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 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I can honestly say that I hope the same for viewpoints like yours.
You criticise religion for not being tolerant, yet you display a lot of intolerance towards religion yourself. Isn't there some proverb about pots and kettles that would come in handy here?

Disrespecting religion- an idea- harms no one. Enforcing religion however often harms individuals.

Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

The Tibetan monks are actively persecuted. Human beings. Not their idea. You can attack their idea in your mind and at posh parties all you want. The idea isn't about to feel bad about it, because it's just an idea. When people attack religion or say superstitious thoughts are silly, or even worse even though past silly it just gets uselessly mean, they are not actually driving a railroad spike through anyone's eye socket.

In China Christians and Falun Gong aren't persecuted for their mustaches.

Dawkins explains the context that Stein removed from that interview;

"Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be."

"I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved ..."

Stein removed the context, and made it appear that Dawkins was suggesting that he believed the alien hypothesis, when he was merely inventing a scenario that might cause intelligent design to exist. Ben Stein is a lying hack, and anyone who believed his nonsense in that interview should feel bad for being suckered.

 Breotan wrote:
This is pretty much the nut of it. If the claim is to be made that a more advanced civilization exists and has visited Earth to create (deposit) life here, then without any direct proof how is it any different a belief system than that of the religious?

Nah. You're ignoring the difference between 'it's possible that some alien race played a part' and 'an alien race played a part'.

The latter would be a belief system no different to any religion, the former is just an acceptance of a possibility.

Regarding the existence of alien civilizations, Carl Sagen made a statement about this sort of thing on his old Cosmos show. One of his propositions (out of several) is, someone has to be the first so isn't it possible that we're that first civilization? Why must some other life have come before ours?

The odds of ours being the first would be one over the number of likely civilisations that there are likely to be. Given that the number of likely civilisations across the universe is very, very high, it becomes quite unlikely that ours is first. Not impossible, of course, and so we cannot say 'we are not the first'... but it would be even less acceptable to say 'we are the first'.

 Ahtman wrote:
In China Christians and Falun Gong aren't persecuted for their mustaches.

What if they twirl their moustaches and laugh maniaclly?

 Steve steveson wrote:
The aliens creation theory is still a man in the sky theory. There is zero evidence for it, and is a "turtles all the way down" theory. As in, if aliens created life on earth, who created the aliens?

Which, funnily enough, was Dawkins' point. That if you accept that humanity must have been designed, then the alien designer themselves must have evolved, or in turn been created by some other alien species who themselves must have been designed, or well, as you say turtles all the way down. The point being that intelligent design must either accept that something, somewhere evolved, or that there is a divine creator - that they should stop dicking around and just admit its a religious belief.

But of course, when that point is made in a gak documentary that's lying, the context and meaning is stripped out of Dawkins' point, and instead it becomes 'tee hee Dawkins believes in aliens, score one for the creationists hurr'.

 sebster wrote:
Ben Stein is a lying hack, and anyone who believed his nonsense in that interview should feel bad for being suckered.

That pretty much sums it up, really.

Although I'm not sure I can entirely trust a guy who doesn't understand how to operate a comb.

 Frazzled wrote:
Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

While they most certainly are oppressed, it is not merely their belief that causes that oppression but their resistance to Chinese rule. Monks who submit to the regime can keep their religion and are in fact given favourable treatment. Chinese rule these days only really cares about submission - once you bow down to them they'll largely leave you alone. The best way to demonstrate this is that China accepts there will be a new Dalai Lama, its just that he will be chosen by Chinese authorities - they have no problem with such a religious figure existing, they simply want him to be under their control.

Nor was religious rule in Tibet a happy utopia before the Chinese came. It was a straight up religious theocracy, with all the oppression and abuse you'd expect when a religious order with all sorts of strong moral and sexual rules was given control over a local population.

Not that I'm disagreeing with your greater point. Religions have been oppressed through history. Just should have picked a better example, such as mid-20th century China, or Russia of the same time.

 sebster wrote:

Regarding the existence of alien civilizations, Carl Sagen made a statement about this sort of thing on his old Cosmos show. One of his propositions (out of several) is, someone has to be the first so isn't it possible that we're that first civilization? Why must some other life have come before ours?

