"Can we talk" about

[sleepyowl]

science will allways exist even if religion doesnt.

but then science becomes the new religion & what we are talking about is all academic

[grahamhobbs]

............................. There is only one belief system that is right that is the one that is right for the individual.

Now that is a difficult one for me. I feel that whatever I think is unimportant in the sense that what ever the belief system I hold, the bus will still run me down if I walk in front of it.

If I take a small part of a plant and put it in the ground and it grows, and I repeat it and it grows, then I learn something, that a seed is the plants way of reproducing itself. If I plant the seed in different conditions and it doesn't grow, by observation of doing something I again learn not to plant pumpkins in November. It is this continuous doing and observing that millions of people have been doing over thousands of years that is the basis of what we know. Essentially this is the process of 'science', taken to ever more accurate and exacting levels.

So you can think what you like, but unless it stands up to this continuous process of doing and accurate observing, you could end up walking in front of the bus or at least wasting your fare to Lourdes.

[demi]

Just as science doesn't stay static neither does religion & you would be hard pushed to find a none fundamentalist Christian who takes the whole 'world was created in seven days' as literal

so if the bible is not literal, what is it then?
if the bit about god creating the world in 7 days is not literal what is it then? what bits are literal?
you cant just cherry pick what suits you as being true and say the rest is not literal. how can you tell the real bits and the not literal bits?

and if the whole this is not literal, then god is not literal, and therefor, not real.

[sleepyowl]

They're like Aesop's Fables, an allergory as it were & anyway I'm just going by experience of the people who I talk to who have their churches/ministerings. If you have further questions on the viewpoint of the bible to Christian clerics I suggest talking to a Christian cleric not a Pagan one.

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

I don't have the right or the ability to prove/disprove most of the points made but some opposition to the bible is in fact untrue. Religious or not it is interesting to find the truth about it.

I'm not saying I know the truth or that I agree with all that it says but I do know some of the untruths told about the bible

You don't have to believe in it to find out what it actually says, I have found, just in my personal experience that most people who try and make the point that the bible is clearly wrong haven't actually read it or they don't understand what it really says.

There is so much misunderstanding surrounding it that it might be interesting to look into it further even if you don't believe it.

[Paul_C]

Just as science doesn't stay static neither does religion & you would be hard pushed to find a none fundamentalist Christian who takes the whole 'world was created in seven days' as literal

so if the bible is not literal, what is it then?
if the bit about god creating the world in 7 days is not literal what is it then? what bits are literal?
you cant just cherry pick what suits you as being true and say the rest is not literal. how can you tell the real bits and the not literal bits?

and if the whole this is not literal, then god is not literal, and therefor, not real.

ohh me me me i know this one, far far far to well


a family friend who is a priest put it rather well to me, the bible, when it was written, was used to develop[ a moral code of living and to give laws to improve the chances of living and preventable illnesses.
people asked well how did all this start and they didnt know so they created a (at that time) plausable argument to which there was no dissent. its like the educational lies to children. ww2 started because hitler was an evil man. true but also a total lie. then we got ww2 started because hitler was a nasty man and invaded Poland for lebensraum and we had said we would protect him. again true but not the whole story the whole whole story needs looking at from when the germanic royals the UK has now were invited to sit on the chair and were showing off to cousin Wilhelm look at the big assed navy we have aint it cool, and he didnt like that he didnt have the same toy box so built one creating the dreadnought arms race preww1 which increased tensions due to the UKs insistance on 2:1:: with its 2 closest rivals then came the war and Versailles which crippled "germany" by cutting it up into a smaller, less threatening country and a few satellites, imposing draconian reparations which destroyed the government leaving a power vacume into which hitler could enter, using a very nationalistic approach and to maintain power he had to act on his rhetoric as he also felt that the UK was week and cowardly due to Chamberlain. and a lot of the germans who were in the satallite nations were pretyt happy to be part of the greater germany again at the time.

thats the overview of the full story. there needs to be a mention to the washington naval agreement and a few other things for the brief to be complete. there was no knowing this, no disscussion of this for years same as with how the universe could be created.

ever asked a muslim or jew why they dont ewat pork. not the religiouse reason but the health reason behind it? they dont know why as a general rule but it is because pork in the middle east was and still is full of parasites which us in the northen latitudes didnt have to deal with. so piggy is a staple for us when it would kill slowly most who ate it elsewhere.

religion creates a framework by which people are supposed to live., where the elders were holy men who basicaly governed to ensure that the tribe/village would continue. and what was important thousands of miles away, thousands of years ago, are not important here and now.

[KathyLauren]

I am a Buddhist. I was raised in a non-practicing nominally Christian family, but never really believed any of it. Buddhism doesn't require a lot of unsubstantiable beliefs. I have been a Buddhist for about 35 years.

Interesting that a lot of the discussion in this thread has been about "science as religion". Personally, I think that that is precisely what big corporations want us to believe, for the purpose of separating us from our cash and lining their own pockets.

