair: he's also confusing the Daily Mail for a newspaper.

[EDIT]Ah, sorry, Epeeist - I didn't mean to steal your line. Note to self: must read to end of thread before posting in future :-)

380. The Out Campaign

Comment #61936 by Northern Bright on August 7, 2007 at 1:25 pm

656. Comment #61839 by _J_ on August 7, 2007 at 5:27 am
657. Comment #61849 by BillySands on August 7, 2007 at 6:03 am
I thought both your responses were excellent, and they both made me feel quite nauseous. Yes - that is EXACTLY the sort of reply that the religious give. I've heard it over and over again. I was quite shocked by how violently I reacted to your posts there - it seems so hard to understand now that I could ever have found such outrageous, complacent smugness remotely credible. More than that, I am embarrassed to think that I could ever have found it credible.

658. Comment #61854 by _J_ on August 7, 2007 at 6:24 am

I'll allow them 'He never puts us in a situation that we can not handle' as there may be a useful bit of self-empowering positive psychology hidden in that idea (as long as it doesn't lead people to struggle on blindly with something they really need help with, or should give up on entirely).

Know what? I won't. Even removing the supernatural element of it and saying "We can handle anything that we need to handle in life", this is still patently untrue. How many people commit suicide each year? How many attempt suicide? How many turn to alcohol or drugs or whatever in a desperate attempt to block out the unbearable? I used to work with homeless people, some of whom had been through childhoods that the majority of us can't even begin to imagine the awfulness of. OK, yes, they got through it. But to claim that anyone can handle anything that life throws at them is, to my mind, to belittle the sheer heroism of someone who has battled through against all the odds - after all, if anyone could have done it, what's the big deal?

I just don't hold with saying things I don't believe to be true, even if some people may find them comforting. And I certainly don't believe that life never chucks more at us than we can handle. It may be cosy, but it's not true. Ask any volunteer with the Samaritans.

381. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61682 by Northern Bright on August 6, 2007 at 10:20 am

78. Comment #61662 by Dr Benway on August 6, 2007 at 7:31 am

Thank you, Dr Benway, absolutely spot on in every respect, in my view - I couldn't agree with you more.

81. Comment #61667 by pewkatchoo on August 6, 2007 at 7:56 am
Pewkatchoo, this may really be an area where living in different societies is having a big influence on how we're viewing this. In the UK people are turning to "spirituality" (i.e. New Age claptrap) far more than they're turning to the mainstream religions (other than perhaps in certain specific sectors of society). And I simply haven't seen it challenged at all. Several months ago I posted a request on another atheist forum I take part in, asking whether anyone had ever come across any books or websites that debunked this stuff. And no one had. Someone suggested the Randi site, and that was it. (Well, there are lots of websites that pour scorn on it, actually, but they are all done from a Christian persepective.)

Fundamentalist Islam is certainly a real concern here, but fundamentalist Christianity is pretty much irrelevant, I'd say. Most British Christians would find a fundie Christian embarrassing rather than threatening in any way.

I can't comment on the scale of the New Age problem elsewhere, but in the UK I would certainly say it's the fastest-growing source of non-thinking, anti-intellectual degeneracy. And there simply isn't yet a sane, rational voice that's speaking up and saying "This is total rubbish, and this is why." I just can't think of anyone better than Richard Dawkins to do it.

382. Response to the God Delusion

Comment #61656 by Northern Bright on August 6, 2007 at 6:57 am

47. Comment #61311 by flowerpotman on August 4, 2007 at 2:38 pm

I'm very pleased to have met you, and am very sorry that you now feel as though there is no God.

Thanks, flowerpotman, I'm pleased to have met you too - but I'd pick you up on your phraseology there: this isn't about how I feel, it's about what I think. In my Christian days I would sometimes feel as if there was no God, but my faith kept me hanging on in there and then the feeling that there was would eventually return.

My atheism has not arisen as a change in feeling, but as a change in my thinking. It's not easy to condense the story of how I stopped being a Christian into anything shorter than a book, and I'm not planning to inflict that on anyone, but in the tiniest of nutshells, it started one Sunday in church when I was reciting the Nicene Creed along with everyone else and realised that I simply didn't believe a number of the statements contained within it. At that stage it wasn't that I doubted God's existence at all or felt any less close to him than I had a moment before - it didn't seem like an insurmountable problem that I didn't literally believe that "he descended into hell" and all that stuff, as I just added it to my ever growing list of things that had to be understood as metaphors. But it alerted me to what else I might be professing belief in, in the course of various prayers, hymns and liturgy, without genuinely believing it, and I began scrutinising what I was professing with more attention. And I came to realise that there was an awful lot of it. And as the list of what I was expected to believe but actually didn't, continued to mount up, I decided that I had to sit down and work out what I DID honestly believe. So that's what I did.

I'm not going to bore anyone (myself included) with the details - but this was a thought-based process that took place over a period of time . And my rejection of Christianity took place long before my rejection of belief in a God at all. That came later, when I began discovering that everything that I had previously explained by reference to God (including my very strong subjective feelings of having personally encountered him) could be accounted for perfectly rationally and naturalistically. This part of the experience, too, was a gradual one, part of a process that has taken a number of years.

Interesting though that someone of your apparent resoluteness in this issue still feels the need to read these forums. I wonder what someone with such a clear, decided view could find here.