The odds of ours being the first would be one over the number of likely civilisations that there are likely to be. Given that the number of likely civilisations across the universe is very, very high, it becomes quite unlikely that ours is first. Not impossible, of course, and so we cannot say 'we are not the first'... but it would be even less acceptable to say 'we are the first'.

It's an interesting question. I think the most interesting part is that life has already been around on earth for billions of years before us, and yet nothing ever seems to have tried our ecological niche before. in the last 50,000 years our brains have also shrunk about 10%. It's possible that evolution just doesn't tend to favor intelligence very much, and we are decidedly rare. First in our Galaxy might not be unreasonable.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
I can honestly say that I hope the same for viewpoints like yours.
You criticise religion for not being tolerant, yet you display a lot of intolerance towards religion yourself. Isn't there some proverb about pots and kettles that would come in handy here?

Disrespecting religion- an idea- harms no one. Enforcing religion however often harms individuals.

Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

As well as many Russians living through most of the 20th century.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union

Inside China itself:

http://www.loyola.edu/amnesty/chinapers.htm


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

While they most certainly are oppressed, it is not merely their belief that causes that oppression but their resistance to Chinese rule. Monks who submit to the regime can keep their religion and are in fact given favourable treatment. Chinese rule these days only really cares about submission - once you bow down to them they'll largely leave you alone. The best way to demonstrate this is that China accepts there will be a new Dalai Lama, its just that he will be chosen by Chinese authorities - they have no problem with such a religious figure existing, they simply want him to be under their control.

Nor was religious rule in Tibet a happy utopia before the Chinese came. It was a straight up religious theocracy, with all the oppression and abuse you'd expect when a religious order with all sorts of strong moral and sexual rules was given control over a local population.

Not that I'm disagreeing with your greater point. Religions have been oppressed through history. Just should have picked a better example, such as mid-20th century China, or Russia of the same time.

And you are alright with a people's religion being taken over and controlled by a conquering nation? How would you face a circumstance like that, not with religion, since you don't care about that, but with your entire government being replaced with one under the control of someone who had come in, murdered your people and taken your children away for re education?

Relapse wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

Disrespecting religion- an idea- harms no one. Enforcing religion however often harms individuals.

Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

As well as many Russians living through most of the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union

You get that people aren't their religion right? You get that there is a difference between criticising an idea- be it religion, economics, politics hell even what constitutes a good movie- and persecuting those who hold the idea?

Furthermore I said disrepecting- that is a terribly far cry from murder. As to the pot calling the kettle black... this seem appropriate. Plus I like watching it.

 Smacks wrote:
It's an interesting question. I think the most interesting part is that life has already been around on earth for billions of years before us, and yet nothing ever seems to have tried our ecological niche before. in the last 50,000 years our brains have also shrunk about 10%. It's possible that evolution just doesn't tend to favor intelligence very much, and we are decidedly rare. First in our Galaxy might not be unreasonable.

Interesting question. It is possible, though it’d take people a hell of a lot more qualified in evolutionary biology than me to make a sensible guess at the probability. I guess, though, it comes back to the scale of the galaxy – human level intelligence would have to be incredibly unlikely before it would impact the number of probable civilisations enough before it was probable we were the only civilisation, or the first.

Relapse wrote:
And you are alright with a people's religion being taken over and controlled by a conquering nation? How would you face a circumstance like that, not with religion, since you don't care about that, but with your entire government being replaced with one under the control of someone who had come in, murdered your people and taken your children away for re education?

What? I explained to Fraz that the situation in Tibet is not one of religious oppression purely for out of distaste for that religion, but one of political oppression… and you conclude from that that I must therefore be okay with political oppression. If that was the first post of mine you’d ever read it would be ridiculous enough, but we’ve both been on here for years, and for you to think I’m okay with Chinese oppression in Tibet is absurd.

Come on.

 Kojiro wrote:
You get that people aren't their religion right?

