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Well, it was said to me. Make of it what you will.
I find it tragically fascinating why intelligent people like Draggers, who is clearly no fool, do not apply the logic and reason they use in every other facet of daily life to this one area.
What is it that makes them unable to shake off what, they must know in their heart, is a ridiculous world view?
Parental indoctrination is one major factor you are right. I allowed myself to be dragged to church between the age of about 13, when it dawned on me this was all bullshit, and when I left home about 5 years later just because I didn't want to tell my parents what I thought. Thankfully they came to the same conclusion themselves a few years later, which for people who were brought up in seriously Catholic families was a big step. Dont think they ever told my grandmother before she went though - showing the same wish to avoid telling their parents that I went through.
Everywhere you look there are intelligent, professional people (a worrying amount of them in high office) who still profess to think things like talking snakes are perfectly acceptable. It's as bizarre as it is depressing. Maybe the government could take a look at what Iceland are doing as if that survey is to be believed (commissioned by the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association so impartiality to be questioned - see what I'm doing there religious people? Showing scepticism and questioning something even though it agrees with my beliefs) they will have eradicated religion within a generation.
Science is a doctrine to bad scientists--and bad scientists exist, believe me. They are taught things in school, then presume these things will hold true indefinitely, and when evidence to the contrary is found, they dismiss it under false presumptions that science is like dry cement: you can't change it.
Good scientists--and they exist too, fortunately--never fall into the trap of "dogmatic science" but challenge their science without a pause. They understand that science is constantly in motion, always replacing less perfect models and theories with less imperfect ones.
But great scientists are those who not only admit that science doesn't have all the answers yet, but consider that very thing its major strength. For it's better to know one doesn't have all the answers while seeking them, than to falsely claim one does have all the answers while not looking for them at all.
Interesting story you have there, Wiz. Didn't know that about you.
As a 100% atheist, why do I know the words of the Lords prayer off by heart and can't shake them. why can't I rid my head of these words and replace the empty space with something real and useful? Because, as a child, our brains soak this stuff up and, once its there, you cant get it out, even if you know it's junk.
Its an interesting idea to have the right of indepedent thought added as a basic human right to rid our future childen of these dangerous fairy tales once and for all.
My son asked me yesterday: "If space is finite, whats on the other side? " Obviously, I dont have the answer (who does?) but I was chuffed. He is thinking and questioning the real universe (beyond his own expereinces) rather than wasting time with "Our father who" , talking snakes, virgin mums, wine tricks etc
I would be very interested if anyone could point us towards a religion that respected kids and lefy tthem alone, only to attempt the indoctrination at 18 or older.
It was a terrible advice.
Thank you. I do say a few wise things if I may say so myself.
You know what Wiz, you surprise me. The fact you went to church during a period usually associated with teenage rebellion and despite your misgivings, in an effort to do the right thing by your mum and dad. I admire you for that, because hurting parents feelings would seem more appropriate to that age group.
You took it on the chin.
(you can work out what age group my own kids fall into!)
This has become world news and indeed, horrible, horrific and horrifying all at once. But the guilt, in part, lies with the various governments across the globe which allow home schooling and exercise very little control over it. One ought to be especially suspicious about home schooling accompanied with a heightened state of religious pride. No doubt these kids were never taught astronomy, evolution, philosophy outside of perhaps some brief and corrupted introductions. Feeding a human being Bible verses and nothing but, is tantamount to creating frozen brains and the absence of morality. After all, morality comes from the ability to reason, to be critical, to search different intellectual avenues for each serious question; it doesn't come from tattooing Bible verses on one's mind without any further thought.
The Bible,
- when used as a source of wisdom, is instead a source of evil and of a twisted spirituality completely irrelevant and in fact dangerous in the 21st century;
- when properly read, is the easiest gateway into a life of blissful atheism and in fact anti-theism.
I can definitely recommend that people read the Bible, but then for option 2. It's a cookbook full of poisonous recipes: tasteless, caustic, cruel and, for lack of a better word, illegal. If I weren't against censorship, I might demand it be blacklisted, along with pretty much any other "religious manual". And don't feed me that "some people find courage in the Bible" crap. Please. It's a form of emotional self-mutilation if one tries to find courage in something that constantly takes it away. Good luck feeling better after reading about the "god of love" doing very little besides executing severe punishments, instructing people to massacre others, encouraging the cruel "correcting" of promiscuous women and people of different sexual persuasions, and so on. Those who have read the Bible and still see the "good" and "inspiration" it offers, are either mentally challenged or dangerous terrorists and usually both.
Of course I have two choices:
1) I admit that nature is cruel, that life is not without a sense of irony; I accept that and I try to be the best person I can be as long as I'm alive, so that I can leave a little bit of the good stuff behind for future generations.
2) I'm a selfish crybaby who doesn't want to go away and so I believe that some mystical entity will leave my body when the physical shell dies, only to resume life in a non-biological form in some "Further" or "Other Realm" or "Heaven", from where I can occasionally drop down to ghost-stalk the living. Haven't you seen the YouTube clips? Obviously, they must be real; they're on YouTube after all! Ghosts and all that. Yes, definite proof there is an afterlife.
