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What I really find ironic is that many theists think atheists like myself are ignoramus regarding any faith. I was a devout Catholic as a child and to a lesser extend a teenager. Obviously I was no theologian, but I knew and still know about what was then my faith. I know what it entails and he claims the religion has. I ceased to be a Catholic when I saw that: 1)all their supernatural claims were not supported by evidence, starting with the claim that there was a God and 2)they were equating worship and rituals with morality, which is both wrong and dishonest.
There is also a huge misconception by many theists and we have seen examples here on this very thread (and the Charlie Hebdo one was well), that wanting a society to be secular and Church and State to be separated equate with banning religious liberties. @DarthDimi offered a great rebuttal of this claim a few pages earlier. What we advocate for is the removal of religious authorities from power which they have no legitimacy to hold(however modest this power may be) and the removal of religious claims as "alternative" "theories" to proven scientific discoveries in education and to any attempt of religious coercion or proselytizing in schools. I am referring of course mainly to the teaching of creationism in public schools but also to the compulsory assembly prayers. Theists can still believe in any god or gods they want, they can still profess their faith publicly even. In fact, a truly secular nation is the only way to make sure all faiths are treated equally, it is the only way for people of any faith to be free from the influence of their community and to practice their faith as much or as little as they want. Who would claim now that UK is less free without its stupid blasphemy law or the Test Act?
This thread is about the massacre of Charlie Hebdo staff, folks who regularly insulted religions but mostly the people responsible for the excesses.
I am kind of tired of lunatics killing people in the name of religion, and moronic unsympathetic atheists that keep insulting people from their own apparent superiour position, or so they think. The fanatics have been ranting several pages on the bad side of religion, which is fine. But their reasoning is about as positive as the reasoning from IS fans, no space for another opinion.
So one friendly advise @ludovic, get out and learn new people and accept their ideas even if you do not agree with them. It might make you half a human instead of the fanatic you have shown to be. And while I might disagree with @timmer and how he approaches you he kinda has my sympathy because he knows that there is more than black and white.
I think @Ludovico just explained all that.
Atheists are not against anyone believing whatever they want in the privacy of their own home. Telling people what they must think (you know - like religions have done throughout history) would be fascist and fanatical.
What we are against is religion having some sort of protected status in the public realm. If people want to practice it then fair enough but it's just like a hobby. I personally don't understand why anyone would ever want to go trainspotting. But I would never say that people should be banned from doing it, however I would similarly say that trainspotters should not have any rights not extended to the general population.
Can you imagine how ludicrous the news story from the other day about GCSE exams being moved because of Ramadan would be if the reason was not Ramadan but something to do with trainspotting? But because it is religion its somehow not treated as a total joke.
I can choose to ignore trainspotting so that it has no influence or bearing whatsoever on my life. But whether I like it or not my life is constantly being impacted by religion without me being able to do anything to stop it. That's what rubs atheists up the wrong way.
As for no exams on Ramadan, I do agree in a sense with it since we do also not have exams with on Easter or Christmas. So if we accept religious days as off then perhaps we should accept them all or none at all.
=))
The fact remains that an organised religion was imposed upon us by brute force. That it hijacked our morality. That it opposed freedom of speech, the honest development of science and several lifestyles which, because of it, are still being condemned in certain circles. Our society has never been evolving at the rate it is today. Religion fails to keep up. Most of our "modern" religions are still stuck in the Dark Ages because their principles are still lifted from the pages of a book that hasn't been thoroughly revised in hundreds of years. In a sense, the Bible is a dangerous book because its teachings couldn't possibly fit our modern world.
Exactly. And unlike Christmas, Easter and so on (which origins predate Christianity), Ramadam involves fasting. In this case, of children. Although even in countries in the Middle East fasting is not required for children, it seems that it is the case in the UK for at least some children of the Muslim community. And by some, I mean many. Enough to give special treatment to Islam in schools. To accommodate a faith to the detriment of the educational system as a whole and pupils of Muslim faith.
I couldn't say it better.
That's all in the past. Live and let live. We each live our lives and as long as we don't harm others, what's the problem? I accept the necessity of laws and some decency rules to maintain order, but even then I'm fairly liberal when it comes to what people do at home. Why can't people have sex without wanting to conceive a child? Why can't people of the same gender have a loving relationship? Why do children have to be baptised, or circumcised or whatever before they are actually old and independent enough to make that choice themselves? Why must people be married before they can sleep together or have a child? For 1700 years, the answer has been: because that's the law of the Church. Or better still: because otherwise you go to hell.
