Light sensors cause religious row

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

Story here.

Maybe they should just move?

There is no reason that inspired atheists could engage with people from multi-faith backgrounds

there should be a NOT there too...

doh

I just wanted to challenge this:

"The word superstition does belittle religion. That does make it racist. "

Belittling religion might be considered blasphemous to the religious (although it seems reasonable to assume that any retribution by an angry god would hurt the blasphemer rather than the religious).

Belittling religious believers might be rude, even discriminatory, possibly a hate crime might be involved, if there was incitement to violence or a criminal act, however to be racist surely there is a presumption of race involved.

If I said I hate all Catholics, or even all Catholics should be burned at the stake, then I would not be being racist, because there is no Catholic race. NB I am an ex-Catholic myself and do not hold either of these views, although I think that Catholicism (or more accurately the Catholic priesthood and hierarchy) has caused much pain and negativity in the world (alongside some helpful activism and charitable works).

It is only where race and religion are closely intertwined that insulting a religion can become insulting a race.

To say that calling religion a superstition is not to be racist. That is making the term devoid of meaning.

Bullies in any guise are a bad thing. I object to the ones in pulpits more because, unlike the friends of your six year old, they are in a position of great power. That said I'm sorry that your children were heckled, children should be brought up to be nice to each other as the primary value, regardless of religious orientation.

However so long as children (of any background) are forced to listen to religious instruction in school, then you will have parents who actively fight against that. So long as children like mine come home from their local primary non-religiously affiliated school rabbiting away about God and Jesus, then they will indeed get a bit of "don't believe all that tosh" (more politely expressed by me, and much less so by my dh) instructions back, and I guess it might bget parroted a fair bit.

The trouble is that most faiths expect (even demand) a bit of evangelism from their followers, so it can never really be a comfortable side by side existence. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but friction is I think inevitable.

growingup, yes agreed, and the Jewish faith with it's tradition of faith following the female line has possibly one of the strongest ethnic and cultural links, so has suffered from that particularly.

Bullies in any guise are a bad thing. I object to the ones in pulpits more because, unlike the friends of your six year old, they are in a position of great power.

Who exactly are you talking about here? Of course I agree that anyone who is bullying is wrong and should be dealt with appropriately. But you seem to imply that everyone who is a religious leader is a bully. Or has great power. Neither of which I could agree with. Can you name names, or given specific examples (n.b. perhaps not wild extremists because we both agree that that is wrong).

friction is I think inevitable.

Well it does seem off that I was never heckled about my faith until I was in my teens (and only then because I was a street preacher, so was up for it!). Why are my small children being targeted now? I never came across anything like that as a child.

MP: well, bullying children will find something abou their victims to pick on: is the school addressing the bullying issue?
Children do squabble and insult each other on a variety of topics, and it is unlikely that the mini-rationalists are ruthlessly determined to stamp out superstition in their playgrounds.
However, the other children's awareness that there are no gods, fairies or pixies is a valid viewpoint, why should they have to pretend to agree with your children that such things exist?
IN general, people can rub along with each other well enough without rowing about who does and doesn't believe in whatever myth system but it often seems as though the supersitious expect everyone else to 'respect' their superstition to the extent of pretending to believe that there's 'something in it, there must be'.

MP, your children shouldn't be belittled by schoolfriends. I hope I teach my kids that people have different views and they should be respected. It still doesn't stop a neighbour of ours, younger than my eldest son, sticking leaflets through the door telling him he will go to hell if he doesn't pray everyday and that he is an immoral sinner.

While his own CofE education is teaching him an agnosticism all of his own, it doesn't stop him having a little bit of doubt about his own wellbeing.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that all priests (or religious figures) are bullies, but yes I have met a few. Examples including my old Catholic priest who did a grand line about gnashing of teeth in hell for example (I always quite enjoyed that however), the local CoE priest when I was at uni seemed to enjoy bullying students about their sex lives (a fair few nervous breakdowns ensued, very unfair IMO), oh and my sister's views on homosexuals being fine so long as they don't do anything worry me deeply in her pastoral role. I really think being in moral authority is very bad for people. It gives them all sorts of license to interfere with other people's lives, and because of the authority, to be taken very seriously indeed.

well i have a gay friend who was terribly traumatized by his own priest father who forced him into having exorcisms done to destroy demons of homosexuality. Appalling obviously. The church, just like the police force, the social services, education and he medical profession, attracts some nasty characters who abuse their position of trust.

