I don't think that's a general property of "religion lessons" as opposed to geography lessons etc.. There are good and bad teachers in a lot of subjects; one example shouldn't tell you much, you need more data to say anything statistical, but even that doesn't tell you about the principle of teaching particular subjects; it just tells you what the current teachers are like. For example if geography teachers happened to be particularly bad you shouldn't ban geography classes; you should take steps to improve them. In the UK many of the best schools are more or less Christian (church schools and public schools - old private schools in other words) but you can certainly improve the many schools that are not good hugely without touching on the question of religion.

Yes a lot of this makes sense, except that there is always an arrogance implied by any thought. It's not possible to avoid unless you become a vegetable (or a relativist). If what you have said is true then you believe you have risen above the arrogant people who delude themselves with over-confidence, and can think and live better, knowing the distance between humanity and divinity, and knowing what the real problems are.

Although I think you need to go further because just knowing the limitations of the mind doesn't allow you to go out and solve real problems, as I see it if the mind cannot rise to find the nature of God/truth/absolute then that is the real problem, not other problems. But the paradox is that any success is from one point of view only arrogance. A paradox of having a point of contact with the truth but at the same time being a physical human being in another dimension from the realm of knowledge. Luther formulated this paradox particularly starkly as "simul justus et peccator", both in sin/ignorance and at the same time in grace/truth. (On the other hand Kant, I have heard it said, tried to define the domain of human knowledge, but couldn't stay within this cage and had to break out - invalidly, from the point of view of his earlier restrictions...don't quote me on that.)

Same as with anything here or elsewhere, in business and in politics. How much? Just enough to be able to manipulate the masses and not be noticed.

I stopped believing in a creator god a long time ago when I realized:

1. I don't like Christian/Jewish/Islamic teachings. They're inconsistent, logically flawed and point to a God with serious personality issues.

2. I realized if I went to hell when I died, well... I wouldn't be too happy.

3. I realized if I went to heaven I couldn't be happy knowing there were people in hell.

But... if somehow I could be convinced that there was a creator god, I would ask him/her/it:

Now I am indeed convinced of your omnipotence for you have created the Buddha, a being so ridiculously superior to you that, well, why aren't you Buddhist yet?

Hell is empty.

Yeah, the devils are all around us.

It has been said before, people without a certain religion are not void of moral beliefs, values or ideologies. These concepts are not reserved for religion alone. There aren't any political ideologies that I know of without these aspects - as soon as you have to deal with law and social systems, these aspects come into play and you have to have a view on them.

[Stating the obvious, disregard this if it wasn't meant this way] Most political ideologies don't have religious aspects at all, you mixed up political (conservatism, liberalism, socialism) and religious (christianity, hinduism) ideologies.


Heaven/hell: if you don't believe in a God and are not religious, heaven and hell has no meaning (emptyness is scary enough to some). I never heard of someone not being religious but still believing in hell. If there are any, they are not consistent.

I was also saying that it's hard to get rid of those aspects from politics.

Now I put these things together under religion because they go together. What if someone believes in hell that is nothingness; that is even a common point of view among conservative Christians and certainly in moderate and liberal churches. Are these people not religious? What about people who are political liberals but express their moral contempt for people who do or believe certain things, especially politicians, in a sense of absolute condemnation applied to these people; and who also believe in a judgement by history on them, something that remains beyond death and has an absolute quality. There are many of these people and they go beyond how many Christians view hell, in fact the emotions seem similar to common Islamic attitudes to heaven and hell and the people who go there. Are you going to define these people as "non-religious"?

"Belief in God" is something hard to use to separate people but that takes you to the definition of what is (a) God and it may be hard to determine whether a person or a statement expresses belief in God.

You can adefine "political ideology" and "religion" and "moral beliefs" by a number of separate lists if you like but that is not very useful because the essence of these things is not necessarily different, there are some very similar types of core to them and more fundamental ways of distinguishing points of view. Similarly with God you can look at use of the word god and named equivalents in other languages but that's hardly a concept. (You get many atheists who believe in God that way for example, people who when asked say they are atheists and say they believe in a god.)