The way I see it, the Church has so far come off too easy! Here's an institute that is built on tons of crimes, including theft, military colonisation, terrorism, brainwashing, murder, ... The worst of all: mind-control. I'm not satisfied with the last couple of popes simply expressing some meagre regrets. This institute must be dismantled, its riches can be used for good things. But it's part of our culture, you say? Wake up, folks. We've entered an era in which cultural differences can only serve antagonistic purposes. We've been breading like rabbits - which wouldn't have been the case if so many countries didn't suppress women the way their "state religion" tells them to - so we need to accept a global migration shock wave in the near future. Fine. Well it won't work as long as we cling to stupid cultural pride. The Church, like witchhunting, is a thing of the past. We have grown too smart, too independent, too sophisticated to find any immediate use for the Church.
My culture and my church? James Bond, pizza, Red Bull and quantum physics.
Brilliant :D
The rest I agree 100%.
:))
There would still be some sort of security there at least, otherwise people can just walk in without tickets. Defeats the purpose of getting tickets to a show right. The media reports fail to mention how the attackers went in. They could've mentioned that they attacked ushers and security at the door before going in, or something like that. But the fact that none of that was mentioned, it just seemed odd. All of a sudden the attackers just walked in through the door? Seriously? Not sure why it seems I'm the only one bothered by this.
Stellar post @Dimi. I'm tempted to say 'Let me get down on my kneel before you and worship you as some sort of prophet' but that would be a tad hypocritical methinks!
You're bang about the Catholic Church being a disgusting organisation that has (literally) got away with murder for years.
They sit there behind their walled city which is somehow a state in itself (???? go figure) pontificating to the rest of us about third world poverty etc.
How about you raid the billions that you've stolen, purloined and brainwashed people out of over the centuries and use that to feed the hungry if it worries you so much?
I would have loved it if the SPECTRE meeting had taken place inside the Vatican and sitting at the table had been a cardinal but the studio would never let EON rock the boat to that extent even if they had the balls.
There are many odious organisations around the globe from big pharmaceutical corporations to FIFA but they can all only aspire to be like the Catholic Church.
Let me just state for the record that I'm largely applying this to the higher echelons of the Catholic Church. I'm sure (paedo element notwithstanding) there are a lot of good, albeit naive, people in local parishes trying to good who never get their hands on any of the ill gotten gains that the top guys enjoy. Although if you're doing good merely as a selfish reason to avoid your soul burning in hell where is the morality of that?
Strange how all the Catholics in this country that I know have nice houses, cars, holidays etc.
So they care enough about the poor to put a fiver in the church plate once a week (and not care that it goes to feather the beds of all the old men in Rome) but not enough to sell all their possessions and go and dig wells in Africa?
Surely if you actually believe in all this bullshit then wouldn't you think 'Is a fiver enough to stop my soul burning? Perhaps I need to do a little more to help my fellow man and avoid God's wrath?'
I'd welcome a Christian to come on here and debate with us why they aren't in an African village helping the starving instead of sitting on their comfy sofa reading this on a gadget that costs so much it could probably feed said village for months.
You're the guys with the moral high ground so please tell us why aren't you all standing on it instead of lapping up your luxurious western lifestyles?
@TheWizardOfIce, Indeed, the average priest is kind and helpful and means well. That's not the problem though. The problem is that they are ultimately only allowed to spread the word that was dictated by the Vatican. The moment some cracks in their obedience begin to show, they are excommunicated. Some time ago in this country, a young priest publicly admitted he was gay. I thought, wow, this might be the start of something good. Unfortunately the man was removed from his parish and the priesthood. Worst of all, people were yelling that it was the right thing to happen because once you've taken an oath, you have to live by it.
But that's not how a society works! The priest's homosexuality wouldn't have made him a bad man, it wouldn't have made him less suited for the job either. Yet because the Church carves its rules in stone, it lacks the ability to be flexible and to keep up with an ever changing world. At the same time, the Vatican wonders why so few young men (emphasis on 'men'; women are Untermenschen as far as the Vatican is concerned) are drawn to the priesthood. Let me see: you have to ignore your own feelings, you have to ignore your reproductive organs and your hormones and you have to spread the teachings of one man who stood up one day and said, "I am the son of God. Hear me roar!"
