Edgar BrooksOver the years, I can remember hearing, several times, that a man’s life was measured at “three score years and ten.” As the EU won’t allow life to = life, I could go along with a 70-year sentence, maybe with the dangling carrot of 50% off for good behaviour. Of course that 50% off would entail working, possibly filling in potholes, now that there are so few mailbags around.
Edgar BrooksYou need to prove something to be able to teach it- i could tell a gullible person that there is an invisible rabbit in the corner it’s just that they can’t see it but you can.They could then with your description write an essay on this invisible rabbit they have never seen or have proof of.
Rather in the way people write novels about mythical creatures, and win the Booker Prize.
I haven’t worked out this multi quoting lark yet but to go to BazV and Edgar Brooks about going to Sunday school.You two were a minority ,you thought for yourselves and possibly against you parents wishes you left Sunday school.
No, I left Sunday School because I’d been confirmed, which qualified me to attend church services in my own right, without need of an adult. When I stopped going to those services, out of boredom, my mother never made so much as a murmur, so, if I could make my own decision at 12/13, why can’t other youngsters?
Surely that means it is wrong to force religion [which could be an invisible rabbit for all intents and purposes ] onto people of a young age through peer pressure and the cult that religion is before they are old enough to have a right to say yes or no.
Perhaps it’s just as wrong to deny them the chance to find out, for themselves, whether that way of life is for them?
If people decide at an older age that they want to believe then thats fine,do it at home and don’t tell others that your god is the right one.
Why? “Freedom of expression” is not just a phrase, it’s an ideal to be cherished; if someone approaches you, spouting a religion in which you have no interest, you can always walk away (done it, myself, many times.)
I worry about whole races of people that are so brainwashed into getting up at all hours,praying en mass to their rightful god that they will kill to defend [eh ,where’s the love in that].
Just as we were, in this nation, when witches were burnt at the stake, or drowned; with education, this no longer happens, and it’s to be hoped that other races learn the same message, and quicker than we did, too.
All you need in life is to be good, honest ,trustworthy and respectful — those are the basics .They are not confined to religion,there are plenty of bad religious people out there and lots of really nice non religious out there.
And the main tenet of the Christian religion (can’t talk for others, since I’ve never bothered to learn about them) is the Ten Commandments, which tell you to be just that; I do find it rather sad that you don’t want children to be taught that.
Edgar BrooksLike most religions for most of history then?
Not the religions, but most definitely applied to many proponents of said religions; there’s often a world of difference between what the religion says, and what some (pro and anti) claim that it says.
Edgar Brooks& you finish off with ad hominem, you’d fit right into a religion, pick one 🙂
Just following your lead, though I stop short of the foul, abusive language, of course.
I’m glad that you consider me to be a kind, considerate person, since that’s what a true practitioner of a religion should be, unlike Abu Hamza, the Taliban, and yourself, who twist, and distort, the real messages, to suit their own twisted agenda. Fortunately, I have other things that fill my life, so must politely (you should try that, sometime) decline your invitation.
Edgar BrooksSo because someone disagrees with you and puts an opposite point of view over they are a nasty piece of work, if that’s what religion does for you makes you think –forget it.
Wrong, someone who resorts to insults and foul language (inadequately disguised by initial letters) is, in my view, a nasty piece of work, so don’t make things up, and don’t assume that I’m, even slightly, religiously minded, either; I just loathe bullies and bigots who can’t allow a different point of view from their own.
Edgar BrooksBack in the 1960s, a Russian told me how, in Russia, they had a saying, “Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while communism is the exact opposite.”
As for that programme, when have journalists ever let the truth get in the way of a good story?
Edgar BrooksSo Abu Hamza ,the Taliban [ who despise education] think they are religious and represent God [their version].Who on this planet is to say that they are wrong .
Having seen how one of the latter tried to get his own 12-year-old sister to commit herself to a suicide bombing, most right-minded people would, I hope, condemn it.