Other than some bricks and mortar and the odd spectacular headpiece, a religion is the people that follow it. Trying to draw some distinction between persecuting a religion, and persecuting people who follow that religion is pretty silly.

 sebster wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
It's an interesting question. I think the most interesting part is that life has already been around on earth for billions of years before us, and yet nothing ever seems to have tried our ecological niche before. in the last 50,000 years our brains have also shrunk about 10%. It's possible that evolution just doesn't tend to favor intelligence very much, and we are decidedly rare. First in our Galaxy might not be unreasonable.

Interesting question. It is possible, though it’d take people a hell of a lot more qualified in evolutionary biology than me to make a sensible guess at the probability. I guess, though, it comes back to the scale of the galaxy – human level intelligence would have to be incredibly unlikely before it would impact the number of probable civilisations enough before it was probable we were the only civilisation, or the first.

Relapse wrote:
And you are alright with a people's religion being taken over and controlled by a conquering nation? How would you face a circumstance like that, not with religion, since you don't care about that, but with your entire government being replaced with one under the control of someone who had come in, murdered your people and taken your children away for re education?

What? I explained to Fraz that the situation in Tibet is not one of religious oppression purely for out of distaste for that religion, but one of political oppression… and you conclude from that that I must therefore be okay with political oppression. If that was the first post of mine you’d ever read it would be ridiculous enough, but we’ve both been on here for years, and for you to think I’m okay with Chinese oppression in Tibet is absurd.

Come on.

 Kojiro wrote:
You get that people aren't their religion right?

Other than some bricks and mortar and the odd spectacular headpiece, a religion is the people that follow it. Trying to draw some distinction between persecuting a religion, and persecuting people who follow that religion is pretty silly.

You are saying it would be ok for the Chinese to install someone in place of the Deli Lama under their control, and if only those stubborn monks would think that is ok also, then everything would be alright..

Just because he explains how things are doesn't mean he thinks it's "ok".

 Kojiro wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

Disrespecting religion- an idea- harms no one. Enforcing religion however often harms individuals.

Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

As well as many Russians living through most of the 20th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union

You get that people aren't their religion right? You get that there is a difference between criticising an idea- be it religion, economics, politics hell even what constitutes a good movie- and persecuting those who hold the idea?

Furthermore I said disrepecting- that is a terribly far cry from murder. As to the pot calling the kettle black... this seem appropriate. Plus I like watching it.

You really don't seem to understand much about people's beliefs in God and what they are willing to go through to honor that belief.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrDwhitey wrote:
Just because he explains how things are doesn't mean he thinks it's "ok".

Perhaps I did misenterpret what he wrote. It's just that I have heard that sentiment many times in the context that religious people should change or sacrifice their beliefs in order to be accepted.

 sebster wrote:
Other than some bricks and mortar and the odd spectacular headpiece, a religion is the people that follow it. Trying to draw some distinction between persecuting a religion, and persecuting people who follow that religion is pretty silly.

Again, aside from the fact I said disrespecting and not persecuting, people are not the ideas they hold. A religion may be the people that follow it but the reverse is not true. Also you can't persecute an idea, only criticise it for it's shortcomings.

Other than some rules and terrain and the odd spectacular miniature, a game system is the people that follow it. Trying to draw some distinction between persecuting a game system, and persecuting people who follow that system is pretty silly.
Look at all the persecution of 40K players!

Relapse wrote:
You really don't seem to understand much about people's beliefs in God and what they are willing to go through to honor that belief.

I understand it well enough. Beliefs- religious or otherwise- shape our view of reality and we act according the what we believe reality corresponds to in order to satisfy our goals (whatever those may be). The only way religious beliefs differ from other beliefs is the standard of evidence required by some people to accept them.

In what way do religious beliefs otherwise differ from normal beliefs?

Relapse wrote:
You are saying it would be ok for the Chinese to install someone in place of the Deli Lama under their control, and if only those stubborn monks would think that is ok also, then everything would be alright..

No, I'm not. You have somehow read 'this is what is happening' with 'this is what is happening and its totally fine'.