What is most fundamental may be an idea of transcendance, expressed to different degrees in values (values that claim objectivity that is) and morals, notions of "good" that people/societies/etc. can claim to be (most islam, communism, liberalism, conservatism, a lot of christianity), or go one step beyond into a theology of supernatural (good is not found in the existing world but is something beyond it - e.g. christianity, platonism). The latter form you don't get in politics at all in the developed modern world. You do get more or less of the first form in different countries, with less in Singapore, maybe China more and more, technocracies.

I think you are overcomplicating the issue - belief in God is quite straightforward IMHO - you do or you don't.
It is not at all linked to or dependent upon believing in "Christian" principals, morals, politics or anything else.
If a person says that they believe in a God, I take this to mean that they believe in a divine being who is/was the creator of the universe and life; and to whom we all must answer to when we die.
I think that what happens to many people who say they don't believe in God, will, when faced with the imminent death of themselves or their loved ones, seek any kind of hope/help by asking for "God's help" - a last resort as it were.

This is a UK-only link, apologies to international folks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Religion/

Well observed and bone dry standup about religion from Stewart Lee. I highly recommend watching it and the rest of the series, where each show is dedicated to a particular topic. If you're outside the UK, I'm sure you could probably find them via certain "unofficial" channels.

Hell comes in different forms, for religious people it might be their personal nightmare, experiencing nothing(ness) may be a nightmare for some. Personally I don't believe in heaven/hell, if someone dies that's it, no consciousness to experience anything good or bad, simply switched off.
People who claim to be non-religious but still believing in hell are not consistent. If you believe in some impossible to prove part of religion, whether it be only God, or only heaven, or only hell, you still believe in something which took a leap of faith.

I am not to say if a person is religious or not, they can only decide that themselves.

I didn't say they are necessarily different, in fact you proved my point.
If someone claims to be non-religious, but still clings to some or most moral values "from religion", then these values are not reserved to religion alone.
My point was simply, the aspects you mentioned are not "religious things" per se.

I'm going to show my age by recalling an episode of "Night Gallery." In it a hippie dies and ends up in a locked room with some old people. They are looking at slides of a vacation, they are talking but can't hear each other so good, so the conversation is hysterical or obnoxious, depending on how you view it. Hippie played by John Astin, better known as Gomez from the Addams Family.

The hippie keeps trying to find out when he's going to hell, he hasn't been a good person. Eventually the devil shows up, and explains things to him. There's an identical room in heaven for someone else, but this particular room is your hell. You are not going to where there's fire, snakes, and demons. This is it for eternity.

Would it not be ironic if hell and heaven are both right here, and it's what you make of it plus the circumstances fate dealt you?

Heres a thought... what if YOU are wrong.

Ive heard the saying; 'Far better to be Christian and wrong than to be Aethist and right.'

A simple analysis of this statement might go as follows;

Lets pretend that you believe in a God, and that this God has supplied a way into heaven and/or hell. If you are wrong, no big deal. After spending your life trying to please this God, you merely find nothing.

Now, pretend you are an Aethist (who doesn't believe in a God, for clarifacation). You spend your whole life believing that 'we' are all that exists. No heaven, no hell, no supernatural being... just us. If you are wrong, and there REALLY is a heaven/hell, then you could have just missed out big time.

And aristide1, that would be quite ironic indeed!

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal joy of heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss?" Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

"Get thee behind me, satan!" Luke 4:8 (which I always thought was an odd thing to say given the supposed inherent satanic nature of buggery... But then again perhaps that's just me.)

I like it; a hedged bet on the afterlife as the cornerstone of religious faith. Give that man a medal!

I did not imply that that could be a cornerstone... I think. Anyway, not what I meant.

I was just trying to analyze the possible extreme cases, and to see the advantages of both sides.

hmm...

Ignore me Calculus, I've been feeling somewhat sarcastic lately.

My kingdom for a universal translator!

