BS: The Pope in America

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 09:13 PM

"Peace" works as well. Lovely.

Mind, while it's true to see it as the barrier we identify berween us and other animals being put aside, it's equally true to see it as an instance of a human acting in a way that only a human could. And there's no contradiction between the two ways of seeing it. Having that barrier down enabled Maxwell to be even more truly human.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:34 PM

Grrr. "Piece!"

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:33 PM

This was in today's Guardian, a lovely peace by Mark Cocker. I know I'm not supposed to reproduce stuff like this in full, but in mitigation I beseech you to buy Mark's sublime book, "Claxton: Field Notes From A Small Planet". You might well decide that it's the most beautiful book you'll ever own. Anyway, savour this lovely writing and ponder the complete absence of or need for magic!

As I sat in the garden I could hear what seemed like the rustle of some mysterious animal right behind me. That puzzle continued for a while until the penny dropped: the noise was not in the hedge but on top of my head. So I painstakingly lowered my cap until, sure enough, there was a common darter dragonfly blithely sunning itself still in my cradled hands.

I could appreciate how the faint rubbing of those plasticised wings was the source of the intermittent message. And as we observed one another I wondered what its compound eyes, inheritance from the Carboniferous, made of its admirer.

I doubt there was much sentiment on the part of one of us, but I was moved. Why are these moments of close connection with wild creatures so special? Yet they are. On his Twitter page, a friend still commemorates the moment a lime hawk moth deigned to use his nose as a perch. Thoreau had a sparrow land on his shoulder and "felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn".

The best story of this kind I've heard recently was one by John Lister-Kaye of his friend, the naturalist and writer Gavin Maxwell. The former had found a fox with its leg cheese-wired in a snare. Despite his best efforts he couldn't free the snarling, man-hating beast and went to Maxwell, who leapt into the boat to go to the rescue.

When they approached the wounded animal there ensued the same routine of agonising interspecific bad blood. But slowly, Maxwell, talking, reassuring all the while, moved closer and closer and, as he spoke so he soothed the victim, until eventually trust blossomed and the man painstakingly opened the wire and freed his friend.

Maxwell's private and business life were a trainwreck, but with this tale he has never seemed more admirable or more human. It's not just that we join the other animals in such moments, it's that we lose that birthright, old as a sharpened stick, that all our species inherits.

I was so moved that I added a comment on the Guardian website. If I have a religion at all, this article is a bloody good articulation of it!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:17 PM

Yes, Steve. That's what many, maybe most, parents do and have always done. We grow up into a family, and we grow up into a religion. Maybe we decide to give up the religion, for good and all, or for a time. Either way very likely it is still part of our culture.

And we learn about at least a sample of the innumerable things other people around the world believe and do.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 08:05 PM

At least Raelians are getting laid.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 07:23 PM

"Evolution is not something one "believes in" or not - it exists and functions in the real world."

You just can't tell some people this, Greg. Evolution is a fact of life and is THE explanation for life on earth in all its diversity, complexity and beauty. It was amazing that it took until the nineteenth century for someone to explain this. The theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the most elegant, sublime and beautiful products of the human mind. In contract, religious objections to it are ignorant, desperate, petty and prejudiced. I feel a bit sorry for the well-meaning but misguided people of faith who valiantly try to espouse it. That just doesn't work. Darwin was a very diplomatic fellow and would never have said that evolution and creationism were incompatible. But I'm the great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of Darwin's bulldog (in spirit at least), and I'm saying it!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:24 PM

So let me get this right. You think it could be OK to talk about a miraculous Jesus who came down from heaven, worked miracles, raised the dead, died nailed to a cross and came back to life, all in a really simple form of English, postponing till later the complicated world of telling them straight about what billions of people believe? Well, to be honest, I find the latter scenario a hundred times simpler then the former, and, strike me down if I'm wrong, but I think I'm a bit more sophisticated than the average kid!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 05:45 PM

Childremn learn to talk in a particular language, and not generally in the context of other languages. That can come later- and if you haven't learnt how to communicate in your own language, you'll find it very hard to manage to make head or tail of any others.

