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As for John Paul II I don't know enough about the Beagles Channel Conflict to comment of his involvement but would peace have been impossible without it, what were rhe arguments involving religion that were used and could peace not have been achieved otherwise. In the great scheme of things that's a drop in an ocean of religious conflicts.
It is hard to identify wars that didn't happen. In our modern world religious groups are active in efforts pursuing peace and ends to violence. I don't normally read The Huffington Post but this article gives a rundown.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/religious-interfaith-organizations-peace_n_1902435.html
Anyone with the most basic grasp of World history knows the score re religion and violence.
But they should be!!
I'm not even trying to be contrary here, I'm genuinely pereplexed, but could any religious person who claims also to have an interest in science explain how they can hold two contradictory outlooks on life at the same time?
In one you ask questions, look for evidence, think for yourself and seek answers through the rigorous application of reason and logic.
In the other you ask no questions, are happy with a 2000 year old book as evidence, are told what to think and seek answers through faith in something that nobody can prove has any basis in fact.
How do these religio-scientists stop themselves from going mad? Are you all schizophrenics?
If you believe, I mean seriously believe in God and the scripture (as some here purport to do) you have all the answers already so what possible interest could science hold? Apart from anything else don't you think He is looking down with a scowl at your temerity to poke your nose into his creation and pick apart the nuts and bolts?
And once you start asking pretty basic scientific questions like 'what is the sun?' you end up on a path that leads you inexorably to the Big Bang.
Now of course to the religious the Big Bang is their trump card against science because science can't explain it (yet). 'Who set off the Big Bang?', they smugly pronounce, 'You can't explain it therefore it must be God!'
Now (if we just ignore the childish logic that just because I can't explain something it therefore must be God rather than some intergalactic terrorists who were a bit careless with their C4) if you want to call the spark that set off the Big Bang God fine, fill your boots. Let's give God a big round of applause for lighting the blue touchpaper.
But don't worship this celestial Zippo lighter because once he'd retreated to a safe distance and watched his epic Roman candle go off he buggered off to toast marshmallows round the bonfire and left us to our own devices.
Once the Big Bang had err banged we were on our own and have been ever since. If people want to spend every Sunday on their knees or chopping their daughter's clitoris off to impress a cosmic Swan Vesta then they really should be locked up.
You can hold religious views and scientific views but if you believe in them equally then science reduces God to Dennis the Menace throwing a banger.
Time to pick a side folks.
Be fair mate - he probably had less choice than an Albanian brothel. I'm impressed he even managed to find one. But the Beagles Channel conflict? Hardly the Cuban Missile Crisis is it?
Doth the religious protest too much about how committed to peace they are? I dont hear atheists constantly needing to tell everyone how peaceful they are. Guilty conscience on the part of religion methinks.
As for peace organizations that's all well and good but they're in contradiction with their holy book(s).
Would it be fair to say, like the process of writing it is a case of 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration? Or is that still too generous in the case of scientific research?!
http://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/air-asia-pilot-tells-passengers-to-pray
Regarding the earlier comment that suggests religion being involved in peacemaking is an insult, I hope that a peace effort isn't forestalled simply because a person rejects religion in the mix. Those groups listed aren't making their faith a requirement, they're presenting it as their inspiration for seeking peace. The religious connection is their groundswell of resources and energy to get actions started. And they're very open and accepting of other religions and thoughts than can combine toward the stated goal. Relating their present day actions to the worst of what happened hundreds of years ago isn't fair.
Insults. Wasn't it suggested early on those commence in generally one direction.
The fact that such labels have to be applied to groups looking for peace tends to re-enforce my earlier point about religion poking its nose in. You can worhip any God at home and campaign for peace but why make the connection? Why bring religion into the equation when it really is not required?
The main charity I support is MSF and they are secular. I need no inspiration from any God in order to see the value of their work and the volunteers need no inspiration from their Gods to do the work.
Could it be because Jesus is called The Prince of Peace?
Jesus you'd like to think the guy flying your plane would have more in his locker than that when things are looking bleak!
This was a more hopeful story:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/christian-it-was-tim-farron-s-religion-that-was-the-problem-not-other-people-s-attitude-to-it-a7790596.html
The guy seemed like a nice enough bloke but this isn't America. If you must be religious keep it to yourself.
Indeed.
I am sure a lot of people work for peace who also drive a VW Golf but we don't then conclude that VW is a inexorable force for good and should have privileged status in society where it is protected from criticism.
Passat Wagon for me.
Well either religion is requied as an inspiration or its not. If it is required, then nothing will happen without it (how does this explain secular campaign groups/charities?). If its not required, then its redundant.
Your quote clearly implies that there is no groundswell or energy without religion.
Typical. Concentrating on the evils perpetrated in VW's name years ago rather than concentrating on all those peace loving VW drivers out there. Hitler's VW's were a perversion of true VWism.
He also said he came to bring a sword... and division.
Yet he rode in on a donkey - not the stallion horse many were expecting.
That's me.
The same day he went out of his way to beat up merchants in the temple. Whether or not this happened the Jesus depicted in the Gospels is a barking madman.
Jesus just overturned their trading tables though. That showed he had real backbone and strength of character. He was human, too, but this side of his character was rarely seen. You could call it his social campaigning side.
As the huffpost asked, I would like to add the Catholic soup kitchen, that I volunteered at for 5 years, to their list. We fed roughly 200 hardy souls, every Sat morning. Mind you there were also several other groups, of both religious or more secular rooting, working in the downtown community, as part of a loose network, endeavouring to offer a hand-up to those in need.
