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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think it is about time to stop being a Christian country.

872 replies

ShagOBite · 10/02/2012 22:15

On the council prayers debate, lots of people have said "but we're a Christian country". Why are we? Should we be? How do we go about changing this? It seems so inappropriate and unnecessary in this day and age.

OP posts:
bugster · 16/02/2012 09:31

I like what holo said upthread about being in touch with your own humanity. To me that's the key to the whole issue of faith. I really don't think that militant atheists or 'humanists' are properly in touch with their humanity, which is why the word 'humanist' really bothers me.

BettyBathroom · 16/02/2012 10:30

Bugster I often feel the same way about Christains - for all their preaching they often fail to act in a Christain way. Funny that!

Technodad · 16/02/2012 10:32

The phrase "being in touch with your own humanity" doesn't really mean much when you consider that anyone's personal view on what humanity is will always be subjective. So I don't think it is reasonable to make such sweeping statements.

Snorbs · 16/02/2012 10:54

How in touch with your own humanity can you be if you need your personal morality to be dictated to you by a supernatural being?

How in touch with your own humanity can you be if you believe it doesn't matter how you live your earthly life, provided you have accepted Jesus you will live forever anyway?

How in touch with humanity as a whole can you be when so much of your life is dedicated to worshipping something that is not human?

alemci · 16/02/2012 11:28

jesus was human though. that is the whole point.

Snorbs · 16/02/2012 11:37

Jesus was god in human form. If he was a human like the rest of us then his mother wouldn't have been a virgin, he wouldn't have been able to perform miracles and he wouldn't have been able to rise from the dead.

Technodad · 16/02/2012 12:32

Jesus' mother wasn't a virgin - that is a translation error in the bible.

He likely didn't perform any miracles in any true sense of the word, and if he did rise from the dead then it was likely because he wasn't dead in the first place.

But saying that "being in touch with Jesus is what defines being in touch with humanity" is much like saying that "being in touch with Derren Brown is what defines being in touch with humanity" (both statements are equally nonsensical).

How about "being in touch with fellow humans is what defines being in touch with humanity" as a good definition. I am an atheist and I am in touch with fellow humans all the time. I help my friends, I help strangers, I help charities and my local community and I don't support child molesters. I would say that I am in touch with my humanity!

KalSkirata · 16/02/2012 12:33

How could god become human?

Technodad · 16/02/2012 12:37

How could something that is highly unlikely to exist turn magically into a human?

I am not sure it is a question worth asking, let alone answering.

I have a similar question. "How could a golden unicorn turn into a frog"?

alemci · 16/02/2012 12:55

I think Mary was a virgin. It is highly unlikely that she would have had sex outside marriage but interesting idea about the translation. Have never heard of that.

what is wrong with the miracles he performed. i.e. feeding of 5,000, walking on water. What is a miracle in comparison?

why wasn't he dead? He had been on the cross for a while.

I suppose you have to believe and if you don't, you don't. I cannot prove anything.

KalSkirata · 16/02/2012 12:56

If Mary was a virgin then Joseph wasnt the father then surely Jesus wasnt of the line of David....

solidgoldbrass · 16/02/2012 13:10

Oh who cares, it's all bullshit. Just like Islam, Hinduism, Judaism and all the others I can't be arsed to name. The main purpose of these superstitions is to facilitate social control and keep the masses in their place by telling them variously that:
Great Pumpkin built them to serve their betters
It's their own fault that they have no money or power
If they accept their inferiority without complaining, they will be rewarded when they are dead.

However if they complain about injustice, Great Pumpkin will either eat them, or Great Pumpkin has already given their 'betters' permission to punish them.

Blu · 16/02/2012 13:24

Wolf Hall is an invaluable insight into the origins of the CoE.

Theft, terror, extortion, murder, patriarchy and so on. I am not saying that individual members of the CoE subscribe to this kind of carry on, but most aristocratic or religious ownership of land in this country is down to atrocity and theft.

BettyBathroom · 16/02/2012 13:26

"It is highly unlikely that she would have had sex outside marriage" you think a virgin birth is more likely? I mean even if you believe in the Virgin birth, it's still more likely she had sex outside marriage - she could have been raped?

Technodad · 16/02/2012 14:13

Alemci

I think Mary was a virgin. It is highly unlikely that she would have had sex outside marriage but interesting idea about the translation. Have never heard of that.

The term "virgin" appears in the Greek translation (the Septuagint), but that is not correct. The original Hebrew word, ha-almah, really just means "young woman." The word has no meaning beyond what we find in English with "young woman" or "maid," but it was translated into Greek with the word parthenos, which means virgin.

KalSkirata · 16/02/2012 14:21

Im wondering about you SGB. Great Pumpkin. Flying spagetti Monster.
Have you found the truth?
Wink

Himalaya · 16/02/2012 14:43

I wonder if the CoE can secularise itself but stay a national institution, I.e. Having the "for the whole community" part become much more of an explicit organising principle in terms of governance and management of schools, village halls, toddler groups, brownies and suchlike, (while still offering it's own brand of spiritual guidance for those who want it).

Himalaya · 16/02/2012 14:46

... I mean in the same way that ancient universities went from being religious institutions to being largely secular public benefit organisations with religious traditional ceremonies and a small theology Depts as a smaller part of what they do.

bugster · 16/02/2012 14:50

technodad, maid means virgin, young woman also conveyed that idea originally. The story of the immaculate conception goes beyond the translation of one word, this is quite clear if you read the gospel of Luke: 'how shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' ie how can I conceive a child as a virgin? And the angel Gabriel's answer, 'the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.......for with God nothing shall be impossible'

It's clear through the whole passage that Jesus is to be conceived by the power of the holy spirit, while Mary is a virgin. It is not just a question of one word.

Perriwinkle · 16/02/2012 14:52

No YANBU. You are being totally reasonable and sensible.

Religion is a totally private matter and should play no part whatsoever in pubic life. It simply causes problems. Let people practice what they want and believe in what they want in the privacy of their own homes. Let's live in a secular society where the shops can stay open past 4 a bloody clock on a Sunday.

Going off on a tangent slightly, and I don't know about anyone else but I, for one, am heartily sick to death of people who subscribe to an organised religion thinking they have the monopoly on being variously good/kind/honourable/decent/respectable/morally upstanding and using this as a justification for making religion a public thing so that it provides some sort of "moral framework".

You can be a throughly decent person without subcribing to an organised religion you know. It is possible.

Technodad · 16/02/2012 15:32

Bugster

The story of the immaculate conception goes beyond the translation of one word, this is quite clear if you read the gospel of Luke: 'how shall this be, seeing I know not a man?' ie how can I conceive a child as a virgin? And the angel Gabriel's answer, 'the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee.......for with God nothing shall be impossible'

So there's no chance she was lying about how she got pregnant then?

bugster · 16/02/2012 16:04

thechnodad no, I don't think so. Bur either those words have power and meaning for you or they don't. Noone can make you feel it!

TessTickular · 16/02/2012 16:57

The greatest hoax known to mankind.

alemci · 16/02/2012 17:27

I think as Bugster says you either believe it or you don't. People at the time probably did think that Joseph was responsible for Mary's situation hence the stable birth.

Perriwinkle I don't necessarily think that people are not moral etc without being religious.

MrsTerryPratchett · 16/02/2012 17:35

Bugster, I'm confused. I thought that the intense love I feel for my family, the constant charity work, the fact that I have always worked with homeless people, addicted people and people with additional needs meant I was human and in touch with the rest of my kind. I also thought that trying to empathise, be a better person and make the world a better place also counted. I didn't realise that doing this because it is right and feels good to me was wrong and that only doing it because a 2000 year old myth tells me I won't get into heaven if I don't for religious reasons was right. I shall stop now.

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