But of course it's good to do so. In fact it improves your ability to use your own language.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 05:04 PM

People who believe the earth is only 6000 years old do not merely have a different opinion. They are - as someone on another thread has styled at least one of the U.S. Republican presidential candidates - batshit crazy.

Evolution is not something one "believes in" or not - it exists and functions in the real world.

As with Holocaust deniers, Scientologists, moon landing hoax advocates and Raelians (are there still Raelians around?) et. al., there is no point trying to hold a rational discussion/dfebate with them.

They are batshit crazy. Full stop.

All attempting to engage tham in rational debate does is tend to legitimize their batshit craziness, as if their insanity and delusion were worthy of serious consideration.

Enough, already.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 04:40 PM

It's still a tendentious approach, Kevin. Context is everything. If you were telling children that in the context of educating them about world religions, great. But your approach sounds a bit like sneaking it in to me. Too much scope for input of personal predilections. It's a delicate issue. Neutrality of approach is everything.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 04:30 PM

"The point still holds that the evolutionary mindset has hindered science.    It also holds that the paradigm keeps them from accepting the valid conclusions of experimental science ."

That point certainly does not "hold" anything - except maybe a lot of piss and wind! The science of Evolutionary Biology has annoyed a bunch of religious fanatics, styling themselves 'creationists', who have set up a website containing a lot of heavily biased distortions and misinformation. This website is your SOLE source of information, Pete - admit it - and you think that reading the material on this website, and parroting it, makes you some sort authority on Evolutionary Biology!! Whatever happened to Christian humility - you pathetic tosser?!!

And show me the results of an experiment which demonstrates the existence of God and follow those results with the results of another experiment which demonstrates that God created everything.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 04:26 PM

So would I be right to understand your position as being that it's morally objectionable for an adult to tell a child that those things are true? But that it's OK if they tell the child that they believe those things are true, and that the Church holds them to be true, both of those being statements of facts?

A fine distinction. But I strongly suggest that the latter way is frequently the way it actually happens.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 07:37 AM

"To ask the Christian to keep his faith private, is actually asking him not to practise his faith, as sharing his faith is part of his faith."

Well there is a distinction between sharing your faith and propagating your faith. I hope that you're not conflating the two, taking advantage of the fact that "sharing" sounds like such a nice thing to do, from the generosity of your heart, etc. Talking about your faith in gatherings of like-minded people, or debating faith with other mature adults, what's to object to? But if you think that telling little children about how Jesus came down from heaven, raised the dead, turned water into wine, was killed in a horrible way, then came back to life is sharing your faith, I'm not with you. That is not sharing. That is indoctrinating. And most people who allege that they are Christians don't share their faith much, as the pathetic Sunday morning bums-on-pews statistics show. It doesn't seem to me that sharing is a sine qua non of Christianity at all.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 07:23 AM

When I said "inherent in the idea of religion" I should course have said Christian religions. I am not knowledgable enough to make such a generalisation of religions as such.


(My son married a practising Hindu last year in the uk and they will have a Hindu wedding next year. I have a 900 page book to get through on what all the bits of the ceremony are about. Wish me luck!)

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 07:05 AM

Interesting analogy , Steve, re sperms. Adapting it perhaps. It could have been one of many sperms that made it, but there is a very good chance of one of them making it , because everything is already in place.   When it comes to origins , once there was absolutely nothing in place and no place either, no nothing,.......except the theist says that there was God.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 07:05 AM

The parallel I was seeking is that it is inherent in the idea of both religion and concern for human rights that it not just kept to yourself. If you do it really ceases to be, in any meaningful sense.

