Light sensors cause religious row

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

Story here.

Maybe they should just move?

Poppity, don't take my quotes out of context please. I was referring to those who had stooped to insults, on both sides. I have been very careful to criticise only some non-believers, because I know there are some very respectful non-believers, on this thread and out there in rl too. Many of them are my friends.

Don't be quick to look for offence where there is none.

Onager I didn't "make a rule" - I just can't see how you are defining religion if it does not include some idea of divinity.

You don't have to believe in God to have an imagination, controlfreakythecontr...

Belief in God because of a need to believe in God? As a way of explaning the unexplainable?

Well not everyone believed in God, as others have pointed out. People looked to the stars for explanations, or to nature. The Greeks had many gods that gave them the answers they were looking for, likewise the Romans. Now we have science, but then haven't we always had science?

Isn't it strange that, out of the whole animal kingdom from which we evolved, we are the only ones who are constantly looking for answers? Who feel the need to worship something? Why is that?

Yes, you could argue that it is all psychological, but you could equally argue that a belief in something 'divine' is as old as we are, because it started with something 'divine'?

controlfreaky - can't believe you are dragging up the cracked old chestnut about "not having a religion means you have no imagination." Shame on you. Poor. Too poor even to dismiss.

unstrungharp - you did say that there was such a thing as a "sense of the divine". That's a theory, or an opinion. It's not a fact.

Poppity has the problem nailed - where can you go from there? It's just an attempt at an all-purpose argument-exploder. It doesn't work.

I've been to Glastonbury, got attacked by flying ants.

UQD, don't be so, so, negative

Rhubarb - we're also the only animals who know we're going to die. That's a biggie.

"unstrungharp - you did say that there was such a thing as a "sense of the divine". That's a theory, or an opinion. It's not a fact."

How is it not a fact? I am not suggesting that people's ideas of divinity prove anything other than that people have ideas of divinity, which I would have thought was incontrovertable.

"Poppity has the problem nailed - where can you go from there? It's just an attempt at an all-purpose argument-exploder. It doesn't work."

Why is this "an all-purpose argument-exploder" that "doesn't work"? I thought we were all agreed that the existence of god cannot be proved.

Interesting Beastie..................

Rhubarb, I'm sorry I don't know where I've done that. It's all going so fast, and my head hurts! Was it quite a few pages back?

Were they spiritual flying ants though rhubarb

Harp: Existence of god can't be proved, neither can the non-existence. So saying "I can't prove it" doesn't take us anywhere. It just ends the argument. Asking for evidence on the other hand...

Your other point? Ah, well "people have ideas of divinity" is I think a different thing from "there is a sense of the divine". But YMMV. Shrug.

It was just after I posted before going to pick the kids up.

Never mind, easily done.

And these ants, they all had the face of Richard Dawkins! Seriously freaky!

YMMV?

Yellow Monkeys Mob Villages?

Mating with the Lalla Ward ants...

Sorry - Your Mileage May Vary. A bit old-school that one.

Unstrung, no the 'you' in that post was a general one, not meant to mean unstrung as it were.

Mine was better. Probably because I have imagination

And a spiritual life, Rhubarb.

I have to go and make the tea, hard to tear myself away I must admit, but the Dawkins/Ward flying mating ants attack will stay with me for some time

As regards why we feel the urge to ask questions and/or worship something?

Asking questions is generally a good thing in human history - it's the source of all our knowledge really. But where we couldn't answer the questions (why did the sky just rumble and send down fire?), we used magic or gods to fill the gap. But now, the dark corners are getting fewer and fewer and we can explain pretty much everything that happens in our daily lives without resort to supernatural forces.

So now, you can keep god if you want (let's throw out the 'magic' in case it offends)... but you don't really have to. I do wonder how people, Shelley for example, were atheists before Darwin. That would be a big stumbling block for me.

LOL! Right, have to leave this thread again, which is annoying because it's really QI.

Damn those children and their need for food!

I am troubled by the 'ideas of God have been around longer than the Enlightenment' argument. As an argument, I utterly agree. But as a social scientist, it bothers me enormously that this is a defence of faith. I am going to rifle through history and sociology of religion textbooks go away and think about it and come back later after feeding kids with a glass of wine.

Exactly - where we can explain things without supernatural intervention why do we need it? There is no justification for taking the gaps in our knowledge and giving them a label and writing on that label "god".

Nor is the fact that there are gaps an indication that science is wrong and religion is right. It just means science is still evolving.