Honest question. Is this site a religious site?

[follderol]

It seems to me there's a large amount of Christian posts. I've also noticed a fair amount of disapproval for other religions.

I am an atheist. I don't really want to be part of a christian site posing as a parenting site.

So is this actually a Christian place?

Cote.

I really get the feeling Dawkins is tone deaf.

Oh so that's where the spaghetti monster is from. As a satire on calls for Intelligent Design to be taught in science lessons I think it's quite funny and pertinent. It's only when applied to a criticism of faith generally that it rather falls down.

I'm interested by this comment UQD:

"I don't know of anyone who has been convinced by rational thought from theism into atheism." Really? I have been through this process of moving from theism to atheism through rational thought, and from there to agnosticism - I'm sure I'm not the only one. But if you're not trying to convince anybody then fair enough. (You've just got a very peculiar way of showing it )

fio

I think Dawkins is a smart guy, and what he is doing should have been done long ago, but he has oversimplified the arguments in order to reach the masses and as a result looks a bit loony.

Ah but then it wouldn't have ended up in Classics Fio. [there's a metaphor for the whole of religion in there somewhere. ]

But you could replace "God" with anything you like in the above statement - that's my problem with it. Celestial Teapot, Spaghetti Monster, Thetans, Zeus, fairies, Great Green Arkleseizure or Ra. At some point, we have to take an informed decision based on the evidence, or lack of it.

I accept this is different from realisation, but then I have not been arguing that they are necessarily the same.

If we assume the Universe we are talking about is this one, and don't over-complicate the argument with parallel or speculative or alternative universes, then surely the answer to the God question is either Yes or No. It's fair enough to avoid the question and say "I don't know", but then you have to ask yourself if that's your answer to the existence of every supernatural phenomenon. If it is, then you are at least consistent.

I am interested in cases of people moving from theism to atheism or vice-versa, and the difference in the processes. I'm not saying they are non-existent, but they are rare.

Look UD, I really don't think whether God exists or not is the point. The history of humankind's struggle to make sense of his/her life, the aspirations to and inclinations of the divine [it is just a word that struggles to express something felt] Bach, all the sacred music motivated by a sense of the divine, the writings of Julian of Norwich, of other mystic writers [not just Christian] all of these have shaped humanity and help humanity evolve. The ritual of confession, the rituals of the church, of candlelight, of worship, the focus on the redemptive power of forgiveness and reconciliation, all of these have stemmed from a belief in God. And all of them are belittled by certain athiests who feel superior and just don't get it, when they compare a belief in God with a belief in the Loch Ness Monster. I don't know if God exists. I do know I don't want to be without all the other things, and those things depend on a yearning for something more, something uncertain, and something unknown, so forgive me if i do feel your arguments are reductive.

Science itself is at ease with things unknown, things uncertain. [loses will to write]

Science is totally at ease with the unknown, but strives towards the knowable. It doesn't accept that things are just ineffable or beyond human understanding - it just accepts that we don't know them yet.

UQD on the right - he's perfected the flared nostrils and imapatient half smile but the hair's allwrong.

UQD - Saying 'spaghetti monster does not come from Dawkins' is a bit like saying Yellow Submarine doesn't come from the Beatles.

That is not incompatible with faith UQD.

faith is at ease with the unknown and strives towards the knowable too. There are plenty of Christians [the majority] who are excited by the developments of quantum physics and the Hadron Collider [though tis broke].

OMG! Swedes that is terrifying!

Well, Yellow Submarine patently does come from the Beatles, even if it displays its influences. It's an original song written and performed by them. The Spaghetti Monster is one example of many cited in "The God Delusion". It was created, as far as I can tell, by a chap called Bobby Henderson. So I don't get the point you are making.

anyone for a custard creme? [tries to get thread back to topic which got it into classics lest it be thrown out again]

Thing is, I think the word 'probably' (which is what UQD used in the first place) does have a legitimate usage outside the strictly mathematical one, in the same way that multiply does - if someone says the flies in the bin are are multiplying, you don't expect them to be able to specify by what factor.

Even if you do accept that 'probable' always refers to the mathematical concept of probability you then have to define that concept- which is what the Bayesian/Frequentist debate among statisticians is all about. The frequentists define probability as the expected frequency of occurrence in the long-run whereas the Bayesian view of probability is related to the degree of belief, and measures the plausibility of an event given incomplete knowledge.

Or, if you are being cynical, a frequentist is a person whose long-run ambition is to be wrong 5% of the time, and a Bayesian is one who, vaguely expecting a horse, and catching a glimpse of a donkey, strongly believes he has seen a mule.

Another joke about Bayesians may be of particular significance (and I am using that term in a non-statistical sense )to justaboutwhateversheistoday:

Bayesian: Breeding a statistician with a clergyman to produce the much sought-after 'honest statistician'.

justabout - ever thought of naming your next child Bayes?

Well I think yellow submarines pre-dated the song. So it is good analogy isn't it? I'd never heard of either the spaghetti monstor or a yellow submarine pre Dawkins or the Beatles.

monstor monster

can i just add Caravaggio and the way he used low life and criminals as his models in his paintings of Christ and his disciples as another example for my list...

Splutter at the lookalikes, swedes.

Custard creme sounds a little French, non? I think these were the preferred biscuits of the Huguenots

Actually I came across a reference to the Spaghetti monster on Mumsnet before I ever got round to reading Dawkins. Which probably says more about my preferred reading than anything else....

I suspect any self respecting Huguenot would turn up his substantial nose as a custard cream. Would he not prefer a Bartholemew Biscuit?