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?

Of course these things are ridiculous and I fully accept that. They're meant to be. They're supposed to make people stop and think, "hmm, I find this ridiculous, how do other people see my faith?" So often "god" is a given in arguments that it's a way of actually challenging the initial assumption.

Because otherwise it's very, very hard - some might say impossible - to get the faithed to step from the parameters of their beliefs and see them from outside, or above.

I've already said that I'm sure the study of faith is interesting as some sort of intellectual exercise - that's not to say it's worthless, just that I don't have time to prioritise it on my reading pile right now. I suppose I'd see it as a kind of anthropology. But I need to reiterate that one does not "need" to have studied theology in order to be "sure", i.e. as it is humanly possible to be sure of anything, that there are no gods.

"They're supposed to make people stop and think, 'hmm, I find this ridiculous, how do other people see my faith?'"

Do you think that device was so repeatedly necessary on this thread? It is very easy to see faith as ridiculous. I'm ashamed to say that I used to see it that way. It is much harder to see the value in it.

"They're supposed to make people stop and think, "hmm, I find this ridiculous, how do other people see my faith?"". But more likely they make people think - "well, that's hardly a sophisticated argument, is it?. It's antagonistic and not worth engaging with". I mean, I'm an atheist and can't bring myself to engage with it.

I only clicked on this tread out of curiosity to see the asnwer to the question of what site was a religious one as it had generated so many answers.

It never occured to me that it might be referring to Mumsnet itself!

I am not religious- never have been. I would say I was an atheist if that didn't also suggest that there was something for you not to beleive in.

People can and do talk about anything and everything on Mumsnet. Given that a proprtion of the population is Christian, then inevitably, there are some Christian threads. In the same way that there are also Muslim and Jewish threads -and even pagan threads.

And a fairly antagonistic post from me! I think that studying theology wouldn't really make any difference to whether you thought there was a god or not, but it would help you understand why people use either what they believe to be god, or what you and I consider to be a human construct to make sense of themselves and the world around them. I read more theology as I was becoming an atheist, and I think it gave me more peace with my choice/belief/direction.

Tarkovsky's films always have a love/fear thing about women going on...

I'm still an atheist, I think, despite being so drawn to thinking about religion. I think it is possible to hold the position of atheism in a way that is sensitive to religion. Not just out of respect for other people's beliefs, but because a considered atheism can be a way of reflecting on spiritual issues, and acknowledging their importance.

And also because it may be that some people's way of asserting atheism is a way of retaining what they regard as true in religion just without assesnting to the existence of god.

Some religios people who aren't atheists are happy to say that god is a metaphor, or is 'within our hearts' or whatever. I don't feel too hung up (I think) on the difference between their views and mine. In fact it probably isn't a difference of views -- it is probably that they have had religious experiences that I lack.

There's a lot of it about.

oh, really ruty. That is interesting

(that was to ruty)

LOL at Habbs thinking UD is comparing a study of God to a study of Elvis...

Can I just say, utterly irrelevantly, just how much I like the nickname Habs/Habbs? It's so... affectionate - at least that's how I choose to read it. A step beyond just simple shortening.

Threadworm, I think it might also be to do with what we choose to name, which in turn might be to do with what kinds of experiences we privilege over others in order to arrive at a sensible understanding of the world.

I wonder whether the experiences of twenty-first century atheists and agnostics are very much different from many of those who would have called themselves Christians 150 years ago, say. Comparing the literature of the two periods might suggest not. But the focus has changed (perhaps more due to Freud than Darwin) so that we more inclined to view a mechanistic account of ourselves as complete and to ascribe meaning to our experiences primarily through such an account. To put it another way, we test our experience through this mechanistic understanding in order to decide whether it is true or valuable and name it accordingly.

As a fresh faced, Selfish Gene besotted atheist studying Coleridge twenty years ago, I couldn't really make any sense of the Ancient Mariner blessing the sea snakes unaware. Why should such an experience have such significance? Where did it fit in? Nowadays, although I am really nowhere close to having any sort of religious faith, I am more inclined to accept the idea that there might be something in this experience of sacredness that is essential to our being, and that life is too short to dismiss it as simply illusory.

I'm thinking any argument is not really repeatedly necessary, no, unless of course it is repeatedly challenged. In which case you sometimes can't do more than just re-state it. This is the reason atheists end up being called "militant" and "unimaginative" - there are only so many ways you can say the same basic ideas without unnecessarily embroidering them.

Is Elvis dead? Very probably... So stop worrying and enjoy his records.

(Are there Elvis-agnostics who think we should neither admit nor discount the possibility that he is still alive?...)

but you are arguing with atheists and agnostics here UQD something you never address.

The problem is, UQD, I'm not sure you really are presenting an argument as such - more a straightforward statement about your personal perception of faith. So you can keep repeating it until the cows come home but you might as well be shouting "Jesus loves you", unless you are actually going to try to develop an argument in response to what other posters are saying.

I hate Hobnobs. Well, not hate in the sense that I wouldn't take them in a biscuit emergency (theology of suddenly praying in a crisis), but they really are Not Good.

Agree with ruty and Iorek, UQD. Apart from justa, it's essentially a thread of non-believers.

I like a hobnob, but I think chocolate hobnobs are problematic.