What I find here is discussion on a subject that interests me with people who share my interest. I find a great deal of wit. I find a challenge, because a number of people post comments that I disagree with, or come at questions from angles that hadn't struck me - so there's always fresh material for thinking about, whether I agree with it or not. It also frequently makes me laugh. It's lively, it's entertaining, it's thought-provoking. That's what I find here. I also frequent forums elsewhere on bird watching and geology - if your implied suggestion were correct, I'd only be doing that to reassure myself that I really am interested in birds and rocks. Oh yes, and I frequent a joke-sharing forum too. To reassure myself that I have a sense of humour, perhaps? ;-)

Before I continue, I should say that "yes, I see your point of view" to many of your comments, because I really do (key: faith is subjective and very personal). [SNIP] .. communication is also subjective - every person witnessing the conversation forms their own judgment on whether it's literal, figurative and more to the point what the underlying meaning is behind the words.

Yes, that's very true. And I also agree absolutely with the point you made immediately following the bit I've quoted, about the same holding true of people's interpretations of the bible. I referred you before to another post I'd submitted on this very subject and I'd still really like you to read it, if it won't bore you too much, because it is such a central topic - after all, subjective experience forms a very large part of the "evidence" that believers feel they have for the existence of God. The post I'm referring to is no. 184 on this page: http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,1454,Richard-Dawkins-on-Hardtalk,BBC-Richard-Dawkins,page4#comments

Interesting that this should through you away from God, because hearing about the "bizarre", "unlikely" and even the "unnecessary" and "unhelpful" things actually does to me two things:
1. Strengthen my faith that there is a God, since each of these that I've encountered seems even more far fetched to have "just happened".
2. Makes me realize that there's no point trying to fathom "what God was thinking" when He made those things. Maybe He has a sense of humor. Maybe these strange things are somehow required in some way. Maybe I shouldn't use the phrase "It's not how I would have done it".

Yes, I'm sure that's how you react. It's how believers DO react. It's what happens when you start with the answer instead of the question. But there is certainly nothing inherently in them that requires a God to account for them, and they can all be explained by natural selection. (And on that topic, it's a common misconception that natural selection "just happens". It doesn't. Richard Dawkins' various science-focused books are an excellent way of encountering the subject because he explains it all so incredibly clearly.)

As for God's having a sense of humour, maybe you're right, and maybe he just rolls about laughing when he watches the ichneumonidae that he created eating caterpillars alive from inside their bodies. (Hope he doesn't try posting it in the jokes forum I visit though, because I don't think it'll go down too well.)

You think there's a secret? It says right there in the bible that the bad stuff happens because of us; the way we are.

Oh well, that's ok, then. So long as there's a good reason. But maybe you should point this out to the countless authors of countless books in countless Christian book shops, who still seem to think this needs elucidating.

Testing your own arguments against other humans – a brilliant back door. You argued against people and got back mixed and possibly conflicting responses – big surprise. Did you try testing your arguments against God? I wonder whether you ever went to someone in your old church and said "I'm doubting my faith. Will you pray with me to ask God to help me make sense of it all?"

Hopefully my response above will have answered this. I needed to work out what I believed and I needed to test whether the conclusions I'd reached could stand up to being challenged by people who had come to different conclusions. They did. Your point kind of presupposes that the most important thing was to go on believing and to do everything possible to continue to do that. But to me the most important thing was to decide whether what I believed was likely to be true. Truth was more important than belief. I did not consider the claims of Christianity to be true. I'm not sure of either the logic or the honesty of asking for help to believe something I no longer considered to be true.

The world and the universe are fantastic places – I believe that it was the work of a creator, which is why they're so fantastic.

Sure. I'm not going to argue against that, since we both know there's no point. What I AM going to do is suggest you read Unweaving the Rainbow, by Richard Dawkins. There's one small bit where I found myself floundering a bit with the science (I have no science background whatsoever) but otherwise it's a very accessible, very clear, very beautiful account of how various natural phenomena work. Don't worry - it's not The God Delusion via the back door: in this book Dawkins is arguing against those who claim that science spoils the beauty of the universe in the process of explaining it, and he demonstrates that it actually becomes MORE beautiful, MORE awesome, MORE jaw-droppingly astonishing, the more you learn about it. I can't remember - there may be the odd throw-away line to the effect that the scientific facts are more miraculous than anything posited by religion, but I promise you that this is not an anti-religious polemic. More than anything, it is an ode to the beauty of the universe, as revealed by science. (The bit towards the end, where he writes about how cuckoos choose which nests to hijack for their eggs is just awesome and got me going round for days afterwards telling everyone about it.)

People are usually stubborn when it comes to blind belief and an unwillingness to investigate. I just hope that everyone else reading this forum has actually done some research, and has actually talked to people who do believe there is a God and why.

I get the feeling that a large number of them have - hence the frequent pleas of "But WHY do you believe that?" and "What evidence do you have for believing that?" I think these are usually very genuine questions - the problem is that the answers nearly always come back to subjective experience, which simply ISN'T evidence to anyone who hasn't experienced it (as dealt with in the post I've referred you to!) or biblical authority, which presupposes the answer to the very question that's being asked.

Hats off to you Northern for an interesting reply. I'm pleased to have met you.

You too, flowerpotman. Thanks for the discussion.

383. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61492 by Northern Bright on August 5, 2007 at 11:08 am

I expect quite a few of you will have seen this already - but I just love it :-)

http://www.gulligo.com/

384. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61485 by Northern Bright on August 5, 2007 at 10:46 am

Veronique: 18. Comment #61400 by Northern Bright
I am so glad to see you posting. I like you more and more. A lovely breath of fresh air:-).