The extent to which each is "A Good Thing" is a different point to the one I was attempting.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:56 AM

To ask the Christian to keep his faith private, is actually asking him not to practise his faith, as sharing his faith is part of his faith. That , of course does not mean, say , in private conversation, that he will insist on talking about it if the other person asks to both stop talking about it..         Dmcg, on earlier post, I was anticipating the objection that it was evolutionist scientists that self corrected. The point still holds that the evolutionary mindset has hindered science.    It also holds that the paradigm keeps them from accepting the valid conclusions of experimental science .

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:36 AM

Who said don't talk about it? Not me! Teach about it? Great. Every child should know about world religions, their tenets and their history. An education without that is not education. There is plenty of scope for not keeping it quiet. You know very well what it is I'm against, and it's absolutely none of that. As for your human rights point, well promoting human rights is more akin to the atheistic standpoint, and the abuse of human rights is more akin to improper practices of religions. Not all practices of religions and not the practice of religion, I hasten to add. Not a great parallel for making your point, I suspect.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:25 AM

I haven't remarked on it before but I really don't get this idea that you find religion ok as long as the religious don't talk or teach anyone about it. I grant you that I don't get in-your-face door to door evangelism either, and I think we have already agreed that I think a lot of the church teaching on contraception is positively harmful (and if we haven't let's do so now)

But even granting all that I can't get my head round the idea religion is ok if you keep it to yourself. It makes as much sense to me as saying concern for human rights is fine as long as you keep it to yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 06:10 AM

"what annoys Steve is the fact that the Church makes moral pronouncements, which many people adhere to"

I'm far more annoyed about the immoral pronouncements. I'm utterly cool with the Pope doing what he should be doing, calling for world peace (I'll give him the benefit and assume that he's calling for an end to his own organisation's bellicose history). I'm not cool with Mother Teresa declaring that abortion is the biggest threat to world peace, or that Aids is just retribution for homosexuals, or that poor people should stop complaining and celebrate their lot, or celebate popes and cardinals declaring that contraception is wrong. If you call those things moral pronouncements, then I'm scratching my head.

As for not having a clue about whether there's a God or not, well I do have a sort of clue because, as you know, I seek evidence. My position on the fence is one that might pull out my fingernails but it won't split my scrotum in twain.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 05:44 AM

Cheers, Shimrod. The sword of truth. That is so good I could leave it at that, but you know me...


What anti-religious message? What do I keep saying? Privately-held religious belief is respectable and dignified. It's what hundreds of millions of believers do. Beyond reproach. I have neither the right nor the desire to attack people who harbour private convictions, whether I agree with them or not, that do no harm to other people. Shall I put that at the top of every post so that you won't forget? What I object to is the improper practice of religion. All those things that arrogant believers say and do because they're so convinced that they own the truth, many of their practices so damaging (some are merely annoying and others are just downright amusing). And, Joe Offer, if you haven't spotted by now that you can't offend me, you haven't been keeping up. If, to you, a message is attacking a message, have it your way. If I really wanted to insult me, I'd accuse myself of coming out with long-winded ripostes to someone else's message. All I do is respond, not promote. I haven't got anything to promote. Address the substantive if you don't like it (there is very little of that going on in this thread - no surprise there. Not much to say about what goes on behind closed faith school doors or the penalties for apostasy? Just that I want my cake and eat it with pretty cathedrals. Ha!). The middle man really isn't anywhere near as important.

As for being zealous about opposing religion, I'm not. I don't give a damn about your religion. I give a damn about what you may choose to do with it. The distinction is glaring, though you persistently refuse to see it. It's almost as if you want to make me offend you just so that you can have it back. Just have a little moment with that idea. Good luck with it.

Joe, I'm not going to campaign to have the medieval stone cross on our village church demolished. I rather love it, actually. Incidentally, I've never seen a pretty cathedral. I've seen grand, resplendent, awe-inspiring and architecturally-magnificent cathedrals (and one or two ugly and overblown ones). They are mine as much as yours (I suspect that my tax money may help to sustain some of them, which, in spite of religion's almost boundless riches, I don't object to, as I like having a stake). They were never just yours to magnanimously share out. They are part of my heritage. Hands off. I suspect you know full well that that was not my point. The public promotion of your religion, which you think is harmless, is both tasteless and imperialistic. There is a world of difference between magnificent ancient edifices that grace our cities or villages and the ugly scene of violence, aka crucifix, or that tawdry slogan board, that some eejit has planted outside its entrance. Any argument that maybe I shouldn't want to have any of it if I don't like some of it is a little childish.

