Britain's new cultural divide is not between Christian and Muslim, Hindu and Jew. It is between those who have faith and those who do not.

[bossykate]

fascinating article in today's guardian.

here

I wonder what the liberal and inclusive vicar really thinks of 'sex magick' too. I suspect not much.

Hi unquiet.

sorry if my dawkins sentence sounded hatefilled...I wasn't feeling hatefilled, frustrated maybe, so maybe i'm coming from the same place he is...

erm. there doesn't seem to be much room for doubt inwhat he is saying. rather than a 'maybe' given that MOST of the world believe in an 'other' a god, (as opposed to a giant pink jelly fish outside their door) his is a resounding 'no'. not only a 'no' but a 'no, it does not exist and the mass hallucination that faith in god is is resoundingly evil'.

I'm sorry but i call that fundamentalist and hate (or maybe hurt?) filled.

anyhow.

sex magick is very interesting...using sexual energy to create is essentially what it is about (and i'm not talking about making babies) i'm sure st george could elucidate you (if she is still here? did she leave?)

i do believe in what is being said in my church (love people, forgive others and yourself, work hard to make our world better, take strength and sustainance from the fact that you are not alone and are constantly being replenished with love by that other that is god).

i don't believe that the anglican institution is the right or even necessarily a great way into god but it is a way.

taking structured time out of my week to speak to god (not the christian god, but like i say that connecting force that I believe in) does make me happy yes, although sometimes it allows real sorrow to surface.

I hate happy clappies (i know i should be more tolerant, but in place of dawkins' 'no' they seem to have an entirely dogmatic 'yes' which if anything irritates me even more...actually what irritates me it is the 'yes, but only if you clap along with us and make sure that you don't screw anyone except your husband etc etc').

aloha, the action may not be there as a follow through but the hatred and absolute belief in the rightness of his position is.

sorry. he hates religion. he is absolutely convinced that it is a mass hallucination born of ignorance and that science is somehow 'better'.

i find that incredibly intolerant and in fact harmful.

no he doesn't blow the legs off of people. but as this site well knows I don't believe that the people that blow themselves up to make the point of their absolute belief are evil and i compare their stance and certitude with dawkins. sorry to depress you.

my anglican vicar believes that any and all ways of engaging with 'the other' are valuable. i've talked to him about wicca and he definitely acknowledges that it is a valid route in. and he also happens to acknowledge the incredible damage that early christianity did in terms of the paganism already existant in this country.

Have you actually read any Dawkins Sophable? I don't think you have.
In any case, to say, 'There is zero evidence for this. It is staggeringly unliklely to the point where believing it in seems positively perverse' is scarcely a hate-filled position.
Is there NOTHING that you don't believe in? Astrology? Divining the future by looking at the entrails of chickens? Is not believing in divining the future by looking at the entrails of chickens 'hate-filled'? And if our schools were suddenly infiltrated by teachers teaching our children that it was a fact that you could divine the future by slaughtering a chicken and looking at its entrails, would that not bother you a bit? And suppose leaders of countries decided that this entrail divining was how they were going to run foreign policy in future? Not a bit worrying? You wouldn't feel rather concerned?

Yes belief in gods is widespread. But there are dozens, hundreds of them, all quite incompatible with each other. I don't know why that makes you more convinced. It makes me a lot more convinced that they are all made up. And frankly, take a look at most of the gods of the past. Many of them make a giant pink jellyfish look positively grittily realistic.

Thinking science is a better, more rational, more beautiful way to explain the world than a procession of very unlikely gods is 'hate-filled'? And how does that work then? I would call it utterly reasonable.
I find it repellant beyond belief that you think it is more evil to be convinced by evidence than it is to kill people in horrible and brutal ways. I'd like to see you explain that point to the victims of the London tube bombings.

I have read him. articles though not his book. and i've seen him speaking many times. just for you i will read the god delusion.

I have a lot of difficulty with blind science worship actually aloha.

there are different ways of looking at scientific progress aren't there. yes of course it has resulted in a tiny minority of us having fresh drinking water, all of our survival needs met, and the ability to go out and buy whatever we want.

it hasn't served the majority of the human race though.

and it has totally f*cked the planet.

so no, i'm not blindly in favour of the wonder of science at all. until we learn to combine it and respect the more ancient ways of being and thinking, we are truly truly done for.

and i do believe that astrology is a valid and in fact precious way into understanding the human psyche. one of many many old ways of doing so.

so write me off why don't you?

The stars that are 'in ' the constilations are not in the same positions any more. Many of them may not even still exsist.

How can they affect my psyche? Serious question.

Oh come on! Astrology is the biggest pile of made up nonsense in the history of made up nonsense! You can't think it is 'precious'! How on earth do you think it works?

Science has probably saved your life Sophable. And quite possibly that of your child. It means you live in a warm house, have light and heat, clean water, treatments for disease and the computer you are looking at right now. I means we are even beginning to understand the mysteries of the universe. But that doesn't compare with the achievements of....astrology, does it?