Forgive me for bringing science into the equation again, but herein lies perhaps the fundamental difference between the Church as an institute and science. Science isn't carved in stone, it's always been written in a digital format so to speak. You discover something that contradicts old theories? No worries, we use the backspace button and rewrite the sentence. We do what we can to better ourselves, to better understand the world. Science is a self-correcting structure. Religion isn't. It ignores changes in the world, in how people think, in how liberal people have become. It doesn't want to better understand the world, rather it wants the world to slavishly do what the Church tells it to do. It's not a self-correcting structure but instead a self-indulgent structure. Whereas science craves insight and knowledge, the Church craves power.
People tell me that without religion, the world would be a worse place. Religion offers guidance and comfort and it keeps us going in the same direction like a flock of seagulls. While that me be so, albeit from a very narrow-minded point of view, the world today lacks coherence because of culture, religion and twisted politics.
About jihadism
Donald Hitler Trump gets a room full of hillbillies applauding when he says that no Muslims are welcome in America. Is this how we're still playing this game in the 21st century? The best way to defeat jihadism is by showing we just don't care. I know that's a tough thing to do if something happens in your neighbourhood like what happened in Paris, but try to understand what I'm saying here. We spent years lamenting 9/11. The world was shocked. Celebrities wrote songs about peace (while Bush prepared for war), there's the Ground Zero thing, the West talked about uniting against Islamic aggression... I understand. I also understand you need to comfort a scared and scarred population. You can't just pretend nothing happened. But these upset reactions are EXACTLY what Al-Quaeda thrived on. Same with Paris now. Suppose we'd bite our lips and keep all this lamenting, all these declarations of war, ... OUT of the press. The message would be: look dude, blow yourself up for Ali Baba or Algebra or Allah or whatever - *smirk* - all you want, I'm watching The Simpsons on television so I'm not going to look up even once. I rather look at Homer scratching his crotch while belching than at you running down the street with some religious signs yelling some lingo I couldn't for the life of me begin to understand, with some explosive sausages strapped to your middle.
Again, I know this is not how we do things. Innocent people die, of course presidents and kings and prime ministers everywhere must speak loud and angry words to keep the people calm. But imagine if we could just pretend to grow bored, uninterested, indifferent. THEN you'd take away their most powerful tool: fear. And we're quite good at being indifferent by the way. Most of us have no problem swallowing down hamburgers and fries and half a gallon of beer while watching CNN and seeing horrible poverty in mid-Africa. The worst thing that can happen to a religious zealot with an agenda is that nobody cares. By responding to a terrorist attack with fear, hatred and war declarations, we give them exactly what they want: more reason to come back and do it again.
I would like to add something regarding the "religion is part of our culture" argument we often hear. Because it's only partially true. Sure, in a time when religions were dominating and unchallenged, it defined to a degree the cultures they were a part of, it contributed to them. But cultures cannot and should not be contained by faiths or reduced to them. For example, if Catholicism was an important part of France for centuries, so is its secularism now, which was partly triggered by... the Church's domination over its population. The same thing apply in Québec where I am from: the Catholic clergy was for centuries the only élite we had and we can see its influence over our history everywhere nowadays: from the name of places to the many (now mostly unattended) churches in our cities, towns, villages. Not to forget, our swear words. But this influence came at a heavy price: the subservience of women (and indeed men), turned into cattle, a people kept in ignorance and blind, superstitious obedience and a culture of impunity that the Church still has nowadays. Rejecting the authority of priests and mocking them is also part of our culture.
It's also a cop out. I have often heard this, from the right to the left (especially the left, actually) regarding Islamism: "the sharia law, the mistreatment of women by certain Muslims for religious reasons? Well, sure, it is kind of bad, but it's in their culture, so who am I to judge?" The veil? Culture. Genital mutilations? Culture. Mistreatment of homosexuals? Culture. Same thing for the home made brew of faiths of course. Heterosexual marriage only as defined by the Church? Culture. Prayers at schools assembly, lead by the head teacher? Culture. Prayers at a city hall meeting in Ville de Saguenay where I am from, lead by a mayor why is a Catholic zealot? Culture. even if the mayor said that he was doing it to go to heaven and for the love of Christ? Culture. Culture should never be an excuse for ignorance or bigotry.
Western women should cover up more in a swimming pool because Islamic swimmers say it's offensive to their culture to bare so much. Well, it's offensive to our lack of cultural chauvinism that we are restricted in our freedom by those who live a life in blissful ignorance.
But hey, if culture is the excuse for everything, I'll just inform a woman that her genitals are at my service and go all seanconnery on her, rather than gain her respect, then her love and then her sex. I mean, the Bible practically spells it out, and not just the Bible:
How can the following not frighten us?