Well, thank you! [Blushes]
(Quetzal, don't panic: I have no intention of setting up a rival religious following) ;-)

There is only one person here in Byron, who I know is absolutely immune to this stuff and to the religious meme. She's excellent value. We have been friends for nearly 40 years. She sees the desperation that you mention.

LOL!

37. Comment #61472 by discipline on August 5, 2007 at 9:43 am
Belief in crystals or astrology isn't ruining American public school education, electing far-right born-again leaders, compromising civil rights and reproductive freedom, or compelling people to fly planes into buildings.

We secularists need to pick our battles and this new direction just dilutes our efforts.

I really can't argue with any of the first bit of this, Discipline. I guess we're just coming at this from different perspectives. There's no doubt that religion has a much stronger stranglehold on education and politics in the US than it does in the UK, and I can see how that might lead to the position you're taking.

For me (a Brit) the driving force is my despair at the irrationality I see around me. Religion is certainly a part of that, but in the UK I would say that this New Agey stuff is proving far more powerful as a means of turning people's brains to slush. This may not be the direct threat that you see in religion, but I see a real danger in the spread of a disease that destroys people's ability to think rationally. These mushy-brained people don't just exist in isolation: like everyone else, they drive cars, they teach in schools, they treat the sick, they elect our leaders, they get elected, they make decisions that will have consequences for the rest of us too. I'd just prefer the people I share my life / society / world with to have something stronger than blancmange where their brains should be.

So my personal campaign is against irrationality and sloppy thinking wherever they occur, not just in religion. (After all, a successful campagin against irrationality would encompass religion too, wouldn't it?) I have no difficulty accepting that not everyone will feel the same way, though.

385. The Out Campaign

Comment #61436 by Northern Bright on August 5, 2007 at 6:41 am

Newatheist - So children want to pray! Which children? The children whose parents have told them they need to pray.

Wee Flea - No. Yesterday I met the child of an atheist parent who told me, in front of her parents, that she wanted to pray and to come to Church. Life is not as simple as you think.

Hmm, just the one atheist parent, eh, Wee Flea? So would I be right in deducing that the other parent isn't an atheist?

Now, I wonder where on earth that extraordinary child could have picked up the idea that she wanted to pray and come to church. Going away to lie down in a darkened room and rack my poor, feeble, atheist brains.

386. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61400 by Northern Bright on August 5, 2007 at 3:36 am

I am so delighted that Richard Dawkins is tackling this New Age nonsense and, although I can see where Russell Blackford is coming from with his point about the sheer power of the mainstream religions, I do genuinely think New Age is a highly legitimate target in its own right.

I don't see swarms of people converting to Christianity, but I am shocked on an almost daily basis by the quantities of people who refer without either irony or embarrassment to karma or crystals or homeopathy or telepathy or reiki or spirit guides or angels or reincarnation or "sending healing" or tarot or mediums or star signs or whatever. I was in my local Borders bookshop the other day and was just appalled at seeing shelf upon shelf upon shelf devoted to this complete and utter codswallop. There was as much on this nonsense as on all the mainstream religions put together.

I find it gutting that people should reject mainstream religion - only to run headlong into the outstretched arms of a set of even more ludicrous and infantile beliefs. I call this New Age stuff "Religion Lite" - it offers all the comfort of standard religion (you don't really die, you've always got someone powerful and good looking out for you, you live in a benign universe, everything happens for the best) whilst stripping out all the elements that are inconvenient (the requirement to live by certain rules, to apply some discipline to your life, to spend time worshipping etc).

I'm no fan of mainstream religion but there's no doubt that alongside its many obscenities over the centuries it has also inspired acts of tremendous bravery and self-sacrifice; or that it has inspired some truly magnificent works of art and architecture, poetry and music. I can see on one level why a magnificent organ thundering in a towering and ancient cathedral, along with a stirring liturgy, might make their mark on an appropriately prepared mind. But can you imagine any of this New Age flotsam and jetsam inspiring anything at all?

At least the mainstream religions offer a challenge along with the wishful thinking. New Age is just wishful thinking - lousy, lazy, ignorant, illogical, nauseating wishful thinking. It's intellectual candy floss. It's like throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater.

And, like Richard Dawkins (to judge from this review), I just can't rid myself of the suspicion (or is it just the hope?) that these people don't really believe this stuff. I mean, how could they possibly? I can see (kind of - though not without pain) why they might like it to be true …. but to really, actually, genuinely believe that it IS? Honestly, it gives me brain ache.

To return to Russell's point, though, I do actually see real harm in all this stuff. OK, I don't live in fear of someone flying an aeroplane into a packed skyscraper in the name of reiki. But the New Age movement is taking hold of many people's minds and strangling any commitment to rational enquiry, rational thought, and rational behaviour. It is not just feeding off the prevailing anti-science atmosphere but actively fuelling it - and this at a time when we need all the rational, scientific thinking we can get if we are to rise to the real challenges facing the world (global warming to name just one).

If anyone here hasn't read Richard Dawkins' book A Devil's Chaplain, I can highly recommend it. It contains a chapter addressing all this kind of nonsense - with the delightful title of "Crystalline Truths and Crystal Balls". If you haven't read it, you have a treat in store!

