Light sensors cause religious row

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

Story here.

Maybe they should just move?

I've only been back here three days...

I think I may be off again soon at this rate...

That is my favourite song OG. I bought the single for DH when we were young and in love.

Lol UQD now you're being threatening

Yes, I see those points. But isn't one of the difficulties around the boundaries of religion. Established world churches have the legimitacy of history and mass following, but at heart the principles held by Scientologists do have the same structure. How are outsiders who do not believe to assess the validity of claims made?

You can find evidence of love though. You can even find scientific (biochemical) reasons for its existence if you want. They don't explain the whole concept, but generally there is no real need to - there is no huge controversy about whether love actually "exists".

Lup: That is up to the outsiders to decide, I suppose, if they feel the need to engage with those communities then they will need to begin a journey of discovery! In terms of dialogue between religions, well, that is a massive project but there are people who are working hard to encourage such activity.

They don't explain the whole concept, but generally there is no real need to

But that is how many theists feel. Nonetheless, their feelings and convictions are real. There is little point trying to persuade them otherwise.

I am genuinely interested to know if there is any answer to the Sam Harris point about "good". I may have misquoted him slightly - this is how he eloquently puts it:

"Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God?s goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If He exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man."

Where the love analogy falls down is that, if there were such a thing as a "love-sceptic", one could find strong evidence for its effects and its causes. It might not convince the sceptic, but it would at least be evidence. Not just a "feeling".

But there's generally no need to, because we are talking about an imaginary controversy which does not exist - unlike the very real one of religious scepticism.

All that proves is that Sam Harris, and you, have no understanding of the vast range of theological opinion about the Bible. Dare I say it, Strw. Man. Argument.

Dare I say it. Hugely. Convenient. Smug.

mp the difference is that no-one claims that Love exists as an actual being, with intelligence, that has views on how they live their lives.

I have no problem with a belief that God exists solely inside the human psyche.

How so? Sam Harris is saying
'God hates Gays. Therefore God is shit'
If you had any understanding of theology you would know that is not true.

LOLOL I'm smug. Pot calling kettle...

Dare I ask, then, Olympe, how you yourself address the issue that "If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to."?

Sam Harris is saying 'God hates Gays. Therefore God is shit'

Er - no.

Now that is a straw-man.

Er, yes, UQD.
Hello Beastie, it is the issue of Free Will.[see parable of Garden of Eden]
If God had not given us free will, she/he could have prevented bad things from happening to us, a bit like keeping a pet in a nice cage. God created us, metaphorically speaking, as free agents. Language, is by its very nature, limiting and reductive, when it comes to talking about God and when it comes to talking about science. God and science, God and quantum physics, are inextricably linked. God maybe, or maybe not, was behind the Big Bang. God equipped us with all the abilities to create Heaven on Earth. We've cocked it up magnificently, then turn around and say 'Fuck you God, you fucked it up' For example, it is quite posssible if we had spent as much time and money on finding a cure for cancer as we have on war, we may have done it by now.

I have to go, my poor children. I am agnostic as I keep saying anway. Ho hum.

UQD, I think there might be something to the "new atheism" concept, and I think you touched on it as did morningpaper - Russell and his peers took a more philosophical approach, he gently tried to apply logic to particular instances of theological ideas, he was deeply respectful of religious beliefs even if he didn't agree and so on. You could say that he took on religion on religion's turf. He took religion to task for what religion professes to uphold and professes to believe.

Dawkins, Hitchens and the rest take a very different approach which may be best summed up as "You believe what??? FFS..." As you suggested yourself, these people see a Russell-type discourse as spurious at its core. I think Russell saw atheism as a (more or less) equivalent belief system to religion; the "new atheists", if I may use that term, see atheism as profoundly distinct from religion.

More importantly, they also take on religion for the observable effects religion has on people. Russell would (say) do a philosophical discourse on whether heaven and hell are useful goals for a person. Dawkins (and Hitchens, in particular) are much more likely to say that not only are heaven and hell complete but, hey, look at what troubles are caused by believing in them, too.

Atheism itself hasn't changed, as it's a desperately simple standpoint. But I do think there has been a significant change in how openly and readily some atheists will now dismiss religious beliefs entirely.

For what it's worth, I like it. I don't agree with everything that Dawkins says, and I certainly don't agree with a lot of what Hitchens says, but I'm glad they're out there and I'm very pleased that they're getting platforms to say what they think.

When I was 14 and mentioned in a school lesson that I was an atheist, my teacher furiously shouted "You're too young to decide that!" Yet, strangely, other people in my class weren't too young to claim to be Christians or Sikhs... Having the likes of Dawkins on TV, and his books in libraries, is giving lots of people the tacit permission they need to throw off their religious beliefs if they want to and to see the world in a different way.