Wasn't the 21st century supposed to be like this?
Rather than this:
Indeed the cannibals of Papua New Guinea eat people. If a tribe of them came to live in this country would we turn a blind eye to that because it's their 'culture'?
But religion expects (and more shockingly gets) a free pass somehow.
How can chopping the end of a baby's cock off be considered anything but despicable?
There as a very interesting debate on the World at One, Radio 4 a few days ago. Peter Hitchins made a good point in that any feminists have to think very hard about their policy re imigration etc as its just a basic fact that other cultures simply do give women the same rights, freedoms and respect that modern western culture does. A weak liberal (name not known) was desperate to avoid the issue of religion and said it was down to better policing and education. PH came back and rightly said that we dont wont to live in a society where grown men have to be educated that abusiving women is not acceptable and that its not the job of the police.
Religion, cultural values and immigration policy are interwoven into the issue on terrorism and Islam. To try to separate them into isolated issues is bucking the bigger picture and failing to grasp the big questions. People go on and on about multi culturalism without discussing which cultures we are talking about.
@DarthDimi
While you are the scientist among us you are most definitely not the historian, which shows clearly in your posts about religion. Religions even before the Great three monotheisms were part of society which at the beginning were part of the statesmanship of its rulers. Religion used to be the answer to questions people did not know and the more they found out the more the nature of religion changed into a means of controlling your state. The Pharaoh's of Egypt were Gods in their ruling and believes, even the wise folks from Greece, Mesopotamia used religion as ways to rule a country. The Romans did the same and when Christianity became dominant they changed their own brand of religion towards Christianity [the general population chose for Christianity because it was a less brute form of religion] because statesmanship by emperor or their form of parliament the Romans were fairly clever and knew when to change tactics. The bible as it is a product of the council of Niceau due to the strong influence of the choices as made by the then ruling Roman emperor and his advisers.
In the dark ages Christianity was mostly used as powertool for the emperor & kings, most religious leaders were chosen by kings and Emperors in such a way that they served them and less the papal seat in Rome. The crusades as such were mostly a blatant powergrab devised by Pope Urbanus II in 1095 to boost the papal power in Europe. It was also a fairly decent plot to cull the large families of Nobility that had far more sons than that could rule their own little empires by promising them glory and a place among the heavens for their deeds. Which was kind of nice as they had very little else to do in their ordinary lives and the church promised them heaven instead of hell.
The church its power has up to halfway the 19th century mostly been dictated by royalty and what they wanted. The schism in the Christian church away from Roman Catholicism was perhaps the first major change in religion as it was more or less a break away from the southern then dominating countries that followed the Catholic teachings.
Large countries these days still have a strong influence by various religions and while it seems that Rome is dominating this worldwide in the case of Christianity you can see that all governments use religion more or less for crowd control 101. Even in modern England the Anglican church & the Roman catholic church has quite a lot of input through the house of Lords and the government itself does not consider that a problem. In the US there is currently a strong pro Christianity based government that is not based upon human values but purely upon crowd control.
The best prove of religion as crowd-control has been the pogroms which were mostly organised against one particular group of people which always got the blame for anytime something went wrong, and as group were easily recognizable as states always kept them in clear view to use as a lightning rod in case the peasants got rowdy.
As to the development of science there have been restrictions in time by the various religions but in the end they always had to give way to the developments.
What is currently scary is how science is considered dangerous, which it has been sometimes to be honest, and knowledge is considered stupid. I am not sure if the church or any other organised religious circus is behind that. While everybody enjoys the benefits of modern science there seems to be powergrab towards science and how to use it for its own particular benefit. In the Islam quite a few women have been kept away from education since it is beneficiary for the parties ruling states and churches, something we had and still have to a certain level in our Christian society. The benefits usually go to the male part of our society in power and dominance. I feel that they want a hand upon the pulse of the science as well especially as science is currently bouncing forward in such leaps that laws and restrictions are always behind and to calm it down it is a tool to tell bollocks about science, as it halts them to a pace the governments prefer.
For me religion as a faith is fine, as a means to rule and control states and as a tool for domination I find it a far worse thing than anything else. But it is also a club were people do want to belong to or belong to the opposition the atheists, in essence mankind is a herd animal and we tend to do better in groups.
Blaming all the bad behaviour on the church or religion is missing out on the people behind the religion, even the Russian communists knew that behind their absolute reign.