Demanding loyalty to the state is no less of a crime than demanding people give up their religion. Both are terrible breaches of human rights. But understanding the situation in Tibet and which issue is at play is critical to understanding what the real problem is, how it might be resolved, and (in the context of this thread) whether it can be used an example of religious oppression in the world today.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kojiro wrote:
Again, aside from the fact I said disrespecting and not persecuting, people are not the ideas they hold. A religion may be the people that follow it but the reverse is not true. Also you can't persecute an idea, only criticise it for it's shortcomings.

Other than some rules and terrain and the odd spectacular miniature, a game system is the people that follow it. Trying to draw some distinction between persecuting a game system, and persecuting people who follow that system is pretty silly.
Look at all the persecution of 40K players!

But religions haven't merely been disrespected. Their followers really have been persecuted. Read about what happened to people who tried to maintain their Orthodox faith in Soviet Russia.

To extend your 40K analogy, consider that people were discussing an incident where a bunch of, say, Bolt Action fans got together and beat the crap out of a 40K player, and you stop by to post 'oh sure, but as long as the Bolt Action players are just talking about how bad the game system is there's no oppression'. It's technically true but really irrelevant.

Relapse wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
It's an interesting question. I think the most interesting part is that life has already been around on earth for billions of years before us, and yet nothing ever seems to have tried our ecological niche before. in the last 50,000 years our brains have also shrunk about 10%. It's possible that evolution just doesn't tend to favor intelligence very much, and we are decidedly rare. First in our Galaxy might not be unreasonable.

Interesting question. It is possible, though it’d take people a hell of a lot more qualified in evolutionary biology than me to make a sensible guess at the probability. I guess, though, it comes back to the scale of the galaxy – human level intelligence would have to be incredibly unlikely before it would impact the number of probable civilisations enough before it was probable we were the only civilisation, or the first.

Relapse wrote:
And you are alright with a people's religion being taken over and controlled by a conquering nation? How would you face a circumstance like that, not with religion, since you don't care about that, but with your entire government being replaced with one under the control of someone who had come in, murdered your people and taken your children away for re education?

What? I explained to Fraz that the situation in Tibet is not one of religious oppression purely for out of distaste for that religion, but one of political oppression… and you conclude from that that I must therefore be okay with political oppression. If that was the first post of mine you’d ever read it would be ridiculous enough, but we’ve both been on here for years, and for you to think I’m okay with Chinese oppression in Tibet is absurd.

Come on.

 Kojiro wrote:
You get that people aren't their religion right?

Other than some bricks and mortar and the odd spectacular headpiece, a religion is the people that follow it. Trying to draw some distinction between persecuting a religion, and persecuting people who follow that religion is pretty silly.

You are saying it would be ok for the Chinese to install someone in place of the Deli Lama under their control, and if only those stubborn monks would think that is ok also, then everything would be alright..

Explaining something is not the same as condoning it. You seem to be slugging with that,

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

 generalgrog wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

You do realize that nearly every modern democracy, including the United States, is run by a secular government.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

You do realize that nearly every modern democracy, including the United States, is run by a secular government.

Secular governments with positions that are filled by people that belong to religious and dogmatic groups...

 d-usa wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

You do realize that nearly every modern democracy, including the United States, is run by a secular government.

Secular governments with positions that are filled by people that belong to religious and dogmatic groups...

Yes... GG, I think you need to reread my last sentence and explain to me why you seem to gloss over "dogmatic group" to make a bad point. That canard is getting really, really exhausted. Let it die. Soviet Russia was never "for atheism" or " for secularism", but blindly followed another ideology, it just happened to be that this one was devoid of overt religious symbols and rituals. China is the exact same thing. A dogmatic entity, so in essence I just see this as different kinds of apple duking it out, one just happens to be a lot bigger than the other.

d-usa, you make a great point. And coming from a country that enshrines religious divisions in its own constitution, I keep thinking that the Wall of Separation between church and state ought to be instituted on our side of the border. For all the hoopla that we see in the news, the USA being the most documented people after all, most of the attempts are usually unsuccessful. In Canada, however, religious agendas have been slowly but surely influencing national policies for about a decade. I'm an atheist, but I will march in the street for anyone's right to believe what they want *so long as that belief remains personal and is not imposed on others.* The problem seems to be that some groups aren't happy with dissenting opinions, and want to *save* others. Even if saving them means making sure we don't *save the environment* so the second coming is hastened, for example.

 sebster wrote:

Relapse wrote:
You are saying it would be ok for the Chinese to install someone in place of the Deli Lama under their control, and if only those stubborn monks would think that is ok also, then everything would be alright..