I've posted in a lot of detail about what I don't like about religious practices. I'm in a bit of a minority which makes me want to be a loudmouth. Good. I'm proud if you think that's zealous. You religious lot don't have to be zealous in promoting your nonsense because religion is already the default position. We're supposed to either espouse it or live with it, certainly respect it, or face outrage if we demur apropos of its graven images stuck up everywhere. Ironic, huh! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 03:43 AM

Simple really, what annoys Steve is the fact that the Church makes moral pronouncements, which many people adhere to...and the fact that most churches are socially conservative organisations.

Steve is a "liberal" one of the group who has no tolerance of anything which he construes as a danger to his ideology.

Steve says he has no idea whether there is a God or not so why else would he be so vehemently "anti"?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 02:04 AM

Messages, like beauty, are very much in the eye of the beholder. It matters not a jot whether Steve or Pete or you or I think we are promulgating a message. What matters is how others perceive it. And whatever your intention Steve, you do appear to at least some others as strongly promoting a particular anti-religious message.with what can only be described as fervour. no one suggests you aren't entitled to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 01:56 AM

Atheism is not a religion any more than not playing tennis is a sport (due thanks to a recent correspondent to 'New Scientist' magazine).

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Oct 15 - 01:47 AM

Addressing somebody (McGrath?), Steve Shaw said: Incidentally, you're doing a bit of a Joe when you suggest I'm saying you are indelibly imprisoned for life, etc. I have never actually said that, have I? What I will say is that religious indoctrination of children is worse than a bloody waste of time.

...and if I copy-paste his exact words, he'll still say he never said that.

...and then he says: Your reversal scenario simply doesn't work because your position is a belief system whereas mine isn't. I don't know how many hundreds of posts I've sent on this topic, but I never instigate these threads. My position on religion is entirely predicated on yours. Without your religion I wouldn't be here. I am not an equal and opposite. I have no equivalent belief system to yours and all I can ever do is question yours, which I think is misguided, as articulately as I can manage. For all the reasons I've given, I think that yours is ultimately very damaging to many people and that it needs to be attacked. You can call me insulting, heretical, disrespectful, whatever you like, to your religion but you can't really do that back in the same way because I haven't got anything you can attack. Just my demeanour, that's all. Unlike Christianity, I haven't got a message to propagate. I just question yours. And why, after all the harm religion has done and is still doing, should I pull my punches?

Let me see if I understand this correctly. It appears to me that Mr. Shaw is far more zealous in opposing religion, than anybody here is zealous in promoting religion (or even merely defending the right to practice religion publicly). And Steve seems to think it is offensive to promote, defend, or practice religion anywhere he might notice, although it's OK to build pretty cathedrals as long as they're not too religious in appearance.

And with all his missionary zeal, Mr. Shaw says he hasn't got a message to propagate, although he prattles on and on about "all the harm religion has done and is still doing." But no, he has no message to propagate. Isn't a negative message, still a message?

The guy really confuses me.

I wonder if he has any understanding of the word "tolerance."

-Joe, doing a Joe again-

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in Amer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:37 PM

When I said "here", I was primarily thinking of this thread, with its 700 plus posts. I never came across "Sailor Jack", and I can't recall any threads like that. If I had, I think I'd remember, and would have made my views about that sort of thing clear. Can't begin to keep up with all the threads, even if I wanted to.,

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:24 PM

Hmm. Sounds like damage limitation thinking to me. Now I don't care if you think I have a belief system. So tell me what its tenets are. Start with the positive ones. Do you think you're half a step away from saying that my atheism is a religion in itself?

