Honest question. Is this site a religious site?

By the way, is anyone watching the utterly marvellous Werner Herzog film Nosferatu the Vampyre on BBC4 at the moment?

Threadworm, your post of 17:35 is just the thing.

Swedes, Habbibu and Ruty, I'm so sorry for your sad losses.

"God isn't an empirical entity -- it's not a claim that there is one more thing for science to discover."

Well, says you.

There you are, you see - in order to defy the need for evidence you already need to have at least that start of the idee fixe of what god "is", before you've even looked for it. This doesn't work if you take as the starting point that "god" isn't necessarily anything, because it's made up unless you show otherwise - and, lest this was missed earlier, it is up to the person making the positive assertion to provide this. Not the one denying it.

Put any other debatable supernatural phenomenon in the assertion above to see how silly it is. If I said "the Easter Bunny isn't an empirical entity" and required everyone to believe in it despite the lack of evidence, this wouldn't be very fair. If I want people to believe in the Easter Bunny, I need to tell them why. I can't prove it exists, but you'd expect some objective evidence. I can't just witter on about it being some manifestation of a vaguely sinister, yet benevolent leporid deity which bestows its kindness upon the human race through the annual distribution of ovoid confectionery and leaves one with an all-embracing sense of well-being through the twitching of its invisible nose.

All very well, you may say, but that's just "making up names" - but that is all "god" is for someone who is not contained within the narrow framework of "faith". It's just a name. A word. It might as well say crzzlrdlwjjk.

(We don't look for evidence that justice is worth seeking? I think we do. You can find evidence, if you want to. You can also find evidence against it, I'm sure. You can present both sides and have a reasoned debate about concepts of social models, anarchy, the effects of punishment versus (or alongside) rehabilitation, etc., etc. Plenty to go on there.)

UQD I see no carpet.

What does "intellectually mullered" mean? It sounds like something they'd like to think they have done, whereas all they have actually done is attempted to bamboozle me with a load of waffle while I stood firm. I notice quite a few points I made have been swept under the carpet, for example the one about burden and balance of evidence.

I'll say it again - I'm sure exploring "faith" is great intellectual fun if you have the time and the energy, but ultimately you may as well be learning a made-up language like Elvish. The underlying first assumption - that it's in any way to do with "reality" - is false.

I've never suggested anyone "makes up silly names" but I think it's a bit rich to give the name "god" to anything a bit vaguely out of the ordinary or a wishy-washy feeling that there "has to be more", or an attempt to get in touch with the "spiritual" (whatever the hell that means - seems it can mean whatever you want it to mean). Before long you'll be giving the name "god" to feelings of deja vu, or that odd idea that you've met somebody before when you haven't, or that nagging sensation that you might have left the gas on.

just about sums it all up. Never was there a more useful emoticon.

Ruty - That is very interesting. I am sorry about your mum.

I was surprised they put it in classics. Do you think they just shove in anything we ask them to?

I think I should become a Quaker, btw. Not least because they are the only Christian sub-group to market their own biscuits.

[interesting though]

No. But i think this is going to get deleted from Classics.

BISCUITS

It was me that suggested the name (Bayes) justabout - having seen a definition of a Bayesian as the 'offspring of a statistician and a clergyman'

not sure i should say this, but here goes: my mum started getting very ill in my early twenties, and died after a long illness 2 years ago. I was an agnostic then too, the odd thing was, sitting in the room with her minutes after she had died, i got this strong feeling that she was in the room with us, a stronger feeling than I'd had over the last few days of her life. It could have just been a coping mechanism, but I don't think it was just relief, because it really took me by surprise. I have no idea why i felt it, I suppose it is one of those things that can't be explained. I don't have a particularly strong belief in the afterlife, much more than it is something that i would like to be true. But I did read a ST article recently about the advance of quantum physics leading to scientists questioning if consciousness can exist outside the brain. Thought it was quite interesting.

Sorry, I can't do my homework - I can honestly say I never never eaten a yoghurt. I often wish I did eat them because it would be so convenient, but I just can't get over the idea of fermented milk.

How about a jaffa cake? And do they really still sell Ski yoghurts? [turns up nose]

Sorry to make anyone feel uncomfortable and spoil the flow of the thread. I'm not sure life would be better if it was all terribly easy and nothing bad ever happened. I honestly think the lows help us appreciate even the mundane.

when i said 'my dad says it is alright to get angry with God' I meant he told me there is a long and wide tradition of being spittingly furious with God, rather than saying 'oh well my dad said this so it must be true'

oh Habbs and Swedes

It is probably the main reason i am agnostic - not being able to make any sense of that kind of loss. It feels sometimes that life is like walking a tightrope, it is so fragile.

My father [priest] tells me it is quite alright to be absolutely effing furious at God, and he is quite regularly. Obviously that requires some sort of belief or half belief that God exists, and I know your anger wasn't at God Habbs but at other people's prayers, but I can understand it.

Yes JC not really into the delayed gratification thing, more into creating Heave n on Earth anyway.

Anyway, I'm off for a bath. I'd like essays on the cultural and religious similarities and differences between Yeo Valley, Rachel's Full Fat, Rachel's Fat Free and Ski yoghurts. Please.

It's just that occasional feeling of reaching out and nearly touching something. And when I have it it is like the a comforted sadness. When the comfort isn't there, neither is the sadness -- just dumb emptiness, spiritlessness.

Perhaps it is just an aesthetic thing, nothing more. Certainly I would regard anyone who experienced it without conscious religion as having essentially the same experience as those with.

I dunno, Threadie. The woman I mentioned remained very religious - perhaps even more so - after the terrible loss of her child. For me it confirmed my atheism. I sometimes think it's necessary for some people, and not for others, but can imagine that if I were religious, I'd find that pretty patronising.