Fundamentalist atheists often have more in common with fundamentalist christians than they realise. They say things like, 'ah well, you believe this' [eg gays should be put to death' and when you say, 'er, actually, that quote in the bible has lost it's original meaning through translation and being taken out of its historical and cultural context, and it is very pertinent that Christ himself was supremely uninterested in people's personal lives, love and respect were the only things that mattered, blah blah blah' they say, 'ah well you're not a real christian then. They have no idea about theology and the vast range of opinions within the discipline [it is quite possible to atheist/agnostic and have a good understanding of theology] and they don't want to know, they just want to keep being able to compare Christianity or Judaism with a belief in the Tooth Fairy. Fine, keep on doing it, but don't expect everyone too fall over and say 'OMG, you're right, the huge weight of philosophical discourse religion has engendered is exactly the same as believing in Father Christmas. Thankyou so much'

When SGM said "his own field" I was assuming she meant evolutionary biology, or science in general! Well, of course he is never going to make any friends among theologians, because he is telling them stuff they don't want to hear. And he is respected by other prominent atheists, as is demonstrated in that famous four-way discussion between Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris. (I'll link to it when I get a chance.)

But here's a newsflash - atheists are allowed to disagree with one another, and do in that very discussion.

morningpaper, I honestly think this "new Atheism" thing is a total fabrication by the likes of Madeleine Bunting and Theo Hobson and co. There isn't really any "new wave" of atheism - it's always been there. As I said above, there are only so many ways one can keep saying "the sky is blue" when everyone around you is saying "no, actually, its green."

Of course there are elements of Christianity which have contributed to Western culture and helped to make it what it is. Look at art, architecture, music from the last few hundred years and you're bound to see it. But I feel people make the false equation that this all must somehow make it true. It doesn't - any more than the influence everywhere in Greece of their wonderful mythology makes Zeus real.

Yes, it would in fact be lovely if more Christians said 'Well, the Bible says X, but it's important to take into account the cultural mores of the time,and really love and forgiveness are what's important'

Sadly that attitude (let's call it C of E ) isn't as common as we'd like.

The basic teachings of the only religion with which I'm in any way properly familiar (traditional C of E Christianity), which seem to boil down to "be terribly nice to each other", can't really be faulted. It's just that you don't really need any celestial endorsement to put them into practice. (Let's leave aside all the abasement, the "miserable offenders" stuff, the "saved a wretch like me" stuff, all that genuinely anti-human crap which really makes my blood simmer and makes me wonder why people put up with such self-loathing.)

If you look at the teachings of Jesus, there's nothing much to object to. But Christians can't claim exclusivity in the Being Nice stakes.

In fact, you could be said to be more altruistic for looking out for your fellow beings in a purely humanistic context - a sort of "do as you would be done by" ethic - rather than because there is a deity with the Giant Celestial Carrot Of Hope and the Big Stick Of Doom over your shoulder.

The joke wouldn't have been as funny without the "oy vey" bit imo.

My joke was pretty mild compared with what others said, come on.

I like to think I have a fair knowledge of theology, but that's not necessary to be an atheist.
People argue, you haven't studied Christianity, so you can't just dismiss it as fictional. Really? How much time did you spend studying Hinduism before you decided it wasn't for you? how about Sikhism? Shinto?

you miss the point repeatedly UQD. [welcome back btw]
Your analogies show how reductive your argument is. It is not about you saying the sky is blue and someone else saying it is green. For a start, the sky only appears to be blue because of the shorter wavelength light being absorbed by gas molecules, etc. And a theologian is not going to say, 'nope, it is green' They would say, yes, it appears to be blue, but i think there is more to it than that' It gets impossible to develop this analogy further at this point as your analogy is based on something you see only.

And it hilariously hurried to say religion has contributed to 'art, architechture and music.' Have you ever listened to Bach's St Matthew Passion for example? Don't you get that so much of our creativity has been born out of this agonising experience of glimpses of faith, knowledge of our mortal self, of hope and fear, the dichotomy that exists at the heart of all Faith? I give up.

I think UQD said 'oy vey' because he didn't realise the thread was going to kick off.
He has been away from MN for a while, dontcha know, think he forgot how it works!

Hinduism is just another set of metaphors tools for understanding that thing we call God. All old world religions do it quite effectively in their own way.

I don't believe it Lenin, but I don't rule it out.

"Hilariously hurried"? Excuse me, I wasn't going to list every single piece of music with a Christian dimension over the last few centuries, was I? Everything from the St Matthew Passion (which I have listened to, yes, thank you very much) to Nick Cave? Doh, doh, doh.

It is the religious who base their arguments on a limited, reductive sphere of perception. They are unable to step outside the recursive, self-referential concept of "faith" in which they find themselves - they only see the dimension in which they walk, and not the whole picture, rather like the figures in Escher's Relativity.