Actually, I don't believe in atheism. I have this huge problem, shared with Richard Dawkins, that I don't know whether there's a God or not. I keep saying that but nobody listens!

(Of course, I don't know whether leprechauns are real or not either...)

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:14 PM

Maybe we use language differently, but I would definitely describe your position as a belief system, and I wouldn't see that as any criticism. I wouldn't dream of attacking you for it, or looking for equivalent sneers on the lines of "god botherers" and "invisible friend".

Children are indeed taught that certain things are held by their parents and teachers are true. That applies to all kinds of things, as well as religion. As they grow older their ability to evaluate what they are taught develops, and good schools, including religious schools encourage this. Naturally enough, the physical environment in a school is likely to reflect its culture. A Catholic school will have Catholic symbols. In the same way, when my son was in the Woodcraft Folk, the song book contained The Red Flag.

People who are hostile to religion will also seek to communicate this to their children, I would suggest.

In both cases I doubt very much if adults feel compelled to follow their parents views.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 09:03 PM

"I haven't seen any posts here denouncing and jeering at people who don't hold with religion."

Oh, there have been plenty of those. You're forgetting the great days of Sailor Jack's bash-an-atheist-a-day threads! But we're not bitter!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 08:37 PM

The argument about children being forced Into faith very young has to be teased out a little here. Some religions force people into faith. Others, such as Catholicism, don't use force generally speaking, though there is often coercion in the form of family pressure and pressure in those horrid faith schools, not to speak of coercion coming from the fear of the Almighty. Force and coercion are not confined to childhood of course though, to me, they seem particularly cruel when applied to children. My point about children is that it is wrong to give them myths as truth when what we should be doing is EDUCATING them. I've done this to death, so, very briefly, education is about giving children the skills and enthusiasm to acquire knowledge. That includes being encouraged to ask for evidence for things they are told are true. No-one ever got educated by having knowledge poured over them, and, especially, no-one ever got educated by being given unsupportable "information" that they are expected to give undue respect and reverence to and not ask awkward questions about. If you think that's a bit of Steve hyperbole, go into your nearest Catholic primary school and look at what's on the walls and blackboard and in their exercise books. If anything, I'm probably understating the case (actually, years ago I had occasion to visit some schools in Harlow). Don't be fooled too much by the pretty colouring in. During religious instruction and services in school time, children are not only not being educated in the true sense, they are in effect being told, confusingly, to put those critical and questioning faculties on hold. There is no other way that you can tell children that there is a God and that Jesus was his son who worked miracles and came back to life. If you think that's a fair way to treat children, then I'm not with you.

Incidentally, you're doing a bit of a Joe when you suggest I'm saying you are indelibly imprisoned for life, etc. I have never actually said that, have I? What I will say is that religious indoctrination of children is worse than a bloody waste of time.

Your reversal scenario simply doesn't work because your position is a belief system whereas mine isn't. I don't know how many hundreds of posts I've sent on this topic, but I never instigate these threads. My position on religion is entirely predicated on yours. Without your religion I wouldn't be here. I am not an equal and opposite. I have no equivalent belief system to yours and all I can ever do is question yours, which I think is misguided, as articulately as I can manage. For all the reasons I've given, I think that yours is ultimately very damaging to many people and that it needs to be attacked. You can call me insulting, heretical, disrespectful, whatever you like, to your religion but you can't really do that back in the same way because I haven't got anything you can attack. Just my demeanour, that's all. Unlike Christianity, I haven't got a message to propagate. I just question yours. And why, after all the harm religion has done and is still doing, should I pull my punches?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 07:24 PM

How would the view that irreligion should be OK, but only if it is held as a private belief, strike you Steve?