387. The Out Campaign

Comment #61245 by Northern Bright on August 4, 2007 at 10:33 am

613. Comment #61230 by The Wee Flea on August 4, 2007 at 9:15 am

Yep – believe it all. And there is loads of evidence for it. None of which you would of course accept.

What makes you think you know what I would accept, Wee Flea? To quote you back at yourself:

You are judging without any knowledge.

and

isn't it great to have such insight?

However, of course, if you yourself don't think the evidence is convincing, you're probably right not to risk exposing it here. Maybe it's that special faith version of "evidence" that's wholly convincing provided you already believe it?

604. Comment #61192 by Northern Bright on August 4, 2007 at 5:30 am
So when did Christianity begin to believe and teach that Jesus was virgin born? It seems to have been shortly after the first Christian missionaries returned from India.

Wee Flea: Fantastic. There were Christian missionaries in India in the 1st century? Could you please give the evidence for this?

Slightly disingenuous of you here, Wee Flea, since it wasn't actually my comment but was in a quote which I included to show that that the notion of virgin births was relatively widespread at that time (and I myself pointed out the bias in it). Sorry to drag you back from PointScoringRUs, but my point was that virgin births were attributed to a number of supposedly divine characters in ancient times. Do you dispute the truth of that statement?

Meanwhile can anyone answer the perfectly legitimate question as to when RD last produced a science paper?

Yet again, I would refer you to one of your own answers:

You will excuse me pointing out that this thread is about atheists coming out. Quite what this has to do with [the WCF] is beyond me. And why would you and others want to talk about it? Just accept my word that [I do not believe the Pope is the anti-Christ] and get back to the subject. Otherwise it becomes nonsensical.

It would appear that evidence is something that you demand of others but do not give yourself (you just claim to have loads of it and we're meant to take that at face value); and adherence to the theme of the thread is something that only becomes dear to your heart when the subject under discussion strays into areas that are uncomfortable for you. Threads thread, that's what they do. Conversations start in one place and thread their way through many others. I notice that you don't clamour for strict adherence to the Atheists Coming Out theme when responding to questions about the virgin birth, or children being forced to pray, or the value of human life.

388. The Out Campaign

Comment #61223 by Northern Bright on August 4, 2007 at 8:29 am

Northern Bright, if we are talking about the Mithras celebrated around December 25, then we are talking about the Mithras of the Roman mystery religion, who was born from a rock, fully grown, not from a virgin woman.

Thanks for that, JJ. My point remains - the Virgin Birth was a commonly used device in ancient story-telling, and shouldn't be interpreted literally, although of course many people do.

I absolutely agree with BAEOZ that, in the case of Christianity, the virgin birth thing was probably added later to give Jesus a bit of glitz so he could compete with the various other contenders for divinity.

I don't expect you to take my word for it, though, and would recommend that you look up works like _The Roman Cult of Mithras_ by Manfred Clauss for yourself if you can.

No, you're alright! The 700,800 hours of my expected lifespan are ticking away too fast for me to read every book ever written, and there are many many clamouring more insistently for my attention in the 324,120 hours I hope to have left! :-)

389. The Out Campaign

Comment #61192 by Northern Bright on August 4, 2007 at 5:30 am

Re the virgin birth, it was a common literary device in ancient times that was used to reinforce the specialness and chosenness of whichever hero was being lionised at the time.

I suspect that it would have been adopted in the earliest oral renditions of the gospel stories as a simple story-telling device, and may well have been understood as such by the audience, who would have been familiar with the concept from other stories. Much as any child today knows that the phrase "Once upon a time" heralds the start of a fairy story, I suspect that audiences then would have recognised the reference to a virgin birth as simply an indication that they were about to hear about someone very special.

I found this on geocities.com: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/3827/virginborn.html -

The myth of the virgin birth was not first with Christianity, but Christianity stole it from previous non-Christian religions. In the Hindu religion the god Vishnu had an incarnate Son, Chrishna (Krishna) by a virgin birth. This was about 1156 BC. It is also interesting to note, at his birth, there was a special star in the sky, there were shepherds, and the local king out of jealousy slaughtered infants. The myth of a Virgin birth of other gods are, the Buddha, the Egyptian god Horus, a Roman savior Quarrnus, the Greek deity Adonis, the Persia god Mithra who was born December 25th. The list could go on and on including the god Zoroaster of BC 500, but this list should be sufficient to make the point.

So when did Christianity begin to believe and teach that Jesus was virgin born? It seems to have been shortly after the first Christian missionaries returned from India. This was sometime shortly after the turn of the first century. Having learned of the birth story of the Hindu god Chrishna, the Christian leaders felt the Son of God they worshipped should also have these credentials. This is why they adapted the Hindu story, with some variations, but including the star, the shepherds and a king who's (sic - ouch) jealousy motivated him to murder infants. They stole the birth story of Jesus from the Hindus.

You'll have detected the Indian/Hindu slant to this assessment - but it's indisputable that references to virgin births (as well as to guiding stars, miracles, and even resurrection) are not unique to Christianity but were already well established memes. (Do I get brownie points for referring to memes, BTW? ;-) )

390. Response to the God Delusion

Comment #61187 by Northern Bright on August 4, 2007 at 4:36 am

43. Comment #61150 by flowerpotman on August 4, 2007 at 12:41 am

Flowerpotman, I think you're making a few assumptions there - starting with the one that we don't know what we're rejecting.

It is clear that many of the posters on the various forums on this site have experienced deep belief in God, but have for various reasons come to reject that belief. But I don't want to put words in anyone else's mouth, so I'll just answer you from my own experience. For years I was a deeply committed Christian who was absolutely certain that God existed, and that certainty was without doubt the most important and sacred part of my life at that time and influenced everything I did. Now I realise that the standard response to this is to say that I can't really have been a Christian if I have since come to reject Christianity blah blah blah, and I can't complain really: I used exactly the same line on ex-believers when I was still inside the bubble, and I used it with complete sincerity, as those who now use it on me no doubt do too. However, I trust you won't quibble when I suggest that I'm in a stronger position to know what I believed and the intensity and effects of that belief than you are.

You guys are looking for a reason to doubt the existance of any God. I hope, nay pray that one day you will look for or experience a reason to believe in the existance of one (be it Christianity or other). I also hope that you'll speak to someone who _does_ have a reason to believe, and soon. [SNIP]
Have any of you found a good church and spoken to any of the people there about your beliefs for a more two-sided argument?

I can assure you that at the time I came to realise that Christianity just wasn't credible, I was NOT looking for reasons not to believe. Quite the reverse, actually. And I'm still not looking for reasons not to believe: it's just that I simply don't believe. I know all too well what I am rejecting. I don't need to check out my assumptions with someone who still feels "a reason to believe" or with a good church. Been there, done that. More than that: I WAS that person, and I was a PART of that church. I repeat: I KNOW the arguments in favour of Christianity and I no longer find them remotely convincing.

You fail to realize that the Bible isn't intended to be taken literally - after all, it's a translation of an ancient text.

Speaking as a linguist, I'm intrigued by your suggestion that a document should not be taken literally if it is a translation of an ancient text. A decent translation will render the original faithfully, no matter how ancient the text. If the original was meant to be taken literally, there is absolutely no reason why the translation of it should become figurative. Now clearly, we would no longer BELIEVE references to Neptune having caused a mighty storm at sea - but that's not because the ancient text that DID believe that has been translated, it's because we don't believe in Neptune any more and we have a good understanding of what DOES cause mighty storms at sea and know that references to supernatural agency are completely unnecessary. It's not that the original text has lost anything in the translation, it's that our knowledge of the world means that we no longer BELIEVE what was written in the original text. And the same is true of much of the Bible.

By the way, are you suggesting that none of the Bible is intended to be taken literally? The miracles of Jesus, for instance, or the resurrection, or claims of eternal life? If you think some of it is intended to be taken literally and other bits are intended to be taken metaphorically, how do you decide which is which? And why do so many Christians disagree with you? I myself have known plenty (though still the minority) who insist that every word in the bible is literally true.

Yes, evolution and creation can coexist

I had no difficulty with that concept either when I was a Christian, and I suspect it's really not an issue for the majority of Christians (certainly in the UK). In that respect I am sympathetic to the view that atheists put too much weight on this issue in their rebuttal of Christianity. HOWEVER, when I was a Christian my understanding of the processes of evolution was incredibly superficial. Don't get me wrong, I'm still no expert, but of late (thanks to the splendid Richard Dawkins) I have been reading more and more about it and I have to say that it throws up more than enough examples of the utterly bizarre, the utterly unnecessary and the sometimes downright unhelpful for it to be a remarkably unlikely, even warped, way for a loving creator god to proceed.

Yes, God does make bad things happen.

Again, I recognise where you're coming from. When you're in the bubble this doesn't feel like an objection. You are so convinced of the overall rightness and goodness of your god that "God does make bad things happen" can just be accepted as one of those things and simply not sufficient to outweigh your personal convictions. You're happy to accept that there must be a reason for God making bad things happen and you don't know what it is but you trust that it's a good, loving reason and that one day, if God's willing to let you into the secret, you'll know what it is.

It's another of those arguments that carry great weight with those inside the bubble, and none whatsoever with those outside it. A bit like when anorexics claim they're fat.

Why not properly explore the possibility that Richard D is wrong and there are very good reasons to believe in God, just as I have. It may change your life. Or is that what you're afraid of?

Again, I can only speak for myself. I agree with Richard Dawkins on the topic of religion because he expresses what I already think on the subject. Let me say that again: I agree with him because I agree with him, not because I HAVE to agree with him or because I have been brainwashed into agreeing with him, or because I don't think it's possible that he could ever be wrong in any respect. I agree with him the way a Socialist might agree with Tony Benn, or a Conservative might agree with Margaret Thatcher - not because there is any obligation or foregone conclusion about it, but because our views coincide.

More importantly than exploring the possibility that Richard Dawkins may be wrong, I have spent a lot of time exploring the possibility that I may be, including taking part over a number of months in a Christian Beliefs forum where I rigorously tested whether my atheism could stand up to the arguments of a devout Christian community. It did. In fact, I emerged from the experience MORE convinced that Christianity was hollow and that I was right to reject it.

But I do agree that believing in God changes your life. I've experienced it. But then, all sorts of things change your life: getting a hobby, learning to read (if you didn't already), learning to drive, getting a dog, taking up exercise, climbing a mountain, getting married, getting divorced, becoming ill. There is story about one of the earliest astronauts whose life was changed entirely by seeing Earth from the moon - seeing how flimsy and vulnerable and inexpressibly tiny it looked. It just blew away all the assumptions he'd grown up with.