Well it seems that JC was quite likely to be Homosexual or Bisexual anyway, so it would be a reasonable assumption that 1 or more of his desciples were as well.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jegay.htm

If you also compare the hits on Google for "was jesus XXX", then look at the numbers.

"was jesus gay" - 6,880
"was jesus straight" - 169
"was jesus homosexual" - 753
"was jesus hetrosexual" - 72
"was jesus bisexual" - 159

I think we know the answer there dont we The church has been covering it up forever (just like paedophilia).


Andy

The logic in that is hard to find, and to me points to an egotistical failsafe instead of living life to certain values because they make moral sense.

I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, but this man also said better be safe than sorry:



Are you saying, that God will say no to people who have treated others with respect, did no wrong,... generally lived a "good life", but weren't religious?

People claim to know the answer to getting into heaven, nirvana, valhalla, etc. They also claim to know which religion is the true religion.
What if you are wrong, and should believe in Odin, Thor, and Loki in order to enter "heaven"?

NASA also said better safe than sorry...
Car manufacturers say better safe than sorry...
Many people say better safe than sorry...

I dont really get what you mean by that.


I did not saying any of that (and for good reason).

If I am wrong, then I am wrong. You just basically said what I just said, that we all could be wrong.

Easy question! It is more 'noble' to to 'it' because of pure concern for people. You make it seem that people who believe in God somehow lose their sense of humanity. This is not the case, there are a good many Christians who genuinely care for what they do. At least, that is my speculation.

question for god: If seeing truth brings pain upon me, to only stand and witness pain upon others....why have a daydream? It is the source of this see saw of flawed humanity I grow with. Should I run? should I hide? Should I go postal?

I don't get an answer. I just start the 87 sube and go for a ride.

NASA and car manufacturers say this, based on logic and physics. They are saying this because charts show electronics might fail and people do crash.

There are no charts that show how many Christians were wrong or atheists were right (or vice versa). The sentence "Far better to be Christian and wrong than to be Aethist and right" is downright egotistical in itself, it is not based on logic or physics, it's a personal failsafe if people go about it this way, and definitely not because they truly believe.
I have literally nothing against people truly believing and living their lives according to a religion, but it should never be for personal "gain".
Would you rather, people only becoming religious for this one and only reason? Do you think it would benefit the church in any way? Do you want people to join a church only because it's better to be safe? Then, what is the point of it?
If people do this, it should be for the right reasons, not to con.


Then I have misinterpreted this:
and non-religious people don't necessarily miss out on the big party at all.
If so, why bring up the whole "Far better to be Christian and wrong than to be Aethist and right"? You'd be better off just living a good life, rather than being religious.


Except, you brought it up first. If we all could be wrong, why mention it? What is the power of your statement when you replied to aristide1 ("what if YOU are wrong") if it's not a true conviction?
Maybe I am reading this wrong, but your post suggested that it's better to be safe and be a christian, than being sorry if you're an atheist. Saying we could all be wrong doesn't empower the suggestion you offered.


No, I don't make it seem that people who believe in God somehow lose their sense of humanity. I merely state that people who don't believe in God can still have the same humanity. If humanity counts at all, being religious doesn't matter on judgement day (if there will ever be one), all that counts is living a good life, regardless of religion. So what's the point?

I have never been big fan of generalization. There fore I simply cannot go with mainstream science who says "we've got it all. Law's of physics will proove it all" or something other really arrogant like we humankind would have cracked the mysteries of the Universe. Law's of physics depend on place they are tsted. Physics can be very different on another solar system, depending on its stars, proximity, moons and so forth. We only know how physics basicly work and how it works 100% so far on this one rock.

The one question I would ask from God is: Is 1+1 really 2?

We can debate many things, does God exist or not or do we even exist or this mere dream in some beings sleep or is reality really Matrix type?

How?
Why?
I only got as far as 'O' level physics, but my understanding would be that there's still gravity, mass etc. on other solar systems.
As far as I'm aware the Newtonian laws of physics don't apply on a quantum level or on a universal scale where Relativity plays a part, but on a planetary level why should there be any difference between all the millions of solar systems? They were formed in the same way from the same stuff.