No, I'm not. You have somehow read 'this is what is happening' with 'this is what is happening and its totally fine'.

.

I see my error here. Apologies.

If there was a blatant gap between the development of apes to modern man then you could possibly contemplate the involvement of a 3rd party, but there isn't. The only other option is that billions of years ago an alien race dropped off some microbes and just left them to "get on with it", with no idea of how it would turn out. Given the left, right, backwards, forwards development of life on Earth that is totally impractical as well.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

You do realize that nearly every modern democracy, including the United States, is run by a secular government.

Secular governments with positions that are filled by people that belong to religious and dogmatic groups...

Yes... GG, I think you need to reread my last sentence and explain to me why you seem to gloss over "dogmatic group" to make a bad point. That canard is getting really, really exhausted. Let it die. Soviet Russia was never "for atheism" or " for secularism", but blindly followed another ideology, it just happened to be that this one was devoid of overt religious symbols and rituals. China is the exact same thing. A dogmatic entity, so in essence I just see this as different kinds of apple duking it out, one just happens to be a lot bigger than the other.

d-usa, you make a great point. And coming from a country that enshrines religious divisions in its own constitution, I keep thinking that the Wall of Separation between church and state ought to be instituted on our side of the border. For all the hoopla that we see in the news, the USA being the most documented people after all, most of the attempts are usually unsuccessful. In Canada, however, religious agendas have been slowly but surely influencing national policies for about a decade. I'm an atheist, but I will march in the street for anyone's right to believe what they want *so long as that belief remains personal and is not imposed on others.* The problem seems to be that some groups aren't happy with dissenting opinions, and want to *save* others. Even if saving them means making sure we don't *save the environment* so the second coming is hastened, for example.

And just to clarify the point I was trying to make:

I am perfectly fine with a secular government making secular rules, which is what we should strive for. We don't exclude members of religious groups from our government, which is what the whole soviet approach. We do expect them to rule in a secular manner regardless of their religious convictions.

It's not always successful of course...

 Frazzled wrote:
Tibetan monks being actively persecuted by the Chinese beg to differ.

Did you know that muslim Uyghur in China are forbidden to fast during Ramadan. Strangely enough, muslim Han in China are not. I guess there is something totally unrelated to religion actually at work here, which is about suppressing ethnic minorities .

 sebster wrote:
Other than some bricks and mortar and the odd spectacular headpiece, a religion is the people that follow it.

Oh. Then I guess apart from a few pieces of dead trees, quantum mechanics are just people who believe in quantum mechanics. And I thought it was an elaborate set of ideas ! Silly me.
If it is not material, let us pretend it is not relevant.

 generalgrog wrote:
Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

Well, I am quite sure Albania is quite happy not to have half of its population trying to kill the other half, no homegrown terrorism, and all that. Of course, they do have quite a lot of economic problems, and some political problems too, but blaming that on the lack of religion would be… laughable, I guess.
Of course, Albania's secularism somehow predate communism, and communism failed big time to make the Polish less religious. Maybe because even the communist did not go as far into persecuting religions than religions do among themselves sometimes (cf Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, …) .

 d-usa wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

You do realize that nearly every modern democracy, including the United States, is run by a secular government.

Secular governments with positions that are filled by people that belong to religious and dogmatic groups...