I am a scientist by temperament and training. Science is a method (really, the only reliable one we have) for acquiring knowledge in a world where proof is impossible. Buddhism (and perhaps some other religions, though I have my doubts about some) is a way of living well. They are separate spheres of activity. Where they do overlap, I find there to be no contradiction.

[grahamhobbs]

.............................
I am a scientist by temperament and training. Science is a method (really, the only reliable one we have) for acquiring knowledge in a world where proof is impossible. Buddhism (and perhaps some other religions, though I have my doubts about some) is a way of living well. They are separate spheres of activity. Where they do overlap, I find there to be no contradiction.

This sounds great, it is religions appeal to the higher authority for it's moral code that is the problem. If religions only said we think we have a better way of living and were able to discuss their ideas rationally, without recourse to 'well the book says or god says', ........but then it wouldn't be religion, would it?

[KathyLauren]

This sounds great, it is religions appeal to the higher authority for it's moral code that is the problem. If religions only said we think we have a better way of living and were able to discuss their ideas rationally, without recourse to 'well the book says or god says', ........but then it wouldn't be religion, would it?

It could be. Buddhism is a religion (yes, I know some people question that) and its moral code is not based on authority. The idea of authority as the basis for morality seems to be a product of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Outside of those traditions, there are other ways of looking at morality.

[grahamhobbs]

KeithBC, now we have set aside religion and science, would you like to lead on how we develop a moral code? Can anyone else follow?

[oldfella]

Thanks for all your replys and as I have only just finished chapter one will post later;

[KathyLauren]

KeithBC, now we have set aside religion and science, would you like to lead on how we develop a moral code? Can anyone else follow?

Well, I certainly don't subscribe to the "morality = obedience" school of thought.

Buddhism is all about how to reduce suffering, both our own and that of others. That seems to me to be the best basis for morality: moral conduct is that which reduces suffering. That makes many people uncomfortable because it requires situational judgement. You actually have to stop and think about which course of action will reduce suffering the most given the circumstances. People like not having to think. To my way of thinking, conduct is moral when the person has sincerely considered which availabble options produce the least suffering and makes a serious effort to implement the best option.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I’m an agnostic. I have never been baptised (though that is incidental). I am a scientist by inclination and training (degree in chemistry, 1st class, just to demonstrate that I am not thick, though that too is incidental). I think that I am fairly rational.

Agnosticism is a state of faithlessness, a belief that God is both unknown and unknowable, that currently there are not sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist.

Most commonly, agnosticism is confused with atheism (and there are those who style themselves as agnostic atheists), but from the point of view of an agnostic, atheism is a faith-based philosophy.

Atheists will usually refute this because, paradoxically, a central tenant of their faith is that it isn’t one, and that their belief is based on the “rational” assumption that the non-existence of God cannot be an act of faith because a negative cannot be proved. An agnostic response to this would be that it doesn’t make the problem go away. In any case, enough soi-disant atheists demonstrate a level of intolerance to other faiths and a dogma that they alone are right to mark it for practical purposes as a religion.

I spend quite a bit of my time examining my beliefs, because, frankly, I’d quite like to have faith in something or nothing. It would make life more comfortable. About the best thing I can say about being an agnostic is that, as far as I can tell, agnostics have never been responsible for any major atrocities.

[Thomzo]

Wow, what a fascinating subject. Really pleasing that all contributions so far have been of the live and let live variety. It's nice to think that we are all so open-minded and inclusive.

Personally, I don't believe that God exists in the form that the Christian church would have us believe. I don't know enough about other faiths to say whether I agree or not. I am prepared to believe that events described in the bible may have happened but bear in mind that these are stories that were handed down by word of mouth for hundreds of years so probably did not happen exactly as described.

I studied sciences to A level, but agree with the argument that scientific results can be interpreted in many ways. I also believe that there are forces that we have yet to discover that might shed some light on things that we might class as supernatural or miraculous. After all, if you had shown a television to someone from the 1700's they would have thought it either a miracle or magic.

My guiding moral is to treat others in the way that I would like them to treat me. No matter how much I feel like killing some idiot, I wouldn't want them to kill me, so I don't do it. Yes, it does require thought which may delay action, but often problems arise from people kicking off and saying or doing something without thinking when a few moments reflection would prevent problems.

Zoe

[trinder]

I am certain that some people raise their eyebrows in disbelief at some of the things I have - said- asked - believed ( especially those urban myths that I almost always believe ) (then I look a chump, when everyone does the embarrassed -look away -thing)).

My only point is, If you try - really try to listen to the person who believes (whatever it is they believe) then you really don't judge condemn criticise or ridicule. You search for a starting point that you think they understand and then move it forward.

This is uppermost in my mind because just yesterday I had one of my Young people filling in a housing application (which his mother had helped him with) and he had ticked "other" as religious beliefs ! I know his mother is a staunch Roman Catholic. I assumed this was the bit of the form he had attempted to fill in himself - but No his mother did not recognise the box "Christian" as when I spoke to him about it he said she said no it did not apply !!