Sorry...I can't run with these kind of ideas. They are another "quasi God thing" in my opinion, for people who can't accept that there is nothing more to life than just living for however many years, then dying.

It depends on what you mean by God. If you mean something straightforward, then it's straightforward. But most people who use it as something straightforward don't mean anything coherent and the people that do give straightforward definitions don't seem to me to capture anything important by those definitions.
Under close scrutiny, after many discussions and debates, it may become clear whether a person believes in an ultimate principle, some reality that can be conceived as the greatest (Anselm), some concern that is ultimate (Tillich). And it may not become clear, a person may not be definite on this point, or may shift and turn from one moment to another.

You seem to think a lot of things are straightforward!
God, existence, knowledge.


That hardly simplifies matters because "divine being" is not something easier to define than God. Although Socrates said his accusers claimed that he believes in divine beings but not gods, a nonsense-claim.

This is all very good and far from meaningless, but these very important notions have a wide variety of interpretations. What it means to believe in creation for example.

Well there's a few things wrong with this statement. Critically though, no physicist worthy of the title would ever claim that our understanding of the laws of physics is complete.



No they don't, at least the laws of physics that physicists are currently trying to uncover are *by definition* are global. That's the entire point of the subject, that physical laws should account for every local environment with a single explanation.

The whole process of trying to build confidence in a physical law involves looking for the most testing local environments in which it's most likely to break down. It's not like physicists try to avoid finding evidence that our laws are wrong - on the contrary everybody who thinks they have a bead on a short-coming to trying to prove that short-coming (because they'll be the new Einstein).



This is incorrect on two counts:

a) we don't fully understand the physics of our "rock"
b) our incomplete understanding of the physics of our "rock" works *very* well to explain a huge volume of the rest of the universe

I've no wish to put anyone down for their beliefs, I've tried to get across mine - or lack of them! Everyone is entitled to worship who or what ever they want, at least they are in some parts of the world.
I have friends who are Christian, Moslem, Pagan and Athiest, as well as a few "don't knows".
I've had a few discussions with some of them about their beliefs and what they have in common is a conviction that there has to be
a reason for our existence, some higher pupose, but none of them seem to be able to say what that is. Just that there has to be one. If I ask why there has to be a higher purpose they generally say that "there just has to be".
I really don't think there is any reason, as I've said before, I think that we are here because of a fluke of nature. I'm also certain that, given the billions of other planets in the universe, there is other life out there that came about by chance and evolution.

As for thinking that things are "straightforward" - far from it! Life can be very complicated, people are very complicated, and as for physics...
I fully realise that our knowledge is constantly increasing and each new discovery creates yet more questions and may overturn previously accepted theories.
If one day we find out that this universe is just part of an experiment in some higher beings lab (and if that's true, where did they come from etc. etc.), fair enough - I'm well and truly wrong; but for the moment I want to just live the life I've got. I'm quite happy to accept that when I die, that's it.

aristide just pointed out Christianity's biggest obstacle for convincing others to be Christian - themselves...

I see this all the time, and try my best to point out that their actions are pushing people away.
The best example of this is what I call the 'crazy UC people'. The University Center at the college I went to occasionally had these crazy people yelling about sinners/heathens/whoever going to hell, and at the same time, trying to get people to go to their church.

Being a Christian myself makes this particularly irritating.
I remember a quote by some guy a long time ago (St. Francis, I think): "Preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary"

Anyway, I'd ask...
What should I do next?

Then (if I had a chance to ask more questions),
What is dark matter?
When are we going to find a Unified Theory?
Is the universe finite? Really? I'd say "really?" to either answer...
Can you explain eigenvectors to me?

I'm sure after answering those questions, I'd have more...

Hi,

I think the best evidence for the existence of a god -- is the fact that so many people are searching for their faith. We humans want to believe in something good.

Call me a secular humanist.

Classic. It also makes due note that if you talk Christianity but act like nothing more than a greedy opportunist the message is very clear.