NOT believing in God changes your life too - and I would argue for the better. Here are just a few reasons why:

1. When you truly understand that there is nothing special about humans, that we are not the ultimate purpose in ANYTHING, that we don't occupy any kind of divinely favoured slot in the universe, then you truly understand how incredibly lucky we are to be here; that there is no reason why we as a species should go on for ever and that we should therefore treat the world around us with a bit of respect, so that we can enable it to go on sustaining us (and other living beings) for as long as possible. The bit about other living beings is also hugely important - they, too, have evolved over countless millions of years and are not divinely ordained to be less important, less worthy of our care and respect and consideration than humans are.

2. When you truly understand that you die one day and that's THAT, you damn well make sure that you live your life to the full whilst you've got it. If you live to be 80, you'll have had the grand total of 700,800 hours of life (give or take the odd leap year). You don't have all eternity to make up for any time you waste now - you have to get on with it now. Kind of focuses the mind, doesn't it? (Some Christians claim that knowing that all of eternity depends on how you spend this life focuses THEIR mind - but I would argue that it focuses it on the wrong things, especially given that there isn't the slightest shred of evidence in support of the concept of eternal life anyway. This obsession with denying the reality of permanent death dominates too many Christians' lives and leads to a squandering of the one life they really can be sure of. Believe it or not, accepting that we die - full stop - is a very liberating experience.)

3. The knowledge that each and every living being has one life and that's it necessarily leads to the greater valuing of that life. If I don't rely on some kind of supernatural counterbalancing act after death, then I feel a greater responsibility to help create a better life for everyone in the here and now. Maybe you think that all humans need the prospect of Judgement Day to keep them on the straight and narrow. If so, I can assure you that you are wrong.

4. The world and the universe are truly fascinating places and science is what unlocks their secrets. Not yet all of them, thank goodness - imagine how sad it would be if there were nothing left to discover. But the more you delve into how things really work, the more awestruck you become and the more you want to learn. You may argue that there is no reason why belief in God should get in the way of that, but it does: because the religious start with the answer (Goddunnit) and try to twist all the evidence to shore up that answer. Where you are confident of your answer, there can be no genuine enquiry. The non-religious start with the question and build up tentative answers on the basis of the evidence and so open up a learning experience that is genuinely invigorating and genuinely satisfying - and, incidentally, far more likely to be accurate, not least because previously held conclusions that are no longer supported by newer evidence are discarded or amended.

5. Christians commonly claim that religion answers questions that science can't: that science explains "what" and "how", but that religion explains "why".

Whilst it is true that religion claims to explain "why", it cannot be stressed enough that there is absolutely no evidence to support the explanations it gives. The answers are a story, a parable, an allegory, call them what you will: they are NOT supported by empirical evidence. The answers may contain a certain amount of elegance, of beauty; they may contain a certain amount of internal logic; they may inspire some people and they may capture some people's imaginations and hearts and, as you suggest, change their lives. None of this for one moment constitutes proof of their veracity, any more than someone who is enchanted by Grimms Fairytales and finds that they contain much that is enlightening about human nature would be justified in claiming that Rumpelstiltskin really exists. An answer is not necessarily the same as a true answer. Even a convincing answer is not necessarily the same as a true answer.

Over and over again during the last few hundred years, science has revealed the truth behind phenomena that pre-scientific societies could only attribute to a god or gods: earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, floods, volcanoes. And this march of reason is advancing on all sorts of areas also once considered the preserve of religion: why humans love, why humans commit atrocities, why humans are altruistic. "Sin" as an explanation for destructive human behaviour is losing credibility in the face of genetics, psychology, sociology in the same way as angry earthquake gods lose credibility in the face of plate tectonics.

Over and over again the questions for which religion claims to have the answers are answered more convincingly and with far more supporting evidence by science and other forms of rational, naturalistic thought.


None of this will make the slightest difference to you, of course, because ultimately faith is subjective, not grounded in logic or reason and therefore not easily dislodged by them. But faith, being subjective, is something that will convince you but no one else. Even other Christians will disagree with you about the nature of your God because their subjective experiences of their God will by definition be different. I've gone into this issue on another forum and unpicked why subjective experiences can never constitute proof, and I've wittered on long enough here, so I'll just refer you to that if you're interested: it's the Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk strand, 184. Comment #59050 by Northern Bright on July 27, 2007 at 4:08 am

391. The Out Campaign

Comment #61028 by Northern Bright on August 3, 2007 at 11:28 am

Wee Flea writes:

Without empirical evidence please be silent.

Wonderful! :-)

Would I be right, Wee Flea, in thinking that you believe (and are not silent about) things such as the existence of God; that the Bible is the revealed Word of God; the Virgin Birth; the Resurrection; the existence of heaven and hell; and of Judgement Day; the Trinity; and that faith in Jesus Christ is the only route to the Father?

If so (and it's hard to see how a Minister in the Free Church of Scotland could fail to believe in at least some of them), I look forward to seeing your empirical evidence for them - unless, of course, lack of it forces you into silence.

(Apologies if someone else has beaten me to this - I've been away and am just working my way through this thread.)

392. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #59747 by Northern Bright on July 30, 2007 at 2:03 pm

Hobbit - Post 215 - thank you: that was a brilliantly succinct summary of EXACTLY what I was trying to say. Your reponse to Fides' post was also exactly what I would have written if you hadn't: the believer will always try to tell the ex-believer that they (the ex-believer) obviously didn't REALLY believe, didn't REALLY experience God, didn't REALLY do it properly. Hell, I should know: I used to use exactly the same technique myself (and in all sincerity, just like Fides does now).