I haven't seen any posts here denouncing and jeering at people who don't hold with religion. And if there were I'd be writing posts disagreeing strongly with them.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:30 PM

Steve, you still seem to have the impression that being exposed to religion ss a child means you are indelibly imprisoned in it for the rest of your life. Which just isn't the case for the overwhelming number of people I know - and clearly isn't the case for you either. Though perhaps the hostility you feel obliged to express to it might reflect a kind of reverse case of that. (It doesn't apply in the analogy of politics either - how many people who were raised in very polotically active families turn up in the opposite camp in adult life.)

If you are involved with religion in adult life, I would suggest, on the basis of my own experience, and that of people I know, it's because you gave made that choice in adult life.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:01 PM

Digging myself deeper (golly, that Bells was good) IF you're a human being (rather than an app) you give a good impression of being a computer programme - one that's been written with the aim of spewing out creationist piffle, from 'Creation.com', over and over and over and over again. That's because your ONLY data source is 'Creation.com'.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:00 PM

One of religion's trump cards is the offer of an afterlife. TimeStamp's fanciful speculations about consciousness tie in nicely with that. All the talk of multiverses, an ever-expanding bubblebath of universes, etc., given credence by quantum physics (and I'm not arguing with that), has also thrown up the speculation that consciousness is, er, sort of immortal. So you get your afterlife (and forelife) even if you think religion's a pain in the bum. What's not to like!

Well here's what I think. I am not hitching my wagon to that stuff just yet. I need to know more (and TimeStamp thinks I'm too thick to take it in). If you're reading this you're a winner. Your father produced hundreds of billions of sperms and the one that made it to one of your mother's tens of thousands of eggs was the one, along with that egg, that made you. The chances of what should have been you turning out to be somebody else were overwhelming, but you beat the odds and here you are. And even that's nothing when you multiply the odds-against down the thousands of generations of humanity. Makes winning the lottery a dead cert in comparison. So you've done really well but that still isn't enough for you. You want an afterlife on top, maybe a bit of resurrection on judgement day. Well I feel a bit sorry for the countless billions of might-have-beens myself. When I've had my shot of life on earth that'll do me. Wanting a bit more beyond the tomb feels a tad selfish to me! My bet is that the numero uno enticement of religion is that afterlife. Without that, God would be a bit pointless. We'd lose that eternal happiness and we would never be reunited with our loved ones. And the flip side is that religion couldn't threaten you with eternal perdition. The concept of an immortal consciousness without religion is equally enticing. I don't like the idea much, but I'll admit, even to TimeStamp, that it has a damn sight more balls than God. Of course, it still has the potential to delude, just like anything else that entices, though not to disappoint, as you'd never find out that it was wrong all along. As Basil Fawlty might have said, cle-ver!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 04:18 PM

I have to be honest (as ever, regardless of what other people say) and admit that I like to hold a belief that there is something outside my limited intellect that will see my consciousness beyond this mortal coil. What it is, I have no idea and I also fully admit that it is a hope rather than any reasonable thought. I would not dream of foisting that hope on my kids or anyone else as the truth though. Unless it was to sell more bingo tickets of course...

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 04:16 PM

Or did I mean, the only human being in history to PASS the Turing Test? Sorry, I've been poorly and now I've had a couple of glasses of Bells ... for medicinal reasons ...

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 03:59 PM

It suddenly hit me this morning, Pete! I know what you are! You're a computer app, written by creationists, to take part in on-line discussions about evolution. Unfortunately, you're not perfected yet because (a) the only data you have available is piffle from 'Creation.com' and (b) a lot of your contributions are garbled and make very little sense.

After that particular revelation another thought struck me: If you are, in fact, a real person, then you may be the only human being in history to FAIL the Turing Test!

Both possibilities are equally remarkable!