I'm sorry. I'm just gobsmacked now. I really, honestly am. Dumbfounded.

there are two ways of looking at it imo.

firstly, the planets and their characteristics and influences delineate personality types. Saturn for eg. moves slowly. represents the stern paternal archetype, hard work, struggle, solidity, seriousness. We all have that aspect to varying degrees and our lives always throw us up against that kind of brick wall feeling, so a saturnine metaphor is a useful way of understanding what it is to be human.

taking it further, astrologers (and I to a certain extent, through experience, with my own and other people's natal charts) believe that where the planets were at exactly the time of your birth, and of course where you were born impacts this due to timezones, is an indicator of your character and may also be an indicator of periods when life is easy or a struggle. for example, saturn returns to the place it was when you were born every 29-30 years or so (it moves that slowly). So your first saturn return occurs between these ages...and is a time of transition to true adulthood....which can be painful or just exciting depending on what other aspects of your personality and planetary interaction come to bear.

it is a beautiful art rather than a science (although there is a fuck of a lot of maths and geometry and astronomy involved).

many people believe astrology is a crock based on reading sun sign forecasts in the newspaper. there is a huge amount more to it. most major world leaders consult astrologers. which means nothing of course given the state the world is in.

science has also put my life and the life of my child at huge risk every day aloha.

I acknowledge the benefits and hope for a change in the world whereby scientific progress will engage with ancient wisdom.

science can be a wonderful thing. it can also be and has been used for destructive and evil ends.

bit like religion eh?

How come you have enough tolerance and logic to accept astrology but not atheism as portrayed by Dawkins, though? I quite like reading my horoscope and if people want to delve deeper and give it more credence, that's fine by me. I certainly won't be comparing Mystic Meg to a terrorist because I completely disagree with her. That's what I object to in your earlier post.

What. precisely is ancient wisdom ?
Serious question.
I accept scientific progress has a price including some big screwups, but when I look at the times when "ancient wisdom" was the only game in town, I see true horror.
Ancient wise ones were so awful that it's hard to tell when they were evil or just plaint stupid.
Sacrificing children to appease rain gods, failing to take even the most basic hygine precautions, war as a major form of sport, hierachies in societies determined by who was best with a club.
The Egyptians were truly horrible to themselves and anyone who got in their way.
The Biblical accounts of them are now known to be fictional, but based upon a really grim bunch of thugs.
Dig up any "ancient wise" civilisation, and you find huge amounts of weapons. Sometimes that's pretty much all we find.
although perfected by Christians, burning witches, ie randomly torturing people to death on the basis of superstition seems to be a "wisdom" as old as humanity.

So, let's here the "ancient wisdoms" ?

How do the planets affect personaily. How does it work?

i totally accept atheism.

i apologise. I need to go and read the god-delusion and not rely on what i have seen of him on tv (outrageously arrogant and reductive in his arguments), and read in the press.

i will do so.

i still don't understand why religion itself makes him so angry rather than the injustice done in its (and scientific progress') name.

One "explanation" for Astrology is that the planets form a sort of clock, and time affects our lives. Yes, it's junk, rather like the arm waving "a blue quantum quark makes water know how to cure cancer" for homeopathy.

As for Professor Dawkins, he has taken some interest in bad things done in the name of science. His own field of evolution has been used as a justification for all sorts of bad stuff, ironically by groups who label themselves "Christian". Go look up the basis for Jewish "genetic inferiority" so see what happens when large numbers of people suffering from religious hysteria get hold of new ideas.

The thing is, DC, IMO it's v. difficult for someone alive now to get inside the mind of an ancient, because the frame of reference is so very very different.

Bear in mind that in the case of say Mary I who killed way over 300 (or was it 3000?) Protestants during her short reign, she honestly and devoutly believed that by doing so she was serving God because the Protestants' souls were more important than their bodies and therefore by burning them alive she was giving them the chance at purgatory and ultimately heaven.

Okay, so anyone alive now would say that's shocking etc etc - but the point is that until v. recently historically the soul has taken predcednce over the body - so death is not such a big isse when you see it in that light. Also life was regarded as a short interval preparing for eternity, and therefore if you believe that you are willing to put up with more suffering or to inflict suffering on others if you genuinely believe it will help them in the aftelife.

So our current scientific post-Enlightenment era which has no coherent or agreed concept of the afterlife comes from a totally different perspective - now life is seen as the be all and end all, and any beilefs in the afterlife are seen as incidental.

Obviously I'm not saying that Mary I was right, or the Egyptians (who had a very different but equally powerful belief in the afterlife) but in order to even try and understand the ancient wisdom, that's where you've got to start.

But the reality is that just because something has been done for a long time it dosn't make it a good thing to do. It might be, but simply being an old practice does not of itself make it safe or useful.

It used to be the practice to pack the vagina of a post partum woman woth vow shit to 'purify' her. Not good. But old practice. Great way of giving the woman tetanus actually.

The egyptins used crocodile shit pessaries as a form of contraception....are we lining up to buy them in Boots, or do we rather go and see our GP?

that would be cow shit not vow shit!

I agree MB. And surely humans should work towards better understanding of ourselves, the world etc. Progress is good!

Message withdrawn

Thank you for the apology, sophable. Fwiw, I actually agree that Dawkins' manner can appear unnecessarily abrupt and cutting. I just don't think that makes him a hatefilled fundamentalist rather than someone who can be a bit dismissive and rude to those he believes have not accepted his arguments. I also think that the God Delusion is far from a great book, though it's interesting and engaging and I broadly agree with his reasoning and atheistic views. It jumps about a bit and I think you can tell he wrote it quite quickly, though.