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Honest question. Is this site a religious site?

843 replies

follderol · 26/01/2009 18:01

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?

OP posts:
RustyBear · 31/01/2009 21:19

Sorry, I can't do my homework - I can honestly say I never never eaten a yoghurt. I often wish I did eat them because it would be so convenient, but I just can't get over the idea of fermented milk.

justaboutisnotastatistician · 31/01/2009 21:25

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ruty · 31/01/2009 21:45

not sure i should say this, but here goes: my mum started getting very ill in my early twenties, and died after a long illness 2 years ago. I was an agnostic then too, the odd thing was, sitting in the room with her minutes after she had died, i got this strong feeling that she was in the room with us, a stronger feeling than I'd had over the last few days of her life. It could have just been a coping mechanism, but I don't think it was just relief, because it really took me by surprise. I have no idea why i felt it, I suppose it is one of those things that can't be explained. I don't have a particularly strong belief in the afterlife, much more than it is something that i would like to be true. But I did read a ST article recently about the advance of quantum physics leading to scientists questioning if consciousness can exist outside the brain. Thought it was quite interesting.

justaboutisnotastatistician · 31/01/2009 21:48

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RustyBear · 31/01/2009 21:49

It was me that suggested the name (Bayes) justabout - having seen a definition of a Bayesian as the 'offspring of a statistician and a clergyman'

justaboutisnotastatistician · 31/01/2009 21:50

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ruty · 31/01/2009 21:54

BISCUITS

justaboutisnotastatistician · 31/01/2009 21:56

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ruty · 31/01/2009 22:15

No. But i think this is going to get deleted from Classics.

ruty · 31/01/2009 22:18

[interesting though]

justaboutisnotastatistician · 31/01/2009 22:23

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Threadworm · 31/01/2009 22:29

I was surprised they put it in classics. Do you think they just shove in anything we ask them to?

I think I should become a Quaker, btw. Not least because they are the only Christian sub-group to market their own biscuits.

Swedes · 31/01/2009 22:48

Ruty - That is very interesting. I am sorry about your mum.

UnquietDad · 31/01/2009 23:04

What does "intellectually mullered" mean? It sounds like something they'd like to think they have done, whereas all they have actually done is attempted to bamboozle me with a load of waffle while I stood firm. I notice quite a few points I made have been swept under the carpet, for example the one about burden and balance of evidence.

I'll say it again - I'm sure exploring "faith" is great intellectual fun if you have the time and the energy, but ultimately you may as well be learning a made-up language like Elvish. The underlying first assumption - that it's in any way to do with "reality" - is false.

I've never suggested anyone "makes up silly names" but I think it's a bit rich to give the name "god" to anything a bit vaguely out of the ordinary or a wishy-washy feeling that there "has to be more", or an attempt to get in touch with the "spiritual" (whatever the hell that means - seems it can mean whatever you want it to mean). Before long you'll be giving the name "god" to feelings of deja vu, or that odd idea that you've met somebody before when you haven't, or that nagging sensation that you might have left the gas on.

just about sums it all up. Never was there a more useful emoticon.

Swedes · 31/01/2009 23:10

UQD I see no carpet.

UnquietDad · 31/01/2009 23:21

"God isn't an empirical entity -- it's not a claim that there is one more thing for science to discover."

Well, says you.

There you are, you see - in order to defy the need for evidence you already need to have at least that start of the idee fixe of what god "is", before you've even looked for it. This doesn't work if you take as the starting point that "god" isn't necessarily anything, because it's made up unless you show otherwise - and, lest this was missed earlier, it is up to the person making the positive assertion to provide this. Not the one denying it.

Put any other debatable supernatural phenomenon in the assertion above to see how silly it is. If I said "the Easter Bunny isn't an empirical entity" and required everyone to believe in it despite the lack of evidence, this wouldn't be very fair. If I want people to believe in the Easter Bunny, I need to tell them why. I can't prove it exists, but you'd expect some objective evidence. I can't just witter on about it being some manifestation of a vaguely sinister, yet benevolent leporid deity which bestows its kindness upon the human race through the annual distribution of ovoid confectionery and leaves one with an all-embracing sense of well-being through the twitching of its invisible nose.

All very well, you may say, but that's just "making up names" - but that is all "god" is for someone who is not contained within the narrow framework of "faith". It's just a name. A word. It might as well say crzzlrdlwjjk.

(We don't look for evidence that justice is worth seeking? I think we do. You can find evidence, if you want to. You can also find evidence against it, I'm sure. You can present both sides and have a reasoned debate about concepts of social models, anarchy, the effects of punishment versus (or alongside) rehabilitation, etc., etc. Plenty to go on there.)

IorekByrnison · 31/01/2009 23:25

Threadworm, your post of 17:35 is just the thing.

Swedes, Habbibu and Ruty, I'm so sorry for your sad losses.

IorekByrnison · 31/01/2009 23:27

By the way, is anyone watching the utterly marvellous Werner Herzog film Nosferatu the Vampyre on BBC4 at the moment?

UnquietDad · 31/01/2009 23:33

Like Swedes, I know a lot of "educated and cultured" people who have a faith. But then again, I know people who have a faith and are as thick as pigshit, watch Big Brother and never read books. I don't think it proves anything either way. There seems little correlation. It certainly doesn't give me pause to wonder if I might have got something wrong. I can totally understand how they might find their faith a comfort in difficult times (as people on here have just shown) but this shouldn't be confused with the idea that the "divine" is real. The two are quite separate.

I find "Doctor Who" a comfort in difficult times, but I am (mostly) aware that it's just fiction.

Sadly, people the world over who are otherwise intelligent have shown themselves capable throughout history of believing the most extraordinary baloney.

IorekByrnison · 31/01/2009 23:34

shame about the dubbing though

IorekByrnison · 31/01/2009 23:38

UQD you should watch Nosferatu. You would surely love it (and it would take your mind off all of us would-be-theist harpies).

ruty · 31/01/2009 23:40

unfortunately not Iorek, dh is watching Planet of the Apes.

Not wanting sympathy for my Mum. We all lose our parents. Only brought it up because of strange experience.

IorekByrnison · 31/01/2009 23:45

Yes of course - not easy though even so.

Actually the dubbing on Nosferatu is incredibly annoying. It is super though. His films are so beautiful and convincing, and yet so clunky at unrealistic the same time. How is it possible?

IorekByrnison · 01/02/2009 00:08

(Tomorrow at 11 o clock it's the brilliant Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Consumers of this thread will love it: its protagonist is a man uncontaminated by bourgeois preoccupations, who is utterly steadfast in his stubborn refusal to see any sense in religion. Sound familiar?)

ruty · 01/02/2009 00:10

blimey, Werner Herzog. He's a bit bonkers though isn't he? [worthy philosophical comment of the year]