My point being, while Christianity, ideally should inform all aspects of ones life, and if one is of humble and honest faith, it generally will (at least as far as man's conflicted dual nature, both fallen and saved might allow.)
I can relate to the early Calvanists, who bemoaned man's depraved nature. John Calvin decried man's depraved nature as tainting any and all good works, he might attempt. He's not wrong. All we can do is attempt to make merit - do our best.
To wit, I would get quite grumpy at the soup kitchen, and lose the spirit of Christian charity, if I sensed fellow able-bodied males, were attempting to dodge gruelling pot-washing shifts at my expense.
This sort of stuff can come to blows.
So of course, men and women of both faith, or more agnostic persuasion, can get the job done in a soup kitchen, albeit not without challenges, just as they might pursue the sciences, athletics, the arts, academia, medical or legal professions, business, politics, soldiering, law enforcement etc
We go where our talents and interests take us.
The Huff Post article is a tad trite. It only illustrates the obvious - what anyone with eyes and basic understanding of human nature can see.
As for belief in God, to understand faith, you have to give a crap first.
If you are content with, or resigned to man being, simply that which is born, dies and disappears, along with both his flaws and virtues, then matters divine or spiritual will hold no interest.
I have no interest in opera, and thus a comparable understanding.
But I do have interest in the notion of justice, a perfect divine justice, not corrupted by man's flawed nature, in a belief that good might triumph over evil, in man's better nature ultimately triumphing over his fallen nature.
Much like Fleming, who openly mused over the disposition of souls in Dr No.
Fleming via Bond, believed that surely Dr No and Quarrel could not go to the same place.
Seek and ye shall find. That's biblical.
I can't quote chapter and verse, as my "proddy" friends do better, but the meaning is clear.
To know God, once must seek God. One must first have honest and humble interest in matters such as the true nature of both good and evil --
to query why man, any man, is capable of both great good and great evil, and what capacity does man have to ultimately triumph over evil, both his own capacity and that wrought by others ,so corrupted.
Plato's Republic deals entirely with the nature of justice. Socrates methodically exposes the flaws in all man-made constructs of justice, presented to him from all walks of society.
The people finally in frustration, implore upon Socrates, to then enlighten as to the true nature of justice.
Socrates, after much exposition, famously concludes that for man to be just, he must be all-knowing. And that is the end of that.
Man is not capable of justice. It is beyond his unaided capacity.
But that is a conclusion any man can come to via his own humble reflections.
The ancient Greek philosophers simply articulated the vigorous intellectual arguments, which support this inesapable conclusion, which all men I think, instinctively understand.
Justice resides elsewhere.
Now,as for the Ahmadiyya Muslims and their Huff Post good works -- Islam doesn't much interest me, thus I have limited understanding, but I did go-out with an "Ahma" Muslim girl for a couple of years.
We had an interesting time. I would pick her up, and just to be a brat, I would express faux outrage at the great swaths of skin often exposed on both her arms and legs.
As she lived in a Muslim neighborhood, I would howl embarrassment at being seen in the company of such outrage, and demand to see her father.
She would actually scream at me and practically stamp her foot on gas to get the car rolling.
It was made clear, I would never get near her father.
I met the mother and sisters a few times, but the father was off limits.
She was quite westernized, so we had a good time, but some of the males in her cultural orbit, it was probably best we stay clear of.
As for the Islamists who wage Jihad, and murder innocents, there is no mystery as to what is going on there. They are not evil per se. They are human and flawed like the rest of us .
But they are greatly corrupted by evil, by their fallen nature much like Dr No, Blofeld and others who perpetrate atrocity.
Evil plays to our vanities (the bonfire of the vanities is an apt expression) Evil deceives us into believing we do good, when we are actually doing bad, ie acting contrary to God's will.
If we get too impressed by the virtuousness of what we see staring back in the mirror, we are vulnerable to such deception.
Evil works the jihadis differently than it might No or Ernst, but it is still playing to their respective vanities.
Although, it's not always that tricky. Often we knowingly act against our good nature, because we are weak, or just don't care in the moment.
The jihadists, are in direct opposition to the golden rule," love thy neighbor", as are all men, who claim a higher moral standard, yet try to enforce via violence and killing
This is clearly wrong. God's love and mercy extends to all men, all his creation, especially I might add, those in most need of Mercy.
There was a good line in Spectre from Lucia.
There is no mercy there.
Again I don't claim to have serious understanding of Islam as it doesn't interest me, however I will allow there may be spiritual value found therein, for those of humble honest faith, who truly do look to embrace their saved nature.
Same goes for for secular humanist philosphies, but as Plato demonstrated, man cannot build the just society.
If man truly seeks justice he must look beyond himself.
Fleming intuitively believed this. He makes his thoughts clear in Dr No.
His own spiritual journeying had brought him to that place.
He's hardly alone.
Seek and ye shall find.
Maybe @draggers can find the actual passage.
Where are all the good men dead. In the heart or in the head.
The "bad" men are dead in the heart but no-one is beyond salvage.
You're correct about those men. Newton and Galilei were of different times and different upbringing. Catholic schooling was practically the only formal chance of education these men had. The real question is, would they have been such devout catholics today, with 300 years of newtonian physics, 100 years of modern physics, 100 years of darwinism, ... to fall back on?
Most scientists now are atheists, cross disciplines. It's difficult to be a theists when claims about God have been debunked methodically and when God's "design" can be improved by your average optician, staff of maternity ward, psychiatrist, etc. Because that's something else as well: we seem to be doing better than the Almighty in so many ways.
That said, all claims about God's intentions, morality and what have you are pretty much meaningless until said existence is first demonstrated. Which has not been done yet.