Tumara Baap - Post 216 - Thank you for the suggestion about the book: I'm flattered. If I ever write it I shall immediately commission Hobbit as my editor :-)

Veronique - Post 218 - a really good question as to why religious people don't seem able to look at their own beliefs with rational eyes, and there have been lots of good answers here. I thought gr8hands' view (Post 228) was particularly telling: religion is indeed mental slavery (that's the perfect phrase to describe it). I think Daniel Dennett also covers this in Religion as Natural Phenomenon (I think that's its title - I'm not at home and only have my emergency stand-by holiday brain with me): built into the meme of religion is the tenet that it cannot be questioned. Every prayer, every sermon, every bible study class, every Sunday School class, every hymn, EVERYTHING is designed to reinforce the position that questioning is sinful. Rationality is seen - and quite rightly - as the enemy of faith, and religions will deploy all their many weapons against it. Most powerful of all is the line that says that asking questions is a sign of insufficient faith - and insufficient faith, if not quoshed, eventually leads to exclusion from the "club". So religion is not just mental slavery, but WILLING mental slavery.

And, just in case any believer starts to notice this and object to it, that personal abasement, the loss of self, the subjugation to God's will - is elevated by the meme of religion to a virtue! A sure sign that you're on the right path! That God is blessing you!

However unintellectual and irrational religious belief may be, the phenomenon of religion itself is extraordinarily clever - devilishly clever, you might say.

No wonder just about every dictatorship in history has adopted the same strategy: the cult of the infallible leader; the infantilising of its citizens; the proclamation of ludicrous untruths; the ruthless suppression of dissent, however innocently expressed; the closing of the borders to prevent its citizens from leaving (and the exposure of its citizens to other views from outside).

It's quite sinister when you think about it.

393. Richler defends atheism

Comment #59155 by Northern Bright on July 27, 2007 at 4:12 pm

Oh my Me Thor Bumba!

That's what people say when they get Bota-ili after a nasty case of Chernobog.

394. Richler defends atheism

Comment #59152 by Northern Bright on July 27, 2007 at 3:59 pm

Then there's

Feng-Du (Provided you face in the right direction)
Baba-Yaga (So much cuter than the grown-up Yagas)
Cocomama (Yes please)
Chernobog (Stomach upset caused by radiation leak)
Bota-Ili (What happens when you get Chernobog)
Batara-Kala (Shaken not stirred, and hold the ice.)
Mama-Pacha (And don't forget Papa-Pacha and Baby-Pacha too)
Ahura-Mazda (Everyone's driving one these days)
Bumba (When you fall over whilst trying a Latin American dance)
Me (No really. HONESTLY. There was a Mesopotamian god called "Me". What are you looking at me like that for?)

:-)

395. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #59117 by Northern Bright on July 27, 2007 at 12:14 pm

Oh - I forgot: you'll also have to listen to the rather tedious Alister McGrath, too, What a task!

LOL! I watched the Richard Dawkins vs. Alister "What I would want to say" McGrath clip when it was first posted and, not for the first or last time, marvelled at RD's ability to resist the urge to slap him. (And the fundies say atheists have no morals ...)

I even read some of Dianelos's posts too … but not very many, as I find it doesn't take many posts in that pseudo-philosophical let's-throw-lots-of-words-at-them-and-hope-they'll-be-too-bamboozled-to-see-I'm-talking-crap style to make me want to go and do something more enjoyable - like removing my eye-liner with bleach.

Besides which, I have the perfect excuse that I'm off on holiday tomorrow - so, sorry, gotta go and pack! :-)

396. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #59105 by Northern Bright on July 27, 2007 at 10:44 am

Comment #59067 by heathen2 on July 27, 2007 at 7:17 am
I wonder, during your time as a believer, did you have an awareness that you believed because as you say, you "needed" faith? And that deep down somewhere, you knew it was just made up?

Thank you to heathen2, BillySands, SharonMcT, Veronique and _J_ for all your kind comments. And, to put _J_'s mind at rest, I haven't found them tiresome at all!! :-))

Heathen2, you ask a good question. When I was a believer, I certainly believed I needed God - but what I understood by that then was quite different from what I understand by it now. At the time I had no sense that this was anything but 100% wonderful reality.

At a conscious level I believed it absolutely, although never literally - I was never a 6-day Creationist, for instance, even before Richard Dawkins enlightened me as to what really happened ;-) and I felt very comfortable with the stance that the Bible was a book that contained truth, rather than that it was literally true in every last detail.

With hindsight, though, I would have to acknowledge an awkwardness, an embarrassment, when talking about my belief with non-believers. At the time I put this down to my own failings, not having enough faith. (This is one of the masterstrokes in the genius of the religion-meme - that any lack of complete conviction on the part of its followers, any doubt, any questioning - is automatically a sign that they haven't embraced the religion enough. The failing must lie with the individual - it can never arise because what we are asked to believe is simply unworthy of belief.) Now I would interpret that awkwardness in expressing what I believed I believed so surely, as my subconscious raising a sceptical eyebrow.

397. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #59050 by Northern Bright on July 27, 2007 at 4:08 am

I know that you can't understand faith if you can't understand faith.

As someone who was a Christian until 4 years ago I do understand faith. I experienced it. And I know its power over those who have it. Faith is believing what you need to be true; it is believing what it is necessary to believe in order to sustain an otherwise untenable belief system.

