to think it is rude to persistently refer to God/Allah/etc. as an "imaginary friend"

[AtheneNoctua]

even after asked not to by several posters who have stated they found it offensive.

How many of us are actually exerting ourselves for a fairer world though?

Justaboutagrownup: that's why it's impossible to have a proper debate with a superstitious buckethead:they keep moving the goalposts - 'oh, well you just have to take this on faith(ie I have just made it up blah blah blah'.
And I didn't say your vicar mate is a liar, just that he might well exaggerate because he has a vested interest in so doing. But for all I know, you made him up to illustrate a point.

The atheist insistence that we have to argue on "their" terms or it isn't right very interesting. To me it suggests an inability to engage with the mysterious aspect of faith>>

That was a joke right?

Reality is like a chair in the middle of the room. You will still trip over it and it will hurt just as much even if you have your eyes closed and can't see it.

About lies. Most people repeating anecdotes won't be lying exactly. They will be repeating what they remember about what they were told by someone who saw something.

The police are reputed to hate eye witness accounts because when people describe things they saw they tend to include what 'must have happened'
They say "I saw him come out of the house" when what they saw was him walking down the path after the door slammed. It may even be a reasonable assumption, but they didn't see it.

SGB on another thread you talked about the 'stone tape theory' where emotions get trapped and locked in certain locations, and present themselves to certain people as apparitions or noises. I think there is credence to this theory. However, I don't see why there is any more credence to this theory as there is to the idea that spirits get trapped in this life sometimes. I don't believe either possiblity, but i am open minded to both. I just find it interesting that you, though you stated the Stone Tape theory was unproven and only a possiblity, react entirely reasonably to this unproven possibility, but not that reasonably, IMO to the possibility of a God. Yes, a lot of evil has been done in God's name. If that is the reason you think it is ok to be so rude about reasonable calm intelligent people who have a faith, i think you are barking up the wrong tree.

than there is.

I love finding these threads after a long day of pretending to be the engineer for a rocket bunk bed etc. I am hugely, devotedly and cheerfully atheist because I have my questions answered by science and that gives me comfort. This doesn't mean I dont recognise the need to have questions answered, and the comfort in having found those answers that then allow you to operate in the world without having to bother yourself day to day with the whole 'where did we come from?' type questions.

I think it is easy to feel as an atheist in a society which seems to defer to a religious sector in an unthinking way - (ie trotting out archbishops etc to comment on moral issues as if the rest of us have no access to moral thought), to feel you are trapped in the story of the emperor's new clothes. Why cant people see its nonsense etc etc. This can make us tetchy, and again I completely understand this.

BUT BUT BUT- I spent a couple of years in a very poor rural part of Africa where christianity was the default setting and I began to see that faith can be a very adaptive tool. If you are living a hugely difficult life, if people you love are dying all around you, (and lordy they really are, I couldnt believe what HIV was doing to the community) then someone telling you that death was a gateway to peaceful easy existance and you would see everyone again, putting some control back in your hands by telling you that behaving in a certain way would get you to this place... I can see how that might be the thing to keep you going. In addition, in poor rural areas the state is simply non existent, and into that void step churchs with funding for education and medication, providing focuses for community cohesion etc etc. I dont think that as atheists we can sit back and say 'look religion is clearly bonkers and no use to anyone' and expect people to come with us. It is on many levels bonkers but it is also of huge use to many people . Maybe we should ask religious people what it is they get from their religion rather than shouting loon and running off, tempting as that may be.

Ruty: the Stone Tapes theory is't a 'supernatura;' phenomenon, that's why I have a slightly open mind about it - if it works the technology to demonstrate and utilise it just hasn't been developed yet. It was always feasible to record sound onto magnetic tape, but it took a while before someone worked out how to do so, for instance.

The possibility of supernatural beings, though, is a different matter: there's no possibility of that.

Oh yeah, that makes all the difference

Cathpot, There's no doubt that religious organisations (and religious people) have helped the poor in many places. However I imagine that there are other voluntary organisations there too that don't use it as a means of recruiting.

Also you mention HIV. I understand that the church (at least one of them) is still telling people there not to use condoms to avoid spreading it.

I liked the 'emperor's new clothes' image. That's exactly how I feel.

i dont think faith is about having questions answered Cathpot, in many people's experience [incuding prophets and early mystics] it is the opposite - a long, hard struggle filled with doubt and darkness.

Don't quite understand your reasoning SGB - i think science may illuminate many things one day, including the possibilty of some great design, even if it is just that we are avatars in some higher being's virtual reality. I remember hearing some distinguished scientist saying he thought that was rather likely...

There are some roman catholic missionaries who tell people condoms don't stop the spread of HIV and this is incalculably evil.

we are probably a simulation

SGB - I really can't understand how you can be open to the concept of the Stone Tape Hypothesis - an idea with no scientific background, developed to explain a phenomenon based purely on anecdotal and unverifiable claims, while asserting that the claims of religion are simply ridiculous. Doesn't that seem even slightly incongruous to you?

SuperSillyus, that was interesting

Didn't realise the Stone Tape was an actual hypothesis - I'm only familiar with the really quite scary play by Nigel Kneale.

Nobody wants to tell me my lost data was recovered because I'm secretly a God-botherer and was obviously praying for it, then? I'm disappointed. I can't even start a decent ruck here these days.

I know what you mean, AMIS. For some reason that old chestnut "when man ceases to believe in God he doesn't believe in nothing, he believes in anything" is popping into my head.

AMIS: well, it's quite simple: the Stone Tape hypothesis is about the possibility of a natural material occurrence (that stones, walls, etc may be able to record sound etc in the way that magnetic tapes do). This is a far more feasible and sensible possibility than invisible things floating about going Woooo and Obey Me Or Die and stuff.

Having just looked it up, I would love to see the Nigel Kneale play though (which is apparently where the phrase "Stone Tape" originated). It's my favourite vintage for TV horror.

[whisper] it's on the Choob starts here

depends what you class as natural material SGB. We still have no idea wha dark matter consists of. We are still looking for the 'god particle'. so consciousness, and even one's spirit, may be a natural material that we have not yet been able to define. So may God.

I googled this and only saw the fictional film. I'm reliably informed that flat plastic discs can record sound so I can't rule it out Anyone got a link?

That has triggered a memory of a science fiction story from way back which may have been based on some truth.

If you've ever made pottery then you may remember doing this. Sometimes you turn a nearly dry pot over and hold a pin with a wooden handle to the base as it rotates to make neat grooves.

Any vibration in the room would tend to disturb the pin and cause irregularities. In a crude way this is how you'd make a gramophone record. Resting a needle on the finished pot and rotating it should play back the sound recorded on the surface.

I think the SF story had someone 'playing back' a pot made two thousand years ago and hearing someone in the background speak of this new carpenter/preacher everyone was talking about.

A fun idea even if not actually practical

I don't believe the Stone Tape hypothesis, I described it originally as on the outside edge of scientific possibility but still more plausible than any of the imagainary friends people trot out.
ONager, I think I vaguely remember reading that story as well.

UQD I like Nigel Kneale, he wrote some very good short stories as well as Quatermass.

Phew. Normality is restored.

SGB, I asked dd today about the incident I described on the other thread which you suggested might possibly be related to stone tape activity.

She still insisted it was real, but when pressed said "it was your shadow". Which either indicates a completely mundane explanation, or something really scary...

Can't wait to watch the play. Thanks for link UQD.