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 02:46 PM

. And it bears stressing that the soft tissues, blood vessels etc in dino bones were only discovered by accident , not deliberate research

I am not sure of your point, Pete. For ease of communication I will label 'research' as about looking for something you expect (or to check it isn't here) whereas 'discovery' is finding something unexpected. That is an incredibly crude approximation, but it does allow us to make the distinction I want to examine. Now, it is not really practical to do entirely speculative research because of limits on resources. The large hadron collider, for example, wasn't built like that just on speculation: there was a lot of information on what Higgs must be like and how it must behave if it existed so you knew the sort of detectors that would be needed and so on. It wasn't just built on a vague hope. Similarly, it would not be practical to search for surviving DNA unless you had a good idea where it would be, what would be needed to detect whatever the surviving amount would be and so on and so forth. Then there is what is called the 'opportunity cost': people who are busy searching through piles of bones can't do other work which has a better prospect of finding something. So reality does limit prospects for research.

On the other hand if a scientist notices something unexpected, in the ideal world they would then take it, investigate further and so on. That's what I mean by 'a discovery' and a heck of a lot of things have been found that way.

Then I say "in the ideal world'. Like the rest of us, whatever you imagine from films and tv, scientists also live in the world of time sheet filling, pointless meetings, monthly reports into bureaucracies and all that palaver. And that bureaucracy often limits the ability to explore discoveries. Let me repeat: it is not the scientists choosing not to do the research, it is organisations saying we are funding you to research into medicines to deal with Ebola, or whatever; we don't authorise you to look into something off the side just because it interests you.

So that is why I am not sure of your point.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 02:05 PM

Steve Shaw sez My take on religion is predicated on evidence and reason. What's yours?

A: Same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 01:38 PM

It is not a one-size-fits-all condemnation. Time and time again I've said that privately-held personal beliefs are respectable and dignified. I'm guessing that that covers huge numbers of people of faith. You can see from my post who I criticise. I'm careful to avoid the broad brush, as you'd see if only you'd read the posts instead of reacting to the first thing you think you see. I also note the semi-concealed barb about my "experience". My take on religion is predicated on evidence and reason. What's yours?

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Peter from seven stars link
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 01:35 PM

Steve, I see you continue suggesting that belief in God limits or eliminates scientific enquiry. Firstly, this is clearly a false notion since in history, and at present, there are many who research and believe in God.      Secondly, it is evolutionism that has at least delayed research because of a mindset that did,nt look because of the evolutionary paradigm . So called vestigial organs from our evolutionary past found to have purpose, same with suppose junk DNA . Then of course there is now a " mountain of evidence " of soft tissue etc that though experimental science limits how old they could possibly be , is still held to be millennia older because the paradigm demands it. And it bears stressing that the soft tissues, blood vessels etc in dino bones were only discovered by accident , not deliberate research.                                                                                     Joe, there was in fairness one instance where Steve said something positive about a religious person, the JW that visits him , though I seem to recall it was used to have a dig at me for something.......but just to be fair.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 12:51 PM

Regarding Steve Shaw's post 19 Oct 15 - 06:30 AM - most of what you say about religion is true, Steve - in certain instances. I'm sure it is a truthful reporting of your own experience and observation. But my experience of religion is quite different from what you describe. Isn't it possible that BOTH are true? Lots of people practice religion - billions, they say. I would submit that your one-size-fits-all condemnation does not apply universally.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 07:53 AM

I'm sure you're right, DMcG.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:57 AM

I have a hide like a rhino's, Dave. If Joe can tell it like it is (he thinks) well so can I. Religion doesn't deserve a tenth of the respect it thinks it does.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:56 AM

Let me take my agreement with shimrod one stage further. I do think it quite possible misthrasism or something else would have dominated Europe with Christianity a very small or dead sect if Constantine had chosen differently

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:52 AM

Careful, Steve. I feel a drive-by character assassination coming on ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:47 AM

Incidentally, Joe Offer, there HAS been constructive discussion in this very thread between atheism and belief. But not involving you. You have chosen to distance yourself from it by making misrepresentations and being extremely defensive and not a little snide at times. That's your problem.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:38 AM

I know. shimrod. but even if they are both human inventions they are two different ones that sometimes align and sometimes compete. So even in the purely secular interpretation I don't see it quite accurate to consider Christianity as primarily leftovers of Constantine's management

but I repeat: it's important to be reminded of this stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 06:30 AM

"Well, Steve, I usually try hard to see the positive side. But how does one see the positive side of something negative? If you reverse polarity, you'll blow up your car battery. Where have you said anything positive about religious believers? And if I'm a religious believer, how do I respond positively to your barrage of negative statements about believers? Steve, you have used many of the 696 posts in this thread to attack religion and religious beliefs and believers. I'll agree that religion warrants rational criticism, but not your shotgun approach."