Nah, I guess I prefer the first option. I don't know. It feels like... like the smart thing to do. But maybe that's just my sober, scientific mind speaking. I haven't been talking to a priest, drunk, fortune teller or uneducated gypsy from a Sam Raimi film lately, so what do I know. With my numbers, and laws and theories and math and formulas and experiments and empirical evidence and all that. What do I know? It's sooo much simpler to seek simple but wrong answers to silly and uninteresting questions, and also, to look for those answers in the wrong but easily accessible places. You know; the Bible, some "Paranormal Activity" websites, the occult section of the library. Maybe I should draw a few pentagrams, burn a few candles, speak some magic lines, dance a bit, do drugs, beat myself, donate my salary to the Church, I don't know. It sounds simple enough. Must work; people have been doing it for ages. And look at the world, how great, loving, kind and so forth it is. Surely science has nothing to do with our current life expectancies and well-being. It's all the work of god, or the gods, or the demi-gods, and the saints (don't forget the saints!) and the holy trinity.
And Dimi singularly fails to mention that these kids would certainly have been schooled about talking snakes when he's bemoaning their lack of education. When non 'faith' schools are banging on about his precious science do they ever deign to inform children about the loquaciousness of snakes? I think not.
In all seriousness though the bible is a cracking read for kids as long as you treat it like Grimm's Fairy Tales.
I remember my parents bought me the bible stories in comic book form which I really enjoyed at the time (being too young and impressionable to observe that this was brainwashing). I can forgive them of course (probably wouldn't be able to do this if I had been brought up as a heathen with no morals!) as they were subject to the same indoctrination as were their parents before them and on and on and that's how the whole scam works.
Interestingly though from a staunchly Catholic family they broke with it and called it out as bullshit in their 50s as did my aunt and uncle (still have one uncle infected by religion) and my sister, my cousins and myself did in our teens and obviously if I have children they won't even be told of religion's existence until they are of an age to make their own mind up (naturally they will be written out of my will if they aren't committed atheists!) so that's one family that has managed to break the cycle and given that church attendances have been in steep decline for years it suggests we are not an isolated case.
Probably it won't happen in our lifetime but when you look at how far we have come in the last 30 years then within a century I'm hopeful, in England and possibly Wales at least (the Jocks and Northern Irish I fear are somewhat behind, still rather too obsessed with their tedious tribal battle between Catholic or Proddys), that seeing Christians in daily life will be as rare as Hare Krishnas.
Obviously Islam a whole different kettle of fish which is on the rise but once the majority have overwhelmingly rejected religion then hopefully government legislation will change and religion will have it's special privileges eroded.
Make no mistake; the cat is out of the bag and it's not going back in. Religion is on the ropes and it's only a matter of which round the knockout blow comes. It will still take decades, maybe centuries but I feel optimistic that even though perhaps we are not yet at the beginning of the end we are certainly at the end of the beginning in this particular war.
But I'm afraid that's just this country. America seems lost frankly and if I lived there I'd be extremely depressed at the insidious influence of religion in public life which shows no sign of abating.
Disgusting. The Church is pretty much a criminal racket at this point.
Despite their best efforts the Von Trapp children simply could not get away from the sound of a rampant Sister Maria belting out a few scales.
You forgot during the war too:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1998/03/17/vatican-apologizes-to-jews/ce5ea6e9-bd97-4022-b639-288342b63455/
Still they apologised so that's all right.
Said apology obviously doesn't extend to opening their vaults and giving up all the stolen Jewish gold but you can't have everything I suppose.
Well no but then it was tolerated. Nowadays there's laws against organized crime. Lets rechristen it the Catholic Mafia and be done with it.
@NicNac Funny thing, the original Maria Von Trap was apparently far more stern and austere than her musical counterpart.
I don't want to be pushy but we're still waiting for the archeological evidence proving at least some of the claims of the Bible.
It might be online. I think it is, but this was in one of the print magazines I bought. I'll have a look for you when I get back home to my PC, @DarthDimi. I think there's an article on it too and the letter was a response to it. It's a bit dated now I guess, but interesting from a historical POV nonetheless!
I'll certainly try my best on that front too. I've not forgotten about it but I suppose at this point in the proceedings nothing that I bring to bear here will convince any of you of the existence of God and Creationism and the Bible being true. I can but try but I can't help thinking that all of your minds were made up many years ago!
Things have moved on a fair bit since the 60s.
That's the point with science - it's constantly evolving as it sheds new light into the darkness whereas religion embraces the darkness, constantly putting up blackout curtains and hiding under the duvet in fear of the light.
Absolutely. How long have I got to wait for my bloody snakes?
Actually I have to correct you: all I need to be convinced and change my mind is sufficient evidence. I consider the Bible wrong on almost everything factually because 1)nobody ever gave evidence of any of its claims and 2)we actually have evidence that contradict these claims. The Flood, the Exodus, the Tower of Babel. But if you can back it up then bring it on.
Then if you can convince me I'd encourage you to get a Nobel price in something because you would have radically changed our knowledge of history, medicine, physics, heck even geography.
That sounds a tall order, but I won't flinch from my responsibilities either. It's not in my nature to do so.
You'll understand then if I take a while in preparing my case for the Defence in R v God [2018]?
--David Dragonpol QC.