Yes... GG, I think you need to reread my last sentence and explain to me why you seem to gloss over "dogmatic group" to make a bad point. That canard is getting really, really exhausted. Let it die. Soviet Russia was never "for atheism" or " for secularism", but blindly followed another ideology, it just happened to be that this one was devoid of overt religious symbols and rituals. China is the exact same thing. A dogmatic entity, so in essence I just see this as different kinds of apple duking it out, one just happens to be a lot bigger than the other.

d-usa, you make a great point. And coming from a country that enshrines religious divisions in its own constitution, I keep thinking that the Wall of Separation between church and state ought to be instituted on our side of the border. For all the hoopla that we see in the news, the USA being the most documented people after all, most of the attempts are usually unsuccessful. In Canada, however, religious agendas have been slowly but surely influencing national policies for about a decade. I'm an atheist, but I will march in the street for anyone's right to believe what they want *so long as that belief remains personal and is not imposed on others.* The problem seems to be that some groups aren't happy with dissenting opinions, and want to *save* others. Even if saving them means making sure we don't *save the environment* so the second coming is hastened, for example.

And just to clarify the point I was trying to make:

I am perfectly fine with a secular government making secular rules, which is what we should strive for. We don't exclude members of religious groups from our government, which is what the whole soviet approach. We do expect them to rule in a secular manner regardless of their religious convictions.

It's not always successful of course...

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Relapse wrote:
For myself, I believe in God and thought it interesting that Dawkins was willing to entertain the idea of aliens creating man, but has a hard time with believing in God.

He certainly is not the only one. For instance, our very dear Howard Phillip Lovecraft himself would likely have shared this viewpoint, if we are to base our judgment from this quote from him :
“All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.”
I share his views. In theory I should be an agnostic too, but seriously, that stuff you believe in ? The all-powerful brat in the sky playing at breaking his own toy ? The whole magic mumbo-jumbo ? A super-hero who gets his power from his hairs ? Women suffering when giving birth as a punishment for the fact their great-great-great… ancestor decided she wanted to be able to tell good from bad, right from wrong by herself rather than deferring such judgment on someone else ?
Nope, not a chance .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
Alien abductions and probing are punishment for killing their recce automata - Jesus.

Is that supposed to be a punishment ? I mean, really ?
I guess that is an interesting inversion then. Religious people usually tells you that God will punish the gays and reward the straight men, but obviously those aliens are punishing the straight men, and are… rewarding the gays.

Haha brilliant.

I often wonder how the world would actually be if religion had no influence, certainly alot of the wests moral views would be different since alot of it is based however loosely on Christianity.. Interesting to ponder

No, it has a veneer of Christianity, but it's not based on it. It is taught as such, but our morality has a much stronger evolutionnary part than religious.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

.... In fact, by most objective and measurable standard, life is made much, much better by removing religions and dogmatic groups from a position of power and letting secular institutions guide society.

Yeah that worked out real well in the Soviet Union.

GG

You do realize that nearly every modern democracy, including the United States, is run by a secular government.

Secular governments with positions that are filled by people that belong to religious and dogmatic groups...

Yes... GG, I think you need to reread my last sentence and explain to me why you seem to gloss over "dogmatic group" to make a bad point. That canard is getting really, really exhausted. Let it die. Soviet Russia was never "for atheism" or " for secularism", but blindly followed another ideology, it just happened to be that this one was devoid of overt religious symbols and rituals. China is the exact same thing. A dogmatic entity, so in essence I just see this as different kinds of apple duking it out, one just happens to be a lot bigger than the other.

d-usa, you make a great point. And coming from a country that enshrines religious divisions in its own constitution, I keep thinking that the Wall of Separation between church and state ought to be instituted on our side of the border. For all the hoopla that we see in the news, the USA being the most documented people after all, most of the attempts are usually unsuccessful. In Canada, however, religious agendas have been slowly but surely influencing national policies for about a decade. I'm an atheist, but I will march in the street for anyone's right to believe what they want *so long as that belief remains personal and is not imposed on others.* The problem seems to be that some groups aren't happy with dissenting opinions, and want to *save* others. Even if saving them means making sure we don't *save the environment* so the second coming is hastened, for example.

And just to clarify the point I was trying to make:

I am perfectly fine with a secular government making secular rules, which is what we should strive for. We don't exclude members of religious groups from our government, which is what the whole soviet approach. We do expect them to rule in a secular manner regardless of their religious convictions.

It's not always successful of course...

Agreed. That's what I had interpreted, so reading comprehension win for me this morning. In related news, the creationist chiropractor which stood as our science and technology minister (federally) has been replaced by someone else. This may also be a win.