I think this has clarified some things for me. Am horrifically undereducated in these debates (and shouldn't be, in my position) but I guess I'd have to defend a version of Humanism. Weak or Strong, I'm not sure. Both.

Weak: humanness is at the centre of debates about faith and love and so it's OK to believe

Strong: science AND religion both human constructs and therefore equally flawed. On balance of empiricism though, err on the side of scientific method.

UQD: Sam Harris has there summarised the "problem of evil" which is a matter of great theological debate and has been so for thousands of years. The problem of evil is your starting point - from there, millions of books have been written and hundreds of years of debate and discourse have occured. That's not to say that there are no solutions - there are many, but none are agreed on! I'm afraid that I cannot summarise them in a paragraph - otherwise Aquinas would have had lots of time to take up knitting etc.

This is a nice summary of Aquinas's views on the issue

The other big school of arguments about this are discussed in the work of Irenaeus (2nd century).

This is a great summary of the arguments and the history, if you want to find out more

Whether you find any of the arguments convincing is another matter of course!

The problem with saying that "faith" somehow makes one exempt from rational discourse is that it ultimately boils down to just simple special pleading. In any case, people of "faith" seem to want to attempt rational discourse with atheists about their faith anyway - wanting to have their cake and eat it. I could say, "that's fine, but it means you are now no longer allowed to argue with me." That would sound a little arrogant, but seriously, what other way is there of staying sane? It's not like a political or socio-economic argument where there are heated views on both sides but evidence offered by both. It's like a debate where one side just shrugs and says "you don't understand unless you Believe."

snorbs"Atheism itself hasn't changed, as it's a desperately simple standpoint. But I do think there has been a significant change in how openly and readily some atheists will now dismiss religious beliefs entirely."

That may well be true. I don't think that's a bad thing, though. Just shows how the debate has moved on.

If Olympe thinks "God hates Gays. Therefore God is shit" is not a straw-man summary of Harris, then that's just laughable.

morningpaper - I know what the issue is - I just thought I'd never seen anyone put it quite as Harris does because he challenges the usual answers given. I have yet to meet a Christian who can demonstrate in saying "god is good" that they are not using a plainly human-defined concept of "good".

Lupus: oh, yeah, science is flawed and knows it. But it recognises that a flawed, developing way of looking at the world - one which is open to new, continually-changing ideas - is far better than a rigorous and dogmatic one. It's part of a scientist's job to be proved wrong - and a good scientist will be glad when (s)he has been. (There's a great anecdote in the God Delusion on this very point.)

"The problem with saying that "faith" somehow makes one exempt from rational discourse is that it ultimately boils down to just simple special pleading."

I don't think that faith is exempt from rational discourse! I do think that you can't put God under a microscope though, sorry, any more than you can put love under a microscope. I don't have God in my handbag so that I can demonstrate the basis of my faith.

"I have yet to meet a Christian who can demonstrate in saying "god is good" that they are not using a plainly human-defined concept of "good"."

Thomas Aquinas is a good starting point, for anyone genuinely interested, as he doesn't argue that God created evil - rather, than it is a lacking of what should be. I do love Aquinas as I find his arguments great fun. I also love the way he was really, really fat, so got a carpenter to make a curved desk to fit his belly in.

UQD, I think the way that religious beliefs can now be dismissed entirely isn't always a bad thing either.

As for science being flawed; it's the recognition that science has flaws that is one of the primary strengths of the scientific process. Science is an endless series of "I reckon we can explain this by..." followed by people either disproving those theories, or not being able to. Those theories that are disproved end up being replaced by ones that work better, those that aren't disproved are generally regarded as being right.

I don't think anyone wants to put god "under a microscope" - just to have some rational arguments for its existence!

And as hellobeastie says above, nobody is arguing that "love" exists as a sentient being. You may as well try to prove that "hate" exists or doesn't exist. if it doesn't, then something to which we can give that name certainly exists - there is a "gap", into which something with a name needs putting.

'If Olympe thinks "God hates Gays. Therefore God is shit" is not a straw-man summary of Harris, then that's just laughable. '
I assume you mean I do think it is a straw man argument.

''And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If He exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man."

well I may have been blunt in my summary, but the implication is there UQD whether you like it or not. If i say 'I find your argument laughable' it is insulting, no? Even if i do.

'Lupus: oh, yeah, science is flawed and knows it. But it recognises that a flawed, developing way of looking at the world - one which is open to new, continually-changing ideas - is far better than a rigorous and dogmatic one. It's part of a scientist's job to be proved wrong - and a good scientist will be glad when (s)he has been. (There's a great anecdote in the God Delusion on this very point.)

Again you create a straw man arguement. Much of religion is dogmatic [not sure if rigorous is the word you intended to use there] But most of theology is not. And of course it is open to new, continually changing ideas, backed up by accurate study of the bible, knowledge of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc.