There is no god

[OldKingCole]

Inspired by another thread … I was surprised by the level of atheism professed … as I always though I was in a tiny, tiny minority.
would be interested to see the MN response.

IABU - there is a god
IANBU - there is no god

My experience of belief in God across different departments in schools was interesting:

The highest level of belief in God I have always found to be in Science Departments!
I have known a number of atheist RE teachers.
Nearly all English teachers I have known have been atheists.

A lot of what people are debating here is religion. Not God. So it’s all a bit skewed.

I believe in God because our little functioning blue planet is the only body that has sustained intelligent life in the known universe. The enormity of that fact, and the raging vast cosmos and the fact that we live mundane lives with random things like wheelie bins and motorway bridges and Argos catalogues blows my tiny effing mind.

Mine is the cosmological argument. I can’t account for bone cancer in children or the holocaust though, other than God is a creator God - and creation has bad and good. I’d like to hope that good largely prevails and that generally our lives with motorway bridges and Argos catalogues are overall better than some black gaseous abyss without any life or creation.

Activists like to create the impression that Christians have it in for homosexuality in a special way, but in fact that is not true.

Except that it is. If you look at laws enacted in places like Russia and Uganda, they are specifically aimed at homosexuals, not at unmarried people who have sex. They are enthusiastically supported by the Christian churches in those countries. It may be the case that the Bible sees all 'sin' as equal, but its adherents absolutely do not.

And the Bible is a much translated book, heavily redacted, written by people for people in support of vested political and social interests, i.e. the patriarchy, and as a guide to morality it is meaningless.

It is also impossible to separate god from religion, because the people who believe in god manifest religion, and religion then becomes a tool of oppression.

Catholicism is always up for ridicule.

see father Ted!

You actually said this is the same breath as defending the persecution of gay people. It would be funny if it wasn't so terrifying.

believe in God because our little functioning blue planet is the only body that has sustained intelligent life in the known universe. The enormity of that fact,

It's not a 'fact'; it's a fact we don't know of any other life (intelligent or otherwise) but declaring it's not there when we've been looking for so little time across such huge expanses is a sort of arrogance.

The important thing about this thread is that the believers come across as irrational, judgemental arseholes.

That’s why I said the ‘known’ universe. 🙄

‘Christians have it in for homosexuality in a special way, but in fact that is not true.’

mmm, no it is true. That’s why gay people
had to make do with Civil Partnership in the U.K. rather than marriage -
churches objected, and the Church of England is VERY powerful.
now we have marriage equality - but not in churches.

Not to mention all the talk of ‘curing’ gay people -
conversion therapy isn’t run by atheists.

Well given you also post that you think it's okay for homosexuality to be illegal I'm pretty sure it's not activists creating the impression certain Christians have in it for homosexuality

I would like to mention its not all Christians, Quakers for example are much better in this area

Earlier, ValK said that as far as she was concerned, homosexuality was a case of 'you can't always have what you want.' What a callous attitude toward people who are simply after meaningful, loving relationships.

@ValK equating incest and homosexuality is going low. Really, really low.

Give me some links about negative outcomes for society as a whole from homosexuality. Peer reviewed and from reputable scientific journals, please. And recent, including samples of homosexual people who are in long term, stable relationships - because religious 'universities' like to cherrypick their studies by only including people who are promiscuous.

Thanks.

Quakers have always had a progressive approach to human sexuality, but even they took 20+ years after Towards a Quaker View of Sex to decide they'd allow gay civil ceremonies!

That said, Quakers are more a spiritually-minded social justice movement than a christian organisation.

Yes that's what I said - the devil didn't cause the cancer but he tempted the businessmen to build their smelting plant on the cheapest land and ignore safety reports that'd get in the way of profits?

Homosexuality is not harmful. Homophobia on the other hand...

So what would you suggest the punishment should be for homosexuality?

I don't care if there's a god or not. It's not worthy of worship either way and religion does far more harm than good.

I would love to know how homosexuality supposedly leads reliably leads to negative health outcomes.

Given approx 300,000 women die from pregnancy and childbirth each year I would say heterosexuality reliably leads to negative health outcomes.

I filled out paperwork with the government because the legal contract called marriage provides a good framework for raising children and allows each of us to advocate for the other if we become incapacitated. I’m lucky to live on a place where the state doesn’t try to force people to pretend religion plays any role on the creation of that contract.

we also had a more meaningful personal ceremony, but there were no gods there either. We gathered with our family and said words that had meaning to us. It was completely unnecessary. All you have to do to be legally married is get the paperwork submitted and at one point verbally affirm you want the paperwork submitted. We celebrate the personal ceremony as our anniversary because pretty words and a family party feel special.

other people have a religious ceremony to supplement their government contract. That has meaning to them.

Legal marriage though has nothing to do with religion or any god. It’s more like getting a drivers license.

Really good point.

We can't actually see the 'known' universe though. Attached are a couple direct images we've managed to capture of exoplanets roughly 300-400 light years away. These are the best we've every managed to capture and as you can see they're not exactly revealing

Given the size of just the known universe, it is statistically more likely than not that we are not the only intelligent life out there...