Well here's exactly how I see religion. Cards on the table. gloves off.

First, by any measure of evidence and reason, you are wrong. There is almost certainly no God. I'm fine with that, actually.

Second, your personal, privately-held delusions are of no concern to me as long as that's how they stay.

Third, religion has held sway on this planet for plenty long enough. It stops people looking for real answers, it subjects them to arbitrary "moral codes" which are often the most immoral things imaginable, what with bans on contraception, abortion, homosexuality and the subjugation of women, hallmarks of most of the major religions. The penalties for apostasy range from social exclusion to having your head cut off.

Fourth, religion likes to get you early so that you find it hard to escape. Those who do the entrapping will often claim that their children "have the choice to leave" when they get older. This is always a lie. Imagine if my dad had signed me up to the Conservative Party as soon as I'd been born. For the next twenty years I get bombarded with Tory Party literature and get frogmarched to weekly meetings at which I'm told that only the Tories know truth and that all other persuasions are evil. Each meeting contains selected chants from the Tory manifesto and we round the thing off, under a large portrait of the Queen of course, with a few choruses of Land Of Hope And Glory. After twenty years of this maleducation, I'm told, reluctantly ( probably only if I bring it up), that I can choose to leave. Very funny! But that is what some big religions do, and some don't even give you that choice. If you think that's right, I'm not with you.

Fifth, and to my mind worst of all, you are so certain of your faith that you have no compunction in passing mythology as truth down to your children. You may defend this by saying you tell them that we can discuss it openly and give free rein to doubts and worries. Well that's a bit like sitting in the Man U dressing room trying to discuss how great Man City are. I think it's wicked to send children to religious schools, where you haven't a clue what they're going to be told and where, for significant parts of the day, they will subjected to instruction and ceremony designed primarily to keep them in line.

Sixth, more of an annoyance than anything, I have no desire to be constantly subjected to public displays of huge crucifixes on the outsides of your places of worship or your wayside pulpits or Thought For The Day or Songs Of Praise or unelected archbishops in the Lords or people on online forums telling me they'll pray for me (do something constructive instead, buggering off for example!). Stop acting as if you have a monopoly on the truth. You absolutely haven't, and a bit more religious humility, a quality promoted by Jesus that appears to be lost on some of you, wouldn't come amiss.

Is it fair to attack religion?   Absolutely it is, at every opportunity. It's bad for world peace, and it's bad for children, women and poor people. Everything you say that's good about religion can be achieved without it. We're a lot better off standing on our own feet. Kick the crutches away!

Is it fair to attack believers? It's fair to express an opinion on belief. It's fair to attack people who propagate religion in the ways I've described, every time. It's fair to vehemently attack those unthinking people who subject children to nonsense. It's not fair to attack fair-minded people who keep their beliefs strictly to themselves. It's fair to attack wicked and damaging people who are lionised by believers, at least three recent Popes and Mother Teresa for example. And, before you say anything, what I am is not equal and opposite to what you are. You put me here by dint of your religious bad behaviour, remember. In a world of dignified, quiet, private belief, I wouldn't exist.

Subject: RE: BS: The Pope in America
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 19 Oct 15 - 05:56 AM

An institution of sheer filth. Bishop Casey, Brendan Smith are prime examples, abusing children and altar boys falling congregation figures shows people no longer prepared to listen or accept their vile excuses.

Look at that case in Greenbay Wisconsin, my God almighty stomach churning.