We all suppose that god is good and great BUT what happens if he really actually isn’t that good ,that great,that honest etc,there’s going to be alot of very annoyed dead people when they get to the pearly gates
But he doesn’t exist, remember, so that’s a specious argument.
The point i am trying to make is that you don’t have to be religious to do the right thing,the honest thing,the decent things in life.Look after each other ,love each other,that has nothing to do with religion.
But if you’re a (genuine) member of a religion, it requires you to be all of those things, so what’s wrong with that?
Good grief ,religion is anti gay — yet i know a gay couple who are the best of the best in all senses of the word .
And then there’s Peter Tatchell, who comes across as thoroughly nasty. As one Christian told me, it’s “forgive the sinner, not the sin,” so it’s the act, not the person, which is reviled.
Religion attempts to get swathes of the population to conform en masse to it,no questions asked and if you do – oh my gawd look what happens on a small thread like this let alone in a world scale.
Sorry, but no, a true religion welcomes a questioning mind (back to the children again,) since that’s the only way to really learn.
Religion and greed will be the end of this planet.
Make that misuse of religion, and I’ll agree wholeheartedly
Edgar BrooksExactly my point; the originators of a religion are usually all dead centuries ago…
But their message(s) isn’t/aren’t.
…what matters here, now, are a religion’s proponents. For all intents and purposes they are the religion.
Not if they refuse to follow the original creed, and go off on their own agenda.
So we should judge a religion on what it intended to do
Yes
or what its followers actually do in its name?
No, you judge the (not genuine) followers, for not behaving in the way expected of them.
Edgar BrooksExcuse me? A religion is its proponents!
No, it isn’t, it’s formed by its originators, in the case of Christianity, a man who lived 2000(ish) years ago, and inspired others to follow the same path; its proponents (and detractors) often misuse its messages, and intentions, twisting them to their own ends (our Bristolian friend is a classic example of this.) “Christians” have killed, and are still killing, in his name; Muslims are persuaded to commit suicide, while committing murder; the list goes on and on, but it isn’t the religion that’s causing the mayhem, it’s the greedy, grasping, manipulative hierarchy.
Yes, and sometimes there isn’t a ‘world of difference’.
Usually when the followers stick to the stated ideals, and treat others well.
Edgar BrooksThe dead messages of dead religions have no bearing on life today; only what the proponents of those religions do now in the name of those religions matters…
…that is how we will judge these religions and their proponents.
Your statement is a contradiction in terms; if a religion is dead, it’s dead, there can’t be any proponents, otherwise it would be alive.
Unfortunately for all of the “modernisers,” religions don’t work the way they would like them to work; you can’t pick out the best parts, and discard those little inconveniences that mean that you can’t do as you like.
Edgar BrooksWhy is it necessary that you have enemies? I don’t have any nor do any other atheists I know.
Probably just as well that (I assume) you never knew Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao Tse-Tung.
Edgar BrooksAre you saying that eyewitness statements from long ago, from the Bible for example, are not 100% accurate?
No, I’m simply saying that I don’t know, and it’s invidious to expect otherwise, since neither does anyone else, unless they have seen the evidence, written down as the events unfolded. I’m quite happy to admit that I don’t know whether there is a god, or not, but I get intensely irritated when I’m confronted by others (for or against) who will move mountains to persuade me that they know best (even to the extent of getting increasingly personally offensive, abusive and foul-mouthed,) when I know, perfectly well, that they really know nothing, and are simply trying to browbeat others to accept their point of view.
Edgar BrooksAh, I see, so eye-witness statements, from hundreds of years ago, have to be 100% accurate, but it’s perfectly acceptable to allow for mistakes in eyewitness statements of recent times.
Edgar BrooksWhat is ponzi anyway ?
Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi, one of the biggest fraudsters known to man.
Edgar BrooksA mod finally seeing sense and closing the God, Allah, Buddha thread!!
Make that two of us; began to think “courtesy” had been changed to “curse or three.”
And the sun is shining, the sky is clear
Unfortunately, in some lives (mine) a little (hah) rain must fall, and it’s shopping day.
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