To those who say there is no proof, there is the question of the numinous. I know there is a God, I have a relationship with him and spend time in meditative prayer on a daily basis.

When I was a Christian I knew there was a God too. Like you, Fides, I had a relationship with him and spent time in meditative prayer with him on a daily basis. As a result, I not only knew there was a God, I knew what that God was like. I didn't believe - I really knew.

Just about all the Christians I came into contact with knew there was a God too. And they, too, spent time in meditative prayer with him on a daily basis. And as a result, they too knew what God was like. So what did that knowledge tell us about him?

Some of us, on the basis of the proof of our relationship with God, knew him to be loving, compassionate, generous, always reaching out to us, pitying our mistakes rather than condemning them. Others, on the basis of the proof of their relationship with God, knew him to be angry, jealous, punitive.

Some of us knew that God really had more important things to worry about than our sex lives; others knew that human sexual impurity was more offensive to him than anything else could ever be.

Some of us knew that God wanted us to respond to other people's shortcomings with tolerance and forbearance and humility; others knew that he wanted sin to be made an example of, to be held up and publicly rebuked.

Some of us knew that God abhorred anything other than the Authorised Version; others knew that he was a bit of a fan of the Good News Bible. Some of us knew that God preferred traditional hymns and traditional forms of worship; others knew that he was a modern kid at heart and partial to electric guitars and drums and a bit of dancing in the aisles.

Some of us knew that God really didn't care what we wore to church; others knew that anything but our "Sunday best" was an insult to him.

Some of us knew that God was offended by conspicuous consumption when so many people had nothing; others knew that God showered wealth along with other good things on those he approved of.

Some of us knew that God saw all the religions as different expressions of people's yearning for him; others knew that he was deeply offended and angered by anything other than traditional, orthodox (with a small "o") Christianity.

Some of us knew that the devil was just a myth to explain the existence of evil; others knew that the devil was very real and a genuine threat to our souls.

Some of us knew that there was no way God could ever allow such a thing as hell; others knew that hell was very much a part of God's ordained order.

We all knew we were right, and we all based that knowledge on the personal relationship we had with him. How could any of us possibly be wrong?

What was really happening, of course, was that those of us whose personalities led us to embrace the world and other people in a spirit of openness, generosity, warmth and tolerance "knew" that God did the same. And those of us who lacked the confidence for that, and consequently saw the world as a place that was threatening and evil and bad, "knew" that God did the same.

The truth is that each individual believer creates God in his or her own image. We project onto that God our own values, our own personalities, our own concerns, our own priorities. We then proceed to develop a relationship with that God and, surprise, surprise, those who have created a benign God experience a benign God; those who have created a terrifying God experience a terrifying God. This then reinforces the original image and, over time, acts as "proof" of the reality of that image.

Furthermore, when we find that God shares our view of the world, we feel reinforced and validated and more confident that we're on the right track. Not surprisingly, this gives us a sense of peace and reassurance - which, in turn, gets corralled by faith into serving as yet more "proof" of the truth of our religion.

Each believer believes in the God that he or she needs to believe in. That need can be negative as well as positive - some people's personalities lead them to need a God who reinforces their sense of worth; others need a God who disapproves of them and reinforces their sense of non-worth.

This is why subjective experience is not, and never can be, proof of the existence of God. Knowing what kind of God someone believes in tells us a very great deal about that person - but nothing whatsoever about the truth or otherwise of the existence of any God at all.

398. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58573 by Northern Bright on July 25, 2007 at 8:09 am

HARDtalk is a confrontational programme. Richard obviously expected it; I certainly did - I've watched many others being treated the same way.

Fair enough. I hadn't watched it before so wasn't familiar with its format. I'd still question its validity as a format, though. Those of us who are familiar with RD's arguments know that the format didn't give him chance to do full justice to them. So presumably that's true in the case of other interviewees too. Who benefits from that? The notion that it's not possible to challenge someone's views comprehensively and effectively without interrupting them, harrying them or adopting an overtly aggressive tone is just plain ignorant. That's not HARDtalk, that's RUDEtalk.

399. Richard Dawkins on Hardtalk

Comment #58332 by Northern Bright on July 24, 2007 at 1:51 pm

I thought this a fatuous interview by Stephen Sackur. Is he aware, I wonder, that he simply regurgitated one old hat after another? Richard Dawkins is always so unfailingly polite when interviewing his opponents - it must have been extremely galling to be faced with an interviewer who seemed so convinced of the force of his frankly unintelligent questions, and was also rude and aggressive with it. (Not that RD can't more than hold his own!) Dawkins' own interviews prove that it's possible to question someone challengingly, rigorously and probingly without resorting to a Jeremy Paxman impression.

400. Won't anyone stand up for God?

Comment #54604 by Northern Bright on July 8, 2007 at 5:04 am

"Are our bishops and cardinals, our preachers, imams or rabbis too supine, too complacent or too scared to argue back? Have they no arguments?"

Hmm, I think the writer may have unwittingly hit on something here. I can't help suspecting that, the higher up the church hierarchy you look, the more metaphorical the holders' beliefs become. I wouldn't be remotely surprised to find that most of the most senior church figures didn't really, truly believe what they profess to believe, even if they "believe in belief", as Dennett has put it. In which case, perhaps we shouldn't wonder at their keeping quiet in the face of the rise of atheism.

Plus, of course, there's the fact that those of them who DO decide to stand up and be counted just make themselves look preposterous - as the Bishop of Carlisle et al have just shown.