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

True. That has nothing to do with gods though

It's relevant to a point made by another poster implying that humanity is somehow more special to any hypothetical creator because as far as that poster knows there is no other intelligent life in the known universe. I was pointing out that was likely to be incorrect.

Personally if there is a creator, I reckon we're just another culture in a petri dish.

However hard they tried, the medieval church could not break the link between Christianity and magic - the instrumentalism whereby if, for example, you recited x number of paternosters on the way to church, you would be ‘protected’ all day. If you have any shred of belief left, I recommend the brilliant ‘Going to church in medieval England’ by Nicholas Orme, which explains eg what tithes (taxes) you had to pay the church from your crops, eggs, milk etc, or who was entitled to sit where in the church and what happened if the rules weren’t followed etc etc, or else ‘Religion and the Decline of Magic’ by Keith Thomas, charting the ‘transition’ from instrumental magic - if I do this/say these words in this order, then this good/bad thing will happen. Another sobering read, if you have any faith left, is this year’s ‘The ruin of all witches’ by Malcolm Gaskill. Superb.

Of course there is a God!
You'll all find out, but won't be able to come back & discuss by then!
Blessings to all.

How will we find out?

Please. You blatantly did compare homosexuality to incest, said it should be illegal and are now calling gay men promiscuous. A big part of the reason that AIDs spread among the gay community is because of homophobes like you.

@ValK I just knew that you were going to come up with HIV and the like.

HIV is extremely treatable these days, and people live normal lives with the virus. So why is it worse than chlamydia, gonorrhoea, herpes, and syphilis, which are diseases that can arise from promiscuity in both gay and straight populations? How does this affect the whole of society? What is the cost of PREP to the NHS as compared to the cost of treating other lifestyle diseases like obesity-induced diabetes, cancer caused by smoking/drinking, major injuries caused by drunkenness? And why are they not just as bad?

Then there is the question of what you're going to do about making homosexuality illegal. Are you going to put people caught having consensual gay sex in jail? Are you going to do the same to lesbians, even though their health outcomes are not in the same league? Are you going to extend the illegality to sexual relationships between people who are not married, and impose on them the same punishment? That would be 'equality', but that would make us as bad as countries like Iran and the like. Is that what you want to see?

You offer very simple thoughts, but you don't appear to ask yourself what the consequences might be of having what is in effect a theocracy. Which is odd, because all you have to do is look at what's happening in countries all around the world. Regimes founded on religion are oppressive and undemocratic.

On marriage, why is a marriage between a gay couple not the same as a marriage between a straight couple? Both can have children and raise them by a variety or routes. I agree that surrogacy is problematic, but other routes such as adoption are not. Why do you want to deny gay couples something straight people take for granted?

In the post I originally responded to, you did not differentiate in any way between incest and homosexuality in terms of their negative impact on society. Hence my assumption that you think they are equally bad.

Nice pass agg threat there.

Drinking a lot and jumping off a building are not equivalent. Homo and heterosexual relationships are equivalent, it's more like comparing jumping off a cliff with jumping off a building.

Stds are higher in men who sleep with men and women than in men who sleep with men. And lower in women who sleep with women compared to women who sleep with men and women. So we should all be lesbians if we are basing it on stds.

And disease rates alter by country. In Ethiopia women are 1.62 times more likely to have hiv than men.

As for promiscuity, in a study, 98% of gay men reported sleeping with 20 or less partners and 99% of straight people, so promiscuity is very similar. In fact lesbian women were the least promiscuous so yay for lesbians again

@Letitrainletitrainletitrain thank you for those stats, very useful.

@Parker231 When you die.. which is why I said you won't be coming back to post!
I'm not been passive aggressive as someone suggested. Being totally honest.

Nnoo one knows one way or the other.

I Don't believe In religion but whether there is a god is another question no one can answer.

this is the pickles, as many religions adapt their philosophy and teaching which then means what ever god said originally it's now what humans think is politically correct and therefore no longer god's instructions

@Hawkins001 and then you're going back to the fact that nobody actually knows what god originally said.

@mamabear715 you believe that we will all find out that there is a god. But a belief is all it is. As is my belief that there is no god, so when I die I will be dead and that will be it.

The bible , specifically the new testament, alongside some passages which could be interpreted as forbidding homosexuality, also forbid women from talking in church or praying with their heads uncovered or teaching. It's also okay with slavery.

But somehow this is the book that's supposed to guide our ethics and morals, and atheists are somehow not following as good a moral code?

I will take my morals around equal rights for people regardless of sex or sexuality and no slavery thanks.

@ValK
However the "marriage equality" thing is a red herring. For a start, having a different name for the ceremony was not to suggest inferiority, but to acknowledge the obvious differences between homosexual and heterosexual relationships. (and probably to try to avoid a whole lot of needless fuss).

Imagine you asked someone for an apple, but they gave you an orange instead. Then , when you objected, they said it was "equal fruit".

Its all water under the bridge, but imo it was both silly and needy to pretend that there is no substantive difference between the two type of relationship.

How unbelievably patronising. It is not silly or needy for same-sex couples to want to be able to get married. And I'm assuming that by substantive difference you mean the ability to conceive children together, but I don'tpeople like you desperately trying to stop heterosexual couples who can't or don't want to have children get married, or you have children through adoption or IVF. No, your hatred is reserved for gay people.

religion and the decline of magic is an excellent read and would whole heartedly recommend it.

The myth of Disenchantment by Jason Storm is also very interesting regarding whether or not the world is actually as secular now as we think. Mankind seems to have a need for an other!

IANBU why would there be a god? Humans have been controlled / been comforted by the idea of gods for eons and it helped explain the unexplainable. Now we have explanations, we don't need fairy stories.

‘Imagine you asked someone for an apple, but they gave you an orange instead. Then , when you objected, they said it was "equal fruit".

@ValK not sure your analogy works - we had a Civil Partnership, because that was the best we could do, and no it wasn’t the same ‘fruit’ , and when marriage equality came in we changed it to a marriage.
And are now married.

Bloody Hell, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on Mumsnet - you should be explaining your absolute proof about the nature of everything to all the scientists of world. They can give up now with their research and their theories. Quizzly Bear has all the answers. The greatest genius who will ever live is here typing on Mumsnet- my God! It’s like a Revelation

Phew

And as for WHY we got married - same reasons as most people -
we loved each other, we wanted to commit to each other, we wanted legal protection for our relationship - so we could be next of kin for each other, and do that when we had children - which we subsequently did - we would be equal parents together in the eyes of the law.

Really? Wow. You’re admitting to being prejudiced against the religious? And you admit it takes just one random poster to reinforce you prejudices about all the religious?

You do realise that I do not speak for “the religious” community, don’t you?

Your prejudices are unjust. It’s like judging all the chocolate in the world because of one variety that was not to your taste.